philosophy, and the gaudy tinsel of the schools. | conduct: but, O God! our duty surpasses our From a state of gross ignorance and vice up to strength, we cannot succeed without thy Holy a state of the highest perfection of Christian knowledge and virtue, lie infinite degrees of improvement one above another, in a scale of excellence up to "the first-born of every creature," the perfect teacher sent from God. In this scale our author occupies a high place in my eye, and if a reader choose to place him a few degrees lower, I shall not contend about that; for on my principles, if he contribute in any, even the least degree, to the cause of truth and virtue, he is a foreigner worth our acquaintance, and the Gallic in his appearance will not disgust a friend to the best interests of mankind. I say nothing of the translation: it does not become me. Let those who are able, do better. Envy of this kind I have none. Spirit. Grant a double portion of this to us who preach thy word; grant after we have understood thine oracles, we may be first affected with the truths they contain, before we propose them to others, and may we announce them in a manner suitable to their excellence. But suffer us not to labour in vain; dispose our hearers to receive thine orders with submission, and to practise them with punctuality; so that all of us, being animated with one spirit, and aiming at one end, may sanctify our conduct, and live agreeable to the holiness of our calling. We pray for all these blessings in the name of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Our Father, &c. The following is the approbation of the Walloon Church at Dort, employed by the Synod at The following is the prayer which Mr. Saurin Utrecht to examine the Sermons of Mr. Saurin. generally used immediately before Sermon. WE have found nothing in all these sermons O LORD! Our God and Father! thou seest contrary to the doctrine received among us. us prostrate in thy presence to render the We have remarked every where a manly elohomage due to thy Majesty, to confess our quence, a close reasoning, an imagination livesins to thee, and to implore thy favour. Had ly and proper to establish the truths of our we followed the first emotions of our con- holy religion, and to explain substantially and sciences, we should not have presumed to lift elegantly the duties of morality. Accordingly, our eyes to heaven, but should have fled from we believe they will effectually contribute to thy sight. We are creatures mean and infirm, edify the church, and to render more and more a thousand times more unworthy of appear- respectable the memory of this worthy servant ing before thee for our depravity, than for our of God, whose death the examination of his natural meanness. But, O Lord! though our works has given us a fresh occasion to lament. sins and miseries depress us, yet thy mercy We attest this to the venerable Synod at lifts us up. Thou art a God merciful and Utrecht. In the same sentiments we send the gracious, slow to anger and abundant in good-present attestation to our most dear brother ness: thou hast no pleasure in the death of a sinner; but that he should repent and live; and thou hast given thy Son to the world, that whosoever believeth in him should have everlasting life. So many benefits, so many promises encourage our trembling consciences, and inspire us with the liberty we now take to approach the throne of thy mercy, and to implore the powerful aid of thy grace. We have always need of thine assistance: but now, O Lord! we feel a more than usual want. We are assembled in thy house to learn the doctrines of our salvation, and the rules of our Mr. Dumont, pastor and professor at Rotter- H. G. CERTON, Pastor. JOHN VAN BREDA, Deacon. THE PERFECTION OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. meat. HEB. V. 12-14. vi. 1-3. 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 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 appear, if you attend to the subject under his 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, tism 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. "Bap 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 catechumen state, to a thorough acquaintance with that religion, which is wisdom among them that are perfect; that is, a system of doctrine which cannot be well understood by any except by such as the heathens called perfect. They denominated those perfect, who did not rest in a superficial knowledge of a science, but who endeavoured thoroughly to understand the whole. This was the design of St. Paul in writing to the Hebrews; and this is ours in addressing you. We will endeavour, first, to give you as exact and adequate a notion as we can of Christian divinity and morality, and from thence infer, that you can neither see the beauty, nor reap the benefit, of either of them, while you confine yourselves, as most of you do, to a few loose principles, and continue unacquainted with the whole system or body of religion. Secondly, We will inquire, why so many of us do confine our attention to these first truths, and never proceed to the rest. 