Page images
PDF
EPUB

transfiguration of their Lord. The three Epistles of Saint John are only a prolonged expression of the devout feelings which breathe throughout his narrative, the same lively manifestation of the word made flesh, which shines throughout his Gospel.

In the Gospel, the doctrines and precepts are more dogmatically enjoined: in the Epistles they are enforced more argumentatively. The structure of the Epistle addressed to the Romans is the most systematical. All are equally consistent with each other, and with the general tenor of the antecedent Scriptures.

Providence; difficulties insuperable in the natural as well as the spiritual world? Difficulties in the formation of the human body; in the union of that perishable body with its immortal companion? Is it not then probable that some difficulties in various parts of the Divine Oracles may be purposely left for the humiliation of pride, for the exercise of patience, for the test of submission, for the honour of faith? But allowing that in Paul some things are hard to be understood, that is no reason for rejecting such things as are easy, for rejecting all things. Why should the very large proportion that is clear, be slighted for the very small one that is ob- Does it not look as if the marked distincscure? Scholars do not so treat an ancient tion which some readers make between the poet or historian. One or two perplexing historical and the epistolary portions, arose passages, instead of shaking the credit of an from a most erroneous belief that they can author, rather whet the critic to a nearer in- more commodiously reconcile their own vestigation. Even if the local difficulty views, opinions, and practice, with the nar should prove invincible, it does not lessen the ratives of the Evangelists, than with the general interest excited by the work. They keen, penetrating, heart-exploring exposiwho compare spiritual things with spiritual, tion of those very doctrines which are equalwhich is the true Biblical criticism, must ly found, but not equally expanded, in the perceive that the epistolary writers do not Gospels? These critical discoverers, howmore entirely agree with each other, than ever, may rest assured, that there is nothing they agree with the doctrines, precepts, and more strong, nothing more pointed, nothing promises delivered on the Mount. And as more unequivocally plain, nothing more awthe Sermon on the Mount is an exposition of fully severe in any part of Saint Paul's wri the law of Moses, so the Epistles are an ex-tings than in the discourses of our Lord himposition of the law of Christ. Yet some per- self. He would indeed have overshot his sons discredit the one, from an exclusive veneration for the other.

But is it not so derogatory from the dignity of our Lord to disparage the epistolary discussions written under the direction of his Holy Spirit, written with a view to lay open in the clearest manner the truths he taught in the Gospel, as it would be to depreciate the facts themselves, which that Gospel records?

duty in the same proportion in which he had outgone his Master. Does Paul enjoin any thing more contrary to nature than the excision of a right hand, or the plucking out of a right eye? Does Paul any where exhibit a menace, I will not say more alarming, but so repeatedly alarming, as his Divine Master, who expressly, in one chapter only, the 9th of St. Mark, three several times de nounces eternal punishment on the irreclaimably impenitent, awfully marking out not only the specific place, but the specific torment, the undying worm, and the unquenched fire ?

The more general respect for the Gospels seems partly to arise from the circumstance that they contain facts: the disregard implied for the Epistles from this cause,-that they enforce doctrines. The former, the No: these scrupulous objectors add nogenerality feel they dare not resist; the lat- thing to the character of our Lord, by what ter they think they can oppose with more they subduct from that of his apostle. Perimpunity. But of how much less value fection admits of no improvement; deity of would be the record of these astonishing facts no addition. To degrade any portion of the if there were neither doctrines to grow out revealed will of God, is no proof of reverence of them, nor precepts to be built upon them! for Him whose will is revealed. But it is And where should we look for the full in- preposterous to insinuate, that a regard for struction to be deduced from both, but in the Epistles is calculated to diminish a rethe commentaries of those, to whom the gard for the Gospels. Where else can we charge of expounding the truths previously find such believing, such admiring, such taught was committed? Our Saviour him- adoring views of him whose life the Gospel self has left no written record. As the Fa-records? Where else are we so grounded in ther committed all judgment to the Son, so the Son committed all written instruction to bis select servants.

