Images de page
PDF
ePub

says the Saviour, "shall not pass away." Whether the word of God therefore speak to us in promises, or in threatenings, of facts, or in doctrine, we shall, if we receive it in faith, take all that it declares as the most unquestionable verity, and as such bring it home to our hearts and consciences, according to its import, as applicable to our own state and character, and as it relates to others, to the church of God and the world of mankind. This faith, moreover, will work effectually in them that thus believe; that is, it will be "a faith that worketh by love." We shall cordially love the word of God; love it just as we have it in the sacred volume; love the whole and every part of it; love that which warns and reproves, as well as that which encourages and comforts us; love to apply it, and love to obey it. For we are to add,

5. That we must lay it up in our hearts and practice it in our lives. Laying up the divine words in our hearts, is a striking and beautiful expression, full of important meaning. It teaches us to regard the truth of God contained in his word, as a precious and invaluable treasure; and our hearts as the place of deposite, where we are to lay it up for safe-keeping, and for constant use, as we have occasion to draw upon it. Happy, indeed, is he who does this: happy the man whose memory is richly stored with the word of God; whose understanding, aided and enlightened by the Spirit of grace, apprehends its true scope and design; whose will readily and delightfully chooses all that it enjoins, and refuses all that it forbids; and whose affections are most powerfully attracted by it, most firmly attached to it, and most delightfully exercised under the influence of its sacred truths. Now, in whomsoever. this is realized, the whole life and conversation of the party concerned will receive its colour, tone, di

rection, and character, from the temper of the heart: "For out of the abundance of the heart, said our Lord, the mouth speaketh.” "The tree is known by his fruit, a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things." He whose heart is right in the sight of God, will discover it by obedience to all God's commandments. He will be a truly devout man. Communion with God will be his delight. He will be cordial and exemplary in the worship of his Maker, both in private and in publick. He will feel such an indebtedness to his Redeemer, that he will withhold no effort or service, by which the cause of his dear and adored Lord may be promoted. He will be ready to speak a word for his Saviour whenever a favourable opportunity offers. He will contribute liberally of his substance, according to his ability, for supporting and extending the influence of the gospel. He will feel the importance of endeavouring to adorn and recommend the religion of Christ, in his whole life and conversation. His light will so shine before men, that they will take knowledge of him that he has been with Jesus; and seeing his good works, they will be led by his example to admire the grace of God in him. His religion will appear in every thing with which he has a concern. It will make him conscientious in all that he does. By the influence which the gospel has upon him, he will be rendered a better man in all the relations of life, in every connexion which he holds with society; he will be a better husband, a better father, a better son, a better neighbour, a better friend, a better citizen. He will be just and upright in all his dealings; he will endeavour to owe no man any thing but a debt of love; he will fulfil all his engagements and contracts with punctuality; and his regard to truth will be so sacred, that his

word will be as much accredited ing, you will have evidence that as his oath.

My beloved youth-It is a regard to this last part of the answer before us-it is by practising the truth of God in our lives-that our character is to be ascertained. It is only the man who lives religion,

[ocr errors]

the word of God "dwells in you richly, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding," and that it will eventually and surely be made effectual to your eternal salvation.

LISHED WORKS OF THE REV. RO-
BERT HALL.

The subject of the first article of the Eclectic Review for March last,

Hall, A. M."
is, "The Works of the Rev. Robert
It contains, among

other things, a number of extracts
from his sermons not heretofore
published-and none of them fully

written out. But Mr. Hall could

scarcely write or speak what was not worth preservation; and some of these unfinished discourses are considered by his friends, and by the Reviewers, as containing passages not inferior, in solid excellence, to any of the publications

which received the finish of his

that is truly and savingly religious. EXTRACTS FROM THE LATELY PUBThe inward principles of faith, love, and a renewed heart, are, indeed, the source and spring of a holy life, without which it can never appear in its genuine excellence and lustre. But men may talk and profess much-and sometimes they do-about their inward feelings and exercises, when their lives are far from exemplary; and all this religion of the tongue is extremely suspicious, while they do not practice what the gospel requires. Show me thy faith by thy works"-is the demand which we have a right to make of every man. Let nothing, I entreat you, short of this, satisfy you in regard to your own spiritual state. If you have clear views of God's holy law, and right apprehensions of yourselves, you will indeed see cause continually to lament your imperfections and short comings in all you do. Yet you may have, and ought to have, "the testimony of your conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, you have your conversation in the world." You may know, and ought to know, whether you do sincerely endeavour to discharge every duty that you owe both to God and man; whether you lament your defects, ask divine assistance, and put forth your strenuous endeavours to correct every error, to amend whatever you do amiss, and to live in all things as becomes the disciples of Christ ever imperfect, and yet ever pressing forward after perfection, as an object of earnest desire, and of gradual approximation. Thus do

