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SERMON I.

THE PERFECTION OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

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HEB. V. 12-14. vi. 1-9.

For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness; for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of age have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.-Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, LET US GO ON UNTO PERFECTION, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do if God permit.

I HAVE put two subjects together which are closely connected, and I intend to explain both in this discourse. The last part of the text is a consequence of the first. In the first, St. Paul reproves some Christians for their little knowledge; in the last, he exhorts them to increase it: and the connexion of both will apbpear, if you attend to the subject under his is consideration. The Epistle to the Hebrews, which may be considered as the apostle's principal work, treats of the most difficult points of divinity and morality. In particular, this is the idea that must be formed of Melchisedec's priesthood, as a prefiguration of Jesus Christ's. This mysterious subject the apostle had begun to discuss, but he had not proceeded far in it before he found himself at a stand, by recollecting the character of those to whom he was writing. He describes them in the text, as men who were grown old in the profession of Christianity indeed, but who knew nothing more of it than its first principles: and he endeavours to animate them with the laudable ambition of penetrating the noblest parts of that excellent system of religion, which Jesus Christ had published, and which his apostles had explained in all its beauty, and in all its extent.

This general notion of St. Paul's design, in the words of my text, is the best comment on his meaning, and the best explication that we can give of his terms.

By the first principles of the oracles of God, to which the Hebrews confined themselves, the apostle means the rudiments of that science of which God is the object; that is, Christian divinity and morality: and these rudiments are here also called the principles of Christ,* that is, the first principles of that doctrine which Jesus Christ had taught. These are compared to milk, which is given to children incapable of digesting strong meat; and they are opposed to the profound knowledge of those, who have been habituated by long exercise to study and meditation, or, as the apostle expresses it, "who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

In this class St. Paul places, first, repentance from dead works, and faith towards God. These were the first truths which the heralds of the της αρχής του χριστου λόγος. VOL. I.-6

gospel preached to their hearers: to them they said, "Repent, and believe the gospel."

St. Paul places in the same class, secondly, the doctrine of baptisms, that is, the confession of faith that was required of those who had resolved to profess Christianity and to be baptized. Of such persons a confession was required, and their answers to certain questions were demanded. The formularies that have been used upon this occasion, have been extremely diversified at different places and in different times, but the most ancient are the shortest and the most determinate. One question that was put to the catechumen, was, "Dost thou renounce the devil?" to which he answered, "I renounce him." Another was, "Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ?" to which he replied, "I believe in him." St. Cyprian calls these questions the baptismal interrogatory; and the answers are called by Tertullian, the answer of salvation: and we have a passage upon this article in an author still more respectable, I mean St. Peter, who says, Baptism doth also now save us; not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God," 1 Pet. iii. 21; that is, the answer that was given by the catechumen before his baptism.

Thirdly, Among the rudiments or first principles of Christianity, St. Paul puts the laying on of hands, by which we understand the gift of miracles, which the apostles communicated, by imposition of hands to those who embraced the gospel. We have several instances of this in Scripture, and a particular account of it in the eighth chapter of Acts, verses 11, 12, 14, 17. It is there said, that Philip, having undeceived many of the Samaritans, whom Simon the sorcerer "had of a long time bewitched, baptized both men and women," and that the apostles, Peter and John, "laid their hands on them," and by that ceremony communicated to them the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

The resurrection of the dead, and the eternal judgment, two other articles which St. Paul places in the same class; articles believed by the weakest Christians, received by the greatest part of the Jews, and admitted by even many of the heathens. Now the apostle wishes that the Hebrews, leaving these principles,

would aspire to be perfect. Let us go on unto | stinacy in maintaining, after so much rashness perfection, says he; let us proceed from the and presumption in advancing, such phantoms. catechumen state, to a thorough acquaintance For, my brethren, of all obstinate people, none with that religion, which is wisdom among them excel more in their dreadful kind, than those that are perfect; that is, a system of doctrine who are prejudiced in favour of certain syswhich cannot be well understood by any except tems. A man who does not think himself caby such as the heathens called perfect. They pable of forming a connected system, can bear denominated those perfect, who did not rest in contradiction, because, if he be obliged to give a superficial knowledge of a science, but who up some of the propositions which he has adendeavoured thoroughly to understand the vanced, some others which he embraces will whole. This was the design of St. Paul in not be disputed, and what remains may inwriting to the Hebrews; and this is ours in ad- demnify him for what he surrenders. But a dressing you. man prepossessed with an imaginary system of We will endeavour, first, to give you as exact his own, has seldom so much teachableness. and adequate a notion as we can of Christian He knows, that if one link be taken away, his divinity and morality, and from thence infer, chain falls to pieces; and that there is no rethat you can neither see the beauty, nor reap moving a single stone from his building withthe benefit, of either of them, while you con- out destroying the whole edifice: he considers fine yourselves, as most of you do, to a few the upper skins which covered the tabernacle, loose principles, and continue unacquainted as typical as the ark in the holy place, or the with the whole system or body of religion. mercy-seat itself. The staff with which Jacob Secondly, We will inquire, why so many of passed over Euphrates, and of which he said, us do confine our attention to these first truths," with my staff I passed over this river,” seems and never proceed to the rest. to him as much designed by the Spirit of God, to typify the cross on which Jesus Christ redeemed the church, as the serpent of brass which was lifted up in the desert by the express command of God himself.