that love which passeth knowledge? Where else are we so continually taught to be looking unto Jesus? Where else are we so powOne of these, who had written a Gospel, erfully reminded that there is no other name wrote also three Epistles. Another carried under heaven by which we may be saved? on the sequel of the evangelical history. If We may as well assert, that the existing these men are worthy of confidence in one instance, why not in another? Fourteen of the Epistles were written by one who had an express revelation from Heaven; all the rest, the single chapter of Saint Jude excepted, by the distinguished apostles who were honoured with the privilege of witnessing the

laws, of which Magna Charta is the original, diminish our reverence for this palladium itself; this basis of our political security, as the Gospel is of our moral and spiritual privileges. In both cases the derived benefit sends us back to the well-head from whence it flows.

CHAP. IV.

Saint Paul's Faith, a Practical Principle.

He who professes to read the Holy Scrip- perfect form and shape, into complete beauty tures for his instruction,' should recollect, and everlasting strength. whenever he is disposed to be captious, that they are written also for his correction. If we really believe that Christ speaks to us in the Gospels, we must believe that he speaks to us in the Epistles also. In the one he addresses us in his militant, in the other in his glorified character. In one, the Divine Instructor speaks to us on earth; in the other, from heaven. The internal wisdom, the divinity of the doctrines, the accordance both of doctrine and precept with those delivered by the Saviour himself, the powerful and abiding effects which, for near two thousand years they have produced, and are actually producing, on the hearts and lives of mulutudes; the same spirit which inspired the writer is still ready to assist the reader; all together forming, to every serious inquirer who reads them with an humble heart and a docile spirit, irrefragable arguments, unimpeachable evidence that they possess as full a claim to inspiration, and consequently have as forcible demand on his belief and obedience, as any of the less litigated portions of the book of God.

Whoever, then, shall sit down to the perusal of these epistles without prejudice, will not rise from it without improvement. In any human science we do not lay aside the whole, because some parts are more difficult than others; we are rather stimulated to the work by the difficulty, than deterred from it; because we believe the attainment will reward the perseverance. There is, indeed, an essential difference between a diagram and a doctrine, the apprehension of the one solely depending on the capacity and application of the student, while the understanding of the other depends not merely on the industry, but on the temper with which we apply. •If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, and it shall be given him.'

Let any reader say, if after perusing Saint Luke's biographical sketch of the Acts of the Apostles, after contemplating the work of the Spirit of God, and its effects on the lives and the preaching of these primitive saints, whether he has not attained an additional insight into the genius and the results of Christianity since he finished reading the Evangelist? Let him say further, whether the light of Revelation, shining more and more as he advances, does not, in his adding the perusal of the Epistles to that of the Acts, pour in upon his mental eye the full and perfect day?

THERE are some principles and seeds of nature, some elements in the character of man, not indisposed for certain acts of virtue; we mean virtue as distinguished from the principle of pleasing God by the act or sentiment. Some persons naturally hate cruelty, others spurn at injustice, this man detests covetousness, that abhors oppression. Some of these dispositions certain minds find, and others fancy, within themselves. But for a man to go entirely out of himself, to live upon trust, to renounce all confidence in virtues which he possesses, and in actions which he performs; to cast himself entirely upon another; to seek to be justified, not by his own obedience, but by the obedience of that other; to look for eternal happiness, not from the merit of his own life, but from that of another's death. that death the most de grading, after a life the most despised; for all this revolution in the mind and heart, there is no foundation, no seed, no element in nature; it is foreign to the make of man; if possessed, it is bestowed; if felt, it is derived; it is not a production, but an infusion; it is a principle, not indigenous, but implanted. The Apostle implies that faith is not inherent, when he says, to you it is given to believe.'

