Chapter 3.

CHAPTER 3.

The great influence of doctrines upon morality.

TO ascertain the importance of doctrines in general, let us consider the influence that they have upon our conduct. Our duties in life depend upon the different relations we sustain in it; and these relations affect us only as they are understood. Thus, it is necessary that a child should know his father before he can truly love him in that character. This knowledge is the effect of certain instructions or maxims which influence our manners in proportion as they are assented to. I love the man from whom I have received my birth and education with a particular affection: but such love is founded, first, upon this general doctrine, “Every child, honourably born, should reverence and love his father,” and, secondly, upon this particular truth, “That man is my father.” If I am made to doubt of this general doctrine, or of this particular truth, the moral springs of that respect, love, gratitude, and obedience, which are due to my father, will necessarily be weakened; and if either the one or the other should lose all its influence over my heart, my father would then become to me as an indifferent person.

The knowledge, therefore, of the affinities which subsist between one being and another, is essential to morality. Why is it that no traces of morality can be discovered among the beasts of the field? It is because they are incapable of understanding either the relation in which creatures stand to the Creator, or the affinities which subsist among the creatures themselves. As it becomes the soldier to have a strict knowledge of his officers, that he may render to every one according to his rank the honour and obedience to which they are severally entitled; so, preparatory to the practice of morality, it behooves us to have a clear perception of our various duties, together with the proper subject of those duties. If some desperate malady has deprived us of this knowledge, we then rank with idiots, and are in no condition to violate the rules of morality. Hence the lunatic, who butchers his father, is not punishable among us as a parricide, because he has no acquaintance with these general maxims, “No man should murder another,—every son should honour his father;” nor has he any conception of this particular truth, “The man whom thou art about to destroy, is thy father.”

Take away all doctrines, and you annihilate all the relations which subsist among rational creatures; you destroy all morality, and reduce man to the condition of a brute beast, allowing him to be influenced by passion and caprice, as the lowest animals are actuated by appetite and instruct. Admit only some few doctrines, and you admit only a part of your duties as well as your privileges. An example may serve to set this truth in a clear light:— suppose you have a rich father, who is entirely unknown to you, and whom the world has never looked upon as your parent; if you never receive any certain intelligence concerning him, it is plain that you can neither render him filial obedience, nor yet succeed to his estates.

Many philosophers, who cannot reasonably be suspected of fanaticism, or even partiality to evangelical principles, have yet strenuously insisted upon the importance of doctrines, as calculated to influence the conduct of mankind. A polished writer of this class seems to have entertained an idea, that if all men were possessed of an enlightened understanding, crimes of every kind would be unknown in the world. Observe, at least, in what terms he speaks of war, which is an evil of that complex nature, that it may justly be looked upon as an assemblage of every possible vice. “What is the cause of that destructive rage, which, in every period, like a contagious malady, has infected the human race? Ignorance is, undoubtedly, the source of our calamities: ignorance with respect to the relations, rights, and duties of our species. Thus, the most ignorant and unpolished people have ever been the most warlike; and those ages of the world, which have been peculiarly distinguished by darkness and barbarism, have been invariably the most fruitful in murderous wars. Ignorance prepares the way for devastation; and devastation, in its turn, reproduces ignorance. With a clear knowledge of their rights and their reciprocal duties, which form the true and only interest of nations, it is a contradiction to suppose that those nations would voluntarily precipitate themselves into an abyss of inevitable evils.”f10 This author, if he be supposed to speak of our relations and duties with respect to God, as well as those which regard our neighbour, had reason on his side; and especially if his views were directed to the knowledge of every powerful motive which should constrain us to fill up those duties.

Upon these principles, of what fatal neglect are those persons guilty, who, being charged with the religious instructions of princes and people, leave both immersed in a deplorable ignorance, which draws after it the horrors of war, with all the various calamities that overspread the face of Christendom!