The fact is, the gospel is a dispensation of general favour, and it actually communicates many invaluable blessings to those who know nothing of its divine principles. There are millions of people in the world who are blessed in a great variety of respects by means of civil government, who know nothing of the principles of the governments by which they are protected. How many blessings are constantly falling, as it were like a shower, on our infants and youth in America, from the favourable government of our happy country, and yet these children know not the difference between an absolute monarchy and a republic.
How many millions of the human race are daily fed from the products of agriculture, who know nothing of the principles which produce those rich supplies. So there are multitudes who enjoy many blessings procured by the gospel of Christ, who have no knowledge of the sublime principles of this religion. But here again I will repeat the remark, that our rational felicity is greatly increased by an extension of our knowledge in the principles of the doctrine of Jesus, which consideration is a proper incentive to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Knowledge is food for the mind and nourishes and strengthens it as aliment does the body. Our youth learn to read the books which they are favoured with in consequence of the discovery of the art of printing, and they obtain great advantages by means of those books, while they remain entirely ignorant, many of them, of the art by which such a favour is put into their hands. But still it is healthy to the youthful mind, to receive the knowledge of this and other arts, and even to know that an art so extensively useful was not known in the world four hundred years ago. A person on being informed of the first discovery of this art, and of its being practiced, in the first place, with separate wooden types, might be disposed to doubt the ignorance of men in those times. He might think it incredible that any thing so easy, that even children can perform was unknown to the learned world in those times when learning flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. And I am of opinion that many now, who are disposed to doubt the circumstances which attended the first promulgation of the gospel, and even call themselves unbelievers, do in reality, owe even their existence and of course every blessing they enjoy to those facts of which they now doubt. Yes, sir, the light of reason, and the knowledge of moral principles, on which you feel disposed to place so much consequence, I am inclined to believe are reflections of that light which was the delightful theme of the evangelical Isaiah, chapters 6, 7, 8. "I the Lord hath called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am the Lord; that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, nor my praise to graven images." Am I deceived, sir, or is it evident, that the glorious LIGHT which illuminates our moral hemisphere, and distinguishes our country from barbarism and savage ignorance, is the gospel? The name of Jesus, his doctrine, the reformation, seceding from the Church of England and persecution for conscience sake, rank as causes of the settlement of New England by our forefathers, and of the existence of the men who are carrying on this correspondence. This is mentioned with a view to direct your mind to the consideration of that course of causes and effects by which we are enabled to reason on what wo call moral and physical principles. And a hope is entertained that due regard will be paid to this self-evident fact, that nothing ever took place without an adequate cause to produce it.
With this reflection, I come to notice your remarks on the subject of St. Paul's conversion; for it appears to me that you have allowed certain facts without assigning any adequate causes by which those facts came to exist. You make no attempt to deny that there was such a man as St. Paul, nor do you deny his having been educated, and religiously instructed as the scripture history concerning this man sets forth. But you assign no reason why he became a believer in Jesus Christ, you assign no reason for his becoming a preacher of the doctrine of Jesus, you assign no reason why he should so patiently suffer for the religion, the truth of which you are now calling in question. You allow that before his conversion he persecuted unto death the "weak and defenceless disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus." But you assign no reasons why weak and defenceless men should become the disciples of Jesus. You would fain insinuate that what he relates of the particular circumstance which happened to him on his way to Damascus was a mere reverie. But you make no attempt to show how such a reverie could produce in this learned pharisee a belief that Jesus, who was crucified had actually arose from the dead, when there were not even the shadow of evidence existing to prove such an improbable fact. You are inclined to this notion of a reverie on account of some experience of your own, which your good sense and after reflection have discovered to be nothing on which dependence ought to be placed. Sir, where is the similarity of your case with that of the learned pharisee? Do you really believe you ever experienced a reverie, that would go in the least to cause you to believe in the resurrection of a man who was hanged in your sight, and who you knew was buried, and of whose resurrection you had no evidence, only a vague reverie? Do you believe you ever experienced a mere imagination which was strong enough to produce the above belief, and which could continue to influence you all your life long, lead you to forsake a most honourable connexion, and to espouse a religion which all the prejudices of your education opposed, and to labour continually for its support and to suffer every thing for its defence? No, you pretend to no such thing, therefore your case is very different from St. Paul's.
I agree with you, that the case of this apostle comes under the rule which you recollect I suggested in my sermon. He undoubtedly viewed the religion which he received in room of the one he parted with the most valuable. And to this agrees his own testimony. Phil. iii. 7, &c. "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."
As you promise to say more on this subject, I shall continue to expect an attempt to deny the conversion of such a man as St. Paul is set forth to have been, to the Christian religion, under all the circumstances which the scripture account mentions; or an attempt to show that such a conversion could probably take place without supposing the facts on which the religion of Christ was founded were realities; or lastly, an acknowledgment that this conversion may reasonably be allowed as evidence to us of the truth of the Christian religion.
Should you be disposed to disallow the account which the scripture gives of St. Paul, I will ask the favour of you to point out and show to my understanding where in Paley's Horae Paulinae fails of proving the truth of the scripture history of St. Paul.
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What follows is designed to notice your sixth number; out of which the following subjects are selected, on which some remarks are made.
1st. You observe that "when we hear things, which to our understanding are improbable, the improbability of the facts raises a doubt in our minds; and certainly there can be no harm in suspending our judgment, nor yet in withholding our belief until we are fully satisfied." This first subject regards the degrees of evidences which are required in different cases, and the moral propriety of withholding the assent of the mind in the case of a want of evidence.