XVIII.

OUR GREAT DEBT TO ALL MANKIND.

PREACHED ON BEHALF OF THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY, AT CHINA-TERRACE CHAPEL, LAMBETH, MÁY 2, 1824, AND on sev

ERAL OTHER OCCASIONS.

I AM DEBTOR BOTH TO THE GREEKS, AND TO THE BARBARIANS; BOTH TO THE WISE, AND TO THE UNWISE.-Romans i, 14.

ST. PAUL was the apostle, or missionary, of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. This was his especial honor, and he was remarkably endued with the spirit of his high vocation. It was apparent in all his actions; it still breathes and burns in all his writings. Hence his epistles abound, in almost every page, with arguments for missionary exertions, with examples of missionary zeal, and, consequently, with texts which are adapted to the purpose, of services like that for which we are now assembled.

In the passage selected as the subject of this evening's discourse, the writer has drawn a simple but touching picture of that unquenchable ardor for the extension of the Christian cause, and for the salvation of the souls of men, which glowed in his bosom, and ought to glow in ours; to which neither the vast distance of some of those for whom it cares, nor the interposition of tempestuous oceans between itself and them, presents any insurmountable obstruction; which is rather stimulated than discouraged by difficulties and perils; and which, in the true spirit of heroism, accounts nothing done while anything remains to be done, by which Christ may be magnified and his religion promoted. This epistle is addressed to persons resident at Rome, the metropolis, at that time, of the Gentile world. That city Paul as yet had never visited; but

he thus describes the fervor of his desire to find an opportunity of publishing to its numerous inhabitants the Gospel of the grace of God: "God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

In stating the extent of his obligation, as intrusted with the ministry of reconciling grace, our apostle speaks in the text of the Greeks and the Barbarians, the wise and the unwise.

1. The Greeks and the Barbarians. The Jews were wont to designate all other nations by the general term of "Greeks," as well as by that of "Gentiles." (See verse 16.) The Greeks, properly so called, denominated all who differed from them in language "Barbarians." And the Romans, when they had conquered the Greeks, adopted the same haughty style of expression toward all who spoke any other than the Greek or the Latin tongue. These two phrases, then, taken together, are of the most comprehensive kind, and include all the Gentile nations of the earth. But the text mentions,

2. The wise and the unwise; that is, the learned and the unlearned; those whose minds and manners are improved by education and the art, o civilized life, and those who are yet in a state of untutored and uncultivated nature.

Behold the view which St. Paul had adopted respecting the places and the persons that have a claim on Christians for the communication of the light and blessings of Christianity. Where ought we to preach the Gospel? If possible, everywhere-in "all the world." To whom ought the Gospel to be preached? "To every creature," as far as we have the opportunity; to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise; to the most polished and to the most savage tribes; to those whose habitations are contiguous to ours, and to those who live on "the farthest verge of the green earth;" to those who speak in our own tongue wherein we were born, and to those who use some of the many other languages of mankind; to persons of every condition, as well as of every clime; to the erudite and the illiterate, to the rich and the poor, to the high and the low, to the bond and the free. For God "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

Among men who are content to bow to the divine authority, and lay their reasonings at the footstool of revelation, this assertion of the inspired apostle ought for ever to set at rest the question which has been sometimes raised, whether the civilization of a country should not always be considerably advanced before we so much as attempt the work of direct evangelization; and whether, on this principle, we ought not to abandon all savage nations for the present to their fate, as far as missions are concerned, and confine our Christianizing projects to those among whom arts, and sciences, and commerce, and enlightened legislation and regular government are supposed to have prepared the way for religion. The scriptural answer to this question is, I think, plain. Inasmuch as our means of evangelization are unavoidably limited by our want of men, or of money, or of opportunity and access, so far are we at liberty, from among the various moral deserts of the world, which all demand our compassion, to select those regions as the scenes of our earliest exertions which seem likely to afford the speediest and the richest harvests, at the smallest expense of toil and difficulty. But when the means are attainable, and the dark places of the earth are rendered

accessible, we are not to lose our time in too nice or timid a calculation of comparative facilities, but are to rush into every open door and cry, "Behold the Lamb of God!" For we are "debtors both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise and to the unwise."

Our first proposition is,

That the barbarism of some nations is no reason why the Gospel should be withheld from them. In support of this, I remark,

1. The Gospel is the announcement of a divinely appointed remedy for those moral disorders of which all mankind are sick and ready to die. It is, therefore, worthy of all men to be received. It addresses itself to man as man, and as a sinner. It meets the universal wants of our common nature by the offer of a common salvation; and does not concern itself, directly or primarily, with those merely accidental varieties by which any one man and sinner, or any one nation of men as sinners, may be found to differ externally from others. Hence it is both designed and adapted for unlimited circulation; since we cannot possibly carry it to any place in the world where it is not needed, or to any people to whom it is not suitable.

2. The opponents of missions to nations not yet civilized greatly underrate, it is probable, both the natural capabilities and the moral preparation of persons so circumstanced. As they are men who need the Gospel, so are they men of sufficient faculties of mind to understand, when it is offered to them, all its essential truths, and privileges, and practical obligations. Though Christianity reveals mysteries which angels desire to look into, and truths which are sublime enough to occupy and to confound the powers of the most gigantic and the best cultivated intellect, it is at the same time so plain and so simple, in all its fundamental facts, promises, and duties, that the wayfaring man, though a fool, may savingly understand it. Not only have the most unlettered nations a degree of natural capacity for this purpose, but they have also a degree of moral preparation; for there

is a "Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Conscience, though often erring in its decisions, for want of a clearer rule of duty, and often, alas! silenced and overpowered for want of more authoritative and impressive sanctions to enforce the rule already more or less known, is yet by no means wholly inactive among many of the rudest and most ignorant of mankind. It speaks at times with a voice which must and will be heard; accuses them of sin; suggests their liability to punishment; produces fear which hath torment; and excites anxious, though often secret and unuttered, groanings after deliverance from bondage and wretchedness-a deliverance, the want of which they feel, though they know not how to seek it, or from what quarter to expect it. The annals of missionary labors among the Greenlanders, the American Indians, the Hottentots, and our own African negroes, afford many proofs of what I now state; and show, both that those whom we are apt to despise as savages experience, in very many cases, a measure of the painful solicitude and self-dissatisfaction which are common to sinful men, and also that, when visited by the Gospel, they are capable, if not of abstract reasoning and lofty speculations on what some call the philosophy of Christianity, yet of enjoying and exemplifying all its holy and comforting influences.

3. If previous civilization and refinement afford some additional facilities for the external propagation of the Gospel, they also, by a too common abuse of such favors, create some additional obstacles to its spiritual success, which do not operate so powerfully in the opposite circumstances. The wisdom of this world, instead of preparing men for that which is from above, is often a hinderance to their seeking and accepting it in God's way, and on God's terms. "Knowledge," unsanctified, "puffeth up." And we are all aware how hard it is for the wise, as well as for the rich, to enter into the kingdom of God; for, "whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he thall not enter therein."

4. In the arguments of those who so contend for civilization as in effect to discourage the immediate evangelization of certain nations, there lurks, in my apprehension, an unwar