1 Tim. i. 5.
The end of the Commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.
The Apostle, in the preceding verse, had warned Timothy against giving heed to fables and endless genealogies: by Fables, meaning certain Jewish fictions and traditions applied to the explication of theological questions, and not unlike the tales of the pagan mythologists, contrived by them to cover the monstrous stories of their Gods; and, by Genealogies, the derivation of Angelic and Spiritual natures[65], according to a fantastic system, invented by the Oriental philosophers, and thence adopted by some of the Grecian Sects. These fables and genealogies (by which the Jewish and Pagan converts to Christianity had much adulterated the faith of the Gospel) the Apostle sets himself to expose and reprobate, as producing nothing but curious and fruitless disputations; being indeed, as he calls them, endless, or interminable[66]; because, having no foundation in the revealed word of God, they were drawn out, varied, and multiplied at pleasure by those, who delighted in such fanatical visions.
Then follows the text.—The end of the Commandment, is Charity: out of a PURE HEART: and of a GOOD CONSCIENCE; and of FAITH UNFEIGNED—As if the Apostle had said, “I have cautioned you against this pernicious folly: but, if ye must needs deal in the way of Mythology and Genealogy, I will tell you how ye may employ your ingenuity to more advantage. Take Christian Charity, for your theme: mythologize that capital Grace of your profession; or, deduce the parentage of it, according to the steps, which I will point out to you. For it springs immediately out of a pure heart; which, itself, is derived from a good conscience; as that, again, is the genuine offspring or emanation of faith unfeigned. In this way, ye may gratify your mythologic or genealogical vein, innocently and usefully[67]; for ye may learn yourselves, and teach others, how to acquire and perfect that character, which is the great object of your religion, and the end of the Commandment.”
Let us, then, if you please, attend to this genealogical deduction of the learned Apostle; and see, if the descent of Christian charity be not truly and properly investigated by him.
I. Charity, says he, is out of a pure heart: that is, it proceeds from a heart, free from the habits of sin, and unpolluted by corrupt affections.
To see with what propriety, the Apostle makes a pure heart the parent of charity, we are to reflect, that this benevolent temper, which inclines us to wish and do well to others, is the proper growth and produce, indeed, of the human mind, but of the human mind in its native and original integrity. To provide effectually for the maintenance of the social virtues, it hath pleased God to implant in man, not only the power of reason, which enables him to see the connexion between his own happiness and that of others, but also certain instincts and propensities, which make him feel it, and, without reflexion, incline him to take part in foreign interests. For, among the other wonders of our make, this is one, that we are so formed as, whether we will or no, to rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep[68]. But now this sympathetic tenderness, which nature hath put into our hearts for the concerns of each other, may be much impaired by habitual neglect, or selfish gratifications. If, instead of listening to those calls of nature, which, on the entrance into life, are incessantly, but gently, urging us to acts of generosity, we turn a deaf ear to them, and, charmed by the suggestions of self-love, yield up ourselves to the dominion of the grosser appetite, it cannot be but that the love of others, however natural to us, must decline, and become, at length, a feeble motive to action; or, which amounts to the same thing, be constantly overpowered by the undue prevalence of other principles. Thus we may see, how ambition, avarice, sensuality, or any other of the more selfish passions, tends directly, by indulgence, to obstruct the growth of charity; and how favourable an uncorrupt mind is to the production and maturity of this divine virtue.
But, further, the impurities of the heart do not only hinder the exertions of benevolence; they have even a worse effect, they cause us to pervert and misapply it. It is not, perhaps, so easy a matter, as some imagine, to divest ourselves of all attachment to the interest of our fellow-creatures. But, by a long misuse of our faculties, we may come in time to mistake the objects of true interest; and so be carried, by the motives of benevolence itself, to do irreparable mischief to those we would most befriend and oblige. This seems to be the case of those most abandoned of all sinners, who take pains to corrupt others, and not only do wicked things themselves, but have pleasure in those who do them[69]. All that can be said for these unhappy victims of their own lusts, is, that their perverted benevolence prompts them to encourage others in that course of life, from which, if it were rightly exercised, they would endeavour, with all their power, to divert them.
