cation and sanctity, when you examine it minutely, is little else than a mere pecuniary contrivance. And the truest definition you can give of Popery is, that it is a system put together and contrived to operate upon men's weaknesses and passions, and thereby to pick their pockets, and leave them in a fit condition for its arbitrary designs. And, indeed, that church has not been wanting in gratitude for the good offices of this kind which the doctrine of penances has done them; for, in consideration of its services, they have raised it above the level of moral duties, and have at length complimented it into the number of their sacraments, and made it a necessary point of salvation. By these and other tenets, no less politic and inquisitional, Popery has found out the art of making men miserable in spite of their senses, and the plenty with which God has blessed them. grosser objects, do, by a mechanical effect, dispose us for cool and sober reflections, incline us to turn our eyes inward upon ourselves, and consider what we are, and what we have been doing,-for what intent we were sent into the world, and what kind of characters we were designed to act in it. It is necessary that the mind of man, at some certain periods, should be prepared to enter into this account; and without some such discipline, to check the insolence of unrestrained appetites, and call home the conscience, the soul of man, capable as it is of brightness and perfection, would sink down to the lowest depths of darkness and brutality. However true this is, thero still appears no obligation to renounce the innocent delights of our beings, or to affect a sullen distaste against them. Nor, in truth, can even the supposition of it be well admitted: for pleasures arising from the free and natural exercise of the faculties of the mind and body, to talk them down, is like talking against the frame and mechanism of human nature; and would be no less senseless than the disputing against the burning of fire, or falling downwards of a stone. Besides this, man is so contrived that he stands in need of frequent repairs: both mind and body are apt to sink and grow inactive under long and close attention, and therefore must be restored by proper recruits. Some part of our time may doubtless innocently and lawfully be employed in actions merely diverting; and whenever such indulgences become criminal, it is seldom the nature of the actions themselves, but the excess, which makes them so. But some one may here ask, By what rule are we to judge of excess in these cases? If the enjoyment of the same sort of pleasures may be either innocent or guilty, according to the use or abuse of them, how shall we be certified where the boundaries lie? or be speculative enough to know how far we may go with safety? I answer, there are very few who are not casuists enough to make a right judgment in this point. For, since one principal reason why God may be supposed to allow pleasure in this world seems to be for the refreshment and recruit of our So that in many countries where Popery reigns, but especially in that part of Italy where she has raised her throne,-though, by the happiness of its soil and climate, it is capable of producing as great variety and abundance as any country upon earth; yet so successful have its spiritual directors been in the management and retail of these blessings, that they have found means to allay, if not entirely to defeat them all, by one pretence or other. Some bitterness is officiously squeezed into every man's cup for his soul's health, till at length the whole intention of nature and providence is destroyed. It is not surprising that where such unnatural severities are practised, and heightened by other hardships, the most fruitful land should be barren, and wear a face of poverty and desolation; or that many thousands, as has been observed, should fly from the rigours of such a government, and seek shelter rather amongst rocks and deserts, than lie at the mercy of so many unreasonable taskmasters, under whom they can hope for no other reward of their industry but rigorous slavery, made still worse by the tortures of unnecessary mortifications. I say unnecesary, because where there is a virtuous and good end proposed from any sober instance of self-denial and mortifica-souls and bodies, which, like clocks, must be tion, God forbid we should call them unnecessary, or that we should dispute against a thing from the abuse to which it has been put; and, therefore, what is said in general upon this head will be understood to reach no farther than where the practice is become a mixture of fraud and tyranny, but will no ways be interpreted to extend to those self-denials which the discipline of our holy Church directs at this solemn season; which have been introduced by reason and good sense at first, and have since been applied to serve no purposes but those of religion. These, by restraining our appetites for a while, and withdrawing our thoughts from wound up at certain intervals, every man understands so much of the frame and mechanism of himself as to know how and when to unbend himself with such relaxations as are necessary to regain his natural vigour and cheerfulness, without which it is impossible he should either be in a disposition or capacity to discharge the several duties of his life. Here then the partition becomes visible. Whenever we pay this tribute to our appetites, any further than is sufficient for the purposes for which it was first granted, the action proportionably loses some share of its innocence. The surplusage of what is unnecessarily spent on such occasions is