Mr. Roscoe.—"And may not a person acquire a high degree of virtue even while he is destitute of every religious principle? Our friend, Mr. Frowd, as you may well remember, was a most excellent and virtuous man, and even a zealous Churchman; but you know that he rejected the Divine origin of Christianity, and supported the church as a mere human establishment, which served to give stability to the government, by operating on the prejudices and passions of the masses of the people through the medium of her clergy. Hence we must not confound morality and religion, as though they were essentially the same thing, seeing that the most moral may be as sceptical in their opinions as the most impure, and are often even more unwilling than they, to receive the humiliating doctrines and self-denying precepts of the gospel."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"I admit the correctness of your statement, and I assure you that this view of the matter has often excited my astonishment. I have in my parish a gentleman, who is very humane and benevolent—a faithful friend—beloved by all who know him; but he has not been to church for nearly twenty years, except when he came to receive the sacrament, on his being elected sheriff of the county. I have sometimes spoken to him on the subject of religion, but he shrewdly gets away from my arguments by saying, 'Sir, you are to be commended for doing your duty.'"
Mr. Roscoe.—"And will not these facts convince you that the moral disorder of our nature lies in the heart, which may be deceitful and desperately wicked in the sight of God, even while some of the virtues adorn the character. Have you yet to learn, my brother, that pride, which disdains vulgar vice—that a love of fame and that self-interest may generate many social and domestic virtues, even while the inner man is enmity against God, neither recognizing the authority of his law, nor embracing the truths of the gospel? On this subject I can speak with strong personal feeling; and if I may refer to a passage in my own history, it is not to gratify vanity, but to illustrate the distinction which the Scriptures preserve between morality and personal religion. I lived for many years a virtuous life, attached to the church, and devoting much of my time to the study of the Scriptures, reverencing God as a great and good being, and believing in the Divine mission of Jesus Christ; but during the whole of this time I was ignorant of the alienation of my affections from God—of the actual depravity of my heart—of the essential evil of sin; nor could I understand how we are to be saved by grace, through faith, until it pleased God to enlighten my understanding; then all obscurity vanished, and now, I trust, I know the mysteries of truth more perfectly."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"You who embrace what are termed evangelical sentiments, always employ a mystical phraseology of speech, which no one can understand but the initiated; and this is one principal cause of the prejudice which prevails against them amongst the more intelligent and less enthusiastic part of society."
Mr. Roscoe.—"But our mystical phraseology of speech, as you are pleased to term it, is the very language of Scripture; and the inspired writers who have employed it, would doubtless use it now, if they were speaking to us. You, then, ought to transfer your objections from us to them; but in doing so, you would be encountering an authority which you profess to venerate. But, after all, the objection is less against the phraseology of Scripture, than against the truth of which it is the appointed vehicle of communication. Pride, under some peculiar modification, is the epidemic disease of our nature; but none are more under its dominion than men of intelligence, of taste, and of virtue; and it is against this passion that the gospel of Jesus Christ directs the thunder of its power. How mortifying to a man of intellectual fame, whose superior genius feels equal to the comprehension of whole systems of truth, by a single exertion of its power, to be told that 'whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall not enter therein!' How mortifying to a man, whose amiable temper, whose social habits, whose fascinating manners, whose constitutional virtues have combined to raise him far above his fellows, to be told that he must come down from his vantage-ground, to kneel at the same throne of grace with publicans and harlots, and implore forgiveness in language equally humiliating with that which they employ!"
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"I have always thought that the cultivation of the virtues predisposed the mind to receive the truths of Christianity; but if your statement be correct, a virtuous man may be no more fit for the kingdom of heaven than a profane one."
Mr. Roscoe.—"Nor can he be, unless he is born again. He may, like the Pharisee in the gospel, trust in the merit of his virtues for salvation, instead of trusting in the redemption made by Jesus Christ; but having no just perceptions of the degeneracy of his nature, he repudiates with disdain the doctrine of regeneration, which Jesus Christ asserts to be universally necessary."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"Then you believe that all men are depraved, though not equally corrupt; and that all, notwithstanding their various shades of excellence, stand in equal need of the moral change which you think regeneration denotes?"
Mr. Roscoe.—"We should remember that Christianity is essentially a restorative dispensation; it bears a continual respect to a state from which man is fallen, and is a provision for repairing that ruin which the introduction of moral evil has brought upon him. Exposed to the displeasure of God, and the curse of his law, he stands in need of a Redeemer; disordered in his powers, and criminally averse to his duty, he equally needs a Sanctifier. And it is to men of every age and of every clime, as guilty and depraved sinners, without paying any respect to the lighter degrees of their depravity and guilt, that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings the glad tidings of complete redemption; but if any reject it, through a false conception that they do not require its renovating power or its cleansing virtue, they are, in the language of the Scriptures, emphatically denominated unbelievers, on whom the wrath of God abideth continually."
The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the ladies, who informed us that they had made a call at Fairmount, where they had been highly gratified.—"Indeed," said Mrs. John Roscoe, "I must confess that I was most agreeably disappointed. Mrs. Stevens is no less accomplished than intelligent; and I was delighted with her frank and cheerful disposition, and the elegant ease of her manners. Instead of a demure lady, disgusted with the world, and absorbed in the anticipations of a future state, she talked pleasantly of men and things, as a contented and a happy resident amongst them. I could perceive that religion was her favourite theme; yet there was no gloom with it, nor overweening self-conceit. She appeared almost like an angel pleading the cause of heaven, and that in such language and with such feeling as I never before heard or witnessed. She disengaged the religious principle from all its connections and associations with human forms and ceremonials, and presented it in its own native simplicity and purity; I could see that it was to her no less a source of felicity than a subject of contemplation and discussion. She must be, indeed, a happy woman."