With what cordiality does he solemnly attest the Omniscient to the truth of his attachment to them, and his desire to see them! ful submission of the Saint, present a lively contrast of the effects of the two religions on two great souls. Highly, however, as he estimates their reli- It is a coincidence too remarkable to be pass. gious improvement, he does not consider themed over in silence, that Paul was directed by a as having attained that elevation of character vision from heaven' to go to Philippi; that Bruwhich renders monition superfluous, or advance- tus was summoned to the same city by his evil ment unnecessary; for he exhorts even as ma- genius. The hero obeyed the phantom; the ny as be perfect,' that they press forward and apostle was not disobedient to the heavenly reach forth unto those things which are before: vision;' to what different ends, let the concludin his usual humble way identifying himselfing histories of the devoted suicide and the dewith those he is admonishing—' Let us be thus minded.' voted martyr declare! Will it be too fanciful to add, that the spectre which lured the Roman to his own destruction, and the vision which in the same place invited the apostle to preach salvation to others, present no unapt emblem of the opposite genius of Paganism and Chris. Again-Though he is confident that he that begun a good work in them,' will accomplish it, yet they must still work out their salvation; but lest they might be tempted to value themselves on their exertions, they are instantly reminded tianity. who it is that worketh in them to will and to do.' Though they professed the Gospel, 'their conversation must be such as becometh it.' To accomplish his full desire, their love, already so great, must abound more and more.' Nor would he be satisfied with an ignorant or disorderly piety-their love must manifest itself more and more in knowledge and judgment:' in knowledge, by a perpetual acquisition; in judg. ment, by a practical application of that know. ledge. · CHAP. XVI. Saint Paul's respect for constituted authorities. the apostle was so frequent, and so earnest, in vindicating it from this calumny. THE Gospel was never intended to dissolve the ancient ties between sovereign and subject, master and servant, parent and child, but rather to draw them closer, to strengthen a natural by How little, in the eyes of the sober Christian, a lawful and moral obligation. As the charge does the renowned Roman, who, scarcely half a of disaffection was, from the first, most inju. century before, sacrificed his life to his appoint-rious to the religion of Jesus, it is obvious why ment, at this very Philippi, appear, in comparison of the man who addressed this epistle to the same city! Saint Paul was not less brave than Brutus, but his magnanimity was of a higher strain. Paul was exercised in a long series of sufferings, from which the sword of Brutus, directed by any hand but that of Paul himself, would have been a merciful deliverance. Paul, too, was a patriot, and set a proper value on his dignity as a Roman citizen. He too was a champion for freedom, but he fought for that higher species of liberty 'Unsung by Poets, and by Senators unprais'd.' It is apparent from every part of the New Testament, that our Lord never intended to introduce any change into the civil government of Judea, where he preached, nor into any part of the world to which his religion might extend. As his object was of a nature specifically differ ent, his discourses were always directed to that other object. His politics were uniformly conversant about his own kingdom, which was not of this world. If he spake of human governments at all, it was only incidentally, as circumstances led to it, and as it gave occasion to display or enforce some act of obedience. He discreetly entangled the Pharisees in the insidious net which they had spread for him, by directing, in answer to their ensnaring question, that the things which belonged even to the sovereign whom they detested, should be rendered' to him. Was it courage of the best sort, in the Roman enthusiast for freedom, to abandon his country to her evil destiny, at the very moment when she most needed his support? Was it true generosity or patriotism, after having killed his friend, to whom he owed his fortune and his life, usurper though he was, voluntarily to Saint Paul exhibited at once a striking proof leave this adored country a prey to inferior of the soundness of his own principles, and of usurpers? Though Cæsar had robbed Rome of the peaceable character of Christianity, in his her liberty, should Brutus rob her of his own full and explicit exposition of the allegiance due guardian virtues? Why not say to the Romans, to the ruling powers. His thorough conviction as Paul did to the Philippians-Though I desire to depart, nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you? This would have been indeed patriotism, because it would have been disinterested. Was not Paul's the truer heroism? He also was in a strait between two events, life and death. He knew what Brutus, alas! did not know, that to die was