The good rector joined the party at dinner. The conversation afterward
happened to turn on the value of human opinion, and Sir John Belfield
made the hackneyed observation, that the desire of obtaining it should
never be discouraged, it being highly useful as a motive of action.
"Yes," said Dr. Barlow, "it certainly has its uses in a world, the
affairs of which must be chiefly carried on by worldly men; a world
which is itself governed by low motives. But human applause is not a
Christian principle of action; nay, it is so adverse to Christianity
that our Saviour himself assigns it as a powerful cause of men's not
believing, or at least not confessing Him; _because they loved the
praise of men_. The eager desire of fame is a sort of separation line
between Paganism and Christianity. The ancient philosophers have left us
many shining examples of moderation in earthly things, and of the
contempt of riches. So far the light of reason, and a noble self-denial
carried them; and many a Christian may blush at these instances of their
superiority; but of an indifference to fame, of a deadness to human
applause except as founded on loftiness of spirit, disdain of their
judges, and self-sufficient pride, I do not recollect any instance."
"And yet," said Sir John, "I remember Seneca says in one of his
epistles, that no man expresses such a respect and devotion to virtue as
he who forfeits the _repute_ of being a good man, that he may not
forfeit the _conscience_ of being such."
"They might," replied Mr. Stanley, "incidentally express some such
sentiment, in a well turned period, to give antithesis to an expression,
or weight to an apothegm; they might declaim against it in a fit of
disappointment in the burst of indignation excited by a recent loss of
popularity; but I question if they ever once acted upon it. I question
if Marius himself, sitting amid the ruins of Carthage, actually felt it.
Seldom, if ever, does it seem to have been inculcated as a principle, or
enforced as a rule of action: nor could it--it was against the canon law
of their foundation."
"Yet," said Sir John, "a good man struggling with adversity is, I think,
represented by one of their authors as an object worthy of the attention
of the gods."
"Yes," said Mr. Stanley, "but the divine approbation alone was never
proposed as the standard of right, or the reward of actions, except by
divine revelation."
"Nothing seems more difficult," said I, "to settle than the standard of
right. Every man has a standard of his own, which he considers as of
universal application. One makes his own tastes, desires, and appetites,
his rule of right; another the example of certain individuals, fallible
like himself; a third, and indeed the generality, the maxims, habits,
and manners of the fashionable part of the world."
Sir John remarked, "That since it is so difficult to discriminate
between allowable indulgence and criminal conformity, the life of a
conscientious man, if he be not constitutionally temperate, or
habitually firm, must be poisoned with solicitude, and perpetually
racked with the fear of exceeding his limits."
"My dear Belfield," replied Mr. Stanley, "the peace and security of a
Christian, we well know, are not left to depend on constitutional
temperance, or habitual firmness. These are, as the young Numidian says,
Perfections that are placed in bones and nerves.
There is a higher and surer way to prevent the solicitude, which is, by
correcting the principle; to get the heart set right; to be jealous over
ourselves; to be careful never to venture to the edge of our lawful
limits; in short, and that is the only infallible standard, to live in
the conscientious practice of measuring all we say, and do, and think,
by the unerring rule of God's word."
"The impossibility of reaching the perfection which that rule requires,"
said Sir John, "sometimes discourages well-meaning men, as if the
attempt were hopeless."
Dr. Barlow replied, "That is, sir, because they take up with a hearsay
Christianity. Its reputed pains and penalties drive them off from
inquiring for themselves. They rest on the surface. If they would go
deeper, they would see that the Spirit which dictated the Scriptures is
a Spirit of power, as well as a Spirit of promise. All that he requires
us to do, he enables us to perform. He does not prescribe 'rules'
without furnishing us with 'arms.'"
In answer to some further remarks of Sir John, who spoke with due
abhorrence of any instance of actual vice, but who seemed to have no
just idea of its root and principle, Dr. Barlow observed: "While every
one agrees in reprobating wicked actions, few, comparatively, are aware
of the natural and habitual evil which lurks in the heart. To this the
Bible particularly directs our attention. In describing a bad character,
it does not say that his actions are flagitious, but that 'God is not in
all his _thoughts_.' This is the description of a thoroughly worldly
man. Those who are given up completely to the world, to its maxims, its
principles, its cares, or its pleasures, can not entertain thoughts of
God. And to be unmindful of his providence, to be regardless of his
presence, to be insensible to his mercies, must be nearly as offensive
to him as to deny his existence. Excessive dissipation, a supreme love
of money, or an entire devotedness to ambition, drinks up that spirit,
swallows up that affection, exhausts that vigor, starves that zeal, with
which a Christian should devote himself to serve his Maker.
"Pray observe," continued Dr. Barlow, "that I am not speaking of avowed
profligates, but of decent characters; men who, while they are pursuing
with keen intenseness the great objects of their attachment, do not
deride or even totally neglect religious observances, yet think they do
much and well, by affording some odd scraps of refuse time to a few
weary prayers, and sleepy thoughts, from a mind worn down with
engagements of pleasure, or projects of accumulation, or schemes of
ambition. In all these several pursuits, there may be nothing which, to
the gross perceptions of the world, would appear to be moral turpitude.
The pleasure may not be profligacy, the wealth so cherished may not have
been fraudulently obtained, the ambition, in human estimation, may not
be dishonorable; but an alienation from God, an indifference to eternal
things, a spirit incompatible with the spirit of the gospel, will be
found at the bottom of all these restless pursuits."
