St. James, iv. 1.
From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
Interpreters have observed, that these questions refer to the state of things, which then took place among the Jews, when this epistle was addressed to them. For, about that time, they had grievous wars and fightings among themselves; every city, and every family, almost, of this devoted people, not only in Judea, but in many other countries, through which they were scattered abroad, being miserably distracted and torn asunder by civil and domestic factions.
This application, then, of the Apostle’s words to the Jews of his own time, seems a just one. But we need look no further for a comment upon them, than to that hostile spirit, which too much prevails, at all times, and under all circumstances, even among Christians themselves.
The root of this bitterness, we are told, is in the lusts, that war in our members: that is, there is, first, an insurrection of our carnal appetites against the law of our minds; and, then, the contagion spreads over families, neighbourhoods, and societies; over all those, in short, with whom we have any concern, till the whole world, sometimes, becomes a general scene of contention and disorder.
For, ask the princes of this world, what prompts them to disturb the peace of other states, and to involve their subjects in all the horrors of war; and their answer, if they deign to give one, and if it be ingenuous, must, commonly, be, their lust of conquest and dominion. Ask the servants of those princes, what splits them into parties and factions; and they can hardly avoid answering, or we can answer for them, their lust of wealth and power. Ask the people, at large, and under whatever denomination, what occasions their contempt of authority, their disobedience to magistrates, their transgressions of law, their cabals and tumults, their hatred, defamation, and persecution of each other; and charity herself, for the most part, can dictate no other reply for them to this question, than that they are excited to all these excesses by the lust of riot and misrule, or, of, what they call, LIBERTY.
But there is no end of pursuing this subject in all its applications to particular instances. What we have most reason to lament, is, that Christians not only fight with each other, at the instigation of their lusts, for their own carnal and corrupt ends; but that they make the very means, which God has appointed to compose these differences, the instruments of their animosity, and become outrageous in their hostile treatment of each other, by the perversion of those principles, which were intended to be its restraint. For if any thing could appease this tumult among men, what more likely to do it, than the administration of civil justice, and the sacred institutions of religion? Yet, are even these provisions of divine and human wisdom, for the support of peace and good order, defeated by our restless and ingenious passions; and we contrive, to make Religion and Law themselves, subservient to the increase of that contention, which they tend so naturally to keep out of the world.
As this abuse, which inverts the order of things, and turns the medicine of life into a deadly poison—as this abuse, I say, can never be enough exposed; let me represent to you some part of the evils, which this monstrous misuse of Religion and Civil Justice has brought upon mankind; as the last, and most striking effort of these malignant lusts, from which, according to the holy Apostle, all our violations of peace and charity are derived.
And, FIRST, of the mischiefs, arising, from misapplied Religion.
It were an ample field, this, should I undertake to follow the ecclesiastical historian in all the abuses, which he so largely displays. But my design is to open the fountains; to point, only, to the general causes, from which those abuses have flowed. And the chief of these causes will not be overlooked, if we consider that Christianity has been corrupted by superstition, by policy, and by sophistry: for, in each of these ways, the lusts. of men have found free scope for their activity; and have produced all those endless discords and animosities, which have dishonoured the Christian world.
1. Superstition began very early to make cruel inroads into the religion of Jesus: first, by debasing its free spirit with the servility of Jewish observances; next, in adulterating its simple genius by the pomp of pagan ceremonies; and, afterwards, through a long course of dark and barbarous ages, in disfiguring its reasonable service[58] by every whimsy, which a gloomy or disturbed imagination could suggest.
The lusts of men gave birth to these several perversions. The obstinate pride of the Jewish Christian was flattered in retaining the abrogated ritual of the Law: the pagan proselyte gratified his vanity, and love of splendor in religious ministrations, by dressing out Christianity in all the paint and pageantry of his ancient worship: and the miserable monk soothed his fears, or indulged his spite, in busying himself with I know not what uncommanded and frivolous expiations, or in torturing others with the rigours of a fruitless penance.
