Part 34

I have shewn, in the next place, what St. Paul meant, when he told the Romans he was not ashamed of this gospel: He was neither ashamed to believe it as a man, nor to profess it as a christian, nor to preach it to others as a minister, nor to defend it as a good soldier of Christ, nor to suffer and die for it as a martyr.

The third thing which I proposed, was to make it appear, that all the occasions of shame, which men of infidelity pretend to raise from this gospel, may be answered upon the fair and just principles of reason and argument. The first sort of reproaches are those which are cast upon the doctrines of the gospel, and I hope I have rolled them away.

I repeat no more of these things, but proceed to the next sort of occasions of shame, and these are such as are supposed to arise from the professors of this gospel; and I shall endeavour to shew you also Low they may be answered. They are chiefly these four.

I. Some will say, “The professors of this gospel in the beginning were the weak, and foolish, and mean things of this world; but it was despised by the wise, it was scorned by the great and honourable, and persecuted by the mighty. Why should a Paul, a pharisee, a doctor of the law, become a follower of a carpenter’s Son, and associate with a parcel of fishermen? This is a scandal, and foolish indeed. _Who among the pharisees or rulers have believed on him_; John vii. 48.” This was the stumbling-block of the gospel in that age, and it is the stumbling-block at which many persons take offence in our age too. “It is the unthinking multitude, say they, the mere mob of mankind, that are led away with the noise of strange things and the gospel. And it is only those who have no relish of good sense that can dispense with mysteries. The poorer and weaker sort of men and women flock after your powerful preachers of the gospel, but wise men despise it.” I am very glad, my friends, if in your conversation you meet with no such persons that ridicule the gospel at this rate. But there are many in our age and nation arrived at this height of pride and contempt of the gospel.

This objection may have more answers than one given to it; as _first_, it is a matter of unjust reproach, and it is false in fact; for all the professors of this gospel are not weak and unlearned. There have been in the very beginning of christianity some wise, some great persons, that have given testimony to this gospel by their believing it. St. Paul was a man of no weak reason, no mean understanding, no small learning, and yet he believes this gospel, and professes he is not ashamed of it.

And there have been in most ages of the church some instances of the power and success of this gospel in converting philosophers and senators and princes. The learned, the ingenious, and the noble amongst mankind have sometimes given up their names to Christ, have yielded their assent to his doctrines, and conformed their hearts and lives to the rules of his gospel. Men of wit and reason have been converted to the faith, and then have exerted their peculiar talents in the defence of christianity, and they have convinced the world that they had neither left their reason nor their wit behind them when they became christians. Men of grandeur and power have sometimes also supported it with honour.

But the number of these have not been exceeding great. God has ordained that there should be some, to shew that it is no foolish and unreasonable doctrine, that it is not a religion unworthy of kings, nor unbecoming the wisest and the greatest of characters. But if there have been but a few great and wise have embraced it, it is evident that its success and glory is not owing to the wisdom and power of men, but to the divinity of its doctrines, and the power of God.

Besides, I might tell you, _secondly_, that riches, and grandeur, and elevated degrees of wit and learning, become a sore temptation to pride of mind and self-sufficiency. Now the faith of the gospel is founded in humility, and self-diffidence, and poverty of spirit; and this is one plain reason why it was received by so few of the rich, and the learned, and the mighty among men, though it was contrived and invented by God himself.

I answer, in the _third_ place, that it is one of the designed characters of the true gospel of Christ, and it is foretold by the ancient prophets, that when it should come to be preached upon the earth, the poor should receive it. Its reception by the poor and weak among men, is one evidence that it comes from God; Mat. xi. 5. When John the baptist sent his disciples to our Saviour to know whether he was the Messiah, or must they expect another? _Go, tell John, the blind receive sight, the deaf hear, and the lame walk, and to the poor the gospel is preached; blessed is he that is not offended in me, &c._ Go, and give John this very account I now relate to you, and tell him these are my credentials, these are the testimonials I bring. John will infer that I am the Messiah, and this is the true gospel that I preach; for the great and rich, and the pretenders to wisdom among the Jews, account it _a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence_, and only a few of the poor receive it; as it was foretold by the prophets.

