Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

in which it is too often exhibited, have deemed it unworthy of their serious thought. But so great and important a design, as the Universal Restoration of Nature's works, had it once been admitted, must have detained the attention, and engaged the intense thought of every elevated and enlarged mind. Thus, we might perhaps not only have seen the subject taken up by some men of great natural abilities, who, overlooking its extent and importance, have passed it over in silence; but might even have found many of those eminent talents, which have been employ. ed to confound and expose to contempt the partial and unworthy representations generally given of it, engaged in its service, and exerted for its support. And I cannot but believe, that some who have too wantonly affected to contemn, and too rashly endeavoured to expose, the unworthy representations often given of the scheme of redemption, did still reverence a more worthy and enlarged conception of it, which they entertained in their own minds; though they might conceive of it very differently from what theological creeds and systems represent it. *

* Mr Hume one day dining in a party at Mr Mallet's, Mrs Mallet, who was proud of professing her infidelity, on some controverted point, presuming on Mr Hume's acquiescence, said-We deists, Mr Hume, hold so and so. Mr Hume replied-Nay, Madam, do not include me, I am a Christian. Perhaps, on the occasion Mr Hume meant more to mortify the lady's preposterous vanity, than to assert his own orthodoxy; yet I believe there might be some truth and meaning in his answer; and though he may too petulantly have exposed some of the adscititious dogmas of some Christian creeds; he really reverenced genuine Christianity. The same sentiment I am disposed to entertain with respect to a Shaftesbury, a Gibbon, perhaps to a Bolingbroke.

I am persuaded it would be much both for the credit and interest of revealed religion, of genuine Christianity, did we content ourselves with establishing, and illustrating the fundamental principles, and enforcing the spirit and practical purposes of it, after the example of our Lord himself; leaving many mysterious and merely speculative points on the simple foundation of sacred writ. It is surely worthy of remark, that our Lord himself nowhere enforces, and scarcely anywhere delivers, a single doctrinal point; beside the general reception of the doctrine of redemption, and of himself as the promised Redeemer-the Universal Restorer-the Messiah, the Sent of God-the Sole Agent of Omnipo

tence.

It is truly preposterous, not to say absurd, that a certain description of clergy among us

Mr Gibbon seems to shew an habitual hostility to Christianity. Yet it is not the Christianity of the Gospel which he professedly exposes; but the artificial Christianity of Hierarchies, of Churches, of Pontifical Policy and ambition. A system as different from the religion taught, and instituted by Jesus Christ, as the design and tendency of the character and counsels of the Second Beast of Revelation, xiii. 11-17. are from the Peace on Earth and Good-will towards men of the Gospel -the Meekness Truth and Righteousness of the 45th Psalm.

should aim to appropriate to themselves the name of evangelical, or gospel preachers; while not a syllable, not a hint, of the peculiar dogmas they assume, and incessantly labour upon, is to be found in the gospel, as preached by Jesus Christ himself, or taught by any evangelist who has recorded his life and doctrines. St Paul, indeed, in his disputings with the bigotted Jews or Judaizing Greeks, using the argumentum ad hominem, advances some questionable opinions on particular points. But he himself is far from claiming a divine sanction, or even a doctrinal authority, for every thing he proposes.

Yet no very severe censure of those obtrusive gentlemen is here intended, in so far as their dogmas, often incomprehensible, are generally harmless; and they allow the most essential principle of the doctrine of Christ, "let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." If even the wrath of man may praise God, may promote his purposes, no doubt his less pernicious passions, his vanity may: only it might not be amiss, if they were to assume a more modest, and less contradictory appellation. Except they mean a catachresis, as lucus a non lucendo. But it must be allowed their zeal and diligence are highly praise-worthy, and it is much to be lamented it has so few imitators; especially in promoting the circulation of the Scriptures, and diffusing the knowledge of the gospel over the world, as the means of making the ways

B

of God known in the earth, his saving health to all nations.

The gospel in its primitive simplicity seems to be intended merely as a correction and improvment of natural religion, and as preached and practised by our Lord himself, we find it almost purely tending to that purpose.

But I find I have wandered from my argument, which was, that the narrow conceptions generally exhibited of the Redemption of the World, of the Restitution of all things, are among the principal causes of its being rejected, or overlooked, by persons of great genius and enlarged thought.

Had the sublime genius of Milton been unfettered by the prejudices of system, and the artificial dogmas of the school divinity, and opened itself to the ennobling conception of Universal Restoration; it is probable we not only, had never seen those parts of Paradise Lost which are confessedly below the rest of his subject, and the natural elevation of his genius, such as great part of the third book; in which we have the Supreme Being in the character of Father and Son settling the eternal incomprehensible councils of the infinite mind; and stipulating articles, and conditions, with all the formality and subtilty of the school theology, and all the particularity and minuteness of orthodox divines; instead of which, we might perhaps even have seen a Paradise Regained as much superior to a Paradise Lost, as the

1

redemption and restoration of a World is more glorious and important than the loss of Eden.

And should in some future period a great and capacious genius, a second Milton, arise, who, taking up this most grand and interesting of all subjects, in its true and natural extent and design, shall present it to the world, recommended by all the graces of poetry, and all the powers of a sublime genius: then, may the conception of the extent and importance of the great purpose of Omnipotence which the following Essay would suggest, be able to surmount the neglect and inattention under which it must now probably sink, from the obscurity of the Author, and the present indifference to the subject. But whenever that propitious period shall arrive, when the Universal religion of Redemption, in its genuine spirit and design, shall be understood and received; when the present Christianity of creeds and Churches, of States and Hierarchies, shall have purged itself from the corruptions and depravations contracted in sixteen centuries of perversion, and shall have resumed its original purity and simplicity; when by some renewed authentication another angel shall go forth, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue and people;* and when by such preaching the aroused attention of all nations and kindreds, and tongues, and people shall be turned to the

:

* Rev. xiv. 6.

« AnteriorContinuar »