From these rank passions, sprung up wars in abundance among Christians. The Apostles themselves could not prevent their followers from fighting with each other, in the cause of circumcision. The superstition of days[59], and of images[60], grew so fierce, that the whole Christian world was, at different times, thrown into convulsions by it. And the dreams of monkery excited every where the most implacable feuds; which had, commonly, no higher object, than the credit of their several Rules, or the honour of their Patron-saints.
2. When superstition had thus set the world on fire, a godless Policy struck in, to encrease the combustion.
The Christian religion, which had TRUTH for its object, could not but require an assent from its professors to the doctrines, it revealed; and, having God for its author, it, of course, exacted a compliance with the few ritual observances, which he saw fit to ordain. But the wantonness, or weakness, of the human mind, introducing a different interpretation of those doctrines, and a different ministration of those rites, the policy of princes would not condescend to tolerate such unavoidable differences, but would inforce a rigid uniformity both of sentiment and ceremony, as most conducive, in their ideas, to the quiet and stability of their government.
Again: the honour of prelates and churches seemed to be concerned in all questions concerning place and jurisdiction; and, when these questions arose, was to be maintained by every artifice, which an interested and secular wisdom could contrive.
The lust of dominion, was plainly at the bottom of these infernal machinations; and the fruit, it produced, was the most bloody and unrelenting wars, massacres, and persecutions; with which the annals of mankind are polluted and disgraced. But,
3. To work up these two pests of humanity, superstition, and intolerance, to all the fury, of which they are capable, unblessed Science and perverted Reason lent their aid.
For, the pride of knowledge begot innumerable portentous heresies: which not only corrupted the divine religion of Jesus (obnoxious to some taint from the impure touch of human reason, because divine), but envenomed the hearts of its professors, against each other, by infusing into them a bitter spirit of altercation and dispute.
In these several ways, then, and from these causes, has our holy religion been abused. The lusts of men have turned the Gospel of peace itself into an instrument of war: a misadventure, which could not have taken place, had Christians but recollected and practised one single precept of their master—Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls[61].
But the perversity of man could not be brought to learn this salutary lesson; and so has fulfilled that memorable saying of our Lord, who, foreseeing what abuses would hereafter be made of his charitable system, declared of himself—I came not to send peace, but a sword[62]. This prediction, at least, the enemies of our faith are ready enough to tell us, has been amply verified, in the event. It has been so: it was therefore inspired, because it was to be fulfilled. But let them remember, withall, that not the genius of the Gospel, but man’s incorrigible passions, acting in defiance of it, have given to this prophecy its entire completion.
I come now to represent to you,
II. In the second place, how the lusts of men have perverted Civil Justice, as well as Religion, into an instrument of contention and hate.
The object of all civil, or municipal laws, is the conservation of private peace, in the equal protection they afford to the property and persons of men. Yet, how often have they been employed to other purposes, by those, who administer the Laws; and by those, for whose sake they are administered!
1. In reading the history of mankind, one cannot but observe, with indignation, how frequently the magistrate himself has turned the Law, by which he governs, into an engine of oppression: sometimes, directing it against the liberties of the state; and sometimes, against the private rights of individuals. It were a small matter, perhaps, if he only took advantage of a severe law, or drew over an ambiguous one, to countenance his iniquitous purposes. But how oft has he embittered the mildest, or tortured the plainest laws, by malignant glosses and strained interpretations! gratifying, in both ways, his revenge, his avarice, or his ambition; yet still in the forms of Law, and under the mantle, as it were of public justice!
Such abuses there have been in most states, and, it may be, in our own. God forbid, that, standing in this place, I should accept the persons of men, or give flattering titles unto any[63]. But truth obliges me to say, that there is, now, no colour for these complaints. The administration of justice, on the part of the Magistrate, is so pure, as to be the glory of the age, in which we live. The abuses all arise from another quarter; and the contentious spirit is kept alive and propagated by the lusts of private men. And what renders their iniquity without excuse, is, that the very equity of those forms, in which our laws are administered, is made the occasion of introducing all these corruptions.
