Christianity however, as was formerly observed, proposes not to extinguish our natural desires, but to bring them under just controul, and direct them to their true objects. In the case both of riches and of honour, she maintains the consistency of her character. While she commands us not to set our hearts on earthly treasures, she reminds us that “we have in Heaven a better and more enduring substance” than this world can bestow; and while she represses our solicitude respecting earthly credit, and moderates our attachment to it, she holds forth to us, and bids us habitually to aspire after, the splendours of that better state, where is true glory, and honour, and immortality; thus exciting in us a just ambition, suited to our high origin, and worthy of our large capacities, which the little, misplaced, and perishable distinctions of this life would in vain attempt to satisfy.
It would be mere waste of time to enter into any laboured argument to prove at large, that the light in which worldly credit and estimation are regarded, by the bulk of professed Christians, is extremely different from that in which they are placed by the page of Scripture. The inordinate love of worldly glory indeed, implies a passion, which from the nature of things cannot be called into exercise in the generality of mankind, because, being conversant about great objects, it can but rarely find that field which is requisite for its exertions. But we every where discover the same principle reduced to the dimensions of common life, and modified and directed according to every one’s sphere of action. We may discover it in a supreme love of distinction, and admiration, and praise; in the universal acceptableness of flattery; and above all in the excessive valuation of our worldly character, in that watchfulness with which it is guarded, in that jealousy when it is questioned, in that solicitude when it is in danger, in that hot resentment when it is attacked, in that bitterness of suffering when it is impaired or lost. All these emotions, as they are too manifest to be disputed, so are they too reputable to be denied. Dishonour, disgrace, and shame present images of horror too dreadful to be faced; they are evils, which it is thought the mark of a generous spirit to consider as excluding every idea of comfort and enjoyment, and to feel, in short, as too heavy to be borne.
The consequences of all this are natural and obvious. Though it be not openly avowed, that we are to follow after worldly estimation, or to escape from worldly disrepute, when they can only be pursued or avoided by declining from the path of duty; nay though the contrary be recognized as being the just opinion; yet all the effect of this speculative concession is soon done away in fact. Estimating worldly credit as of the highest intrinsic excellence, and worldly shame as the greatest of all possible evils, we sometimes shape and turn the path of duty itself from its true direction, so as it may favour our acquisition of the one, and avoidance of the other; or when this cannot be done, we boldly and openly turn aside from it, declaring the temptation is too strong to be resisted.
It were easy to adduce numerous proofs of the truth of these assertions. It is proved, indeed, by that general tendency in Religion to conceal herself from the view, (for we might hope that in these cases she often is by no means altogether extinct) by her being apt to vanish from our conversations, and even to give place to a pretended licentiousness of sentiments and conduct, and a false shew of infidelity. It is proved, by that complying acquiescence and participation in the habits and manners of this dissipated age, which, has almost confounded every external distinction between the Christian and the Infidel, and has made it so rare to find any one who dares incur the charge of Christian singularity, or who can say with the Apostle that “he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.” It is proved (how can this proof be omitted by one to whose lot it has so often fallen to witness and lament, sometimes he fears to afford an instance of it?) by that quick resentment, those bitter contentions, those angry retorts, those malicious triumphs, that impatience of inferiority, that wakeful sense of past defeats, and promptness to revenge them, which too often change the character of a Christian deliberative Assembly, into that of a stage for prize fighters: violating at once the proprieties of public conduct, and the rules of social decorum, and renouncing and chasing away all the charities of the Religion of Jesus!
But from all lesser proofs, our attention is drawn to one of a still larger size, and more determined character. Surely the reader will here anticipate our mention of the practice of Duelling: a practice which, to the disgrace of a Christian society, has long been suffered to exist with little restraint or opposition.
This practice, whilst it powerfully supports, mainly rests on, that excessive over-valuation of character, which teaches that worldly credit is to be preserved at any rate, and disgrace at any rate to be avoided. The unreasonableness of duelling has been often proved, and it has often been shewn to be criminal on various principles: sometimes it has been opposed on grounds hardly tenable; particularly when it has been considered as an indication of malice and revenge[77]. But it seems hardly to have been enough noticed in what chiefly consists its essential guilt; that it is a deliberate preference of the favour of man, before the favour and approbation of God, in articulo mortis, in an instance, wherein our own life, and that of a fellow creature are at stake, and wherein we run the risk of rushing into the presence of our Maker in the very act of offending him. It would detain us too long, and it were somewhat beside our present purpose, to enumerate the mischievous consequences which result from this practice. They are many and great; and if regard be had merely to the temporal interests of men, and to the well being of society, they are but poorly counterbalanced by the plea, which must be admitted in its behalf by a candid observer of human nature, of a courtesy and refinement in our modern manners unknown to ancient times.
