berly, righteously, and godly in this present world: they have repented and done works meet for repentance: they have been harmless and blameless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of crooked and perverse nations, shining among them as lights in the world: they have extorted even from their enemies the most unequivocal acknowledgments of their temperance, equity, truth, and love: they have, by their example, covered their calumniators with shame, and disarmed numbers of their persecutors: they have been indeed a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people: yet they have confessed, without exception, that they came far short of that excellence to which their principles, maxims, motives, and example, called them. Nay it has often been proved unanswerably, that, if Christianity were universally received as the principle and rule of men's conduct, it must form the human race to such piety, justice, temperance, faithfulness, and mercy, that wars, massacres, murders, slavery, oppression, licentiousness, and every other evil that disturbs and plagues the world would cease, and peace and love, with all the fruits of righteousness, must fill the earth. Let all men repent and believe the gospel; let them act from its principles, and according to its instructions; let them obey the precepts of Christ, and imitate his example; let them all be Christians indeed, and consistent Christians; and I appeal to every man's understanding and conscience, what sort of rulers, and subjects, and relations, and friends they would be, and what the state of the world would become.-The Christian church, for a short time after the day of pentecost, when great grace was on them all, shewed us a specimen; and very many millions in succeeding ages have in some good measure answered to it: and numbers even now on earth so far resemble them, that, if whole countries, if the whole earth, were filled with such characters, the beneficial consequences would baffle calculation, and even exceed all that we can at present so much as imagine. Now this is the genuine tendency and effect of Christianity, and the honor of it belongs to her exclusively: whereas, whatever contradicts her principles, her precepts, or the example of her founder, is tares sown by the enemy. indeed took occasion from the good seed being sown, to cast in his tares; but the parable itself is a prophecy; and Christ and his apostles foretold, in very many places, what He mischief the wicked heart of man, and the influence of evil spirits, would take occasion from Christianity to perpetrate: and so the event turns to us for a testimony. But they have also cautioned us against charging the blame on the gospel; for an enemy hath done it. "The modern opposers, however, of our holy religion either forget, or are willingly ignorant of, the immense effects of the most excellent kind which history records as produced by Christianity, and the still more extensive good which it is calculated to produce, when more generally received in its purity; and they dwell with triumph on what the enemy hath done, as if Christ had done it, or Christianity had commanded it. But surely Christianity is not answerable for the mischiefs which heresy, superstition; and enthusiasm have done, or for the crimes of vile hypocrites, whom she classes with infidels.-Can Christianity be answerable for what Antichrist has done, according to the prophecies of the primitive preachers of the gospel? Does Christianity command frauds, seditions, massacres, persecutions, and holy (or rather unholy) wars? Does she authorize her ministers to trample on the necks of kings; or kings to shed the blood of their subjects? Does she even inculcate the odium theologicum, of which so much is spoken, as if inseparable from religion? Do her principles lead to any of these evils? Nay do not her principles, and precepts, and approved examples most directly oppose, discountenance, and forbid in the severest manner, and under the most dreadful penalties, every approach to these evils? Are not all these the offspring of that pride, ambition, envy, malice, rapacity, and enmity to God and man, which constitute the works of the devil, that Christ came to destroy? Let such men, as perpetrate these crimes under the cloke of religion, produce their commission and instructions from the New Testament. Let those, who charge their crimes on the gospel, shew what principle of the gospel tends to produce them, what precepts require them. Till then it is a sufficient answer to say, An enemy hath done this. Even the controversies among Christians, especially when managed with heat and acrimony, are directly contrary to the spirit and precepts of Christianity: and the divisions of the church arise from the want of more knowledge, humility, and love among Christians, and are opposite to the spirit and precepts of the gospel. "It appears to me, that attempts to distinguish Christianity, as exhibited pure and complete in the scriptures, from every spurious, mutilated, and corrupted species of religion; to shew the nature and tendency of the former, and of the latter; what Christ hath done, and what an enemy hath done, are of the most essential service to the common cause; and even a matter of the last importance in the argument of Christians against infidels and skeptics." 14. EXTRACT'S FROM AN UNPUBLISHED WORK. In the Life of my father I expressed the opinion, that he had left no further writings behind him which could properly be given to the public, except it were additional letters to his friends. A more careful examination induces me so far to modify this opinion, as to except from it, in addition to the papers contained in the preceding pages, pretty copious extracts, which I am here about to present to the reader, from one more regular composition. The work intended is, I conceive, to be referred to the year 1783 or 1784; or at least to the period between the publication of the Force of Truth, in 1779, and that of the Discourse on Repentance, in 1785. It consists of one hundred and thirty-four folio pages, written in a clear bold hand. It displays great knowledge of divinity, much observation of the religious world, a keen detection of errors and their tendencies, with all the vigor, acuteness, and comprehensiveness, which subsequently distinguished the author. It bears also the same highly practical, and yet strongly evangelical, character,* which marked his later writings. Indeed the observation which suggested itself on the perusal of the manuscript was, that his hand-writing and his religious sentiments appeared to have continued alike unchanged throughout the whole of his career. Perhaps it is a little more systematical, deduces rather more in the way of inference from scriptural principles, and is rather less cautious in its language, than a later production would have been: but these are nearly all the differences that would be found in it. In short, that "early * Life, p. 442, 443. maturity," which has been attributed to the writer's sentiments,* is eminently visible in every part of it. Two considerations are sufficiently decisive against publishing it as a distinct work: first, that it is left imperfect, having never been brought to a conclusion; and, secondly, that, though originally designed for publication, the author himself suffered it to lie by him unpublished for almost forty years. What were his reasons for thus abandoning his design I do not remember to have heard him state: but I should not be surprised if they arose from an apprehension that he had animadverted more freely, than would be borne with in one of his standing, on certain views of religion then current in many quarters. A reason of this sort, it is obvious, must now have lost its force: and, though as a whole, the work is not in a state for the public eye, many parts of it, with a general analysis of its contents, to connect those parts together, may, I trust, be advantageously given. And this is what I at present propose. I shall only further premise, that nothing will be here inserted from the manuscript, which I do not feel confident would have had the author's approbation to the last, and have coincided with his latest sentiments: it must however be borne in mind, that, as he in one place observes, “it is not his design to attempt a labored proof of the various heads of doctrine" which are introduced, but only to state them in order to a further purpose. The general title of the work is, "Evangelical Fruitfulness:" but a more adequate idea of its purport will be conveyed by the following expansion of the title: "Being an attempt to describe the true nature of Christianity; in two Parts, one Doctrinal, the other Practical." The reader may find a good preparative for many of the sentiments which distinguish it, in the letters to the Rev. J. Mayor and the Rev. G. More, which are published in the eighth chapter of the author's Life, and which were written in the years 1783, 1784, 1785. Indeed there is a passage in a letter to the latter correspondent, dated Olney, April 14, 1784, which furnishes so orderly an abstract of the work before us, as to afford a strong argument that the writer was either at that time employed on it, or had but very recently dismissed it from his hands. "The truth of the matter," he there says, “is, upon mature deliberation * Commemoration by the Church Missionary Committee: Life, p. 215. |