From these different reflections arises a ness, persuasion and doubt; while it has only nixture of light and darkness, a contrast of presumptions and probabilities in favour of recertainty and doubt, infidelity and faith, skep-ligion; it will find it impossible to view death icism and assurance, which makes one of the without terror: but, an enlightened, established nost dreadful states in which an intelligent Christian, finds in his religion a sure refuge foul can be. If men are not a constant prey against all his fears. o the gloomy thoughts that accompany this tate, it is because sensual objects fill the whole apacity of their souls: but there are certain noments of reflection and self-examination, n which reason will adopt these distressing houghts, and oblige us to suffer all their exquisite pain. event me b If a pagan Cato defied death, what cannot a Christian Cato do? If a disciple of Plato could pierce through the clouds, which hid futurity from him, what cannot a disciple of Jesus Christ do? If a few proofs, the dictates of unassisted reason, calmed the agitations of Cato; what cannot all the luminous proofs, all the glorious demonstrations do, which ascertain the evidence of another life? God grant we may know the truth by our own experiences! To him be honour and glory for ever. Amen. T A man, who is arrived at the knowledge of rable Lid d ade Ex 4. Finally, consider the value of truth in regard to the calm which it procures on a deathbed. Truth will render you intrepid at the sight of death. Cato of Utica, it is said, resolved to die, and not being able to survive the liberty of Rome, and the glory of Pompey, desired, above all things, to convince himself of the truth of a future state. Although he had meditated on this important subject throughout the whole course of his life, yet he thought it was necessary to re-examine it at the approach of his death. For this purpose, he withdrew from society, he sought a solitary retreat, he read Plato's book on the immortality of the soul, studied the proofs with attention, and convinced of this grand truth, in tranquility he died. Methinks I hear him answering, persuaded of his immortality, all the reasonings that urge him to continue in life. If Cato had obtained only uncertain conjectures on the immortality of the soul, he would have died with regret; if Cato had known no other world, he would have discovered his weakness in quitting this. But Plato gave Cato satisfaction. Cato was persuaded of another life.. The sword with which he destroyed his natural life, could not touch his immortal soul. The soul of Cato saw another Rome, another republic, in which tyranny should be no more on the throne, in which Pompey would be defeated, and Cesar would triumph no more.* How pleasing is the sight of a heathen, persuading himself of the immortality of the soul by the bare light of reason! And how painful is the remembrance of his staining his reflections with suicide! But I find in the firmness, which resulted from his meditations, a motive to obey the precepts of the Wise Man in the text. While the soul floats in uncertainty, while it hovers between light and dark *Plutarch M. Cato Min. SERMON XV. ENEMIES AND THE ARMS OF CHRISTIANITY. PREACHED ON EASTER DAY. EPHESIANS vi. 11-13. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this World; against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. It is a very remarkable circumstance of the life of Jesus Christ, my brethren, that while he was performing the most public act of his devotedness to the will of God, and while God was giving the most glorious proofs of his approbation of him, Satan attacked him with his most violent assaults. Jesus Christ having spent thirty years in meditation and retirement, preparatory to the important ministry for which he came into the world, had just entered on the functions of it. He had consecrated himself to God by baptism; the Holy Spirit had descended on him in a visible form; a heavenly voice had proclaimed in the air, "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased," Matt. iii. 17, and he was going to meditate forty days and nights on the engagements on which he had entered, and which he intended to fulfil. These circumstances, so proper, in all appearance, to prevent the approach of Satan, are precisely those, of which he availed himself to thwart the design of salvation, by endeavouring to produce rebellious sentiments in the Saviour's mind. Never My brethren, the conduct of this wicked spirit to "the author and finisher of our faith," Heb. xii. 2, is a pattern of his conduct to all them who fight under his banners. does this enemy of our salvation more furiously attack us, than when we seem to be most sure of victory. You, my brethren, will experience his assaults as well as Jesus Christ did. Would to God, we could assure ourselves, that it would be glorious to you, as it was to the divine Redeemer! Providence unites to-day the two festivals of Easter, and the Lord's Supper. In keeping the first, we have celebrated the anniversary of an event, without which "our preaching is vain, your faith is vain, and ye are yet in your sins," 1 Cor. xv. 14. 17. I mean the resurrection of the Saviour of the world. In celebrating the second, you have renewed your professions of fidelity to that Jesus, who was declared, with so much glory, to be the Son of God, by the resurrection of the dead," Rom. i. 4. It is precisely in these circumstances, that Satan renews his efforts to obscure the evidences of your faith, and to weaken your fidelity to Christ. In these circumstances also, we double our efforts to enable you to defeat his assaults, in which, alas! many of us choose rather to yield than to conquer. The strengthening of you is our design; my dear brethren, assist us in it. 66 And thou, O great God, who called us to fight with formidable enemies, leave us not to our own weakness: "teach our hands to war, and our fingers to fight," Ps. cxlvi. 