This superinduced principle is Faith, a principle not only not inherent in nature, but diametrically contrary to it; a principle which takes no root in the soil of the natural heart; no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Its result is not merely a reform, but a new life,—a life governed by the same principle which first communicated it.

The faith of mere assent, that faith which is purely a conviction of the understanding, seldom stirs beyond the point at which it first sits down. Being established on the same common ground with any scientific truth, or any acknowledged fact, it is not likely to advance, desiring nothing more than to retain its station among other accepted truths, and thus it continues to reside in the intellect alone. Though its local existence is allowed, it exhibits none of the undoubted signs of life,-activity, motion, growth.

It

But that vital faith with which the souls of the Scripture saints were so richly imbued, As there was more leisure, as well as a is an animating and pervading principle. It more appropriate space, in the Epistles for spreads and enlarges in its progress. building up Christianity as a system than in gathers energy as it proceeds. The more adthe Gospels, so these wise master-builders, vanced are its attainments, the more prosbuilding on no other foundation than that pective are its views. The nearer it ap which was laid,' borrowed all the materials proaches to the invisible realities to which it for the glorious edifice, from the anterior is stretching forward, the more their domin Scriptures. They brought from their pre-ion over it increases, till it almost makes the cursors in the immortal work, the hewn future present, and the unseen visible. Its stones with which the spiritual temple is light becomes brighter, its flame purer, its constructed, and having compacted it with aspirations stronger. Its increasing proximthat which every portion supplied; squared, ity to its object fills the mind, warms the rounded, and polished the precious mass into heart, clears the sight, quickens the pace.

But as faith is of a spiritual nature, it can-perience, all were against him. From all not be kept alive without spiritual means. these impediments he averted his eyes; he It requires for its sustenance aliment con- raised them to Him who had promised. genial with itself. Meditation familiarizes Though the promise was so great as to seem it with its object; prayer keeps it close to incredible, his confidence in Omnipotence its end. If thus cherished by perpetual ex- overbalanced all his apprehensions of any ercise, sustained by the habitual contempla- hindrances. With the eye of faith he not tion of the oracles of God. and watered with only saw his offspring as if immediately grantthe dews of his grace, it becomes the preg-ed, but all the myriads which should hereafnant seed of every Christian virtue.

ter descend from him. He saw the great anticipated blessing; he saw the star come out of Jacob, the sceptre rise out of Israel.' Though an exclamation of wonder escaped him, it was astonishment untinctured with distrust; he disregarded second causes ; difficulties disappeared, impossibilities vanished, faith was victorious.

The Holy Scriptures have not left this faith to grow merely out of the stock of injunction, exhortation, or command; the inspired writers have not merely expatiated on its beauty as a grace, on its necessity as a duty, on its use as an instrument, but having infused it as a living and governing principle, have fortified their exhortations with instances the In this glorious catalogue of those who conmost striking, have illustrated their defini-quered by faith, there is perhaps not one who tions with examples the most impressive.

The most indefatigable but rational champion of faith is the Apostle Paul. He every where demonstrates, that it is not a speculative dogma remaining dormant in the mind, but a lively conviction of the power and goodness of God, and of his mercy in Christ Je sus; a principle received into the heart, acknowledged by the understanding, and operating on the practice.