gain; but, instead of deserting his cause, by a pusillanimous self murder, he submitted to live for its interest. The gloomy despair of the Stoic, and the cheer * At the battle of Pharsalia. that human nature was, and would be, the same in all ages, led him to anticipate the necessity of impressing on his converts the duty of rescu. ing the new religion, not only from present reproach, but from that obloquy to which he foresaw that it would always be exposed. He knew that a seditious spirit had been alleged against his Lord. He knew, that as it was with the master so it must be with the servant. One was called a 'pestilent fellow ;' another a stirrer-up of the people:' others were charged with turning the world upside down.' These charges, invented and propagated by the Jews, were greedily adopted by the persecuting Roman emperors, and their venal instruments; and have always been seized on and brought forward as specious pretences for exile, proscription, massacre. so frequently repeated, by all the apostles to all classes of society, that their having become Christians was the very reason why all their lawful obligations should be the more scrupulously discharged. people of Rome, where it is well known the emperor and the senate did not always act in concurrence, with his usual exquisite prudence makes choice of an ambiguous expression, the higher powers, without specifically determining what those powers were. Saint Peter and Saint Paul preach the same Many of the Protestant Reformers were after. doctrine, but most judiciously apply their inwards accused, or suspected, of the same facti- junctions to the different modes of government ous disposition; and if a similar accusation has under which their several converts lived. Saint not been boldly produced, it has been insidiously Peter, who wrote to the strangers scattered implied, against some of the most faithful through Pontus, Asia, &c. where the governfriends of the government, and of the ecclesias-ments were arbitrary, orders them first to obey tical constitution of our own country; as if a the king as supreme. Saint Paul, addressing the more than ordinary degree of religious activity rendered their fidelity to the state suspicious, and their hostility to the church certain. We do not deny, that though Christianity has never been the cause, it has often been made the pretence for disaffection. Religion has been made the handle of ambition by Popery, and of sedition by some of the Puritan Reformers. Corruption in both cases was stamped upon the very face of those who so used it. Nothing, however, can be more unfair, than eagerly to charge religious profession with such dangers, which yet the instances alluded to have given some of our high churchmen a plausible plea for always doing. This plea, though in certain cases justly furnished, has been most unjustly used by being applied to instances to which it is completely inapplicable. For the truth is, that a factious spirit is so far from having any natural connection with the religion of the Gospel, that it stands in the most direct opposition to it. Saint Paul, in taking particular care to vindicate Christianity from any such aspersion, shows that obedience to constituted authorities is among the express commands of our Saviour. He might have added to the strength of his assertion, by adducing his example also; for, in order to be enabled to comply with a law of government, Christ did, what he had never done to supply his own necessities-he wrought a miracle. The apostle knowing the various shifts of men, from their natural love of gain, to evade paying imposts, is not content with a general exhortation on this head, but urges the duty in every conceivable shape, and under every variety of name, as if to prevent the possibility of even a verbal subterfuge-tribute, custom, fear, love, honour, fidelity in payment; and then, having exhausted particulars, he sums them up in a general-owe no man any thing. Thus he leaves not only no public opening, but no secret crevice to fiscal fraud. * Perhaps it is an evidence, in this instance, rather of the sagacious, than of the prescient, spirit which governed Saint Paul; that there is as much tendency to it now, as when the apostle first published his prohibitory letter. The known principles of human nature, as we have just observed, might lead us to expect it alike in all ages. At the same time, we cannot be too mindful of that command of Inspiration, which, by enjoining us to render to all their dues, has enlarged the sphere of civil duty to the very utmost limit of human actions. And it is no little credit to Christianity, that intimations are * Romans xiii. Loyalty is a cheap quality, where a good government makes a happy people. It is then an obligation, without being a virtue.