15. But I return to the Doctor. His further instruction to this sort of people stands thus. They are told by him, “that their high notions of spiritual improvements have this effect: on the one hand, they lead to presumption, on the other to desperation.” “He has been told, he says, that some have been actually thrown into despair. They have been made stark mad, and received into Bedlam as such. And then he cries out, Was the religion of Jesus Christ intended to make people mad? Is this for the honour of Christianity?”
* I shall not here question the Doctor’s information. I shall only observe, that when our Saviour was upon earth, there were two sorts of mad people about him; the one sort ran about in disorder, tore their cloaths and cut their own flesh; the other sort raved in malice, threw dust into the air, stopped their ears, and cried out crucify him, crucify him.
* It may be asked, which of these two sorts of state? Whose madness was the most shocking, that of the lunatics, or that of the High Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees? Those who only mangled their own bodies, or those that thirsted after the blood of Christ, and would have no rest till they saw his body nailed to the cross? To me the lunatics, seem to be in a less degree of disorder; and the reason is this, because I see that our Saviour could heal them, but not the Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees.
Now is it reasonable, on account of the madness of these Priests, Scribes and Doctors of the law, to say, “Is this for the honour of the Jewish law? Were the law and the prophets intended to make people mad?” If the Doctor knows how to excuse the law and the prophets, tho’ these great students of them were in such a desperate state of madness, then Christianity may be blameless; tho’ here and there a Christian (so called) may be fit for Bedlam.
16. Again, are there others, who desire to bring the whole form of their lives under rules of religion, to let the spirit of the gospel give laws to the most ordinary, indifferent, innocent and lawful things and enjoyments; so that, as the apostle speaks, whether they eat or drink, or whatever they do, they may do all to the glory of God?
These people are told by the Doctor, that “Wholly abstaining from things indifferent and innocent in themselves, as forbidden and unlawful, people were in the most disordered and distempered is a signal instance of being righteous over-much; and so on the other hand, is making things indifferent to be necessary, and matters of duty.”
What is here said has some truth in it, and might be useful in its proper place, and under right limitations. But as it here stands, it is a grievous snare and deceit to the reader. For it is to signify to him, that wholly abstaining from things in themselves indifferent, cannot be made a matter of true religious advancement; but is a blameable instance of excess. If the Doctor had meant only to teach, that we should not abstain from things indifferent, as if they were in themselves unlawful, he should have told his readers that he meant no more. He should have told them, that such things might be abstained from justly, upon a better principle, and so become very expedient and edifying; and that he did not condemn the abstaining from such things, when it was done upon a motive of piety, or for the better fulfilling any duty; but only when it was done from superstitious notion, of the things being in themselves sin.
Had he done this, he had prevented the snare and deceit that is now in his assertion: but then he would at the same time have made it useless, and insignificant to the design of his discourse, and would have left a door open for such advances in piety, as he is now opposing.
17. It might easily be shewn, if this was the place for it, that no one can truly fulfil the two first and greatest of all laws, that of loving God with all our heart, and that of loving our neighbour as ourselves, unless he be willing and glad, in many instances, wholly to abstain from things in themselves indifferent and innocent.
St. Paul’s doctrine is this: All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. This sets the matter right on both sides. It leaves things in their own state of indifference, and yet carries us to a higher rule of acting. It directs us wholly to abstain from, some things innocent in themselves, and to do things because they are expedient; because by so doing, we shew a higher love of God, and a greater desire of doing every thing to his glory; because we thereby attain a greater conquest over all our inward and outward enemies, and in a greater degree help forward the edification of our neighbour.