own hand, and were published before his death-that is, they contain as much bullion, though not as beautiful a form, or as high a polish. In making a selection for our readers, we have felt at a loss what to take, and what to leave, for we must leave more than we take. We have determined, on the whole, to give the following portion of the Review, just as it lies in the work:

"One of the most finished sermons in the fifth volume, is the xxxivth, on the Third Commandment. Having, in the first place, briefly shown that, in this commandment, are alike forbidden, perjury, and the profane use of the name of God on trivial occasions, whether in mirth or in anger; preacher proceeds to evince the criminality and impiety of the latter practice, by showing that it is, 1. in direct opposition to those passages of Scripture which identify the character of God with his

the

name: and 2. an infallible indication of irreverence towards God.

"As there is no [adequate] method of communicating [thought] but by words, which, though arbitrary in themselves, are agreed upon as the signs of ideas, no sooner are they einployed, but they call up the ideas they are intended to denote. When language is established, there exists a close and inseparable connexion between words and things, insomuch that we cannot pronounce or hear one without thinking of the other. Whenever the term God, for instance, is used, it excites among Christians the idea of the incomprehensible Author of Nature: this idea it may excite with more or less force and impression, but it invariably excites that idea, and no other. Now, to connect the idea of God with what is most frivolous and ridiculous, is to treat it with contempt; and as we can only contemplate [objects] under their ideas, to feel no reverence for the idea of God, is precisely the same thing as to feel a contempt for God. He who thinks of [the name of] God, without being awed by it, cannot pretend to be a fearer of God; but it is impossible to use the name of God lightly and unnecessarily, without being in that predicament. It is evident, beyond all contradiction, that such a man is in the habit of thinking of God without the least He could not assoreverential emotion. ciate the idea of God with levity, buffoonery, and whatsoever is mean and ridicu lous, if he had not acquired a most crimi. nal insensibility to his character and to all the awful peculiarities it involves. Suppose a person to be penetrated with a deep contrition for his sins, and a strong apprehension of the wrath of God, which is suspended over him; and are you not [immediately] aware of the impossibility of his using the name of the Being who is the object of all these emotions as a mere expletive? Were a person to pretend to the character of a humble penitent, and at the same time to take the name of God in vain, in the way to which we are now alluding, would you give the smallest credit to his pretensions? How decisive, then, must that indication of irreverence be, which is sufficient to render the very profession of repentance ridiculous?

"But this practice is not only inconsistent with that branch of religion which [constitutes] repentance; it is equally inconsistent with sincere, much more with supreme esteem and veneration. No child could bear to hear the name of a father, whose memory he highly respected and venerated, treated in the manner in which the name of the Supreme Being is introduced. It would be felt and resented as a high degree of rudeness and indignity.

There is, in short, no being, whatever, who is the object of strong emotion, whose distinguishing appellations could be mentioned in this manner without the utmost absurdity and indelicacy. Nothing can be more certain than that the taking the name of God in vain, infallibly indicates a mind in which the reverence of God has no place. But is it possible to conceive a state of mind more opposite to reason and order than this? To acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being, our Maker and Preserver, possessed of incomprehensible perfections, on whom we are totally dependent throughout every moment of duration, and in every stage of our existence, without feeling the profoundest awe and reverence of him, is an impropriety, a moral absurdity, which the utmost range of language and conception is inadequate to paint. If we consider the formal nature of sin as a deliberate transgression of the divine law, it resolves itself chiefly into this, that it implies a contempt of infinite majesty, and supreme power and authority. This disposition constitutes the very core and essence of sin. It is not merely the character of the wicked that they contemn God; it enters deeply into the character of wickedness itself; nor is there a heavier charge among their complicated crimes, adduced against the ancient Israelites, than that they lightly esteemed the Rock of their salvation.'