Each of us may say therefore, if only the wise, or the great, or the rich, believed it, it must have been such a gospel as I could never have believed; for it wanted one character which is necessarily adjoined to it, that is, that the poor receive the gospel: _Father, I thank thee_, says our Lord, _that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, but thou hast revealed them unto babes_; Mat xi. 25. “It pleased God, when the world by wisdom knew not God,” to darken all their wisdom, and turn it into folly, and to call those that were esteemed fools, and make them wise in believing the gospel, of Christ. It has pleased God to chuse the mean, and _weak, and contemptible things of this world to confound the wise and mighty_. It has pleased him to chuse the _things that are not, to bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh might glory in his presence_; 1 Cor. i. 27, &c.

II. It is another occasion of stumbling or shame in the gospel of Christ, that some of the professors of it are vicious in their lives. “Will you believe such a gospel, says an infidel, that does not restrain the professors of it from the worst of sins?”

This, I confess, gives it great dishonour among the men of the world, and is sometimes ready to shake the faith of younger christians; they know not how to go on farther in christianity, for such and such that made great profession, you see how they are fallen. This is a common temptation of the devil; it is a frequent snare, and there hath been many a pious soul that hath been in danger of being caught thereby. The vices of some professors were great even in St. Paul’s days: There were some among the Philippians; Phil. iii. 18. “Of whom I have told you often, and now even weeping, that they walk as enemies to the cross of Christ, and cast scandal and shame upon it. It makes my eyes flow with tears, and my soul bleed within me to hear of it: The gospel of Christ is so much dishonoured by these means.”

But if we take a nearer view, we shall see that no doctrine ought to fare the worse, because some wicked men are professors of it. It was not counted a discredit to philosophy, that some of the professors of it, who hated the gospel, were vicious in their lives. I would ask the deist now, is there any ground to disbelieve natural religion, because there are some that make profession of it are fallen into great sins? The gospel itself _teaches us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts_, and does not indulge one of them. And they are said to be enemies to the cross of Christ, when their conversation is all earthly, when their God is their belly, and their glory is their shame. This is no fault of the gospel, for they felt not the power of it. Nor is there any religion or profession in the world that would have had any followers at all by this time, if men must have entirely cashiered that religion, because there have been some persons vicious that have been professors of it. There is no sect, no religion in the world, though the institution and the rules of it have been ever so pious, but what has produced some persons that have been vicious in their lives.

But this cavil is still carried on, and urged with much vehemence. “If the gospel of Christ were a religion so heavenly, and so divine in its original, as you pretend, surely the nations that profess it would eminently exceed all other nations in piety, in justice and goodness: whereas the nations that now a-days embrace christianity, are not at all superior to the Mahometans, nor to some of the heathens, either in duty that relates to God or man: And if we may give credit to ancient history, the virtues of the old Romans, long before the days of Julius Cæsar, shone much brighter than any of the virtues of the baptized nations: There was more truth and honesty, more devotion to the heavenly powers, more of a public spirit and zeal for their country’s good, than we can find in any christian kingdoms or states now-a-days.” To this I would give these three answers:

1. The account which we have of the shining virtues of these best ages of heathenism, is given us only by their own posterity, who lived in succeeding ages. Now it is the well-known temper and custom of mankind to magnify the virtue of their ancestors, and to say, that the former times are better than these; But you have scarce any heathen writers, who do not describe their own ages as vicious enough, if they have occasion to talk upon that subject. And therefore there is just reason to suspect the strict truth of these encomiums of their fore-fathers.

2. Although some social virtues in a heathen country might really flourish more for an age or two, springing from the principles of ambition, and honour, and love to their own country; yet there were such vices also practised among many of the gentile nations, which are seldom heard or known among christians: The apostle describes them in Rom. i. 26. and that in such a manner, as leads us to believe, that they were practised by those who professed wisdom among them.