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 and presumption in advancing, such phantoms. For, my brethren, of all obstinate people, none excel more in their dreadful kind, than those who are prejudiced in favour of certain systems. A man who does not think himself capable of forming a connected system, can bear contradiction, because, if he be obliged to give up some of the propositions which he has advanced, some others which he embraces will not be disputed, and what remains may indemnify him for what he surrenders. But a man prepossessed with an imaginary system of his own, has seldom so much teachableness. He knows, that if one link be taken away, his chain falls to pieces; and that there is no removing a single stone from his building without destroying the whole edifice: he considers the upper skins which covered the tabernacle, as typical as the ark in the holy place, or the mercy-seat itself. The staff with which Jacob passed over Euphrates, and of which he said, "with my staff I passed over this river," seems 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. 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. God is There are in religion some truths of speculation, there is a chain of doctrines. holy: this is the first truth. A holy God can have no intimate communion with unholy creatures: this is a second truth which follows from the first. God, who can have no communion with unholy creatures, can have no communion with men, who are unholy creatures: this is a third truth which follows from 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 relieve a multitude of his creatures from a threatening abyss of the deepest miseries, follows the mission of Jesus Christ; because it was fit that the remedy chosen of God to relieve the miseries of men should bear a proportion to the causes which produced it. From the doctrine of Jesus Christ's mission follows the necessity of the Spirit of God: because it would have been impossible for men to have discovered by their own speculations the way of salvation, unless they had been assisted by a supernatural revelation, according to that saying, "Things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit," 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10. From the doctrines of the mission of the Son of God, and of the gift of the Holy Spirit, follows this most comfortable truth, that we are the objects of the love of God, even of love the most vehement and sincere that can be imagined: for "God commended 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 happiness, that 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. viii. 32. tolerable. In the first supposition, ye conceive a God, who, by the holiness of his nature, exacts a satisfaction: in the second, ye conceive a God, who, by the indifference of his nature, loves the sinner while he derives no motives from the satisfaction to forsake his sin. In the first supposition, ye imagine a God who opposes the strongest barriers against vice: in the second, ye imagine a God who removes every obstacle to vice: nothing being more likely to confirm men in sin than an imagination, that, to what length soever they go, they may always find in the sacrifice of the Son of God, an infallible way of avoiding the punishment due to their sin, whenever they shall have recourse to that sacrifice. Were it necessary to enlarge this article, and to take one doctrine after another, you would see that every doctrine of religion proves what we have advanced, concerning the natural connexion of religious speculative truths, with truths of practice. 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 ungodli ness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, This is a chain of some truths of the gospel. righteously, and godly, in this present world,' We do not say that it might not be lengthen- Tit. ii. 11, 12. But all these are connected ed; we do not pretend to have given a com- together: for we cannot live godly without livplete system of the doctrines of the gospel; we ing at the same time righteously and soberly: only say that the doctrines proposed are close-because to live godly is to perform what relily connected, and that one produces another in a system of speculative gospel truths. In like manier, 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 sanctification. 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 gion 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. 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 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. To illustrate this we may compare spiritual | A party-spirit. 2. 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 consequence 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 into the contemplation of some lofty and rapturous objects, but must always descend to the first principles of religion, as if he preached for the first time, or, as if his auditors for the first time heard. Hence also it is that some doctrines, which are true in themselves, demonstrated in our scriptures, and essential to religion, become errors, yea, sources of many errors 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 considered in the schools, in an abstract and detached manner. The fact then is too certain. Let us attend to the principal causes of it. Four principal causes may be assigned: 1. This spirit, which we have faintly described, must naturally incapacitate a man for considering the whole of religion: it must naturally incline him to take it only by bits and shreds. On the one hand, it contracts the mind: for how can a soul that harbours and cherishes all the phantoms which a party-spirit produces, how can such a soul study and meditate as religion requires? On the other hand, a partyspirit 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 ourselves of a party-spirit. Let us never determine an opinion, by its agreement or disagreement with what our masters, our parents, or our teachers have inculcated, but by its conformity or contrariety to the doctrine of Jesus |