so much of the little portion of our time negligently squandered, which in prudence we should apply better; because it was allotted us for more important uses, and a different account will be required of it at our hands hereafter. For this reason, does it not evidently follow that many actions and pursuits, which are irreproachable in their own natures, may be rendered blameable and vicious from this single consideration, That they have made us wasteful of the moments of this short and uncertain fragment of life, which should be almost one of our last prodigalities, since, of them all, the least retrievable?' Yet how often is diversion, instead of amusement and relaxation, made the art and business of life itself? Look round,-what policy and contrivance is every day put in practice for pre-engaging every day in the week, and parcelling out every hour of the day for one idleness or another, for doing nothing, or something worse than nothing; and that with so much ingenuity as scarce to leave a minute upon their hands to reproach them! Though we all complain of the shortness of life, yet how many people seem quite overstocked with the days and hours of it, and are continually sending out into the highways and streets of the city for guests to come and take it off their hands! If some of the more distressful objects of this kind were to sit down and write a bill of their time, though partial as that of the unjust steward, when they found in reality that the whole sum of it, for many years, amounted to little more than this, that they had rose up to eat, to drink, to play, and had laid down again, merely because they were fit for nothing else,-when they looked back and beheld this fair space, capable of such heavenly improvements, all scrawled over and defaced with a succession of so many unmeaning cyphers,-good God! how would they be ashamed and confounded at the account! With what reflections will they be able to support themselves in the decline of a life so miserably cast away,-should it happen, as it sometimes does, that they have stood idle even unto the eleventh hour? We have not always power, and are not always in a temper, to impose upon ourselves. When the edge of appetite is worn down, and the spirits of youthful days are cooled, which hurried us on in a circle of pleasure and impertinence, then reason and reflection will have the weight which they deserve : afflictions, or the bed of sickness, will supply the place of conscience; and if they should fail, old age will overtake us at last, and show us the past pursuits of life, and force us to look upon them in their true point of view. If there is anything more to cast a cloud upon so melancholy a prospect as this shows us, it is surely the difficulty and hazard of having all the work of the day to perform in the last hour; of making an atonement to God when we have no sacrifice to offer him, but the dregs and infirmities of those days when we could have no pleasure in them. How far God may be pleased to accept such late and imperfect services is beyond the intention of this discourse. Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a deathbed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all upon. Such as it is, to that, and God's infinite mercies, we commit them who will not employ that time and opportunity he has given to provide a better security. That we may all make a right use of the time allotted us, God grant, through the merits of his Son Jesus Christ. Amen. XXXVIII.-ON ENTHUSIASM. 'For without me ye can do nothing.'-JOHN XV. 5. OUR Saviour, in the former part of the verse, having told his disciples that he was the vine, and that they were only branches,-intimating in what a degree their good fruits, as well as the success of all their endeavours, were to depend upon his communications with them,-he closes the illustration with the inference from it in the words of the text: For without me ye can do nothing. In the eleventh chapter to the Romans, where the manner is explained in which a Christian stands by faith, there is a like illustration made use of, and probably with an eye to this, where St. Paul instructs us, that a good man stands as the branch of a wild olive does when it is grafted into a good olive-tree; and that is, it flourishes not through its own virtue, but in virtue of the root, and such a root as is naturally not its own. It is very remarkable, in that passage, that the Apostle calls a bad man a wild olive-tree ;— not barely a branch (as in the other case), but a tree, which, having a root of its own, supports itself, and stands in its own strength, and brings forth its own fruit. And so does every bad man in respect of the wild and sour fruit of a vicious and corrupt heart. According to the resemblance, if the Apostle intended it, he is a tree, has a root of his own, and fruitfulness, such as it is, with a power to bring it forth without help. But in respect of religion, and the moral improvements of virtue and goodness, the Apostle calls us, and reason tells us, we are no more than a branch; and all our fruitfulness, and all our support, depend so much upon the influence and communications of God, that without him we can do nothing, as our Saviour declares in the text. There is scarce any point in our religion wherein men have run into such violent extremes as in the senses given to this, and such-like declarations in Scripture, of our sufficiency being of God: some understanding them so as to leave no meaning at all in them others too much; the one interpreting the gifts and influences of the Spirit so as to destroy the truth of all such promises and declarations