offers a more appropriate lesson to the higher classes of society than the great legislator of Israel. Here is a man sitting at ease in his possessions, enjoying the sweets of plenty, the dignity of rank, the luxuries of literature, the distinction of reputation. All these he voluntarily renounces; he foregoes the pomps of a court, the advantages of a city, then the most learned in the world;, he relinquishes the delights of polished society; refused to Saint Paul, among the other sacred au- be called the grandson of a potent monarch; thors, seems to consider that faith is to the chooses rather to suffer affliction with his besoul, what the senses are to the body; it is lieving brethren than to enjoy the temporary spiritual sight. God is the object, faith is pleasures which a sinful connivance could the visual ray. Christ is the substance, have obtained for him: he esteems the refaith is the hand which lays hold on it By proach of Christ,-a Saviour unborn till mafaith the promises are in a manner substan- ny ages after, unknown but to the eye of tiated. Our Saviour does not say, he that faith,--greater than all the treasures of believeth on me shall have life, but has life.' Egypt. The accomplished, the learned, and It is not a blessing, of which the fruition is the polite, will be best able to appreciate the wholly reserved for heaven: in a spiritual value of such a sacrifice. Does it not seem sense, through faith the promise becomes to come more home to the bosoms of the eleperformance, and assurance possession. The gant and the opulent; and to offer an instrucimmortal seed is not only sown, but already tion, more intimate perhaps than is bequeathsprung up in the soil of the renewed heart. ed even by those martial and heroic spirits The life of grace becomes the same in na- who subdued kingdoms, quenched the vioture and quality with the life of glory, to lence of fire, stopped the mouths of lions, and which it leads. And if in this ungenial cli- turned to flight the armies of the aliens ? mate the plant will not attain its maturity, at These are instances of faith, which, if more least its progress intimates that it will termi-sublime, are still of less special application. nate in absolute perfection. Few are now called to these latter sufferings, In that valuable epitome of Old Testament but many in their measure and degree to the biography, the eleventh of Hebrews, Paul other. May they ever bear in mind that Modefines faith to be a future but inalienable ses sustained his trials only as seeing Him possession. He then exhibits the astonishing who is invisible ! effects of faith displayed in men like ourselves, To change the heart of a sinner is a highby marshalling the worthies who lived under er exertion of power than to create a man, the ancient economy, as actual evidences of or even a world; in the latter case, as God the verity of this Divine principle; a princi- made it out of nothing, so there was nothing ple which he thus, by numberless personifi- to resist the operation; but in the former he cations, vindicates from the charge of being has to encounter, not inanity, but repulsion; nothing more than an abstract notion, a vis- not an unobtrusive vacuity, but a powerful ionary, unproductive conceit, or an imagina- counteraction; and to believe in the Divine ry enthusiastic feeling. He combats this energy which effects this renovation, is a opinion by exhibiting characteristically the greater exercise of faith than to believe that rich and the abundant harvest, springing from the spirit of God, moving on the face of the this prolific principle. On these illustrious waters, was the efficient cause of creation. examples our limits will not permit us to In producing this moral renovation God dwell; one or two instances must suffice. has to subdue, not only the rebel in arms The patriarchal father of the faithful, against the king, but the little state of man' against hope believed in hope. Natural reli- in arms against himself, fighting against his ance, reasonable expectation, common ex-convictions, refusing the redemption wrought Vor. II.

32

[ocr errors]

for him. Almighty Goodness has the twofold blessedness of heaven; nothing else can

work of providing pardon for offenders, and making them willing to receive it. To offer heaven, and then to prevail on man to accept it, is at once an act of God's omnipotence, and of his mercy.