Lastly, We will give you some directions how to increase your knowledge, and to attain that perfection to which St. Paul endeavoured to conduct the Hebrews. This is the whole that we propose to treat of in this discourse.

I. It is evident from the nature of Christianity, that you can neither see its beauties, nor reap its benefits, while you attend only to some loose principles, and do not consider the whole system: for the truths of religion form a system, a body of coherent doctrines, closely connected, and in perfect harmony. Nothing better distinguishes the accurate judgment of an orator, or a philosopher, than the connexion of his orations or systems. Unconnected systems, orations, in which the author is determined only by caprice and chance, as it were, to place the proposition which follows after that which precedes, and that which has precedence of that which follows; such orations and systems are less worthy of rational beings, than of creatures destitute of intelligence, whom nature has formed capable of producing sounds indeed, but not of forming ideas. Orations and systems should be connected; each part should occupy the place which order and accuracy, not caprice and chance assign it. They should resemble buildings constructed according to the rules of art; the laws of which are never arbitrary, but fixed and inviolable, founded on the nature of regularity and proportion: or to use St. Paul's expression, each should be "a body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth," Eph. iv. 16.

Let us apply this to the subject in hand. Nothing better proves the divinity of religion, than the connexion, the harmony, the agreement of its component parts. I am aware that this grand characteristic of Christianity has occasioned many mistakes among mankind. Under pretence that a religion proceeding from God must harmonize in its component parts, men have licentiously contrived a chain of propositions to please themselves. They have substituted a phantom of their own imagination, for that body of doctrine which God has given us in the Holy Scriptures. Hence so much ob

But if infatuation with systems hath occasioned so many disorders in the church, the opposite disposition, I mean, the obstinate rejection of all, or the careless composition of some, hath been equally hurtful: for it is no less dangerous, in a system of religion, to omit what really belongs to it, than to incorporate any thing foreign from it.

Let us be more explicit. There are two sorts of truths in religion; truths of speculation, and truths of practice. Each truth is connected not only with other truths in its own class, but truths of the first class are connected with those of the second, and of these parts thus united, is composed that admirable body of doctrine which forms the system of religion.

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There are in religion some truths of speculation, there is a chain of doctrines. God is holy: this is the first truth. A holy God can have no intimate communion with unholya creatures: this is a second truth which follows from the first. God, who can have no munion with unholy creatures, can have no communion with men, who are unholy crea-re tures: this is a third truth which follows fromx the second. Men, who are unholy creatures, being incapable as such of communion with the happy God, must on that very account be entirely miserable: this is a fourth truth which follows from the third. Men, who must be absolutely miserable because they can have no communion with the holy, happy God, become objects of the compassion of that God, who is as loving and merciful as he is happy and holy: this is a fifth truth which follows from the fourth. This loving and merciful God is naturally inclined to relieve a multitude of his creatures, who are ready to be plunged into the deepest miseries: this is a sixth truth which follows from the fifth.

Thus follow the thread of Jesus Christ's theology, and you will find, as I said, each part that composes it depending on another, and every one giving another the hand. For, from