1. Cause us always to triumph in Christ," 2 Cor. ii. "Make us more than conquerors through him that loved us," Rom. viii. 37. Our enemies are thine: "arise, O God, let thine enemies be scattered, let them that hate thee flee before thee?" Amen. Ps. lxviii. 1. 14. All is metaphorical in the words of my text. St. Paul represents the temptations of a Christian under the image of a combat, particularly of a wrestling. In ordinary combats there is some proportion between the combatants; but in this, which engages the Christian, there is no proportion at all. A Christian, who may be said to be, more properly than his Redeemer, "despised and rejected of men," Isa. liii. 3, a man who "is the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things," 1 Cor. iv. 13, is called to resist, not only flesh and blood, feeble men like himself; but men before whom imagination prostrates itself; men, of whom the Holy Spirit says, "Ye are gods," Ps. lxxxii. 6, that is, potentates and kings. "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world." Moreover, a Christian, whatever degree of light and knowledge grace has bestowed on him, whatever degree of steadiness and resolution he has acquired in Christianity, always continues a man who is called to resist a superior order of intelligences, whose power we cannot exactly tell, but who, the Scripture assures us, can, in some circumstances, raise tempests, infect the air, and disorder all the elements; I mean devils. "We wrestle against spiritual wickedness in high places." the figures to truth, I reduce the temptations, with which the devil and his angels attack the Christian, to two general ideas. The first are sophisms, to seduce him from the evidence of truth; and the second are inducements, to make him desert the dominion of virtue. The Christian is able to overcome these two kinds of temptations. The Christian remains victori ous after a war, which seems at first so very unequal. This is precisely the meaning of the text: "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to with stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." 1. The first artifices of Satan are intended to seduce the Christian from the truth, and, we must own, these darts were never so poisonous as they are now. The emissaries of the devil, in the time of St. Paul; the heathen philoso phers, the scribes and pharisees, were but scholars and novices in the art of colouring falsehood, in comparison of our deists and skeptics, and other antagonists of our holy religion. But, however formidable they may appear, we are able to make them "lick the dust," Micah vii. 17, and as the art of disguis ing error was never carried so far before, so, thanks be to God, my brethren, that of unmasking falsehood, and of displaying truth in all its glory, has extended with it. The Christian knows how to disentangle truth from six artifices of error. There are six sophisms, that prevail in those wretched productions, which our age has brought forth for the purpose of subverting the truth. 1. The first artifice is the confounding of those matters, which are proposed to our discussion; and the requiring of metaphysical evidence of facts which are not capable of it. 2. The second artifice is the opposing of possible circumstances against other circumstances, which are evident and sure. 3. The next artifice pretends to weaken the evidence of known things, by arguments taken from things that are unknown. 4. The fourth artifice is an attempt to ren der the doctrines of the gospel absurd and contradictory, under pretence that they are obscure. 5. The fifth article proposes arguments foreign from the subject in hand. 6. The last forms objections, which derive their weight, not from their own intrinsic gravity; but from the superiority of the genius of him who proposes them. As St. Paul represents the temptations of a 1. The matters, which are proposed to our Christian under the notion of a war, so he re-discussion, are confounded; and metaphysical presents the dispositions, that are necessary to overcome them, under the idea of armour. In the words, which follow the text, he carries the metaphor farther than the genius of our language will allow. He gives the Christian a military belt, and shoes, a helmet, a sword, a shield, a buckler, with which he resists all the fiery darts of the wicked. But I cannot discuss all these articles without diverting this exercise from its chief design. By laying aside the figurative language of the apostle, and by reducing evidence of facts is required, which are not, in the nature of them, capable of this kind of evidence. We call that metaphysical evidence, which is founded on a clear idea of the essence of a subject. For example, we have a clear idea of a certain number: if we affirm, that the number, of which we have a clear idea, equal, or unequal, the proposition is capable of metaphysical evidence: but a question of fact can only be proved by a union of circumstances, no one of which, taken apart, would be E 1 ufficient to prove the fact, but which taken | dispute against infidelity; when we establish l together, make a fact beyond a doubt. As the existence of a Supreme Being; when we is not allowable to oppose certain circum- affirm that the Creator of the universe is eterhances against a proposition that has meta-nal in his duration, wise in his designs, powerysical evidence, so it is unreasonable to ful in his executions, and magnificent in his quire metaphysical evidence to prove a mat-gifts; we do not reason on probabilities, nor r of fact. I have a clear notion