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2. In resting the hope of future existence upon the doctrine of the Resurrection, and not upon the Orthodox and Deistical notion of the natural Immortality of the Soul.

Hackney Road,

November 1, 1819.

W. J. FOX.

POSTCSRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.

A reply to the following Sermon has just appeared in the form of "Four Letters" to the Author, by an Inquirer.' The writer has not exerted himself to controvert my leading positions, but displays some dexterity in carping upon detached sentences. A specimen of his logic, of his correctness, and of his candour, will, with impartial readers, exonerate me from the task of commenting at length on his remarks.

He reasons from the exercise of miraculous power in punishing with temporary blindness a hypocrite, false prophet, and sorcerer, (Acts xiii. 6 -12.) to the justifiableness of using political power for putting down modern unbelievers; and is of opinion that if the Apostle Paul could rise from the dead, and behold an agent of authority manacling, incarcerating, and ruining them, he would say, "I set the example!"

He asserts that the language sometimes employed by unbelievers, which I have described as 66 vilifying Christ," "calumnious," wounding the feelings of pious Christians by insulting all they revere," and so ❝ foul and revolting" that even to palliate it by the abduction of precedents would be a "loathsome task;" that this language I " can listen to with complacency." His candour represents an admission that moral evidence leaves the bare possibility of mistake, as an attempt to "lead the young, the artless, the unwary, into the Temple of Deism;" and brands a condemnatory allusion to those who combine a hypocritical zeal against unbelief with an open disregard of the injunctions of Scripture to command our passions, and not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain, as a railing accusation against his erring brethren."

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The "Inquirer" has not shewn that Deists are excepted from the Christian law of doing to others as we would that they should do to us; and of the necessity of enforcing its application to our conduct towards them, his pamphlet is an additional and melancholy proof. How long will there be occasion for the Saviour to offer, in heaven, for his disciples, the prayer which he offered on the cross for his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do "?

December, 24, 1819.

SERMON.

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. -LUKE vi. 31.

THIS maxim is the foundation of the morality of the New Testament. We are bound, as Christians, to regulate our conduct by it; and my present purpose is to shew in what way it should affect our behaviour towards those by whom the religion, which we esteem of divine authority, is disbelieved, attacked, and even reviled.

You will readily suppose that my attention has been directed to this subject by the recent prosecutions of an individual for the republication of

Paine's Age of Reason, and of Palmer's Principles of Nature; and such is certainly the fact. If any have come, however, with the expectation of hearing remarks of a political or a personal nature, on the proceedings of a Court of Justice, or on those who presided over, or were parties in those proceedings, they will be disappointed. I know too well the legitimate boundaries of pulpit discussion to enter upon such a field, and shall consider the subject only in a general view, as it relates to the regulation of your feelings, and the discharge of your duties towards unbelievers.

It has long appeared to me that the liberality which has unquestionably advanced amongst Christians, and moderated the asperity of sectarianism, has by no means been proportionably extended towards Deists. Aliens from the household of faith, they have been considered as without the pale of charity. Their continued and almost solitary exclusion is not altogether unaccountable. Liberality has been increased by various causes in which they had no share Missionary and Bible Societies, and a number of similar institutions, by bringing partisans together upon common ground, and uniting them ordially in the pursuit of a common object, have opened their eyes to each other's virtues, and removed a thousand prejudices which were the food of bigotry. But prejudices have only been removed as to the parties thus uniting and co-operating. While they have drawn closer to each other, the Deist has been left at his original distance. Unconcerned in the cause, or concerned only as an opponent, more or less active, he has not been privileged to participate in the beneficial results. While the once alienated children of the Christian family were re-united, he, excluded from their social endearments, as unwelcome to their sight as ever, shunned by all, hated by some, stood far aloof, a solitary orphan., Even Unitarians, outcasts as they themselves are from the fraternities of reputed orthodoxy, and pledged by the character of their religious system to the most extensive liberality, have but too often been deficient in the duties which I intend this evening to state and enforce. Goaded by the calumny which would identify them with those who reject the Saviour, they have, in repelling so unjust an accusation, caught too much of the tone of their opponents, and given the most undesirable proof of their affinity to other Christians, by that unfairness towards the disbeliever which does not become any Christian. However it be accounted for, I have a painful conviction of the fact, that Christians, as a body, do not in their writings, preaching, conversation, and behaviour on public occasions, or in private life, treat Deists in that way which charity should prompt, or even which is demanded by justice, to which, as fellow men, they have a right, and which is by far the best calculated to win their attention, disarm their opposition, and correct the aberrations of their minds. This conviction has been much increased by observing the manner in which religious people were affected by the late trials, and the emotion, which would otherwise have been uppermost, of disgust at seeing Christianity under the protection of law-officers, and its insults avenged by legal penaltles, was lost in regret that Christians could witness such proceedings with pleasure, applaud the verdict which pronounced open unbelief a crime, and find, in the imprisonment of a Deist, matter for congratulation.

