Page images
PDF
EPUB

by the lives of men of learning and inquiry. This calumny let us contradict; let us refute. Let us show, that virtue and Christianity cast their deepest foundations in knowledge; that, however they may ask the aid of principles, which, in a great degree, govern human life (and which must necessarily, therefore, be either powerful allies, or irresistible adversaries), of education, of habit, of example, of public authority, of public institutions, they rest, nevertheless, upon the firm basis of rational argument. Let us testify to the world our sense of this great truth, by the only evidence which the world will believe, the influence of our conclusions upon our own conduct.

A SERMON,

PREACHED

AT THE ASSIZES AT DURHAM, JULY 29, 1795;

AND PUBLISHED AT THE

REQUEST OF THE LORD BISHOP,

THE HONOURABLE THE JUDGES OF ASSIZE,

AND THE GRAND JURY.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

VI.

ROMANS XIV. 7.

For none of us liveth to himself.

THE use of many of the precepts and maxims of Scripture, is not so much to prescribe actions, as to generate some certain turn and habit of thinking: and they are then only applied as they ought to be, when they furnish us with such a view of, and such a way of considering, the subject to which they relate, as may rectify and meliorate our dispositions; for from dispositions so rectified and meliorated, particular good actions, and particular good rules of acting, flow of their own accord. This is true of the great Christian maxims, of loving our neighbours as ourselves; of doing to others as we would that others should do to us; and (as will appear, I hope, in the sequel of this discourse) of that of the text. These maxims being well impressed, the detail of conduct may be left to itself. The subtleties of casuistry, I had almost said the science, may be spared. By presenting to the mind one fixed consideration, such a temper is at length formed within us, that our first impressions and first impulses are sure almost of being on the side of virtue; and that we feel likewise an almost irresistible inclination to be governed by them. When this disposition is perfected, the influence of religion, as a moral institution, is sufficiently established.

It is not in this way, but in another, that human laws, especially the laws of free countries, proceed to attain their objects. Forasmuch as their ultimate sanctions are to be dispensed by fallible men, instead of an unerring and oinniscient Judge, the safety, as well as the liberty, of the subject, requires, that discretion should be bound down by precise rules both of acting, and of judging of actions. Hence lawgivers have been obliged to multiply directions and prohibitions without number: and this necessity, for such I acknowledge it to be, hath drawn them into a prolixity, which encumbers the law as a science to those who study or administer it; and sometimes perplexes it, as a rule of conduct, to those who have nothing to do with it, but to obey it. Yet still they find themselves unable to make laws as fast as occasions demand them: they find themselves perpetually called upon to pursue, by fresh paths, the inventive versatility of human fraud, or to provide for new and unforeseen varieties of situations. Now, should religion, which professes to guide the whole train and range of man's conduct, interiour as well as external, domestic as well as civil; and which, consequently, extends the operations of its rules to many things which the laws leave indifferent and uncontrolled: should religion, I say, once set about to imitate the precision of human laws, the volume of its precepts would soon be rendered useless by its bulk, and unintelligible by its intricacy. The religion of Mahomet, as might be expected from the religion of a military prophet, constituted itself into the law of the states into which it was réceived. Assuming the functions of legislators and magistrates, in conjunction with the character of interpreters of the Koran, and depositaries of the supplemental laws of the religion, the successors of the Arabian have, under the name of traditionary rules, compiled code for the direction of their followers in almost every part of their conduct. The seventy-five thousand precepts of that code * serve only to show the futility of the attempt; to prove by experiment, that religion can only act upon human life by general precepts, addressed and applied to the disposition; that there is no ground for the objection that has sometimes been made to Christianity, that it is defective as a moral institution, for the want of more explicit, more circumstantial, and more accurate directions; and that when we place by the side of each other, human and divine laws, without understanding the distinction in the two methods by which they seek to attain their purpose, and the reason of that distinction, we form a comparison between them, which is likely to be injurious to both. We may find fault with the Scriptures, for not giving us the precision of civil laws; and we may blame the laws, for not being content with the conciseness and simplicity of Scripture; and our censure in both cases be unfounded and undeserved.

a

The observation of the text is exactly of the nature I have been alluding to. It supplies a principle. It furnishes us with a view of our duty, and of the relations in which we are

* See Hamilton's Translation of the Hedaya or Guide.

« PreviousContinue »