of a given attempt to establish a thesis on a may-be. We umber; I conclude from this notion, that the do not say, perhaps there may be a firmament, mber is equal or unequal, and it is in vain that covers us; perhaps there may be a sun, object to me, that all the world does not which enlightens us; perhaps there may be ason as I do. Let it be objected to me, that stars, which shine in the firmament; perhaps ey, who affirm that the number is equal or the earth may support us; perhaps aliment equal, have perhaps some interest in affirm- may nourish us; perhaps we breathe; perhaps g it. Objections of this kind are nothing to air may assist respiration; perhaps there may e purpose, they are circumstances which do be a symmetry in nature, and in the elements. bot at all affect the nature of the number, nor We produce these phenomena, and we make e evidence on which I affirm an equality, or them the basis of our reasoning, and of our faith. inequality, of the given number; for I have clear idea of the subject in hand. In like anner, I see a union of circumstances, which iformly attests the truth of a fact under my amination; I yield to this evidence, and in in is it objected to me, that it is not metaysical evidence, the subject before me is not tipable of it. We apply this maxim to all the facts on hich the truth of religion turns, such as ese: there was such a man as Moses, who dated what he saw, and who himself wrought everal things which he recorded. There were Ach men as the prophets, who wrote the books at bear their names, and who foretold many vents several ages before they came to pass. esus, the son of Mary, was born in the reign the emperor Augustus, preached the docfines which are recorded in the gospel, and by ucifixion was put to death. We make a articular application of this maxim to the reurrection of Jesus Christ, which we this day ommemorate, and it forms a shield to resist the fiery darts that attack it. The resurection of Jesus Christ is a fact, which we ught to prove; it is an extraordinary fact, for he demonstration of which, we allow, stronger roofs ought to be adduced, than for the proof if a fact that comes to pass in the ordinary ourse of things. But after all, it is a fact; nd, in demonstrating facts no proofs ought to be required, but such as establish facts. We have the better right to reason thus with our opponents, because they do not support their historical skepticisms without restrictions. On the contrary, they admit some facts, which they believe on the evidence of a very few circumstances. But if a few circumstances demonstrate some facts, why does not a union of all possible circumstances demonstrate other facts. 2. The second artifice is the opposing of possible circumstances, which may or may not be against other circumstances which are evident and sure. All arguments, that are founded on possible circumstances, are only uncertain conjectures, and groundless suppositions. Perhaps there may have been floods, perhaps fires, perhaps earthquakes, which, by abolishing the memorials of past events, prevent our tracing things back from age to age to demonstrate the eternity of the world, and our discovery of monuments against religion. This is a strange Way of reasoning against men, who are armed with arguments which are taken from phenomena avowed, notorious, and real. When we 3. The third artifice consists in the weakening of the evidence of known_things, by arguments taken from things which are unknown. This is another source of sophisms invented to support infidelity. It grounds a part of the difficulties, which are opposed to the system of religion, not on what is known, but on what is unknown. Of what use are all the treasures, which are concealed in the depths of the sea? Why are so many metals buried in the bowels of the earth? Of what use are so many stars, which glitter in the firmament? Why are there so many deserts uninhabited, and uninhabitable? Why so many mountains inaccessible? Why so many insects, which are a burden to nature, and which seem designed only to disfigure it? Why did God create men, who must be miserable, and whose misery he could not but foresee? Why did he confine revelation for so many ages to one single nation, and, in a manner, to one single family? Why does he still leave such an infinite number of people to "sit in darkness and in the shadow of death?" Hence the infidel concludes, either that there is no God, or that he has not the perfections which we attribute to him. The Christian, on the contrary, grounds his system on principles that are evident and sure. We derive our arguments, not from what we know not, but from what we do know. We derive them from characters of intelligence, which fall under our observation, and which we see with our own eyes. We derive them from the nature of finite beings. We derive them from the united attestations of all mankind. We derive them from miracles, which were wrought in favour of religion. We draw them from our own hearts, which evince, by a kind of reasoning superior to all argument, superior to all scholastic demonstrations, that religion is made for man, that the Creator of man is the author of religion. 