I anticipate the misconstruction, by some, of my motives for making this effort, and am prepared to brave it. "Strike but hear!" The subject is of importance, and never did I enter the pulpit under a more imperious sense of duty. I am no sceptic, as to the essentials of Christianity. Its truth is my trust; its evidences are, to my mind, most convincing; its moral loveliness charms my heart; to its holy precepts I would yield unreserved submission; in the removal of its corruptions and the extension

of its influence I would exert all my powers and spend all my days; and its promises I regard as a sure foundation for the immortal hopes of man. Why is so divine a religion, invulnerable to the darts of hostility, wounded in the house of its friends? Why are not those friends more thoroughly imbued with its just and liberal principles?

Were it possible to forget Christians, and look only at Christianity, the astonishment which many pious people feel at the fact that there are unbelievers, would be fully justified, and the low estimate formed of their minds or characters would be greatly palliated. If impartially weighed, how can the evidences for the divine mission and resurrection of Jesus be resisted? They leave, indeed, the possibility of error, and so does all moral evidence; yet on that evidence man continually acts without hesitation, and must, if he acts at all; nor is it deemed a valid objection, in any similar case, that we cannot arrive at mathematical demonstration. The variety, multiplicity, and cogency of the proofs of the divinity of the Christian religion, place us on the highest ground of conviction which can be reached by this species of evidence. It is possible, but barely possible, that the predictions of ancient prophets, who announced the calamities or prosperity of various countries; who foretold the coming of the Messiah, the place and time of his birth, his character and conduct, the brilliance of his miracles, the purity of his doctrines, the severity of his sufferings, and the triumphs of his cause, were words spoken at random, and that, notwithstanding the history forms so striking a counterpart to them, all is to be accounted for by fortunate guesses and accidental coincidences: it is possible, but barely possible, that Jesus should form of himself a notion of the office of the Messiah completely unlike that which his countrymen entertained, and act upon this fancy, though certain that his imposture would bring neither wealth, honour, nor enjoyment, but hatred, persecution, and death; that his miracles were merely delusions, though his acute and bitter enemies did not attempt to deny or disprove the facts, but fully aflowed them, and ascribed his powers to the agency of evil spirits: it is possible, but barely possible, that a clan of ignorant deceivers should frame a religion with delineations of the character of God, and the duties and prospects of man, infinitely superior to what the wisest and best philosophers ever taught; should propagate it at the peril of every thing dear to man, and succeed in establishing it in the world, in defiance of the opposition of priests and potentates, of the wise, the wealthy, and the powerful of that age: it is possible, but barely possible, that a system so framed and propagated should prevail over all hostility, and become the admiration of the wisest, the delight of the virtuous, the refuge of the afflicted, the source of knowledge, holiness, and joy, to the world. But if this bare possibility be fact, how wretched is our condition! Where shall we look for truth, when accumulate sufficient proof, or, in the moral world, what solid resting place shall we ever find? It appears to me, that we must admit such evidence, or we must admit nothing; must own no proof whatever, except that of our senses, if indeed that is to be excepted, and incarcerate ourselves in the dark dungeon of eternal scepticism.

Christians! draw not too hastily the inference that, if the conclusiveness of these and other proofs be not seen, it can only be attributed to the mental perception being dimmed by the effluvia of a corrupted heart. He to whose sight alone the heart is open, who knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust, can alone be qualified to pronounce such a condemnation; and to him much may be visible which you cannot perceive, productive of an effect so undesirable without inculpating the individual. Nay, you may imagine various pleas which, in the judgment of

charity, onght to be admitted, for the claims of an avowed and activė Deist not to be ranked, in sincerity and rectitude, materially below an honest and active Christian.

