I.

A FARTHER APPEAL

TO

MEN OF REASON AND RELIGION

And when he came near, he beholden the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! Luke 19:41, 42. PART 3.

I.

1. Now, what can an impartial person think concerning the present state of religion in England? Is there a nation under the sun which is so deeply fallen from the very first principles of all religion? Where is the country in which is found so utter a disregard to even heathen morality; such a thorough contempt of justice and truth, and all that should be dear and honorable to rational creatures?

What species of vice can possibly be named, even of those that nature itself abhors, of which we have not had, for many years, a plentiful and still-increasing harvest? What sin remains either in Rome or Constantinople, which we have not imported long ago, (if it was not of our native growth,) and improved upon ever since? Such a complication of villanies of every kind, considered with all their aggravations; such a scorn of whatever bears the face of virtue; such injustice, fraud, and falsehood; above all, such perjury, and such a method of law, we may defy the whole world to produce.

What multitudes are found throughout our land, who do not even profess any religion at all! And what numbers of those who profess much, confute their profession by their practice! yea, and perhaps by their exorbitant pride, vanity, covetousness, rapaciousness or oppression, cause the very name of religion to stink in the nostrils of many (otherwise) reasonable men!

2. “However, we have many thousands still of truly virtuous and religious men.” Wherein does their religion consist? in righteousness and true holiness; in love stronger than death; fervent gratitude to God, and tender affection to all his creatures? Is their religion the religion of the heart; a renewal of soul in the image of God? Do they resemble Him they worship? Are they free from pride, from vanity, from malice and envy; from ambition and avarice; from passion and lust; from every uneasy and unlovely temper? Alas, I fear neither they (the greater part at least) nor you know what this religion means; or have any more notion of it, than the peasant that holds the plow of the religion of a Gymnosophist. It is well if the genuine religion of Christ has any more alliance with what you call religion, than with the Turkish pilgrimages to Mecca, or the Popish worship of our Lady of Loretto. Have not you substituted, in the place of the religion of the heart, something (I do not say equally sinful, but) equally vain, and foreign to the worshipping of God “in spirit and in truth?” What else can be said even of prayer, (public or private,) in the manner wherein you generally perform it? as a thing of course, running round and round in the same dull track, without either the knowledge or love of God, without one heavenly temper, either attained or improved! O what mockery of God is this!

And yet even this religion, which can do you no good, may do you much harm. Nay, it is plain it does; it daily increases your pride, as you measure your goodness by the number and length of your performances. It gives you a deep contempt of those who do not come up to the full tale of your virtues. It inspires men with a zeal which is the very fire of hell, furious, bitter, implacable, unmerciful; often to a degree that extinguishes all compassion, all good nature and humanity, Insomuch that the execrable fierceness of spirit, which is the natural fruit of such a religion, hath many times, in spite of all ties, divine aud human, broke out into open violence, into rapine, murder, sedition, rebellion, civil war, to the desolation of whole cities and countries.

Tanlum haec religio potuit suadere malorum! f22

3. Now, if there be a God, and one that is not a mere idle spectator of the things that are done upon earth, but a rewarder of men and nations according to their works, what can the event of these things be? It was reasonable to believe that he would have risen long ago and maintained his own cause, either by sending the famine or pestilence among us, or by pouring out his fury in blood. And many wise and holy men have frequently declared that they daily expected this; that they daily looked for the patience of God to give place, and judgment to rejoice over mercy.