2. To come to a detail on this subject, might be thought improper. Let me paint to you, then, in very general terms, the disorders that spring from this perversion of Law; and, to do it with advantage, let me employ the expressive words of an ancient Pagan writer.
The Roman governors of provinces, it is well known, had their times for the more solemn administration of civil justice. Suppose, then, one of these governors to have fixed his residence in the capital of an Asiatic province, to have appointed a day for this solemnity, and, with his Lictors, and other ensigns of authority about him, to be now seated in the forum, or public place of the city; and consider, if the following representation of an indifferent by-stander be not natural and instructive.
“See,” says the eloquent writer[64], whose words I only translate, “see that vast and mixt multitude assembled together before you. You ask, what has occasioned this mighty concourse of people. Are they met to sacrifice to their country Gods, and to communicate with each other in the sacred offices of their religion? Are they going to offer the Lydian first-fruits to the Ascræan Jupiter? or, are they assembled in such numbers to celebrate the rites of Bacchus, with the usual festivity? Alas, no. Neither pious gratitude, nor festal joy, inspires them. One fierce unfriendly passion only prevails; whose epidemic rage has stirred up all Asia, and, as returning with redoubled force on this stated anniversary, has driven these frantic crowds to the forum; where they are going to engage in law-suits with each other, before the Judges. An infinite number of causes, like so many confluent streams, rush together, in one common tide, to the same tribunal. The passions of the contending parties are all on fire; and the end of this curious conflict is, the ruin of themselves and others. What fevers, what calentures, what adust temperament of the body, or overflow of its vicious humours, is to be compared to this plague of the distempered mind? Were you to interrogate each cause (in the manner you examine a witness) as it appears before this tribunal, and ask, WHENCE IT CAME? the answer would be, an obstinate and self-willed spirit produced this; a bitter rage of contention, that; and a lust of revenge and injustice, another.”
It is not to be doubted, that this rage of the contending parties was inflamed, in those times, by mercenary agents and venal orators; by men, who employed every fetch of cunning, and every artifice of chicane, to perplex the clearest laws, to retard the decision of the plainest cases, and to elude the sentence of the ablest judges. Without some such management as this, the passions of the litigants could not have been kept up in such heat and fury, but must gradually have cooled, and died away of themselves. Add this, then, to the other features, so well delineated, and you will have the picture of ancient litigation complete.
And what think we, now, of this picture? Is there truth and nature in it? Are we at all concerned in this representation; and do we discover any resemblance to it in what is passing elsewhere, I mean in modern times, and even in Christian societies? If we do, let us acknowledge with honesty, but indeed with double shame, that, like the Pagans of old, we have the art to pervert the best things to the worst purposes; and that the lusts of men are still predominant over the wisest and most beneficent institutions of civil justice.
Indeed, as to ourselves, the mild and equitable spirit of our laws might be enough, one would think, to inspire another temper: but when we further consider the divine spirit of the Gospel, by which we pretend to be governed, and the end of which is charity, our prodigious abuse of both must needs cover us with confusion.
The instruction, then, from what has been said, is this: That, since, as St. James observes, all our wars and fightings with each other proceed only from our lusts, and since these have even prevailed to that degree as to corrupt the two best gifts, which God, in his mercy, ever bestowed on mankind, that is, to make Religion and Law subservient to our bitter animosities; since all this, I say, has been made appear in the preceding comment on the sacred text, it becomes us, severally, to consider what our part has been in the disordered scene, now set before us: what care we have taken to check those unruly passions, which are so apt, by indulgence, to tyrannize over us; and, if this care has been less than it ought to have been, what may be the consequence of our neglect. We should, in a word, take heed, how we bite and devour one another; not only, as the Apostle admonishes, that we be not consumed one of another; but lest, in the end, we incur the chastisement of that Law, we have so industriously perverted, and the still sorer chastisement of that Religion, we have so impiously abused.