in the gospel-the other carrying their notions of them so high as to destroy the reason of the gospel itself, and render the Christian religion, which consists of sober and consistent doctrines, the most intoxicated, the most wild and unintelligible institution that ever was in the world. This being premised, I know not how I can more seasonably engage your attention this day than by a short examination of each of these errors; in doing which, as I shall take some pains to reduce both the extremes of them to reason, it will necessarily lead me, at the same time, to mark the safe and true doctrine of our Church concerning the promised influences and operations of the Spirit of God upon our hearts, which, however depreciated through the first mistake, or boasted of beyond measure through | the second, must nevertheless be so limited and understood as, on one hand, to make the gospel of Christ consistent with itself, and, on the other, to make it consistent with reason and common sense. If we consider the many express declarations wherein our Saviour tells his followers, before his crucifixion, that God would send his Spirit the Comforter amongst them, to supply his place in their hearts; and, as in the text, that without him they could do nothing;-if we conceive them as spoken to his disciples, with an immediate view to the emergencies they were under, from their natural incapacities of finishing the great work he had left them, and building upon that large foundation he had laid, without some extraordinary help and guidance to carry them through, no one can dispute that evidence and confirmation which was afterwards given of its truth; as our Lord's disciples were illiterate men, consequently unskilled in the arts and acquired ways of persuasion. Unless this want had been supplied, the first obstacle to their labours must have discouraged and put an end to them for ever. As they had no language but their own, without the gift of tongues they could not have preached the gospel except in Judea; and as they had no authority of their own, without the supernatural one of signs and wonders, they could not vouch for the truth of it beyond the limits where it was first transacted. In this work doubtless all their sufficiency and power of acting was immediately from God; his Holy Spirit, as he had promised them, so it gave them a mouth and wisdom which all their adversaries were not able to gainsay or resist. So that without him, without these extraordinary gifts, in the most literal sense of the words, they could do nothing. But besides this plain application of the text to those particular persons and times when God's Spirit was poured down in that signal manner held sacred to this day, there is something in them to be extended further, which Christians of all ages, and I hope of all denominations, have still a claim and trust in; and that is, the ordinary assistance and influences of the Spirit of God in our hearts, for moral and virtuous improvements,-these, both in their natures as well as intentions, being altogether different from the others above-mentioned, conferred upon the disciples of our Lord. The one were miraculous gifts, in which the endowed person contributed nothing, which advanced human nature above itself, and raised all its projectile springs above their fountains, enabling them to speak and act such things, and in such manner, as was impossible for men not inspired and preternaturally upheld. In the other case, the helps spoken of were the influences of God's Spirit, which upheld us from falling below the dignity of our nature: that divine assistance which graciously kept us from falling, and enabled us to perform the holy professions of our religion. Though these are equally called spiritual gifts, they are not, as in the first case, the entire works of the Spirit, but the calm co-operations of it with our own endeavours, and are ordinarily what every sincere and well-disposed Christian has reason to pray for, and expect, from the same fountain of strength, who has promised to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask it. From this point, which is the true doctrine of our Church, the two parties begin to divide both from it and each other, each of them equally misapplying these passages of Scripture, and wresting them to extremes equally pernicious. To begin with the first,-of whom, should you inquire the explanation and meaning of this or of other texts, wherein the assistance of God's grace and Holy Spirit is implied as necessary to sanctify our nature, and enable us to serve and please God?-they will answer, that no doubt all our parts and abilities are the gifts of God, who is the original author of our nature, and, of consequence, of all that belongs thereto. That as by him we live, and move, and have our being,' we must in course depend upon him for all our actions whatsoever, since we must depend upon him even for our life, and for every moment of its continuance.