a

give us such a feeling conviction of its brevity at the longest, as that principle which habitually measures it with eternity. It holds out the only light which shows a Christian that the universe has no bribe worth his acThus faith, which appears to be so easy, is ceptance, if it must be obtained at the price of all things the most difficult;-which seems of his conscience, at the risk of his soul. to be so common, is of all things most rare. Saint Paul demonstrates in his own inTo consider how reluctant the human heart stance, that faith is not only a regulating and adopts this principle; how it evades and conquering, but a transforming grace. It stipulates; how it procrastinates, even when altered the whole constitution of his mind. it does not pointedly reject; how ingenious It did not dry up the tide of his strong affecits subterfuges, how specious its pretences; tions, but diverted them into a channel enand then to deny that faith is a supernatural tirely different. To say all in a word, he was gift, is to reject the concurring testimony of living exemplification of the great Scripreason, of Scripture, of daily observation, of ture doctrine which he taught-faith made actual experience. him, emphatically, a new man. Thus his St. Paul frequently intimates that faith is life as well as his writings prove that faith is never a solitary attribute: he never sepa- an operating principle, a strenuous, influenrates it from humility, it being indeed the tial, vigilant grace. If it teach that selfparent of that self-abasing grace. He also abasement which makes us lowly in our own implies that faith is not, as some represent it, eyes, it communicates that watchfulness a disorderly, but a regulating principle, which preserves us from the contamination when he speaks of the law of faith, of the of sin, a dread of every communication obedience of faith. Faith and repentance which may pollute. Its disciple is active as are the two qualities inseparably linked in well as humble. Love is the instrument by the work of our salvation; repentance which it works. But that love of God with teaching us to abhor ourselves for sin,-faith, which it fills the heart, is not maintained to go out of ourselves for righteousnes. Ho- there in indolent repose, but quickened liness and charity Paul exhibits as its insep- for the service of man. Genuine faith does arable concomitants, or rather its necessary not infuse a piety which is unprofitable to productions, their absence clearly demon- others, but draws it out in incessant desires strating the want of the generating princi- and aims to promote the general good. ple. May we not hence infer that wherever faith is seen not in this company, she is an is rather drowsy than insincere, rather slothimpostor.

The Apostle knew that the faith of many ful than hypocritical; that they dread the Of the great mysteries of godliness' en- consequences it involves more than the proumerated by Paul in his Epistle to Timothy, fession it requires. He is therefore always he shows by his arrangement of the five par- explicit, always mindful to append the ticulars that compose them, that God believed effect to the cause. Hence we hear so on in the world is the climax of this aston much from him and the other apostles of the ishing process.* And it may be deduced fruits of faith, of adding to faith virtue; and from his general writings, that the reason it is worthy of remark, that in the roll of why so many do not more anxiously labour Saints,-those spirits of renown in the anfor eternal happiness, is, because they do not cient church, to which allusion has been practically believe it. The importance of made,-the faith of every one is illustrated, this fundamental principle is so great, that not only by some splendid act, but by a life our spiritual enemy is not so perseveringly of obedience. bent on deterring us from this duty, or detaching us from that virtue, as on shaking the foundation of our faith. He knows if he can undermine this strong hold, slighter impediments will give way. As the first practical instance of human rebellion sprung from unbelief, so all subsequent obedience, to be available, must spring from faith.

We may talk as holily as Paul himself, and by a delusion not uncommon, by the very boliness of our talk, may deceive our own souls; but we may rest assured that where charity is not the dominant grace, faith is not the inspiring principle. Thus, by examining our lives, not our discourse, we shall 'prove whether we are in faith.' Saint Paul shows faith to be a victorious Though a genuine faith is peremptory in principle. There is no other quality which its decision and resolute in its obedience, yet can enable us to overcome the world. it deeply feels the source from whence it is Faith is the only successful competitor with secular allurement. The world offers things great in human estimation, but it is the property of this grace to make great things look little; it effects this purpose by reducing them to their real dimensions. Nothing but faith can show us the emptiness of this world's glory at the best, because nothing ete views it in perpetual contrast with the

1. Tim. chap. 2.

derived In that memorable instance of Abraham's faith, in the very act, instead of valuing himself on the strength of his conviction, he gave glory to God; and it is obvious that the reason why faith is selected as the prime condition of our justification, is, because it is a grace which, beyond all others, gives to God the entire glory; that it is the only attribute which subducts nothing for, derives nothing from self. Why are christian and believer convertible terms, if

this living principle be no ground-work of his character. If, then, it supplies his distinguishing appellation, should it not be his governing spirit af action?

strength to weakness, spirit to action, motive to virtue, certainty to doubt, patience to suffering, light to darkness, life to death.