-That every man should be obedient to the existing powers, is a very easy injunction to us, who are living under the mildest government, and the most virtuous king. When Paul enjoined his beloved disciple to put the people in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, and to obey magistrates,'-had the Episcopal Titus been acting under the merciful government of the Imperial Titus, Paul might have been de. nied any merit in giving this authoritative mandate, or the bishop in obeying it; it might have been urged, that the injunctions were accommodated to a sovereign whose commands it would be unreasonable to dispute. The submission which Saint Paul practised and taught was a trial of a higher order, but though hard, it was not too hard for his principles. To enjoin and to practice implicit obedience, where Nero was the supreme authority, furnished him with a fair occasion for exhibiting his sincerity on this point.-Never let it be forgotten for the honour of Christianity, and of the apostle who published it, that Paul chose to address his precepts of civil obedience to the Christians at Rome, under the most tyrannical of all their tyrants. He commands them to submit for conscience sake, to a sovereign, who, their enemy, Tacitus, gives the relation,made the martyrdom of the Christians his personal diversion; who burnt them alive by night in the streets, that the flames might light him to the scene of his licentious pleasures. In the first three centuries, till the Roman government became Christian, there is not, we believe, an instance upon record, of any insurrection against legitimate authority.-Tertul lian, in his Apology,' challenges the Pagans to produce a single instance of sedition, in which any of the Christians had been concerned; though their numbers were become so great, as to have made their opposition formidable, while the well-known cruel and vengeful principle of their oppressors would have rendered it desperate. Even that philosophical politician Mon tesquieu acknowledged, that in those countries where Christianity had even imperfectly taken root, rebellions have been less frequent than in other places. Nor did Saint Paul indemnify himself for his public submission, by privately villifying the lawful tyrant: the emperor is not only not named, but is not pointed at. There is not one of those sly inuendos, which the artful subverters of states know how to employ, when they would undermine the stability of law, without incuring its penalty.-He betrays no symptom of an exasperating spirit, lurking behind the shelter of prudence, and the screen of legal security. It is observable, that in the very short period, from the origin of Christianity under Augustus to the time at which Saint Paul wrote, there were four successive Roman emperors, each of whom was worse than the preceding, as if it had been providentially so determined, as a test of the meek and quiet spirit of Christianity, whose followers never manifested resistance to any of these oppressive masters. Paul knew how to unite a respect for the government, with a just abhorrence of the vices of the governor. We are not advocating the cause of passive obedience-but it may be fairly observed, in this connection, that politica! pas. sions are so apt to inflame the whole mind, that it is dangerous for those, who are professionally devoted to the service of religion, to be too powerfully influenced by them. I believe there has been no government, under which Christianity has not been able to subsist. When the ruling powers were lenient to it, and especially when they afforded it protection, it has advanced in secular prosperity, and external grandeur; when they have been intolerant, its spirit has received a fresh internal impulse; it has improved in spiritual vigour, as if it had considered oppression only as a new scene for calling new graces into exercise. and headlong following the herd, without reason, without consistency, makes them as formidable by their aggregate number, as they are inconsiderable by their individual weight. Yet, did he ever attempt to turn the knowledge, in which he was so well versed, to a political purpose? Did he ever cajole the multitude, as an engine to lift himself into power or popularity? Did he consider them, as some designing orators have done, the lowest round in ambition's ladder, by which, its foot fixed in the dirt, they strive to scale the summit of public favour; alluring by flattery beings they despise, and paying them by promises, which they know they shall never be able to keep. Saint Paul's love of order is an additional proof of the soundness of his political character. He uses his influence with the vulgar, only to lead them to obedience. Nor did he content himself with verbal instructions to obey; ho seconded them by a method the most practically efficient. Together with order itself, he enjoined on the people those industrious habits which are the very soul of order. He was a most rigorous punisher of idleness, that powerful cherisher of insubordination in the lower orders. Not to eat was the penalty he inflicted on those who would not work. He commands the Thessalonian converts to correct the disorderly'-again enjoining, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread.'