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On Doctrinal, or Controversial Preaching.

manifest and they would say this with a great appearance of truth. For, suppose two persons sold manufactured goods, and one of them exposed his wares in the most public manner, and shewed them in the best light, but the other very carefully deposited them in the darkest corner of his warehouse, and shewed the greatest reluctance to expose them to view-it is not difficult to guess in what manner even unprejudiced persons would be disposed to construe their motives respectively.

I have been told by those who are averse to the introduction of controversial subjects into the pulpit, that the practice is a sure mark of bigotry, Be it so. "If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your children cast them out?" Let every denomination take as much as belongs to them of this bigotry, and let not other sects throw a stone against the Unitarians, I will not say till they are themselves without sin, but only till they have as little as the Unitarians in this respect.

This as an argumentum ad hominem is as conclusive as I can wish. But I will not rest the matter here. I contend that occasional preaching on the doctrines of Christianity is both proper and necessary. How are the Scriptures to be explained if not from the pulpit? How are we to get rid of the anti-christian doctrines which have been so long received, if we are not to utter a syllable against them? How are the minds of those who read but little to be informed and enlightened? and the bulk of all congregations consists of such persons: and, it may be asked finally, what are we to teach if not Christian truth, the preaching of which, of course, is controversial preaching, if it has been controverted?

The answer which I have heard made to this last interrogatory may be considered as another argument against controversial preaching worthy of brief notice.

We do not go, it is replied, to a place of worship ready prepared with our critical scales to weigh arguments; we do not go there to be puzzled with definitions and syllogisms; we do not go for the exercise of our intellectual powers; but we go for the sake of cherishing devout affections towards the Deity, and to be more deeply

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impressed with the obligations which we are under to perform our duty. We go not to inform our reason, but to excite and improve our feelingsnot to be informed, but to be persuaded.

As to the affirmative part of your object in going to a place of worship, well and good; and are not proper means made use of to answer it? The Scriptures are read; devout hymns and psalms are sung; and your wants and devout wishes are made known unto God by the common prayers and supplications of the congregation. Yet more—the sermons are generally of a moral and practical tendency. But is it reasonable that your feelings be exclusively regarded— that public worship should monopolize your affections, and banish your reason? Must your pious affections and devotional feelings be necessarily injured, and the word become unprofitable to you, if sometimes your minds be informed concerning the doctrines of Christianity, if your intellectual powers, those which make you rank among the higher order of beings, be called into exercise? Has God in the institution of public worship, made provision only for your affections, and left your reason to shift for itself?

As to the bigotry of controversy, it is a quality which does not necessarily belong to it. Controversy may be, and ought to be managed with a charitable and even brotherly spirit towards those whose opinions we oppose. The manner and the spirit constitute bigotry, not the opposition of sentiment. There is no bigotry in a liberal exposition of our opinions; the essence of bigotry consists in the damnatory spirit, the exasperation of feeling, the evil surmises, the ungenerous $119picions and the unkind propensities which are attendant on controversy conducted in an unchristianlike manner.

I have been told by the opposers of all controversial preaching, we have a sufficient knowledge of the doctrines of religion, but we want constantly to be impressed with a sense of our duty, and to have our devotional feelings habitually exercised.

I cannot admit the correctness of the first part of the argument. Very few indeed have a comprehensive know ledge of the Christian Scriptures, and

the doctrines which they contain. The corruption of Christianity has been so radical, and the language of the Scriptures has been so systematically misinterpreted, that the reading of a few meditations and prayers, and a few select sermons, written in a liberal style, can neither discover the error, nor manifest the truth; both of which are equally necessary for the perfect emancipation of the mind. Most persons, it is true, have a general superficial knowledge of Christianity; and were a preacher to take a superficial common-place view of any doc trine, there would be some justice in the objection, as far as it regards those who are really well informed. But the truth of the case too generally is, that even of those who will resort to this argument, few, I fear, have more than a superficial knowledge of different systems of religion, or of the interpretation of the Scriptures. I have certainly a strong suspicion that their dislike of attending to the doctrines of religion, and the arguments by which they may be defended or assailed, arises immediately and entirely from their unacquaintedness with them. I believe it to be always a plain matter of fact, that those who are least acquainted with the subjects of controversy, are least interested in the discussion of them, and vice

versa.

