[257]. John x. 18.
[258]. Wardlaw’s Discourses, iv. p. 117.
[259]. Acts xvii. 31.
[260]. John v. 30.
[261]. John v. 29. It is very difficult to determine whether this class of passages is rightly interpreted as referring to a final and collective judgment of mankind. The discussion of this point does not properly belong to our present subject; and the assumption, for the sake of brevity of argument, of the usual interpretation, does not imply assent to it.
[262]. Tillotson’s Sermons, xlvi. Lond. 1704. pp. 549, 550.
I am aware that the name of this admirable writer is not likely to have much weight with our opponents; for in speaking of Socinian writers he has indulged in a spirit of justice, which the modern Orthodoxy of his Church appears to consider altogether old-fashioned. The Archbishop gives the following character of the school which took its name from the Socini; “And yet to do right to the writers on that side, I must own, that generally they are a pattern of the fair way of disputing, and of debating matters of religion without heat and unseemly reflections upon their adversaries, in the number of whom I did not expect that the Primitive Fathers of the Christian Church would have been reckoned by them. They generally argue matters with that temper and gravity, and with that freedom from passion and transport, which becomes a serious and weighty argument; and for the most part they reason closely and clearly, with extraordinary guard and caution, with great dexterity and decency, and yet with smartness and subtilty enough; with a very gentle heat, and few hard words;—virtues to be praised wherever they are found, yea even in an enemy, and very worthy our imitation.” Yet the Archbishop, as if aware that his candour might, by a very natural process, excite suspicion of his Orthodoxy, raises himself above imputation by adding, “In a word, they are the strongest managers of a weak cause, and which is ill-founded at the bottom, that perhaps ever yet meddled with controversy; insomuch that some of the Protestants and the generality of the Popish writers, and even of the Jesuits themselves, who pretend to all the reason and subtilty in the world, are in comparison of them but mere scolds and bunglers; upon the whole matter, they have but this one great defect, that they want a good cause and truth on their side; which if they had, they have reason and wit and temper enough to defend it.”—Sermon xliv. p. 521.
[263]. Mr. Stewart recommends to our imitation the conduct of a Jewish child who became anxious to pray, like his companions, to Jesus Christ, not, apparently, from any impulse of the affections, or any convictions of duty; but from a prudent desire to run no risk of offending any possible power. “When I go to heaven and see Jesus Christ, if he is God,” calculates the boy, “I shall be ashamed to look him in the face.” Is it possible that this principle of making sure of one’s self-interest without regard to sincerity and truth, can be published without a blush, from a Christian pulpit? And is Christ so little known as yet, that such hollow worship is thought to be a passport to his favour, instead of winning from him a rebuke that, in truth, must make ashamed? Is the Infinite hearer of prayer,—whatever be his name or names,—one who will turn away from a contrite and trustful supplication of the soul, unless his titles are all set right upon the lips? What then would become of the millions of entreaties and of cries that daily rise from the grieving earth to the blessed God? Impossible! ’twould make Heaven a vast Dead-letter Office, for returning petitions on account of a wrong address.
[264]. Jer. xxxi. 4.
[265]. Jer. xxxi. 13.