-Stirrers up of the people' never command them to work : and though they promise them bread, knowing they shall never be able to give it to them, yet they do not, like Paul, command them to eat it in peace. By thus encouraging peaceable and laborious habits, he was at once ensuring the comforts of the people, and the security of the state. Are these exhortations, is this conduct, any proof of that tendency to faction, which has been so often charged on the religion of Jesus? once owned himself to be the Messiah; when at last, knowing that his hour was come,' he scrupled not to express his resentment publicly against the Sanhedrim, by almost the only strong expression of indignation. Which Infinite Wisdom, clothed in Infinite Meekness, ever thought fit to use. Even then, he said no With the specific nature of the populace, in all countries, Paul was well acquainted. He knew that till religion has operated on their hearts, they have but one character. Of this In his political discretion, as well as in all character we have many correct, though slight other points, Paul imitates his Lord. Jesus, sketches, in the New Testament. Now we in the earlier part of his ministry, was extreme. hear the stupid clamour of the Ephesian idola-ly cautious of declaring who he was, never but ters, vociferating, for two hours, their one* phrase. Then we see that picture of a mob, so exactly alike in all ages, from the uproar in the streets of Ephesus, to the riots in the streets of Westminster; the greater part knew not where. fore they were come together,' On another occasion, the certainty could not be known for the tumult.' Then their mutable caprice, changing with the impulse of the event, or of the mo. ment. When the viper fastened on Paul's hand, he was a murderer,' when he shook it off unhurt, he was a god.'t At Lystra the same people who had offered him Divine honours, no sooner heard the false reports of the Jews from Antioch, than they stoned him and dragged him out of the city as a dead man.'t It was the very spirit which dictated the Hosanna' of one day, and the crucify him' of the next. Saint Paul well knew these wayward motions of the mob. He knew also that, without the faculty of thinking, their gregarious habit gave them a physical force, which was a substitute for rational strength; and that this instinctive thing against the civil governor. But while Paul thus proved himself a firm supporter of established authorities, as such, he would not connive at any formal act of injustice; while he resigned himself to the Roman powers, his lawful judges, he would not submit to be condemned illegally by the Jews. When he appealed to Cesar, he declared with a dignified firmness becoming his character, that though he refused not to die, he would be tried by the rightful judicature. If it be objected, that, in a single instance, he sharply rebuked Ananias for violating the law, by commanding him to be punished unjustly; he immediately cleared himself from the charge of contumacy, by declaring he knew not that it was the High Priest;' and instantly took oc'casion to extract a maxim of obedience from his own error; and to render it more impressive sanctioned it by Scriptural authority, It is writ. ten, thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.'* It must have been obvious to his Pagan judges, that he never interfered with their rights, or even animadverted on their corruptions. His real crime in their eyes, was, not his intermed. dling with government, but his converting the people. It was by exposing the impositions of their mercenary priests, by declaring their idols ought not to be worshipped, that he inflamed the magistrates; and they were irritated, not so much as civil governors, as guardians of their religion. He knew the consequences of his persevering fidelity, and like a true servant of the true God, never shrunk from them. To complete the character of his respect to authorities, he sanctifies loyalty, by connecting it with piety. He expressly exhorts the new bishop of the Ephesians,† that throughout his Episcopal jurisdiction, prayers, intercession, and giving of thanks be made for kings and all in authority; and adds, as a natural consequence of the obligation, arising from the reciprocal connection, that subjects may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty.' There could not have been devised a more probable method of insuring allegiance; for would it not be preposterous to injure or vilify those, for whom we make it a conscience to pray? Yet even this important duty may be overestimated, when men's submission to kings is considered as paramount to their duty to another king, one Jesus.' An instance of this we have seen exemplified in our own time, though it has pleased Almighty Goodness to overrule it to the happiest results. And among the triumphs of religion which we have witnessed, it is not the least considerable, that, whereas Christianity was originally charged with a design to overturn states and empires, we have seen the crime completely turned over to the accusers; we have seen the avowed adversaries of Christ become the strenuous subverters of order, law, and government. To name only one of the confederated band: -Voltaire had reached the pinnacle of literary fame and general admiration, not, it is to