It is a rule of Aristotle, that principles and Paul is a wonderful instance of the pow- conclusions must always be within the sphere er of this principle That he should be so of the same science; that error will be inentirely carried out of his natural character; evitable, while men examine the concluthat he who, by his persecuting spirit, court- sions of one science by the principles of aned the favour of the intolerant Sanhedrim, other. He observes, that it is therefore abshould be brought to act in direct opposition surd for a mathematician, whose conclusions to their prejudices, supported by no human ought to be grounded on demonstration, to protection, sustained alone by the grace of ground them on the probabilities of the rhetHim whom he had stoutly opposed; that his orician. confidence in God should rise in proportion May not this rule be transferred from the to his persecutions from man: that the whole sciences of the schools to the science of morbent of his soul should be set directly con als? Will not the worldly moralist err, by trary to his natural propensities, the whole drawing his conclusions as to the morality of force of his mind and actions be turned in a serious Christian from the principles of the full opposition to his temper, education, so- worldly school; not being at all able to ciety, and habits; that not only his affec-judge of the principles, of which the relitions should be diverted into a new channel, gious man's morals are the result. but that his judgment and understanding But in our application of this rule, the should sail in the newly directed current; converse of the proposition will not hold that his bigotry should be transformed into good; for the real Christian, being aware of candour, his fierceness into gentleness, his the principles of worldly morality, expects untameable pride into charity, his intoler- that his conclusions should grow out of his ance into meekness,-can all this be ac- principles, and in this opinion he seldom counted for on any principle inherent in hu- errs. man nature, on any principle uninspired by the spirit of God?

After this instance, and, blessed be God, the instance, though superior, is not solitary; the change, though miraculous in this case, is not less certain in others,-shall the doc trine so exemplified continue to be the butt of ridicule? While the scoffing infidel virtually puts the renovation of the human heart nearly on a footing with the metamorphoses of Ovid, or the transmigrations of Pythagoras; let not the timid Christian be discouraged let not his faith be shaken, though he may find that the principle to which he has been taught to trust his eternal happiness, is considered as false by him who has not examined into its truth; that the change, of which the sound believer exhibits so convincing an evidence, is derided as absurb by the philosophical sceptic, treated as chimerical by the superficial reasoner, or silently suspected as incredible by the decent

moralist.

CHAP. V.

The morality of Saint Paul.

Christian writings have made innumerable converts to morality; but mere moral works have never made one convert to religion. They do not exhibit an originating principle. Morality is not the instrument but the effect of conversion. It cannot say,

Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' But when Christ has given life, then morality, by the activity of the inspiring motive, gives the surest evidence of renovated vitality, and exhibits the most unequivocal symptoms, not only of spiritual life, but of vigorous health.

Saint Paul is sometimes represented not merely as the greatest of the Apostles,- this is readily granted,—but virtually as being almost exclusively great. Is not this just ascription of superior excellence, however, too commonly limited to the doctrinal part of his compositions, and is not the consummate moral perfection which both his writings and his character so consistently display, sometimes, if not overlooked, yet placed in the background?

Though he did more for the moral accomplishment of the human character than has ever been effected by any other man; though he laboured more abundantly than CHRISTIANITY was a second creation. It any other writer, to promote practical relicompleted the first order of things, and in- gion; yet polemical divinity, on the one troduced a new one of its own, not subver-side, is too much disposed to claim him as sive but perfective of the original. It pro- her immediate champion; and then in order duced an entire revolution in the condition to make good her claim on the other, to asof man, and accomplished a change in the sign to him a subordinate station in the ranks state of the world, which all its confederated of sacred moral writers. power, wit, and philosophy, not only could not effect, but could not even conceive. It threw such a preponderating weight into the scale of morals, by the superinduction of the new principle of faith in a Redeemer, as rendered the hitherto insupportable trials of the afflicted, comparatively light. It gave

Now the fact is, that all the prophets and apostles, aggregately, are not so abundant in ethical instruction, nor is the detail of moral conduct in any of them so minutely unfolded, or so widely ramified, as in the works of Saint Paul. We may indeed, venture to assert, that David and our apostle are

« PreviousContinue »