Involved in religious error as men have been for ages, systematically perverted as the language of the Scriptures has been from time immemorial, so completely changed as almost every expression of the Sacred Writings has been from its original intention; is it at all probable that general readers, those who have a dislike for all controversy, those whose reading is trifling and fashionable, those who deem it a mark of great ignorance of the world and rusticity of manners to avow undisguisedly and publicly singularity of religious profession or opinion, and exhibit independence of religious character; that those who never think of reading any thing on religious subjects but a prayer and a chapter, or perchance a volume of sermons, or lectures, or sacred dramas, by some popular writer, which the aura popularis may have sufficiently consecrated, with perhaps a treatise on education in which religion is forgotten-that these should be sufficiently acquainted

with the doctrines of Christianity? I do not believe it. These persons surely have a dislike of strong meats, because they are by them indigestible.

But grant there are some who are well informed on such topics-will they be so interested in their feelings as not occasionally to allow what is suitable and necessary for others-the ignorant? There is certainly a numerous class that want information concerning the doctrines of Christianity. Those whose education and situation in life, whose daily necessary attention to the concerns of life, to their daily bread, preclude the acquisition of much knowledge by reading and books, are they never to be instructed in the fundamental truths of religion, and never to be informed of and guarded against erroneous opinions, lest fastidious ears should be offended? The young people in most societies are without much elementary knowledge on the subject of religion. Are they, too, to be led to suppose by the quality of the matter that always descends from the pulpit, that the Christian religion is sufficiently taught and inculcated by a few well-turned sentiments about the amiableness of virtue, the pleasures of refined emotions, and the harmony of well-tuned affections? I have no damnatory clauses in my creed; but I know very well what dependence is to be placed

on this kind of Christian institution. For one thing our most notable defections, of which I scarcely ever knew an instance which was grounded upon avowed principle, are to be attributed to the policy which dictates this kind of public instruction.

It has been asserted, that contro versial preaching necessarily scandalizes the minds of those who differ from us, and that t us frequently the most excellent and worthy men, even friends and relations, are disunited in charity and estranged in affection from one another; and that, therefore, for the sake of peace and charity, controversial subjects should never be intro duced into the pulpit.

Peace and charity are certainly most excellent things, and, well understood, are to be considered among the essentials of religion; but they are not the only essentials, nor should we suffer that to be sacrificed to them, which is more important and essential than themselves-trath.

On Doctrinal, or Controversial Preaching.

It is a thing of general notoriety, that great difference of opinion exists between very worthy and good men. Now, is human nature, improved by religion too, really so constituted, that the avowal of our belief, and the defence of our principles, must necessarily lead us to hate and injure one another? And must wise and good men mutually conceal their sentiments with great care, and religiously forbear to urge their claims on the attention of mankind, lest they should be scandalized, and be led into disputes? And would this kind of forbearance and concealment be that thing which we call Christian charity?

Surely, a very false notion of charity and peace is implied in the above argument. Jesus Christ said, that he came to set a man at variance with his neighbour, the father against the son, and the son against the father, &c. Here is an undoubted breach of charity. But surely he is not guilty of it, though he be the occasion, who believes in Christ, and follows him; but he is guilty of it, who suffers the conscious integrity of him who honestly avows his belief in Christ to be the occasion of enmity and variance. "Offences must come;" but the woe is to him by whom they unreasonably come, not to him who is the innocent occasion of them.

If we allow its full scope to this argument, it proves too much, and is plainly inadmissible. If peace and harmony are the only things to be consulted, Jesus Christ should not have preached repentance, a change of religious sentiment and practice, to the world, nor should he have so vehemently attacked the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees because he differed from them. The apostles acted very wrong in unsettling the minds of men, and setting them at variance by their novel opinions, and, as it were, turning the world upside down. All missionary undertakings since the days of the apostles to our own, must be regarded as crusades against peace and charity. We should never assail the idolatry and superstition of the Heathen, because their minds, of course, are scandalized and offended: the Mahometans must be left in quiet and peaceable possession of the errors of their false prophet, of their seven heavens, their beautiful virgins, &c.: the Catholics must be quietly suffered to retain a