"I am entirely of your opinion, Doctor," said Mr. Stanley; "it is taking
up with something short of real Christianity; it is an apostacy from the
doctrines of the Bible; it is the substitution of a spurious and popular
religion for that which was revealed from heaven; it is a departure from
the faith once delivered to the saints, that has so fatally sunk our
morality; and given countenance to that low standard of practical virtue
which prevails. If we lower the principle, if we obscure the light, if
we reject the influence, if we sully the purity, if we abridge the
strictness of the divine law, there will remain no ascending power in
the soul, no stirring spirit, no quickening aspiration after perfection,
no stretching forward after that holiness to which the beatific vision
is specifically promised. It is vain to expect that the practice will
rise higher than the principle which inspires it; that the habits will
be superior to the motives which govern them."
"Selfishness, security, and sensuality," said the Doctor, "are predicted
by our Saviour, as the character of the last times. In alluding to the
antediluvian world, and the cause of its destruction, eating, drinking,
and marrying could not be named in the gospel as things censurable in
themselves, they being necessary to the very existence of that world
which the abuse of them was tending to destroy. Our Saviour does not
describe criminality by the excess, but by the spirit of the act. He
speaks of eating, not gluttony; of drinking, not intoxication; of
marriage, not licentious intercourse. This seems a plain intimation,
that carrying on the transactions of the world in the spirit of the
world, and that habitual deadness to the concerns of eternity, in beings
so alive to the pleasures or the interests of the present moment, do not
indicate a state of safety, even where gross acts of vice may be rare."
Mr. Stanley said it was his opinion that it is not by a few, or even by
many, instances of excessive wickedness, that the moral state of a
country is to be judged, but by a general averseness and indifference to
_real_ religion. "A few examples of glaring impiety," said he, "may
furnish more subject for declamation, but are not near so deadly a
symptom. It is no new remark, that more men are undone by an excessive
indulgence in things permitted, than by the commission of avowed sins."
"How happy," said Sir John, "are those who by their faith and piety are
delivered from these difficulties!"
"My dear Belfield," replied Mr. Stanley, "where are those privileged
beings? It is one sad proof of human infirmity, that the best men have
continually these things to struggle with. What makes the difference is,
that those whom we call good men struggle on to the end, while the
others, not seeing the danger, do not struggle at all."
"Christians," said Dr. Barlow, "who would strictly keep within the
bounds prescribed by their religion, should imitate the ancient Romans,
who carefully watched that their god Terminus, who defined their limits,
should never recede; the first step of his retreat, they said, would be
the destruction of their security."
"But, Doctor," said Sir John, "pray what remedy do you recommend against
this natural, I had almost said this invincible, propensity to
over-value the world? I do not mean a propensity merely to over-rate its
pleasures and its honors, but a disposition to yield to its dominion
over the mind, to indulge a too earnest desire of standing well with it,
to cherish a too anxious regard for its good opinion?"
"The knowledge of the disease," replied the worthy Doctor, "should
precede the application of the remedy. Human applause is, by a worldly
man, reckoned not only among the luxuries of life, but among articles of
the first necessity. An undue desire to obtain it has certainly its
foundation in vanity; and it is one of our grand errors to reckon vanity
a trivial fault. An over-estimation of character, and an anxious wish to
conciliate all suffrages, is an infirmity from which even worthy men are
not exempt; nay, it is a weakness from which, if they are not governed
by a strict religious principle, worthy men are in most danger.
Reputation being in itself so very desirable a good, those who actually
possess it, and in some sense deserve to possess it, are apt to make it
their standard, and to rest in it as their supreme aim and end."
"You have," said Sir John, "exposed the latent principle; it remains
that you suggest its cure."
"I believe," said Dr. Barlow, "that the most effectual remedy would be,
to excite in the mind frequent thoughts of our divine Redeemer, and of
_his_ estimate of that world on which we so fondly set our affections,
and whose approbation we are too apt to make the chief object of our
ambition."
"I allow it to have been necessary," replied Sir John, "that Christ, in
the great end which he had to accomplish, should have been poor, and
neglected, and contemned, and that he should have trampled on the great
things of this world, human applause among the rest; but I do not
conceive that this obligation extends to his followers, nor that we are
called upon to partake the poverty which he preferred, or to renounce
the wealth and grandeur which he set at naught, or to imitate him in
making himself of no reputation."
"It is true," said the Doctor, "we are not called to resemble him in his
external circumstances. It is not our bounden duty to be necessarily
exposed to the same contempt; nor are we obliged to embrace the same
ignominy. Yet it seems a natural consequence of our Christian
profession, that the things which he despised, we should not venerate;
the vanities he trampled on, we should not admire; the world which he
censured, we ought not to idolize; the ease which he renounced, we
should not rate too highly; the fame which he set at naught, we ought
not anxiously to covet. Surely, the followers of him who was 'despised
and rejected of men' should not seek their highest gratification from
the flattery and applause of men. The truth is, in all discourses on
this subject, we are compelled continually to revert to the observation,
that Christianity is a religion of the _heart_. And though we are not
called upon to partake the poverty and meanness of his situation, yet
the precept is clear and direct, respecting the temper by which we
should be governed: 'Let the same _mind_ be in you which was also in
Christ Jesus.' If, therefore, we happen to possess that wealth and
grandeur which he disdained, we should _possess them as though we
possessed them not_. We have a fair and liberal permission to use them
as his gift, and to his glory, but not to erect them into the supreme
objects of our attachment. In the same manner, in every other point, it
is still the spirit of the act, the temper of the mind, to which we are
to look. For instance, I do not think that I am obliged to show my faith
by sacrificing my son, nor my obedience by selling all that I have, to
give to the poor; but I think I am bound by the spirit of these two
powerful commands, to practice a cheerful acquiescence in the whole will
of God, in suffering and renouncing as well as in doing, when I know
what is really his will."