It must be acknowledged also, that these nations were gross idolaters, and worshipped many gods, and that even in the times when their social virtues were most conspicuous. Now this is most highly criminal in the sight of the great and sovereign God, the Creator of all things: And the warmer and the more zealous were their devotions which they paid to these idols, with the neglect or contempt of the true God, the greater was their guilt and abomination.

But, 3. The chief answer I give is this, that when whole kingdoms are made christians merely by birth, education, and custom, it is not to be supposed that a twentieth part of them believe the gospel upon any just and reasonable principles of knowledge and choice. When whole cities and nations are worshippers of Christ, no otherwise than the Ephesians were worshippers of Diana, or the Turks of Mahomet, it is not reasonable to expect that there should be much difference in the virtues of such a national sort of Christians, Mahometans, or Heathens; for the principle from which all their religion springs is the same, namely, their education, custom, and fashion of their country; and therefore their vices are much the same as they would be according to the present reigning humour, disposition, or political temper of the nation, whatsoever were their form of religion and their established worship.

The true way therefore to put these things to the test, is to consider those christians only who believe and profess the gospel from knowledge, and choice, and inward conviction, and who make their religion a matter of solemnity and importance and not of mere form and custom. Now if you separate these from the rest of mankind, I am well assured, that as bad as the christian world is, you will find all the human and divine virtues more gloriously practised among such christians as these, than among an equal number of the professors of any other religion under the sun: For inward christianity, and the faith of the gospel, when it is built upon just foundations, will necessarily draw along with it such a train of virtues and graces, as shall _adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour_; and by such a comparison as this, men would be constrained to confess that _God is among us of a truth_.

III. The various and divided opinions, the sects and parties that are found in the christian world, have been another occasion of scandal and offence to the infidels. “How can we ever come, say they, to any certainty what your religion is, since you do not agree about it among yourselves?”

“All Europe pretends to be christian, and to believe the gospel; yet France, and Spain, and Italy, and Poland, and a good part of Germany, tell us, that true christianity is found only amongst them. But in the countries of Denmark, Sweden, and the northern parts of Germany, and in the British islands, there is another religion professed, of a very different kind, and they call theirs the pure gospel, and reformed christianity. The protestant and the papist divide these western parts of the world, and they are ready to tear one another to pieces upon the account of their different opinions and practices. Now if the books that contain the religion of Christ be of so very uncertain sense and signification, truly we are ashamed of such a doubtful religion; it is even as well for us to content ourselves with the religion that the light of nature teaches us, and the dictates of our common reason, which we think has more certainty in it.”

To this I answer, that it is a great mistake to imagine that the light of nature and reason, if left entirely to itself in this corrupt and fallen state, has more certainty in its determinations than scripture hath. How many wild opinions hath the corrupt mind of man produced among the inhabitants of the heathen world, and this same light of nature has not corrected them? What infinite diversity of vain and monstrous fancies hath past for religion and devotion among them? And the light of nature has been supposed to dictate some of them, for they did not always pretend revelation for them. There have been wide and irreconcileable differences among the philosophers, as well as among the priests and the people of different nations. The light of nature and reason is a poor dark bewildered thing, if it hath no commerce, nor communication with persons who have been favoured with divine revelation. It is only the scripture that has established and ascertained the doctrines of natural religion: And it is to the scripture that the deists of our age are obliged for their greater acquaintance with natural religion than ever their forefathers, the heathen philosophers, arrived at, though they are too proud to acknowledge it. If they agree better, and are more uniform in their principles now than the old epicureans, the stoics, and the platonists were, it is all owing to a more intimate acquaintance with the writings of Moses and the prophets, the evangelists, and the apostles; so that it is with a very ill grace that our present infidels can object to christians their difference of opinions, and pretend that this is a ground of shame to the gospel of Christ, and a reason why they do not believe or profess it.

But I come now to give some account of the true reasons of such divisions of sect and party among christians. There are two great causes of these divisions, and the charge is not to be laid upon the gospel of Christ, nor upon the books that contain it.