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barbarous and priestly-tyrannical su perstition substituted for the religion of Christ: and, in a word, if this argument means any thing, we must leave the world for peace and harmony's sake in quiet possession of all its multifarious idolatries, errors, superstitions, vices. O, all ye holy martyrs and confessors, what infernal enemies were you to the peace and tranquillity of the world: the holy zeal with which your noble army was animated, was a brand from Hell. Thou Martin Luther, with thy undaunted host of reformers, what a pest wert thou to the world :-how much malignity was displayed in consequence of thy reformation; how many bloody wars were kindled; how many cities reduced to ruins; and how many fair provinces laid waste and depopulated. And thou, O Priestley, (famam qui terminet astris,) whose uncommon sagacity in discovering, and unappalled courage in publishing to the world, truths long obscured and lost, naturally attracted the enmity of mobs and interested priests; though thou hadst enlightened and benefited Europe by thy discoveries, and thy na tive country might be proud of numbering thee amongst her most honoured sons; yet, enemy of tranquillity, well didst thou deserve thy fate: laudable was the design of the infuriated mob, instigated to burn thee, together with thy library and apparatus; holy were the maledictions, lies and calumnies of thy interested enemies; and glorious for the conclusion of the eighteenth century was thy banishment to a distant region, beyond the confines of civilized inhumanity.

I am afraid that the spirit of rational inquiry has been long declining among the Presbyterian and rational Dissenters; and the richer class, I am well aware, are exceedingly averse to every innovation, to every improvement, to all church-discipline, to doctrinal preaching, to the exposition of the Scriptures: they will give no countenance to catechizing, to lectures, to associations for information. It is no wonder that our societies in many places are in a depressed state, in some extinct. They will become extinct in many more, without a renovation. I could disclose more of the evil, if this were the proper place. I think I could point out as radical causes of our decay as have yet appeared in any of the communications you have published, but this does not

belong to my present subject, and I

must return.

The richer members of Presbyterian congregations appear to be ashamed to belong to a sect, and they wish their ministers to conform as much as possible to the more liberal party in the Church. They must say their prayers from a book in a monotonous manner, and they must read for sermons short moral essays, without any reference to the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, or the anti-christian errors and delusions of the age. These persons have too long continued to give the ton to our Presbyterian congregations: they have damped and half extinguished free and liberal inquiry: they have tied the hands of our ministers: they have numbed the energies of our people: they mistakenly imagine that a zeal for their religious profession and opinions would disqualify them for the general society of men of their own rank in the world. Hence they become ashamed of the peculiarities of the conventicle, like a rich man of his poor relations; and their ingenuity from this time is wasted on devising means how to serve God and Mammon, or how most speciously to desert the former for the latter. It would be much better for the Presbyterians if such persons would

leave them at once, as a thing of course,

as soon as they became rich: for as it is, they not only will not enter themselves into the kingdom of heaven, but they hinder others from entering.

This process has been gradually going on since the Restoration. At that time the Nonconformists consisted of many persons of rank and influence: at this time, I believe, they cannot lay claim to an individual of the nobility or gentry. We perfectly, however, understand the process by which this transformation has been effected-by means of the prevalence of a worldly spirit over religious principle. Though many men of property still remain among us, yet the too general spirit of conformity to the world, and the dread of being suspected partial to the pecuTiarities of a sect, and zealous in propagating heresy, are sad presentiments of still further defections. But we hope that the defection of the degenerate will be well supplied by the virtue and courage of fresh accessions: for I am not ashamed to avow my prayer and desire that truth and righteousness should prevail. Ishall never be ashamed

of the reproach of proselytism, while reason and persuasion are my only weapons of conversion.

In justice to a numerous class of opulent Presbyterians and Unitarians, it gives me great pleasure to observe, before I conclude, that there are many most honourable exceptions to a too common rule. Many are truly consistent in their conduct; and by their consistency they maintain that respectability and dignity of character, which the others never fail to sacrifice, by aping the manners of the world, and sacrificing independence of principle: still, many to whoin this praise truly belongs, might do more, much more, by a renewed attention to the interests of religious truth-by their example, by their wealth, by their personal exertions and general influence.

Sir,-If these remarks should induce any of your readers duly to consider the subject, more especially if they should excite amicable discussion, and promote practical improvement, my object will be fully answered. I am, your's, &c. HOMILY.

Apparent Inconsistencies of great Minds, exemplified in a Series of Extracts on Future Punishment.

[Concluded from p. 330.]

BUT the fore-cited authors are not

generally read: it may be proper, therefore, in the same view, to mention a few of those, which are universally celebrated and admired.