the loving and merciful Inclination of God to tolerable. In the first supposition, ye conceive relieve a multitude of his creatures from a a God, who, by the holiness of his nature, exthreatening abyss of the deepest miseries, fol- acts a satisfaction: in the second, ye conceive lows the mission of Jesus Christ; because it a God, who, by the indifference of his nature, was fit that the remedy chosen of God to re- loves the sinner while he derives no motives lieve the miseries of men should bear a pro- from the satisfaction to forsake his sin. In the portion to the causes which produced it. From first supposition, ye imagine a God who opthe doctrine of Jesus Christ's mission follows poses the strongest barriers against vice: in the necessity of the Spirit of God: because it the second, ye imagine a God who removes would have been impossible for men to have every obstacle to vice: nothing being more discovered by their own speculations the way likely to confirm men in sin than an imaginaof salvation, unless they had been assisted by a tion, that, to what length soever they go, they supernatural revelation, according to that say- may always find in the sacrifice of the Son of ing, "Things which eye hath not seen, nor ear God, an infallible way of avoiding the punishheard, neither have entered into the heart of ment due to their sin, whenever they shall man, God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit," ," have recourse to that sacrifice. Were it ne1 Cor. ii. 9, 10. From the doctrines of the cessary to enlarge this article, and to take one mission of the Son of God, and of the gift of doctrine after another, you would see that the Holy Spirit, follows this most comfortable every doctrine of religion proves what we have truth, that we are the objects of the love of advanced, concerning the natural connexion God, even of love the most vehement and sin- of religious speculative truths, with truths of cere that can be imagined: for "God com- practice: mended his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," Rom. v. 8. And, as we are objects of that love which God hath commended to us in his Son, it follows, that no bounds can be set to our happithat there is no treasure too rich in the mines of the blessed God, no duration too long in eternity, no communion with the Creator too close, too intimate, too tender, which we have not a right to expect; according to that comfortable, that ecstatic maxim of St. Paul, God, who "spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Rom.

ness,

viii. 32.

This is a chain of some truths of the gospel. We do not say that it might not be lengthened; we do not pretend to have given a complete system of the doctrines of the gospel; we only say that the doctrines proposed are closely connected, and that one produces another in a system of speculative gospel truths.

In like manner, there is a connexion between practical truths. The class of practical truths is connected with the class of speculative truths, and each practical truth is connected with another practical truth.

The class of practical truths is connected with the class of speculative truths. As soon as ever we are convinced of the truth of the doctrines just now mentioned, we shall be thereby convinced that we are under an indispensable necessity to devote ourselves to holiness. People, who draw consequences from our doctrines injurious to morality, fall into the most gross and palpable of all contradictions. The single doctrine of Jesus Christ's mission naturally produces the necessity of anctification. Ye believe that the love of holiness is so essential to God, that rather than pardon criminals without punishing their crimes, he has punished his own Son. And can ye believe that the God, to whom holiness is so essential, will bear with you while ye make no efforts to be holy? Do not ye see that in this supposition ye imagine a contradictory God, or, rather that ye contradict yourselves? In the first supposition ye conceive a God to whom sin is infinitely odious: in the second, ye conceive a God to whom sin is infinitely

But, if practical truths of religion are connected with speculative truths, each of the truths of practice is also closely connected with another. All virtues mutually support each other, and there is no invalidating one part of our morality, without, on that very account, invalidating the whole.

In our treatises of morality, we have usually assigned three objects to our virtues. The first of these objects is God: the second is our neighbour: and the third ourselves. St. Paul is the author of this division. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men; teaching us, that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world," Tit. ii. 11, 12. But all these are connected together: for we cannot live godly without living at the same time righteously and soberly: because to live godly is to perform what religion appoints, and to take that perfect Being for our example to whom religion conducts and unites us. Now to live as religion appoints, and to take that perfect Being for our pattern to whom religion conducts and unites us, is to live righteously with our neighbour, and soberly with ourselves. Strictly speaking, we have not one virtue unless we have all virtues; nor are we free from one vice unless we be free from all vices; we are not truly charitable unless we be truly just, nor are we truly just unless we be truly charitable: we are not truly liberal but as we avoid profuseness, nor are we truly frugal but as we avoid avarice. As I said before, all virtues naturally follow one another, and afford each other a mutual support.

Such is the chain of religious truths: such is the connexion, not only of each truth of speculation, but of speculative truths with the truths of practice. There is then a concatenation, a harmony, a connexion in the truths of religion; there is a system, a body of doctrine, in the gospel. This is the article that we proposed to prove.

But, a religion in which there is such a chain, such a harmony and connexion; a body of doctrine so systematically compacted and united, ought not to be taken by bits and parts.