1. The first cause is, that the papist does not pretend to derive his religion merely from the bible; but he brings in the Jewish apocryphal writers of ancient ages, and lays them also for a foundation of his faith; and he makes the traditions of the christian church, which he pretends to have been delivered down from age to age, of almost the same authority as the scripture itself: And some of their authors have raised these traditions to equal dignity with the scripture, as being built upon the same foundation, _viz._ the authority of the church. As they have many things in their religion which they cannot find in the word of God; so they think it is sufficient if they can support them by these pretended traditions of the church. Whereas the protestant takes nothing for the ground of his faith but the books of the Old and New Testament; and what he cannot find written there, nor derived thence by most obvious and evident consequences, he does not profess it as any necessary part of his christianity. The religion of the protestant therefore is abundantly more conformable to the gospel of Christ, both in the doctrines and the worship of it, because it derives the whole from the word of God: But it is no wonder at all that there should be such a difference between them and the papists, when they lay such different foundations for their faith and practice.

2. Another reason why the protestant and papist differ so much is, because the papist pretends that there is an infallible judge among them to determine all controversies; and that their popes, and their councils, which they call the church, have authority to appoint what shall be esteemed the true articles of faith, and to bring in rites and ceremonies into their worship according to their own invention and pleasure. And that all the people are bound to believe as the church bids them believe, and to practise in matters of worship whatsoever the church bids them practise: And upon this account they forbid the scripture to be read by the common people, that they may not learn the truth of the gospel, but may take all for gospel which they teach them, and be content with it. Whereas the protestant has nothing else but his bible to have recourse to for the conclusion of all controversies; and he encourages every man to use his bible, and to judge for himself concerning the sense and meaning of it, using the best helps that he can obtain for this end: The protestant ministers teach him not only what they know of the gospel, but they put the bible into his hand, and bid him search and see whether things are so or no, that thence he may learn what are those doctrines and those duties which Christ has required him to believe and practise. Thence it comes to pass, that there are almost a thousand things in popery, which the protestants utterly disown, because they disown the power of the pope, or church, to stamp new articles of faith, or invent new forms of worship.

Objection. But it may be said still, there are so many different sects and parties among the protestants themselves, as encourages the deist to maintain his charge and accusation.—“Why do you, saith he, who profess to derive all your religion from the scripture, differ so much among yourselves, both in doctrine, in worship, and in the order of your churches, if the _gospel of Christ_ be so excellent a religion, and if the books that contain it can give you so plain and certain a knowledge of it!”

I answer, That almost all those things wherein protestants differ, are but of smaller importance in religion, in comparison of those many and great things wherein they agree. The chief and most important points of christianity are written with so much plainness and evidence in the word of God, as would lead all humble, honest, sincere and diligent enquirers into a belief of them, and consent in them. Now it is not necessary that the lesser matters of christianity should be written down so expressly in scripture: For the all-wise God thought it proper to leave many of these articles of less importance more dubious and obscure, both to awaken the diligence of men to study his word, and to leave amongst them some occasions for the exercise of their mutual charity and forbearance. Our blessed Lord has thought it proper to put the universal love which he requires amongst his followers, to this test or trial, to see whether they will cultivate peace and charity to one another amidst their various and divided opinions in things of less concernment.

I confess there are some differences among protestants in the great doctrines of the Trinity, and the satisfaction of Christ, which must be acknowledged to be articles of very high moment and importance in christianity. But if we compare those few who profess dangerous opinions in these points with the millions that agree in the same general profession of faith, it will be found that their number is but very small. If we consider the great ignorance of God, which is found in all men by nature, and take a survey of the unhappy influences that education, fancy, passion, pride, friendship, aversion, precipitance and laziness, have upon mankind in forming their judgments and opinions, we shall not wonder to find some persons here and there falling into strange sentiments, contrary to the plain and sufficient evidence of scripture. We believe in general, that whoever puts off all prejudices, and is piously sincere in his search of the word of God, shall certainly find, through divine assistance, all needful truth. If therefore a disbeliever come with a serious, humble, and pious mind, and apply himself with diligence and fervent prayer to read the scripture; I am well assured he will become a christian, and find out so much of the doctrines and duties of the gospel, as are necessary to his eternal happiness.