4. Just at this time, when we wanted little of “filling up the measure of our iniquities,” two or three Clergymen of the Church of England began vehemently to “call sinners to repentance.” In two or three years they had sounded the alarm to the utmost borders of the land. Many thousands gathered together to hear them; and in every place where they came, many began to show such a concern for religion as they never had done before. A stronger impression was made on their minds, of the importance of things eternal, and they had more earnest desires of serving God than they had ever had from their earliest childhood. Thus did God begin to draw them toward himself, with the cords of love, with the bands of a man. Many of these were in a short time deeply convinced of the number and heinousness of their sins. They were also made thoroughly sensible of those tempers which are justly hateful to God and man, and of their utter ignorance of God, and entire inability, either to know, love, or serve him. At the same time, they saw in the strongest light the insignificancy of their outside religion; nay, and often confessed it before God, as the most abominable hypocrisy. Thus did they sink deeper and deeper into that repentance, which must ever precede faith in the Son of God. And from hence sprung “fruits meet for repentance.” The drunkard commenced sober and temperate; the whoremonger abstained from adultery and fornication; the unjust from oppression and wrong. He that had been accustomed to curse and swear for many years, now swore no more. The sluggard began to work with his hands, that he might eat his own bread. The miser learned to deal his bread to the hungry, and to cover the naked with a garment. Indeed, the whole form of their life was changed: They had “left off doing evil, and learned to do well.”

5. But this was not all. Over and above this outward change, they began to experience inward religion. “The love of God was shed abroad in their hearts,” which they continue to enjoy to this day. They “love him, because he first loved us,” and withholden not from us his Son, his only Son. And this love constrains them to love all mankind, all the children of the Father of heaven and earth; and inspires them with every holy and heavenly temper, the whole mind that was in Christ. Hence it is that they are now uniform in their behavior, unblamable in all manner of conversation. And in whatsoever state they are, they have learned wherewith to be content; insomuch that now they can “in every thing give thanks.” They more than patiently acquiesce, they rejoice and are exceeding glad, in all God’s dispensations toward them. For as long as they love God, (and that love no man taketh from them,) they are always happy in God. Thus they calmly travel on through life, being never weary nor faint in their minds, never repining, murmuring, or dissatisfied, casting all their care upon God, till the hour comes that they should drop this covering of earth, and return unto the great Father of spirits. Then, especially, it is that they “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” You who credit it not, come and see. See these living and dying Christians. Happy while on earth they breathe;

Mightier joys ordain’d to know,

Trampling on sin, hell, and death,

To the third heaven they go!

Now, if these things are so, what reasonable man can deny (supposing the Scriptures to be true) that God is now visiting this nation, in a far other manner than we had cause to expect? Instead of pouring out his fierce displeasure upon us, he hath made us yet another tender of mercy: So that even when sin did most abound, grace hath much more abounded.

6. Yea, “the grace of God, which bringeth salvation,” present salvation from inward and outward sin, hath abounded of late years in such a degree, as neither we nor our fathers had known. How extensive is the change which has been wrought on the minds and lives of the people! Know ye not that the sound has gone forth into all the land; that there is scarce a city or considerable town to be found, where some have not been roused out of the sleep of death, and constrained to cry out, in the bitterness of their soul, “What must I do to be saved?” that this religious concern has spread to every age and sex; to most orders and degrees of men? to abundance of those, in particular, who, in time past, were accounted monsters of wickedness, “drinking in iniquity like water,” and committing all “uncleanness with greediness.”

7. In what age has such a work been wrought, considering the swiftness as well as the extent of it? When have such numbers of sinners in so short a time been recovered from the error of their ways? When hath religion, I will not say since the Reformation, but since the time of Constantine the Great, made so large a progress in any nation, within so small a space? I believe, hardly can either ancient or modern history supply us with a parallel instance.

8. Let understanding men observe also the depth of the work, so extensively and swiftly wrought. It is not a slight or superficial thing; but multitudes of men have been so thoroughly “convinced of sin,” that their “bones were smitten asunder, as it were with a sword dividing the very joints and marrow.” Many of these have been shortly after so filled with “peace and joy in believing,” that, whether they were in the body or out of the body, they could scarcely tell. And in the power of this faith they have trampled under foot whatever the world accounts either terrible or desirable; having evidenced, in the severest trials, so fervent a love to God, so invariable and tender a goodwill to mankind, particularly to their enemies, and such a measure of all the fruits of holiness, as were not unworthy the apostolic age. Now, so deep a repentance, so firm a faith, so fervent love and unblemished holiness, wrought in so many persons, within so short a time, the world has not seen for many ages.