So necessary it is, that charity should be out of a pure heart! It is polluted in its very birth, unless it proceed from an honest mind: it is spurious and illegitimate, if it be not so descended.
II. The next step in this line of moral ancestry, is a GOOD CONSCIENCE: which phrase is not to be taken here in the negative sense, and as equivalent only to a pure heart; but as expressing a further, a positive degree of goodness. For so we find it explained elsewhere; having, says St. Peter, a GOOD CONSCIENCE, that whereas they speak evil of you, as EVIL DOERS, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your GOOD CONVERSATION in Christ Jesus: for it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for WELL DOING, than for evil doing[70]. Whence, by a good conscience, we are authorized to understand a mind, conscious to itself of beneficent actions. And thus the Apostle’s intention will be, to insinuate to us, that, to be free from depraved affections, we must be actively virtuous; and that we must be zealous in good works, if we would attain to that purity of heart, which is proper to beget the genuine virtue of Christian charity.
For, we may conceive of the matter, thus. A good conscience, or a mind enured to right action, is most likely, and best enabled, to shake off all corrupt partialities; and, as being intent on the strenuous exercise of its duty, in particular instances, to acquire, in the end, that tone of virtue, which strengthens, at once, and refines the affections, till they expand themselves into an universal good-will. Thus we see that, without this moral discipline, we should scarce possess, or not long retain, a pure heart; and that the heart, if pure, would yet be inert and sluggish, and unapt to entertain that prompt and ready benevolence, which true charity implies.
So that an active practical virtue, as serving both to purify and invigorate the kind affections, has deservedly a place given to it in this lineal descent of Christian love. But,
III. The Apostle rises higher yet in this genealogical scale of charity, and acquaints us that a good conscience, or a course of active positive virtue, is not properly and lawfully descended, unless it proceed from a FAITH UNFEIGNED, that is, a sincere undissembled belief of the Christian religion.
And the reason is plain. For there is no dependance on virtuous practice; we cannot expect that it should either be steady, or lasting, unless the principle, from which it flows, be something nobler and more efficacious, than considerations taken from the beauty, propriety, and usefulness of virtue itself. Our active powers have need to be sustained and strengthened by energies of a higher kind, than those which mere philosophy supplies. We shall neither be able to bear up against the difficulties of a good life, nor to stand out against the temptations, which an evil world is always ready to throw in our way, but by placing a firm trust on the promises of God, and by keeping our minds fixed on the glorious hopes and assurances of the Gospel. And experience may satisfy us, that practical virtue has no stability or consistency, without these supports.
Besides, considering a good conscience, or a moral practical conduct, with an eye to its influence on a pure heart, till it issue in complete charity, we cannot but see how the Christian faith is calculated to direct its progress, and secure the great end proposed. For the whole system of our divine religion, which hath its foundation in grace; its precepts, which breathe nothing but love and amity; its doctrines, which only present to us, under different views, the transcendent goodness of God in the great work of redemption; its history, which records the most engaging instances of active benevolence; all this cannot but exceedingly inspirit our affections, and carry them out in a vigorous and uniform prosecution of the subordinate means, which are to produce that last perfection of our nature, a pure and permanent love of mankind. For at every step we cannot but see the end of the commandment, so perpetually held out to us, and derive a fresh inducement from faith, to accomplish and obtain it.
Indeed, to produce this effect, our faith, as the Apostle adds, must be UNFEIGNED: that is, it must be nourished and intimately rooted in the heart; we must not only yield a general assent to the sacred truths of our religion, we must embrace them with earnestness and zeal, we must rely upon them with an unshaken confidence and resolution. But all this will be no difficulty to those who derive their faith from its proper source, that is, who make a diligent study of the holy scriptures: where only we learn what the true faith (which will ever be most friendly to virtue) is; and whence we shall best derive those motives and considerations, which are proper to excite and fortify this principle in us.