But there is one observation which must not be omitted, and which seems to have been too much overlooked: In the judgment of that Religion which requires purity of heart, and of that Being to whom, as was before remarked, “thought is action,” he cannot be esteemed innocent of this crime, who lives in a settled habitual determination to commit it, when circumstances shall call upon him so to do[78]. This is a consideration which places the crime of duelling on a different footing from almost any other; indeed there is perhaps no other, which mankind habitually and deliberately resolve to practise whenever the temptation shall occur. It shews also that the crime of duelling is far more general in the higher classes than is commonly supposed, and that the whole sum of the guilt which the practice produces is great, beyond what has perhaps been ever conceived! It will be the writer’s comfort to have solemnly suggested this consideration, to the consciences of those by whom this impious practice might be suppressed: If such there be, which he is strongly inclined to believe, their’s is the crime, and their’s the responsibility of suffering it to continue[79].
In the foregoing observations, it has not been the writer’s intention to discuss completely that copious subject, the love of worldly estimation. It would be to exceed the limits of a work like this, fully to investigate so large, and at the same time so important a topic. Enough however may have perhaps been said, to make it evident that this principle is of a character highly questionable; that it should be brought under absolute subjection, and watched with the most jealous care: That, notwithstanding its lofty pretensions, it often can by no means justly boast that high origin and exalted nature, which its superficial admirers are disposed to concede to it. What real intrinsic essential value, it might be asked, does there appear to be in a virtue, which had wholly changed its nature and character, if public opinion had been different? But it is in truth of base extraction, and ungenerous qualities, springing from selfishness and vanity, and low ambition; by these it subsists, and thrives, and acts; and envy, and jealousy, and detraction, and hatred, and variance, are its too faithful and natural associates. It is, to say the best of it, a root which bears fruits of a poisonous as well as of a beneficial quality. If it sometimes stimulates to great and generous enterprises, if it urges to industry, and sometimes to excellence, if in the more contracted sphere it produces courtesy and kindness; yet to its account we must place the ambition which desolates nations, and many of the competitions and resentments which interrupt the harmony of social life. The former indeed has been often laid to its charge, but the latter have not been sufficiently attended to; and still less has its noxious influence on the vital principle, and distinguishing graces of the Christian character, been duly pointed out and enforced.
To read indeed the writings of certain Christian moralists,[80] and to observe how little they seem disposed to call it in question, except where it raves in the conqueror, one should be almost tempted to suspect; that, considering it as a principle of such potency and prevalence, as that they must despair of bringing it into just subjection, they were intent only on complimenting it into good humour (like those barbarous nations which worship the evil Spirit through fear;) or rather, that they were making a sort of composition with an enemy they could not master, and were willing, on condition of its giving up the trade of war, to suffer it to rule undisturbed, and range at pleasure.
But the truth is, that the reasonings of Christian moralists too often exhibit but few traces of the genius of Christian morality. Of this position, the case before us is an instance. This principle of the desire of worldly distinction and applause, is often allowed, and even commended, with too few qualifications, and too little reserve. To covet wealth is base and sordid, but to covet honour is treated as the mark of a generous and exalted nature. These writers scarcely seem to bear in mind, that though the principle in question tends to prevent the commission of those grosser acts of vice which would injure us in the general estimation; yet that it not only stops there, but that it there begins to exert almost an equal force in the opposite direction. They do not consider how apt this principle is, even in the case of those who move in a contracted sphere, to fill us with vain conceits, and vicious passions; and above all how it tends to fix the affections on earthly things, and to steal away the heart from God. They acknowledge it to be criminal when it produces mischievous effects, but forget how apt it is, by the substitution of a false and corrupt motive, to vitiate the purity of our good actions, depriving them of all which rendered them truly and essentially valuable. That, not to be too hastily approved, because it takes the side of virtue, it often works her ruin while it asserts her cause, and like some vile seducer, pretends affection only the more surely to betray.