9. No less remarkable is the purity of the religion which has extended itself so deeply and swiftly. I speak particularly with regard to the doctrines holden by those among whom it is so extended. Those of the Church of England, at least must acknowledge this. For where is there a body of people in the realm, who, number for number, so closely adhere to what our Church delivers as pure doctrine? Where are those who have approved and do approve themselves more orthodox more sound in their opinions? Is there a Socinian or Arian among them all? Nay, were you to recite the whole catalogue of heresies enumerated by Bishop Pearson, it might be asked, Who can lay any one of these to their charge?

Nor is their religion more pure from heresy than it is from superstition. In former times, wherever an unusual concern for the things of God hath appeared, on the one hand, strange and erroneous opinions continually sprung up with it; on the other, a zeal for things which were no part of religion, as though they had been essential branches of it. And many have laid as great, if not greater, stress on trifles, as on the weightier matters of the law. But it has not been so in the present case. No stress has been laid on anything, as though it were necessary to salvation, but what is undeniably contained in the word of God. And of the things contained therein, the stress laid on each has been in proportion to the nearness of its relation to what is there laid down as the sum of all, the love of God and our neighbor. So pure from superstition, so thoroughly scriptural, is that religion which has lately spread in this nation!

10. It is likewise rational as well as scriptural; it is as pure from enthusiasm as from superstition. It is true, the contrary has been continually affirmed: But to affirm is one thing, to prove is another. Who will prove that it is enthusiasm to love God, even though we love him with all our heart? to rejoice in the sense of his love to us? to praise him, even with all our strength? Who is able to make good this charge against the love of all mankind? or, laying rhetorical flourishes aside, to come close to the question, and demonstrate that it is enthusiasm, in every state we are in, therewith to be content? I do but just touch on the general heads. Ye men of reason, give me a man who, setting raillery and ill names apart, will maintain this by dint of argument. It not, own this religion is the thing you seek; sober, manly, rational, divine; however exposed to the censure of those who are accustomed to revile what they understand not.

11. It may be farther observed, the religion of those we now speak of is entirely clear from bigotry. (Perhaps this might have been ranked with superstition, of which it seems to be only a particular species.) They are in nowise bigoted to opinions. They do indeed hold right opinions; but they are peculiarly cautious not to rest the weight of Christianity there. They have no such overgrown fondness for any opinions, as to think those alone will make them Christians, or to confine their affection or esteem to those who agree with them therein. There is nothing they are more fearful of than this, lest it should steal upon them unawares. Nor are they bigoted to any particular branch even of practical religion. They desire indeed to be exact in every jot and tittle, in the very smallest points of Christian practice. But they are not attached to one point more than another: they aim at uniform, universal obedience. They contend for nothing trifling, as if it was important; for nothing indifferent, as if it were necessary; for nothing circumstantial, as if it were essential to Christianity; but for every thing in its own order.

12. Above all, let it be observed, that this religion has no mixture of vice or unholiness. It gives no man of any rank or profession the least license to sin. It makes no allowance to any person for ungodliness of any kind. Not that all who follow after have attained this, either are already perfect. But however that be, they plead for no sin, either inward or outward. They condemn every kind and degree thereof, in themselves as well as in other men. Indeed, most in themselves; it being their constant care to bring those words home to their own case, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

13. Yet there is not found among them that bitter zeal in points either of small or of great importance, that spirit of persecution, which has so often accompanied the spirit of reformation. It is an idle conceit, that the spirit of persecution is among the Papists only: It is wheresoever the devil, that old murderer, works; and he still “worketh in” all “the children of disobedience.” Of consequence, all the children of disobedience will, on a thousand different pretenses, and in a thousand different ways, so far as God permits, persecute the children of God. But what is still more to be lamented is, that the children of God themselves have so often used the same weapons, and persecuted others, when the power was in their own hands.

Can we wholly excuse those venerable men, our great Reformers themselves, from this charge? I fear not, if we impartially read over any history of the Reformation. What wonder is it then, that, when the tables were turned, Bishop Bonner or Gardiner should make reprisals; that they should measure to others (indeed good measure, shaken together) what had before been measured to them? Nor is it strange, when we consider the single case of Joan Bocher, that God should suffer those (otherwise) holy men, Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Ridley, and Bishop Latimer, to drink of the same cup with her.