And thus, that Charity, which a pure mind gives the liberty of exerting, and which a good conscience manifests and at the same time improves, will, further, be so sublimed and perfected by the influence of divine faith, as will render it the sovereign guide of life, and the pride and ornament of humanity.
Or, to place the descent of Charity, in its true and natural order, it must spring, first, from an unfeigned faith in the Gospel of Jesus: that faith must then produce, and shew itself in, a good conscience: and that conscience must be thoroughly purged from all selfish and disorderly affections: whence, lastly, the celestial offspring of Charity has its birth, and comes forth in all the purity and integrity of its nature.
From this lineage of Christian Charity, thus deduced, many instructive lessons may be drawn. We may learn to distinguish the true and genuine, from pretended Charity: we have, hence, the surest way of discerning the spirits of other men, and of trying our own: we may correct some popular mistakes concerning the virtue of charity; and shall best comprehend the force and significancy of the several commendations, which the inspired writers, in many places, and in very general terms, bestow upon it.
Let me conclude this discourse with an instance of such instruction, respecting each of those heads, which the order of the text hath afforded the opportunity of considering.
And, first, from the necessity of a PURE HEART, we are instructed what to think of the benevolence of those men, who, though enslaved to their own selfish passions, are seldom the most backward to make large pretences to this virtue. But, be their pretences what they will, we know with certainty, that, if the heart be impure, its charity must be defective. It must, of course, be weak and partial; confined in its views, and languid in its operations; in a word, a faint and powerless quality, and not that generous, diffusive, universal principle, which alone deserves the exalted name of Charity.
We conclude, also, on the same grounds, that the hatred of vice is no breach of Christian charity. This charity is required to flow from a pure heart. But there is not in nature a stronger antipathy, than between purity, and impurity. So that we might as well expect light and darkness, heat and cold, to associate, as spotless virtue not to take offence at its opposite. I know, indeed, that the hatred due to the vices of men, is too easily transferred to their persons. But that charity, which is lineally descended from faith, will see to make a difference between them; and while it feels a quick resentment against sin, will conceive, nay will, by that very resentment, demonstrate, a tender concern for sinners, for whom Christ died.
Secondly, from the rank, which a GOOD CONSCIENCE holds in this family of love, we are admonished to avoid the mistake of those, who are inclined to rest in negative virtue, as the end of the commandment; and who account their charity full and complete, when it keeps them only from intending, or doing mischief to others. The Apostle, on the contrary, gives us to understand, that its descent is irregular, if it be not allied to active positive virtue; such as takes a pleasure in kind offices, is zealous to promote the welfare of others, and is fertile in good works. And this conclusion is the more necessary to be inforced upon us, since, in a world like this, where vice is sure to be active enough, the interests of society will not permit that Charity should be idle.
Lastly, from the lineal descent of Charity from FAITH, we must needs infer, that infidelity is not a matter of that indifference to social life, which many careless persons suppose it to be. It is the glory of our faith, that it terminates in charity. Every article of our creed is a fresh incitement to good works: in so much that, he who understands his religion most perfectly, and is most firmly persuaded of it, can scarce fail of approving himself the best man, as well as the best Christian. And this, again, is a consideration, which should affect all those who profess to have any concern for the interests of society and moral virtue.
Thus it appears, how instructive the doctrine of the text is, and how usefully, as well as elegantly, the Apostle sets before us, in this short genealogical table, the proper ancestry of Charity: in which Faith, as the ultimate progenitor, begets an active virtue; and that, impregnating the heart with pure affections, produces at length this divine offspring of Christian love.
If we had found this mythological fiction in Xenophon or Plato, we should have much admired the instruction conveyed in it. Let it not abate our reverence for this moral lesson, that it comes from an Apostle of Jesus, and, if not dressed out in the charms of human eloquence, has all the authority of truth and divine inspiration to recommend it to us.