[blocks in formation]

·

*

"3. The practice of taking the Lord's name in vain, is not only a great indication of want of reverence for God, but is calculated to wear out all serious religion from the mind.

[ocr errors]

"If the most awful terms in religion are rarely or never employed but in connexion with angry or light emotions, he must be blind indeed, who fails to perceive the tendency of such a practice to wear out all traces of seriousness from the mind. They who are guilty of it, are continually taking lessons of impiety; and, their progress, it must be confessed, is proportioned to what might be expected.

4. The. criminality of taking the Lord's name in vain, is enhanced by the absence of every reasonable temptation. It is not, like many other vices, productive of either pleasure or emolument; it is neither adapted to gratify any natural appetite or passion, nor to facilitate the attainment of a single end which a reasonable creature can be supposed to have in view. It is properly the superfluity of naughtiness,' and can only be considered as a sort of peppercorn rent, in acknowledgment of the Devil's right of superiority. It is a vice by which no man's reputation is extended, no man's fortune is increased, no man's sensual gratifications are augmented. If we attempt to

analyse it, and reduce it to its real motive, we find ourselves at a total loss to discover any other than irreligious ostentation; a desire of convincing the world that its perpetrators are not under the restraint of religious fear. But, as this motive is most impious and detestable, so, the practice arising from it is not at all requisite for that purpose; since the persons who persist in it may safely leave it to other parts of their character to exonerate them from the suspicion of their being fearers of God. We beg leave to remind them that they are in no danger of being classed with the pious, either in this world or in that which is to come; and may therefore safely spare themselves the trouble of inscribing the name of their master on their foreheads. They are not so near to the kingdom of God as to be liable to be mistaken for its subjects.' Vol. v. pp. 334-340.

This last paragraph affords a specimen of that tremendous style of caustic irony in which, when a fit occasion presented itself, Mr. Hall was so well able to castigate either the hypocrisy or the effrontery of vice, to expose the flippancy of scepticism, or to put down ignorant pretension. Those who knew the native vehemence of his temper, and at the same time his talent for sarcasm, his acute perception of the ridiculous, his ready wit, and his keen relish for the fulminations of indignant eloquence, could alone appreciate the restraint and control which the

governing principles of his heart perpetually exerted, so as to produce an habitual suavity of manners, an

sarcasm.

abstinence from every thing bordering on splenetic severity, a kindliness of feeling that effectually sheathed his powers of These were, however, consecrated, not destroyed; like weapons of war hung up in the temple. They were reserved, among the other instruments of intellectual warfare, for the combat with Infidelity and Vice; and then only, on the rare occasions which justified their use, it was seen how well able he was to handle them. But it was against things, not persons, errors, not individuals,

that he ever declaimed with severity.

Among the subjects which never failed to call forth the strongest expressions of his antipathy, was Modern Socinianism, which, by its disingenuousness and its pestilent tendency, excited alike his abhorrence and contempt. Socinians he regarded as, in their religious character, the enemies of his Divine Master; and he would have shrunk from all religious fellowship with them, as he would from communion with the followers of Mohammed. Equally would he have deprecated, however, treating the persons of individuals, on the pretence of their heresy, with insult or rudeness. Courtesy was part of his religion; but, as he deemed that the courtesy due to all men does not extend to their erroneous opinions, he never hesitated to speak of these in unambiguous and adequate terms. We are somewhat anticipating remarks which might seem to belong to a portrait of Mr. Hall's character; but we have wished to point out this material distinction,

as it will enable the reader better

to appreciate the very striking and forcible manner in which the spirit and tendency of Socinianism are exposed in the fifth sermon of the originally prepared as the last of series; which appears to have been

twelve lectures on the Socinian

Controversy, delivered at Leicester in 1823. This sermon is so admirably characteristick of the writer, and appears to have been so carefully prepared, that we cannot refrain from making somewhat copious extracts; and must then take leave of the volume which has so long and pleasingly detain

ed us.