be hoped, for his impiety, but in spite of it. The fearful consequences of his audacious blasphemies were hid behind those graces of style, that gay wit, those fascinating pleasantries, that sharp, yet bitter raillery, which, if they did not conceal the turpitude, decorated it, and obtained, for his profaneness, something more than par. don. His boldness increased with his impunity. He carried it with a high hand, against the whole scheme of revelation; substituting ridicule for argument, and assertion for fact; and then, reasoning from his own misrepresenta tions, as consequentially as if he had found the circumstances he invented. But the missile arrows of his lighter pieces, barbed, pointed, and envenomed, (the exact characters of that slender weapon) proved the most destructive in his warfare upon Christi. anity; and he could replenish his exhaustless quiver, with the same unparalleled celerity with which he emptied it. The keen sagacity of his mind taught him, that witty wickedness is of all the most successful. Argumentative impiety hurts but few, and generally those who were hurt before. Besides it requires in the reader a talent, or at least a taste, congenial with the writer; in this idle age it requires also the rare quality of patient investigation; a quality not to be generally expected, when our reading has become almost as dissipated as our pleasures, and as frivolous as our conversation. For though Voltaire contrived to make every department of literature the medium of corrup tion; though the most unpromising and least suspected vehicles were pressed into the service to assist his ruling purpose; yet historical false. hoods might be refuted by adverting to purer sources, unfair citations might be contradicted, by refering to the originals. The popular engine of mischief is not the art of reasoning, but the art of raillery. The danger lies not in the attempt to prove a thing to be false, so much as in the talent which aims to make what is true, ridiculous; not so much in attacking, as in misstating, not in inverting, but in discolouring. Metaphysical mischief is tedious to the trifling, and dull to the lively. Who now reads the Leviathan? Who has not read Candide ? Political Justice,' a more recent work, subversive of all religious and social order, was too ponderous to be popular, and too dry to answer the end of general corruption. But when the substance, by that chemical process well known to the preparers of poison, was rubbed down into an amusing novel, then it began to operate; the vehicle, though made pleasant, did not lessen the deleterious quality. In Voltaire, a sentiment that cut up hope by the roots was compressed into a phrase as short as the motto of a ring, and as sparkling as the brilliants which encompass it. Every one can repeat an epigram, and even they who cannot understand, can circulate it. The fashionable laughed before they had time to think; the dread of not being supposed to have read, what all were reading, stimulated those who read, in order that they might talk. Little wits came to sharpen their weapons at the forge of this Philistine, or to steal small arms from his arsenal, The writer of these pages has not forgotten the time when it was a sort of modish compe. tition who could first produce proof that they had received the newest pamphlet from Ferney, by quoting from it; and they were gratified to find that the attributes of intelligence and good taste were appended to their gay studies. Others indulged with a sort of fearful delight, in the perilous pleasure. Even those who could not read, without indignation, did not wait, without impatience. Each successive work, like the book in the Apocalypse, was so sweet in the mouth,' that they forgot to anticipate the bitter. ness of digestion. Or, to borrow a more awful illustration from the same divine source, 'A star fell from heaven on the waters, burning like a lamp, and the star was called Wormwood; and many died of the waters, because they were made bitter.' That bright genius, which might have illuminated the world, became a destructive flame, and, like the burning brand thrown by the Roman soldier into the Temple of Jerusalem, carried conflagration into the Sanctuary. It is one great advantage of epistolary writing that it is not subject to the general laws of composition, but admits of every diversity of miscellaneous matter. Topics which might be thought beneath the dignity of a Treatise, or consis tent with the solemnity of a Sermon, or the gravity of a Dissertation, find their proper place in a letter. Details of which are not of the first importance, may yet be of such a nature as to require notice or animadversion. At length, happily for rescuing the principles, but most injuriously for the peace and safety of Society, the polished courtier became a furious anarchist. The idol of monarchical France, the equalized associate of the Royal Author of Berlin, changed his political note, the parasite of princes, and the despot of literature, sounded the trumpet of Jacobinism. The political and mo. The epistolary form has also other advanral world shook to