To illustrate this we may compare spiritual | A party-spirit. . The choice of teachers. 3. with natural things. The more art and inge- A hurry of business. Above all, 4. The love nuity there is in a machine composed of divers of pleasure. As we shall take the liberty of wheels, the more necessary it is to consider it pointing out the causes of this malady, we shall in its whole, and in all its arrangements, and also prescribe the remedy, whether our most the more does its beauty escape our observa- humble remonstrances regard the people, the tion when we confine our attention to a single pastors, or even the sovereign, whose noblest wheel: because the more art there is in a ma- office, as well as most sacred and inviolable chine, the more essential is the minutest part duty, it is to watch for the support of the truth, to its perfection. Now deprive a machine of an and the government of the church. essential part, and you deface and destroy it. Apply this to spiritual things. In a compact system, in a coherent body of doctrine, there is nothing useless, nothing which ought to occupy the very place that the genius who composed the whole hath given it. What will become of religion if ye consider any of its doctrines separately? What becomes of religion if ye consider the holiness of God, without his justice, or his justice without his mercy? II. Let us then proceed to inquire why so many of us confine ourselves to a small number of religious truths, and incapacitate ourselves for examining the whole system. The fact is too certain. Hence, our preachers seem to lead us in obscure paths, and to lose us in abstract speculations, when they treat of some of the attributes of God; such as his faithfulness, his love of order, his regard for his intelligent creatures. It is owing to this that we are, in some sense, well acquainted with some truths of religion, while we remain entirely ignorant of others, which are equally plain, and equally important. Hence it is that the greatest part of our sermons produce so little fruit, because sermons are, at least they ought to be, connected discourses, in which the principle founds the consequence, and the conse quence follows the principle; all which supposes in the hearers a habit of meditation and attention. For the same reason we are apt to be offended when any body attempts to draw us out of the sphere of our prejudices, and are not only ignorant, but (if you will pardon the expression) ignorant with gravity, and derive I know not what glory from our own stupidity. Hence it is that a preacher is seldom or never allowed to soar in his sermons, to rise This spirit, which we have faintly described, into the contemplation of some lofty and rap- must naturally incapacitate a man for consiturous objects, but must always descend to the dering the whole of religion: it must naturally first principles of religion, as if he preached for incline him to take it only by bits and shreds. the first time, or, as if his auditors for the first On the one hand, it contracts the mind: for time heard. Hence also it is that some doc- how can a soul that harbours and cherishes all trines, which are true in themselves, demon- the phantoms which a party-spirit produces, strated in our scriptures, and essential to reli- how can such a soul study and meditate as region, become errors, yea, sources of many er-ligion requires? On the other hand, a partyrors in our mouths, because we consider them only in themselves, and not in connexion with other doctrines, or in the proper places to which they belong in the system of religion. This might be easily proved in regard to the doctrines of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of the cross, the necessity of the Holy Spirit's assistance; doctrines true, demonstrated, and essential; but doctrines which will precipitate us from one abyss to another, if we consider them as our people too often consider them, and as they have been too often consi

1. The first cause that we have assigned is a party-spirit. This is a disposition that cannot be easily defined, and it would be difficult to include in a definition of it even its genus and species: it is a monstrous composition of all bad genuses and of all bad species; it is a hydra that reproduces while it seems to destroy itself, and which, when one head hath been cut off, instantly produces a thousand a more. Sometimes it is superstition, which inclines us to deify certain idols, and, after having formed, to prostrate first before them. Sometimes it is ignorance which prevents our perceiving the importance of some revealed truths, or the dreadful consequences of some prejudices that we had embraced in childhood. Sometimes it is arrogance, which rashly maintains whatever it has once advanced, advanced perhaps inconsiderately, but which will afterwards be resolutely defended till death, for no other reason but because it has been once asserted, and because it is too mortifying to yield, and say, I am wrong, I was mistaken. Sometimes it is a spirit of malice and barbarity, which abhors, exclaims against, persecutes, and would even exterminate, all who dare contradict its oracular propositions. Oftener still it is the union of all these vices together. A party-spirit is that disposition which envenoms so many hearts, separates so many families, divides so many societies, which has produced so many excommunications, thundered out so many anathemas, drawn up so many canons, assembled so many councils, and has been so often on the point of subverting the great work of the reformation, the noblest opposition that was ever formed against it.

spirit depraves the heart, and eradicates the desire of knowing religion. A man animated with the spirit of party, directs all his attention to such propositions of religion as seem to favour his erroneous opinions, and irregular passions, and diverts it from all that oppose them; his system includes only what strengthens his party, it is exclusive of every thing that weakens or opposes it.

This is the first cause of the malady. The remedy is easily discovered. Let us divest

dered in the schools, in an abstract and detach.urselves of a party-spirit. Let us never de

termine an opinion, by its agreement or disaed manner. The fact then is too certain. Let greement with what our masters, our parents, us attend to the principal causes of it. or our teachers have inculcated, but by its conFour principal causes may be assigned: 1.formity or contrariety to the doctrine of Jesus

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Christ and his apostles. Let us never receive | hood, faithful in conjugal life, tender parents, or reject a maxim because it favours or oppo- good citizens, and able magistrates. ses our passions, but as it agrees with, or opposes the laws of that tribunal, the basis of which are justice and truth. Let us be fully convinced that our chief study should be, to know what God determines, and to make his commands the only rules of our knowledge and practice.