"Allow me to close these Lectures

by directing your attention to some of the distinguishing characteristicks of the sysdern Unitarianism. tem designated by the appellation of Mo

"I. It will occur to the most superficial

observer to remark, that, as far as it differs from the orthodox, it is almost entirely a negative system; consisting in the bold denial of nearly all the doctrines which other denominations are wont to regard as the most vital and the most precious. It snatches from us almost every thing to which our affections have been habituated to cling, without presenting them with a single new object.

"It is a cold negation, a system of renunciation and dissent; imparting that feeling of desolation to the heart, which is inseparable from the extinction of ancient attachments; teaching us no longer to admire, to adore, to trust, or to love-but with a most impaired and attenuated affection-objects, in the contemplation of which we before deemed it safe, and even obligatory, to lose ourselves in the indulgence of these delightful emotions.

"Under the pretence of simplifying Christianity, it obliterates so many of its discoveries, and retrenches so many of its truths; so little is left to occupy the mind, to fill the imagination, or to touch the heart; that, when the attracting novelty and the heat of disputation are subsided, it speedily consigns its converts to apathy and indifference. He who is wont to expatiate in the wide field of Revelation, surrounded by all that can gratify the sight, or regale the senses, reposing in its green pastures and beside the still, transparent waters, reflecting the azure of the heavens, the lily of the valley, and the cedar of Lebanon,-no sooner approaches the confines of Socinianism, than he enters on a dreary and melancholy waste. Whatever is most sweet and attractive in religion, whatever of the grandeur that elevates, or the solemnity that awes the mind, is inseparably connected with those truths, it is the avowed object of that system to subvert. And since it is not what we deny, but what we believe, that nourishes piety, no wonder it languishes under so meagre and scanty a diet. The littleness and poverty of the Socinian system ultimately ensures its neglect; because it makes no provision for that appetite for the immense and magnificent, which the contemplation of nature inspires and gratifies, and which even reason itself prompts us to anticipate from a revelation in the Eternal Mind.

"By stripping religion of its mysteries, it deprives it of more than half its power. It is an exhausting process, by which it is reduced to its lowest term. It consists in affirming that the writers of the New Testament were not, properly speaking, inspired, nor infallible guides, in divine matters; that Jesus Christ did not die for our sins, nor is the proper object of worship, nor even impeccable; that there is not any provision made in the sanctification of

the Spirit for the aid of spiritual weakness, or the cure of spiritual maladies; that we have not an intercessor at the right hand of God; that Christ is not present with his saints, nor his saints, when they quit the body, present with the Lord; that man is not composed of a material, and immaterial principle, but consists merely of organized matter, which is totally dissolved at death. To look for elevation of moral sentiment from such a series of pure negations, would be to gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles,'-to

extract sunbeams from cucumbers.'

"II. From hence we naturally remark the close affinity between the Unitarian system and Deism. Aware of the offence which is usually taken at observations of this sort, I would much rather wave them, were the suppression of so important a circumstance compatible with doing justice to the subject. Deism, as distinguished from Atheism, embraces almost every thing which the Unitarians profess to believe. The Deist professes to believe in a future state of rewards and pnnishments;

the Unitarian does no more. The chief difference is, that the Deist derives his conviction on the subject from the principles of natural religion; the Unitarian from the fact of Christ's resurrection. Both arrive at the same point, though they reach it by different routes. Both maintain the same creed, though on different grounds: so that, allowing the Deist to be fully settled and confirmed in his persuasion of a future world, it is not so easy to perceive what advantage the Unitarian possesses over him. If the proofs of a future state, upon Christian principles, be acknowledged more clear and convincing than is attainable merely by the light of nature, yet, as the operation of opinion is measured by the strength of the persuasion with which it is embraced, and not by the intrinsic force of evidence, the Deist who cherishes a firm expectation of a life to come, has the same motives for resisting temptation, and patiently continuing in well doing, as the Unitarian. He has learned the same lesson, though under a different master, and is substantially of the same religion.

"The points in which they coincide are much more numerous, and more important, than those in which they differ. In their ideas of human nature, as being what it always was, in opposition to the doctrine of the fall; in their rejection of the Trinity, and of all supernatural mysteries; in their belief of the intrinsic efficacy of repentance, and the superfluity of an atonement; in their denial of spiritual aids, or internal grace; in their notions of the person of Christ; and finally, in that lofty confidence in the sufficiency of reason as a guide in the affairs of religion,

« PrécédentContinuer »