their foundation. Earth be- tages; it not only admits of a variety of subjects, low trembled. Heaven above threatened. All but of the most abrupt transition, from one subwas insecurity. Order seemed reverting to ori-ject to another, however dissimilar. It requires ginal chaos. The alarm was given. Britain not the connecting links of argumentative comfirst awoke, roused by the warning voice of position, nor the regularity of historical, nor the Burke. Enthusiasm was converted into detesta- uniformity of ethical; nor the method and artion. The horror which ought to have been ex-rangement of each and of all these. The free cited by his impiety was reserved for his democracy. But it was found that he could not subvert thrones with the same impunity with which he had laboured to demolish altars. He gave, indeed, the same impulse to sedition, which he had long given to infidelity, and by his own activity increased the velocity of both. The public feeling was all alive, and his political principles justly brought on his name that reprobation which had been long due to his blasphemies, but which his blasphemies had failed to excite. mind, unfettered by critical rules, expatiates at will, soars or sinks, skims or dives, as the objects of its attention may be elevated or depressed, profound or superficial. Of the character of this species of writing, the authors of epistles of the New Testament have most judiciously availed themselves. Saint Paul, especially, has taken all due advantage of the latitude it allows. His epistles, though they contain the most profound reasoning, and on the most important subjects on which the mind of Divine Providence seems to have spared him man can be engaged, are not, exclusively, reguto extreme old age, that by adding one crime lar discussions of any set topics; though they more to his long catalogue, his political outrages breathe strains of devotion almost angelic, yet might counteract his moral mischiefs. But his do they also frequently stoop to the concerns of wisdom seems to have been equally short-sighted ordinary life: partaking, as occasion requires, in both his projects. While the consequences of all that familiarity, versatility, and ease, which of his designs against the governments of the this species of writing authorizes. Yet though world, probably outran his intentions, his scheme occasional topics and incidental circumstances for the extinction of Christianity, and for the are introduced, each epistle has some particular obliteration of the very name of its author, fell drift, tends to some determined point, and, short of it. Peace, law, and order are restored amidst frequent digressions, still maintains a to the desolated nations. Kings are reinstated consistency with itself, as well as with the geon their rightful thrones, and many of the sub- neral tendency of Scripture; the method being jects of the King of kings, it is hoped, are re-sometimes concealed, and the chain of argu. turned to their allegiance. The abilities of this powerful but pernicious genius, were not more extraordinary than their headlong, yet diversified course. His talents took their bent from the turn of the age in which he was cast. His genius was his own, but its determination was given from without. He gave impressions as forcibly, as he yielded to them suddenly. It was action and reaction. He lighted on the period, in which, of all others, he was born to produce the most powerful sensation. The public temper was agitated; he help. ed on the crisis. Revolt was ripening; he matured it. Circumstances suggested his theories; his theories influenced circumstances. He was inebriated with flattery, and mad with success; but his delirious vanity defeated its own ends; in his greediness for instant adoration he ne. glected to take future fame into his bold but brief account. 'Vaulting ambition overleap'd itself, And fell on t'other side.' CHAP. XVII. St. Paul's attention to Inferior Concerns. VOL. II. ment not obvious, the closest attention is required, and the reader, while he may be gathering much solid instruction, reproof or consola. tion, from scattered sentences, and independent axioms, will not, without much application of mind, embrace the general argument. Amidst, however, all the higher parts of spiritual instruction; amidst all the solidity of deep practical admonition, there is not, perhaps, a single instance in which this author has omitted to inculcate any one of the little morals, any one even of what may be called those minor circumstances, which constitute the decorums and decencies of life. Nor does his zeal for promoting the greatest actions, ever make him unmindful of the grace, the propriety, the manner in which they are to be performed. It is one of the characteristic properties of a great mind that it can, contract as well as dilate itself;' and we have it from one of the highest human authorities, that the mind which cannot do both is not great in its full extent. The minuter shades of character do not of themselves make up a valuable person; they may be possessed in perfection, separate from great excel. Lord Bacon. |