2. The second cause of the evil we would remove is, The choice of teachers. In general, we have three sorts of teachers. The first are catechists, who teach our children the principles of religion. The second are ministers. The third prepare the minds of young people for the ministry itself.

The carelessness that prevails in the choice of the first sort of teachers cannot be sufficiently lamented. The care of instructing our children is committed to people more fit for disciples than masters, and the meanest talents are thought more than sufficient to teach the first principles of religion. The narrowest and dullest genius is not ashamed to profess himself a divine and a catechist. And yet what capacity does it not require to lay the first -foundations of the edifice of salvation! What address to take the different forms necessary to insinuate into minds of catechumens, and to conciliate their attention and love! What dexterity to proportion instruction to the different ages and characters of learners! How much & knowledge, and how many accomplishments are necessary to discern what is fundamental to a youth of fifteen years of age! What one child of superior talents cannot be ignorant of without danger, and what another of inferior talents may remain innocently unacquainted with!Heads of families, this article concerns you in a particular manner. What account can ye render to God of the children with whom he has intrusted you, if, while ye take so much pains, and are at so much expense to teach them the liberal arts, and to acquaint them with human sciences, ye discover so much negligence in teaching them the knowledge of salvation? Not only in a future state ought ye to fear the punishment of so criminal & conduct; ye will be punished in this present world. Children ignorant of religion will but little understand their duty to their parents. They will become the cross, as they will be the shame and infamy of your life. They will shake off your yoke as soon as they have passed their childhood; they will abandon you to the weakness, infirmities, and disquietudes of old age, when you arrive at that distasteful period of life, which can be rendered agreeable only by the care, the tenderness, and assiduity of a well-bred son. Let us unite all our endeaYours, my dear brethren, to remove this evil. Let us honour an employment which nothing but the licentiousness of the age could have rendered contemptible. Let us consider that, as one of the most important trusts of the state, one of the most respectable posts of society, which is appointed to seminate religious principles in our children, to inspire them with piety, to guard them against the snares that they will meet with in the world, and, by these means, to render them dutiful in child

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The pastors of our churches are our second class of teachers. I know that all our sufficiency is of God, 2 Cor. iii. 5; that though Paul may plant, and Apollos water, God only giveth the increase: that holy men, considering the end of the ministry, have exclaimed, Who is sufficient for these things? 1 Cor. iii. 6. Yet the ordinary means which God uses for the conversion of sinners, are the ministry of the word, and the qualifications of ministers, for faith cometh by hearing, Rom. x. 17. Now this word, my brethren, is not preached with equal power by all; and, though the foundation which each lays be the same, it is too true that some build upon this foundation the gold and precious stones of a solid and holy doctrine, while others build with the wood, hay, and stubble, 1 Cor. iii. 12, of their own errors, the productions of a confused imagination, and a mistaken eloquence. And as the word is not preached with the same power, so it is not attended with the same success.

But when the word proceeds from the mouth of a man whom God has sealed, and enriched with extraordinary talents; when it proceeds from a man, who has the tongue of the learned and the wisdom of the wise, as the Scripture speaks, Isa. 1. 4. When it proceeds from a Boanerges, a son of thunder, from a Moses, mighty in words and in deeds, Mark iii. 17. Acts vii. 22, who maintains the dignity of his doctrine by the purity of his morals, and by the power of his good example, then the word is heard with attention; from the ear it passes to the mind, from the mind to the heart, from the heart to the life; it penetrates, it inflames, it transports. It becomes a hammer breaking the hardest hearts, a two-edged sword, dividing the father from the son, the son from the father, dissolving all the bonds of flesh and blood, the connexions of nature, and the love of self.

What precaution, what circumspection, and, in some sort, what dread, ought to prevail in the choice of an office, which so greatly influences the salvation of those among whom it is exercised! There needs only the bad system of a pastor to produce and preserve thousands of false notions of religion in the people's minds: notions, which fifty years' labour of a more wise and sensible ministry will scarcely be able to eradicate. There needs only a pastor sold to sordid interest to put up, in some sort, salvation to sale, and to regulate places in paradise according to the diligence or negligence with which the people gratify the avarice of him who distributes them. There needs only a pastor fretted with envy and jealousy against his brethren to poison their ministry by himself, or by his emissaries. Yea, sometimes, there needs only the want of some less essential talents in a minister to give advantage to the enemies of religion, and to deprive the truths which he preaches of that profound respect which is their due: a respect that even enemies could not withhold, if the gospel were properly preached, and its truths exhibited in their true point of view.

It would be unreasonable, perhaps, to de