-That, from this view of our state and natural dependence, it is certain, they will say, we can do nothing without his help. But then they will add, that it concerns us no further as Christians than as we are men ; the sanctity of our lives, the religious habits and improvements of our hearts, in no other sense depending upon God than the most indifferent of our actions, or the natural exercise of any of the other powers he has given us. Agreeably with this, that the spiritual gifts spoken of in Scripture are to be understood, by way of accommodation, to signify the natural or acquired gifts of a man's mind; such as memory, fancy, wit, and eloquence; which, in a strict and philosophical sense, may be called spiritual, under no natural indisposition or backwardness to that acquirement. For nature, though it be corrupt, yet still it is curious and busy after knowledge. But it does not appear that to goodness and sanctity of manners we have the same natural propensity. Lusts within, and temptations without, set up so strong a confederacy against it as we are never able to surmount by our own strength. However firmly we may think we stand, the best of us are but upheld and graciously kept upright; and whenever this divine assistance is withdrawn, or suspended, all history, especially the sacred, is full of melancholy instances of what man is when God leaves him to himself-that he is even a thing of nought. because they transcend the mechanical powers of matter, and proceed more or less from the rational soul, which is a spiritual substance. Whether these ought in propriety to be called spiritual gifts, I shall not contend, as it seems a mere dispute about words; but it is enough that the interpretation cuts the knot, instead of untying it, and besides explains away all kind of meaning in the above promises. And the error of them seems to arise, in the first place, from not distinguishing that these spiritual gifts, if they must be called so, such as memory, fancy, and wit, and other endowments of the mind which are known by the name of natural parts, belong merely to us as men; and whether the different degrees by which we excel each other in them arise from a natural difference of our souls, or a happier disposition of the organical parts of us. They are such, however, as God originally bestows upon us, and with which in a great measure we are sent into the world. But the moral gifts of the Holy Ghost-which are more commonly called the fruits of the Spiritcannot be confined within this description. We come not into the world equipped with virtues, as we do with talents; if we did, we should come into the world with that which robbed virtue of its best title both to present commendation and future reward. The gift of continency depends not, as these affirm, upon a mere coldness of the constitution, or patience and humility from an insensibility of it; but they are virtues insen-ings, it is certain those in Scripture can receive sibly wrought in us by the endeavours of our own wills and concurrent influences of a gracious agent; and the religious improvements arising thence are so far from being the effects of nature, and a fit disposition of the several parts and organical powers given us, that the contrary is true,-namely, that the stream of our affections and appetites but too naturally carries us the other way. For this, let any man lay his hand upon his heart, and reflect what has passed within him in the several conflicts of meekness, temperance, chastity, and other self-denials, and he will need no better argument for his conviction. This hint leads to the true answer to the above misinterpretation of the text, that we depend upon God in no other sense for our virtues than we necessarily do for everything else; and that the fruits of the Spirit are merely the determinations and efforts of our own reason, and as much our own accomplishments as any other improvements are the effect of our own dili gence and industry. This account, by the way, is opposite to the Apostle's, who tells us it is God that worketh in us both to do and will of his good pleasure. It is true, though we are born ignorant, we can make ourselves skilful; we can acquire arts and sciences by our own application and study. But the case is not the same in respect of goodness. We can acquire arts and sciences because we lie Whether it was from a conscious experience of this truth in themselves, or some traditions handed from the Scripture account of it, or that it was in some measure deducible from the principles of reason, in the writings of some of the wisest of the heathen philosophers we find the strongest traces of the persuasion of God's assisting men to virtue and probity of manners. One of the greatest masters of reasoning amongst the ancients acknowledges that nothing great and exalted can be achieved sine divino aflatu; and Seneca to the same purpose, nulla mens bona sine Deo-that no soul can be good without divine assistance. Now, whatever comments may be put upon such passages in their writ no other, be consistent with themselves, than what has been given. And though, in vindication of human liberty, it is as certain, on the other hand, that education, precepts, examples, pious inclinations, and practical diligence, are great and meritorious advances towards a religious state; yet the state itself is got and finished by God's grace, and the concurrence of his Spirit upon tempers thus happily predisposed, and honestly making use of such fit means; and unless thus much is understood from them, the several expressions in Scripture where the offices of the Holy Ghost conducive to this end are enumerated, such as cleansing, guiding, renewing, comforting, strengthening, and establishing us, are a set of unintelligible words, which may amuse, but can convey little light to the understanding. This is all I have time left to say at present upon the first error of those who, by too loose an interpretation of the gifts and fruits of the Spirit, explain away the whole sense and meaning of them, and thereby render not only the promises, but the comforts of them too, of none effect. Concerning which error I have only to add this, by way of extenuation of it, that I believe the great and unedifying rout made about sanctification and regeneration in