Chapter 4.

CHAPTER 4.

How the doctrines of the Gospel come in to the succour of morality. IF to preach the Gospel is to teach sinners the relations they sustain with respect to God, as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; if it is to announce the advantages which flow from this three-fold relation, till, penetrated with gratitude and love, mankind apply themselves to fulfil the several duties to which they stand engaged; we may challenge the world to point out any knowledge of equal importance with that which is discovered in the Gospel. To deprive us, then, of the doctrines contained in this Gospel, is it not to suppress the most important instructions we can possibly receive, and to conceal from us a testament made wholly in our favour? To decide this question, we shall here consider what influence these doctrines have upon morality.

The virtues of worldly men, as well as their vices, are little else than a kind of traffic carried on by an inordinate self love. From this impure source the most amiable of their actions flow; and hence, instead of referring all things primarily to God, they constantly act with an eye to their own immediate advantage. Christ has offered a remedy to this grand evil, by teaching us, that to love the Deity “with all our heart” is the “first commandment” of the law; and that to love ourselves, and “our neighbour as ourselves,” is but a secondary commandment in the sight of God: thus leading us up to Divine love, as the only source of pure virtue. When self love is once reduced to this wholesome order, and moves in exact obedience to the Creator’s law, it then becomes truly commendable in man, and serves as the surest rule of fraternal affection.

Evangelical morality ennobles our most ordinary actions, such as those of eating and drinking, requiring that” all things be done to the glory of God,” 1 Corinthians 10:31, i.e. in celebration of his unspeakable bounty. A just precept this, and founded upon the following doctrine: “All things are of God,” 2 Corinthians 5:18, to whom, of consequence, they ought finally to refer. If you lose sight of this doctrine, your apparent gratitude is nothing more than a feigned virtue, which has no other motives or ends, except such as originate and lose themselves in self love. In such circumstances you cannot possibly assent to the justice of the grand precept above cited. But holding it up, like the author of the Philosophical Dictionary, as a subject of ridicule, you may perhaps burlesque the feelings of a conscientious man with regard to this command, as the comedian is accustomed to sport with the character of a modest woman. Thus many philosophers are emulating the morality and benevolence of those censorious religionists, concerning whom our Lord significantly declared, “Verily they have their reward.”

How shall we reduce a sinner to moral order? Will it be sufficient to press upon him the following exhortations:—Love God with all thy heart: be filled with benevolence toward all men: do good to your very enemies? All this would be only commanding a rebel to seek happiness in the presence of a prince whose indignation he has justly merited. It would be urging a covetous man to sacrifice his interests, not only to indifferent persons, but to his implacable adversaries. To effect so desirous a change in the human heart, motives and assistance are as absolutely necessary as counsels and precepts.

Here the doctrines of the Gospel come in to the succour of morality. But how shall we sufficiently adore that incomprehensible Being, who has demonstrated to us, by the mission of his beloved Son, that the Divine nature is love? Or, how shall we refuse any thing to this gracious Redeemer, who clothed himself with mortality that he might suffer in our stead? All the doctrines of the Gospel have an immediate tendency to promote the practice of morality. That of the incarnation, which serves as the basis of the New Testament, expresses the benevolence of the Supreme Being in so striking a manner, that every sinner, who cordially receives this doctrine, is constrained to surrender his heart unreservedly to God. His servile fear is changed into filial reverence, and his inveterate aversion into fervent love. He is overwhelmed with the greatness of benefits received, and, as the only suitable return for mercies of so stupendous a nature, he sacrifices, at once, all his darling vices. “If the Son of God has united himself to my fallen nature,” such an humble believer will naturally say, “I will not rest till I feel myself united to this Divine Mediator. If he comes to put a period to my misery, nothing shall ever put a period to my gratitude. If he has visited me with the beams of his glory, it shall henceforth become my chief concern to reflect those beams upon all around me, to his everlasting praise.”

The memorable sacrifice which was once offered up in the person of Christ, as a propitiation for our sins, is wonderfully calculated to produce the same extraordinary effects. This mysterious offering sets forth the malignity of our offences, and represents the compassion of the Deity in so overpowering a manner, that, while it fills us with horror for sin, it completely triumphs over the obduracy of our hearts. From the moment we come to a real perception of this meritorious sacrifice, from that moment we die to sin, till, “rising again with Christ” into a new life, Colossians 3:1, we become, at length, wholly “renewed in the spirit of our mind,” Ephesians 4:23. Point out a man who unfeignedly believes in a crucified Saviour, and you have discovered a man who abhors all manner of vice, and in whom every virtue has taken root. Such a one can thankfully join the whole multitude of the faithful, and say, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Romans 5:1, “and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God,” 5:2, “we have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto us.” Once, indeed, when we were without the knowledge of Christ, “we were the servants of sin: but now, being made free from sin, and become servants of God, we have our fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life,” Romans 6:17, 22.

If you ravish from such a man these consoling and sanctifying doctrines, you will leave him either in the stupid insensibility of those who give themselves up to carnal security, or in the perplexity of others, who are crying, “What shall we do to be saved?” The one or the other of these states must be experienced, in different degrees, by every man who is unacquainted with the efficacy of evangelical doctrines. And if the first moralist (Socrates) of the Pagan world was yet observed to triumph over this stupidity and confusion, it was merely through the regenerating hope he indulged, that a restoring God, of whose internal operations he had already been favoured with some faint perception would one day afford him a more clear and perfect light.