The classic moralists of the United Kingdoms, though the most profound reasoners in matters of practice, yet, seldom deviate from the strait line of orthodoxy, so called, in matters of theory. Though the avowed friends of toleration, and enemies to bigotry and persecution in every form, they never censure the ecclesiastical establishments of their own country, either in doctrine, constitution, or discipline. No doubt they either thought all these things right and as they should be, or they had their reasons for proceeding no farther, into which we do not now inquire. But there is one cir cumstance here which deserves notice: notwithstanding all their wit and all their wisdom, they sometimes, in their theological essays, adopt a kind of phraseology, neither called for by the occasion, justifiable by the common use of figurative language, nor even upon their own religious principles,

Inconsistencies of Writers on Future Punishment.

and which should not be drawn into precedent. In The Guardian, No. 88, the writer, representing the advantages of revealed religion, above those of natural, observes, It is owing to the God of truth, who came down from heaven, and condescended to be himself our Teacher!" This is neither sense nor orthodoxy: it is the language of a modern Swedenborgian. Thus, likewise, Mr. Addison concludes a su blime paper on the Passion, with this extraordinary sentiment:-" Sure, Nature, all Nature, is departing with her Creator!" But this by the way.

These admirable writers also appear, in general, to adopt the popular ideas of future punishment. We shall only quote one passage from The Guardian, ou the opposite side of the question.

In this work, No. 158, the author, under the similitude of a dream, introduces his readers into the court of Rhadamanthus, one of the supposed heathen judges of men after death. Among the rest, a certain female was brought before him, who, to his first question, replied, that" she had done Do hurt," but when it was asked, "what good she had been doing?" made no answer, and appeared in much confusion; when immediately one of the attendants took her by the hand to convey her to Elysium, and another with the intention of conveying her to Erebus: but "Rhadamanthus, observing an ingenuous modesty in her countenance and behaviour, bid them both let her loose, and set her aside for a re-examination, when he was more at leisure." Here, the ingenious writer evidently suggests, that there are characters, which, after death, may be considered as neither fit for heaven or hell; and that such will assuredly meet with a correspondent treatment, from a righteous and impartial Judge.

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Surely, this can never be the religion of Jesus! "Whom should we teach knowledge, and cause to receive instruction? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts."

Dr. Kippis, the late pious and learned editor of the Biographia Britannica, to the life of Daniel de Foe, written by his colleague, Dr. Towers, adds a note, the substance of which we shall here insert. "Many fine displays of natural sentiment occur in Robinson Crusoe's man, Friday, one of which is particu larly striking. In a conversation with his master concerning the Devil, being told that God is stronger than he; he inquires, in his broken dialect, why, if this be the case, the Almighty doth not destroy this evil being, and so put an end to his wickedness? To this Crusoe replied, that God would at last punish the Devil severely; that he is reserved for judgment, and is to be cast into the bottomless pit, to dwell with everlasting fire. Friday, however, still dissatisfied, returns upon his masterReserve at last ?-and thinks it unaccountable why such a malevolent being was not destroyed long ago !'You may as well ask me,' replied Crusoe, why God doth not destroy you and me, when we do wicked things that offend him; we are preserved to repent, and be pardoned. At this, Friday appears highly pleased and goes on to express his satisfaction in being persuaded, that both wicked men and devils are preserved to repent, and that God will finally pardon all !"

The annotator adds, " Perhaps it would be going too far to assert, that De Foe here intended covertly to insinuate, that there might be a more merciful distribution of things in the final results of Divine Providence, than he dared, at that time, openly to exhibit."

It is presumed from this specimen, few of our readers will doubt, that the pious biographer was fully justified in suggesting these ideas of De Foe's real sentiments, which, also, the present writer hath every reason to believe, from a long, happy, and personal acquaintance and intercourse with him, were fully congenial with his own.

Mrs. Chapone, in her elegant Letters, (L. 3.) after describing the judgment day, and the sentence of the wicked, as that which must "determine their fate to all eternity," instead of entering into the reasons of this supposed irreversible sentence, presently adds-" Let us turn from this horrid, this insupportable view!" What! a doctrine of the gospel," horrid and insupportable" even in idea-that will scarcely bear a moment's reflection-that cannot admit of being impressed upon the juvenile and tender mind for a single instant, with- Earl of Shaftsbury, in the new edition of out danger of benumbing its faculties!

There are, however, many modera professors, who appear far inferior, in

See also, in this view, the Life of the

the B. B.

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