the middle of the last century, and the enthusiastic extravagances into which the communications of the Spirit have been carried by so many deluded or delud ing people in this, are two of the great causes which have driven many a sober man into the opposite extreme, against which I have argued. Now, if the dread of savouring too much of religion in their interpretations has done them this ill service, let us inquire, on the other hand, whether the affectation of too much religion in the other extreme has not misled others full as far from truth, and further from the reason and sobriety of the gospel, than the first. I have already proved, by Scripture arguments, that the influence of the Holy Spirit of God is necessary to render the imperfect sacrifice of our obedience pleasing to our Maker. He hath promised to 'perfect his strength in our weakness.' With this assurance we ought to be satisfied, especially since our Saviour has thought proper to mortify all scrupulous inquiries into operations of this kind by comparing them to the wind, which bloweth where it listeth; and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.' Let humble gratitude acknowledge the effect, unprompted by an idle curiosity to explain the cause. We are told without this assistance we can do nothing; we are told, from the same authority, we can do all through Christ that strengthens us. We are commanded to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.' The reason immediately follows: For it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do, of his own good pleasure.' From these and many other repeated passages it is evident that the assistances of grace were not intended to destroy, but to co-operate with the endeavours of man, and are derived from God in the same manner as all natural powers. Indeed, without this interpretation, how could the Almighty address himself to man as a rational being? how could his actions be his own? how could he be considered as a blameable or rewardable creature? From this account of the consistent opinions of a sober-minded Christian, let us take a view of the mistaken enthusiast. See him ostentatiously clothed with the outward garb of sanctity, to attract the eyes of the vulgar. See a cheerful demeanour, the natural result of an easy and self-applauding heart, studiously avoided as criminal. Sce his countenance overspread with a melancholy gloom and despondence, as if religion, which is evidently calculated to make us happy in this life as well as the next, was the parent of sullenness and discontent. Hear him pouring forth his pharisaical ejaculations on his journey or in the streets. Hear him boasting of extraordinary communications with the God of all knowledge, and at the same time offending against the common rules of his own native language, and the plainer dictates of common sense. Hear him arrogantly thanking his God that he is not as other men are, and, with more than Papal uncharitableness, very liberally allotting the portion of the damned to every Christian whom he, partial judge, deems less perfect than himself to every Christian who is walking on in the paths of duty with sober vigilance, aspiring to perfection by progressive attainments, and seriously endeavouring, through a rational faith in his Redeemer, to make his calling and election sure. There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture, misinterpreted or misapplied. We had a melancholy instance of this in our own country in the last century, when the Church of Christ, as well as the Government, during that period of national confusion was torn asunder into various sects and factions; when some men pretended to have Scripture precepts, parables, or prophecies to plead in favour of the most impious absurdities that falsehood could advance. The same spirit which prevailed amongst the fanatics seems to have gone forth among these modern enthusiasts. Faith, the distinguishing characteristic of a Christian, is defined by them not as a rational assent of the understanding to truths which are established by indisputable authority, but as a violent persuasion of mind that they are instantaneously become the children of God-that the whole score of their sins is for ever blotted out, without the payment of one tear of repentance. Pleasing doctrine this to the fears and passions of mankind! promising fair to gain proselytes of the vicious and impenitent. Pardons and indulgences are the great support of Papal power; but these modern empirics in religion have improved upon the scheme, pretending to have discovered an infallible nostrum for all incurables, such as will preserve them for ever. And notwithstanding we have instances of notorious offenders among the warmest advocates for sinless perfection, the charm continues powerful. Did these visionary notions of a heated imagination tend only to amuse the fancy, they might be treated with contempt; but when they depreciate all moral attainments, when the suggestions of a frantic brain are blasphemously ascribed to the Holy Spirit of God,-when faith and divine love are placed in opposition to practical virtues, they then become the objects of aversion. In one sense, indeed, many of these deluded people demand our tenderest compassion, whose disorder is in the head rather than in the heart; and who call for the aid of a physician who can cure the distempered state of the body, rather than one who may soothe the anxieties of the mind. Indeed, in many cases they seem so much above the skill of either, that unless God in his mercy rebuke this spirit of enthusiasm which is gone out amongst us, no one can pretend to say |