4. The fourth article is an attempt to prove a doctrine contradictory and absurd, because it is obscure. Some doctrines of religion are obscure; but none are contradictory. God acts towards us in regard to the doctrines of faith, as he does in regard to the duties of practice. When he gives us laws, he gives them as a master, not as a tyrant. Were he to impose laws on us, which are contrary to order, which would debase our natures, and which would make innocence productive of misery; this would not be to ordain laws as a master, but as a tyrant. Then our duties would be in di rect opposition. That, which would oblige us to obey, would oblige us to rebel. It is the eminence of the perfections of God, which engages us to obey him: but his perfections would be injured by the imposition of such laws as these, and therefore we should be instigated to rebellion. and error. In like manner, God has characterized truth Were it possible for him to give error the characters of truth, and truth the characters of error, there would be a direct opposition in our ideas; and the same reason which would oblige us to believe, would oblige us to disbelieve: because that which engages us to believe, when God speaks, is, that he is infallibly true. Now, if God were to command us to believe contradictions, he would cease to be infallibly true; because nothing is more opposite to truth than self-contradiction. This is the maxim, which we admit, and on which we ground our faith in the mysteries of religion. A wise man ought to know his own weakness; to convince himself that there are questions which he has not capacity to answer; to compare the greatness of the object with the littleness of the intelligence, to which the object is proposed; and to perceive that this disproportion is the only cause of some difficulties, which have appeared so formidable to him. Let us form grand ideas of the Supreme Being. What ideas ought we to form of him? Never has a preacher a fairer opportunity of giving a scope to his meditation, and of letting his imagination loose, than when he describes the grandeur of that which is most grand. But I do not mean to please your fancies by pompous descriptions; but to edify your minds by distinct ideas. God is an infinite Being. In an infinite being there must be things which infinitely surpass finite understanding; it would be absurd to suppose otherwise. As the Scripture treats of this infinite God, it must necessarily treat of subjects which absorb the ideas of a finite mind. 5. The fifth article attacks the truth by arguments foreign from the subject under consideration. To propose arguments of this kind is one of the most dangerous tricks of error. The most essential precaution, that we can use, in the investigation of truth, is to distinguish that which is foreign from the subject from that which is really connected with it; and there is no question in divinity, or philosophy, casuistry, or policy, which could afford abstruse and endless disputes, were not every one, who talks of it, fatally ingenious in the art of incorporating in it a thousand ideas, which are foreign from it. You hold such and such doctrines, say some: and yet Luther, Calvin, and a hundred celebrated divines in your communion, have advanced many false arguments in defence of it. But what does this signify to me? The question is not whether these doctrines have been defended by weak arguments; but whether the arguments, that determine me to receive them, be conclusive, or sophistical and vague. You receive such a doctrine: but Origen, Tertullian, and St. Augustine, did not believe it. And what then? Am I inquiring what these fathers did believe, or what they ought to have believed? You believe such a doctrine: but very few people believe it beside yourself: the greatest part of Europe, almost all France, all Spain, all Italy, whole kingdoms disbelieve it, and maintain opinions diametrically opposite. And what is all this to me? Am I examining what doctrines have the greatest number of partisans, or what doctrines ought to have the most universal spread? You embrace such a doctrine: but many illustrious persons, cardinals, kings, emperors, triple-crowned heads, reject what you receive. But what avails this reasoning to me? Am I considering the rank of those who receive a doctrine, or the reasons which ought to deter mine them to receive it? Have cardinals, have kings, have emperors, have triple-crowned heads, the clearest ideas? Do they labour more than all other men? Are they the most indefatigable inquirers after truth? Do they make the greatest sacrifices to order? Are t they, of all mankind, the first to lay aside those prejudices and passions, which envelope and obscure the truth? 6. The last artifice is this: Objections which “ are made against the truth, derive their force, not from their own reasonableness, but from the superiority of the genius of him who proposes in them. There is no kind of truth, which itsy defenders would not be obliged to renounce, were it right to give up a proposition, because we could not answer all the objections which were formed against it. A mechanic could not answer the arguments, that I could propose to him, to prove, when he walks, that there is no motion in nature, that it is the fi highest absurdity to suppose it. A mechanic could not answer the arguments, that I could propose to him, to prove that there is no matter, even while he felt and touched his own body, which is material. A mechanic could not answer the arguments, that I could pro-st pose to him, when he had finished his day's work, to prove that I gave him five shillings, i even when I had given him but three. And yet, a mechanic has more reason for his asser tions, than the greatest geniuses in the uni verse have for their objections, when he affirms, that I gave him but three shillings, that there is motion, that there is a mass of matter to which his soul is united, and in which it is but too often, in a manner, buried as in a tomb. You simple, but sincere souls: you spirits of the lowest class of mankind, but often of the highest at the tribunal of reason and good sense, this article is intended for you. Weigh the words of the second commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, thou shalt not bow down thyself to them." You have more reason to justify your doctrine and worship, than