This

Is there not in some minds an inherent and constitutional tendency to scepticism, a tendency resulting from that physical organization which combines in some unknown proportion, with early association to form character? I would much rather believe that there is, than believe that every Deist, in a Christian country, is made hostile to truth by the love of iniquity, because it is not only more charitable, but more plausible. In every department of science and history, and where neither the love of virtue nor of vice could be gratified by the conclusion, there have been men who could not yield credence without a greater degree of evidence than sufficed to produce conviction in others. Amongst those who alike admit the authority of the Scriptures there is a gradation of creeds, indi̟cative of the variety of estimates of the evidence requisite to prove a doctrine scriptural. Even the most orthodox leave some few points on which it is allowed to believe or disbelieve, without the imputation of mòral turpitude, and thus, in fact, adinit the principle, that the conclusiveness of evidence may be modified by causes for which we are not responsible. To call this human frailty is saying nothing; for who is frail, he who requires the greater, or the lesser quantum of proof? Each, the other being made a standard; both, compared with a third; all equally, in the judgment of him who tracing variety in all the other works of God, believes its natural existence in the mental constitution of man. diversity exists amongst the believers in Christianity, even as to the proofs on which they admit the divinity of their religion. Suppose those proofs could be represented by a given number, say 50. That which produces conviction in one may be represented by 10; another requires 20; a third 40; another, not satisfied with less than 60, remains an unbeliever. More evidence would have included some who are unbelievers; less would have excluded some who are Christians. But whether Providence had seen fit to give more or less, their moral characters would have been precisely the same; the Christian who, on the one supposition, would have been a Deist, would not have been less meritorious; the Deist who, on the other supposition would have been a Christian, would not have been less depraved. I could easily find amongst you two firm Christians, of whom the one had required twice as much evidence for his faith as the other. Does the latter attribute the total rejection of Christianity to depravity of heart? He is equally liable to the same charge from the more facile believer. No man can indicate for another the mathematical point at which culpable credulity ends, and culpable scepticism begins. He might as well profess to tell the depth to which a ball, with any given momentum, would penetrate into any substance, without knowing the power of resistance which nature has imparted to that substance. Nor can it be said that Christianity has exactly that degree of proof which makes scepticism criminal; for the external proof of Christianity, arising as it does from prophecy and history, must of necessity have been liable to considerable Auctuations, and is not in one generation or country what it is in another generation or country. And if it be asserted, that in all times and places it must have been powerful enough to overcome a constitutional tendency to doubt, unless strengthened by a vicious disposition, the assertion cannot be substantiated without a knowledge of the human mind which belongs only to its maker.

Amongst the most extensive causes of Deism are the corruptions of Christianity, the diversity of opinions held by its professors, and the guilt

and mischief which, to so enormous an extent, are fairly chargeable upon them. Here, it is true that the Deist ought to distinguish, but what Christian shall condemn him for not distinguishing? Not the advocates of these corruptions, for they deem them the genuine gospel. Not the actors of these enormities, for they pretend to justify them by the Gospel. The majority of nominal Christians are worshippers of the Virgin Mary, and believers in transubstantiation, and a still greater majority believers in the Trinity. The majority of nominal Christians for ages were persecutors in fact, and the majority are still, I fear, persecutors in principle. Who is to be condemned for taking their account of their religion, rather than that of an insignificant minority? But the books; he is wrong in not taking his notions of it from the sacred books. Be it so. I think in that he is wrong; but while millions reiterate the censure, I cannot help saying, let him that is without sin cast the first stone. Is there no vilified religion to whose sacred books Christians have never appealed to do it justice? Are not cruelties and absurdities attributed to Mohammedism in conversation, from the press, and in the pulpit, which a Koran from the next bookseller's shop would shew to be mere calumnies? Is not the Hindoo religion daily stigmatized as a system of the grossest idolatry, while an appeal to its sacred books is, in our language, proving that they teach the purest Theism? Nay, if nine Christians out of ten were asked whether the book prosecuted the other day contained arguments for the being and moral perfection of God, and a future state of existence for man, would they not answer in the negative, and do they not talk of it in terms only justified by that assumption? One fault cannot justify another. I am not vindicating the Deist. But if the same or a similar error be alike chargeable upon two classes, neither of them is entitled to adduce it as a proof of the depravity of the other.

That the great diversity of interpretations of the Bible, by different sects should distract the mind of a man who never received from education, or has lost by circumstances, a preference for any one of them, and that he should think that the book must needs want that clearness by which truth is characterized, from which professedly almost any thing and every thing has been both proved and disproved, I can very well conceive, without ascribing to him either stupidity or malignity. The consequent rejection does not appear to me more strange than many of the interpretations. The heretics who think Deists in a damnable error for rejection, should remember that the orthodox think them in a damnable error also for false interpretation. A hundred voices cry to the Deist," Be a Christian, or you cannot be saved, and ought not to be tolerated." He asks, "What is Christianity?" They give him a hundred different answers, and each condemns the rest. Until we, Christians, shall approach somewhat nearer to unanimity, our distractions will operate as a cause of, and furnish a palliation for, infidelity.

Ecclesiastical history is full of foul and bloody deeds, the crimes of the corrupters of Christianity, of the men who have made its name the signal for desolating wars, the means of temporal or spiritual usurpation, the defence of oppressions and extortions, and the pretext for furious persecutions. However these enormities may be mitigated, the Christian Church has not yet disowned either the corrupters or the corruptions, but continues, to a considerable extent, to fraternize with the one, and symbolize with the other. While they do this, and yet allow the moral fruits of a religion to be its surest test, and appeal to that test on behalf of their Christianity, it cannot surprise us that those who look no further should disbelieve it, should shudder at it as the source of incalculable evils.

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