all the doctors of the universe have to condemn them, by their most specious, and, in regard to you, by their most indissoluble objections. Worship Jesus Christ in imitation of the angels of heaven, to whom God said, "Let all the angels of God worship him," Heb. i. 6. Pray to him, after the example of St. Stephen, and say unto him, as that holy martyr said, in the hour of death, E Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," Acts vil. 59. | sistent with it. However, all that they aim Believe on the testimony of the inspired wri- at is, to unite heaven and hell, and, by a moners, that he is eternal, as his Father is; that, strous assemblage of heterogeneous objects, ith the Father, he is the Creator of the world; they propose to make us enjoy the pleasures at, like the Father, he is Almighty; that he of sin and the joys of heaven. If Satan were has all the essential attributes of the Deity, as openly to declare to us, that we must proe Father has. You have more reason for claim war with God; that we must make an ese doctrines, and for this worship than the alliance with him against the divine power; -lost refined sophists have for all their most that we must oppose his majesty: reason and pecious objections, even for those which, to conscience would reject propositions so deou, are the most unanswerable. "Hold that testable and gross. But, when he attacks us st which ye have," let "no man take your by such motives as we have related; when town," Rev. iii. 11. he tells us, not that we must renounce the hopes of heaven, but that a few steps in an easy path will conduct us thither. When he invites us, not to deny religion, but to content ourselves with observing a few articles of it. When he does not strive to render us insensible to the necessities of a poor neighbour, but to convince us that we should first take care of ourselves, for charity, as they say, begins at home:-do you not conceive, my brethren, that there is in this morality a secret poison, which slides insensibly into the heart, and corrodes all the powers of the soul? II. We have seen the darts which Satan oots at us, to subdue us to the dominion of Tor: let us now examine those with which e aims to make us submit to the empire of ice: but, lest we should overcharge your emories with too many precepts, we will ake a method different from that which we ave followed in the former part of this disourse; and, in order to give you a more vely idea of that steadiness, with which the postle intended to animate us, we will show your reduced to practice; we will represent ach a Christian, as St. Paul himself describes the text, "wrestling against flesh and blood, gainst principalities, against powers, against he rulers of the darkness of this world, against piritual wickedness in high places." We ill show you the Christian resisting four orts of the fiery darts of the wicked. The alse maxims of the world. The pernicious xamples of the multitude. Threatenings nd persecutions. And the snares of sensual pleasures. 1. Satan attacks the Christian with "false naxims of the world." These are some of hem. Christians are not obliged to practise rigid morality. In times of persecution, it sallowable to palliate our sentiments, and, if he heart be right with God, there is no harm na conformity to the world. The God of religion is the God of nature, and it is not conceivable, that religion should condemn the feelings of nature; or, that the ideas of fire and brimstone, with which the Scriptures are filled, should have any other aim, than to prevent men from carrying vice to extremes: they cannot mean to restrain every act of sin. The time of youth is a season of pleasure. We ought not to aspire at saintship. must do as other people do. It is beneath a man of honour to put up with an affront; a gentleman ought to require satisfaction. No reproof is due to him who hurts nobody but himself. Time must be killed. Detraction is the salt of conversation. Impurity, indeed, is intolerable in a woman; but it is very pardonable in men. Human frailty excuses the greatest excesses. To pretend to be perfect in virtue, is to subvert the order of things, and to metamorphose man into a pure disembodied intelligence. My brethren, how easy it is to make proselytes to a religion so exactly fitted to the depraved propensities of the human heart! The Christian is not vulnerable by any of these maxims. He derives help from the religion, which he professes, against all the efforts that are employed to divert him from it; and he conquers by resisting Satan as Jesus Christ resisted him, and, like him, opposes maxim against maxim, the maxims of Christ against the maxims of the world. Would Satan persuade us, that we follow a morality too rigid? It is written, we must "enter in at a strait gate," Matt. vii. 13; "pluck out the right eye, cut off the right hand," chap. v. 29, 30: "deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ," chap. xvi. 24. Does Satan say it is allowable to conceal our religion in a time of persecution? It is written, we must confess Jesus Christ; "whosoever shall deny him before men, him will he deny before his Father who is in heaven; he who loveth father or mother more than him, is not worthy of him," chap. x. 32, 33. 37. Would Satan inspire us with revenge? It is written, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves," Rom. xii. 19. Does Satan require us to devote our youthful days to sin? It is written, "Remenber thy Creator in the days of thy youth," Ec "Be ye We cles. xii. 1. Does Satan tell us that we must These maxims have a singular character, they seem to unite that which is most irreguar with that which is most regular in the heart; and they are the more likely to subvert our faith, because they seem to be con VOL. I.-19 |