Scriptures, who wrote under the plenary inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, _acted a very injudicious part, and have set us a very
improper example_, as they have placed the fact of their personal
insufficiency, and their entire dependence on their invisible Lord,
in a prominent point of view. Indeed, the consequences of such an
admission would be alarming, as in that case we should be compelled
to pass a censure on the wisdom of the Divine Spirit for allowing
such facts to be placed on record, if they are calculated to produce
a pernicious effect on the popular mind. It is evident to me, from
your last remarks, that you, in common with all the clergy of the
anti-evangelical school, have imbibed some very fatal errors, which
must render your ministrations worse than useless; must, in fact,
render them pernicious, because deceptive, both to yourselves and to
your people."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"And do you really think so? This certainly
is a very grave imputation on our order, and one which ought not
to be advanced unless you can maintain its correctness, with an
array of very clear evidence. Why, you now insinuate that we are
self-deceived, and are deceiving others. What proof can you bring of
this?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Your first error, and it is a capital one, is the
self-sufficiency of the clergy to accomplish the design of their
appointment. This may be true, if we view them merely as appointed
by human authority to conduct a prescribed service and administer
the sacraments. This you can do. But the more spiritual functions
of the ministry you cannot perform by virtue of a self-sufficient
power."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"To what spiritual functions do you refer?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Why, to the conversion and spiritual renovation
of sinners, and the administration of effective consolation to a
wounded spirit. If any order of ministers, under the Christian
dispensation, ever possessed the power of doing this, we must admit
that the apostles of our Lord possessed it in a pre-eminent degree.
But they disclaimed the possession of such a self-sufficient power,
and acknowledged their absolute dependence on the concurring grace
of God, and the fervent and effectual prayers of their pious lay
brethren. The apostle Paul, when trying to allay the ferment which
the spirit of contention had raised in the church of Corinth, and
to detach the people from the popular idols of their admiration and
confidence, speaks out boldly and explicitly on the question of
ministerial insufficiency and dependence: 'For while one saith, I
am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who
then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed,
even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered;
_but God gave the increase_. _So then neither is he that planteth
any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the
increase_' (1 Cor. iii. 4-7). We know that opinion has a powerful
influence in the formation and development of character, and in no
order of men does it operate with more direct and constant force
than on the clergy; hence, if a clergyman thinks he is invested with
a plenitude of power to accomplish the design of his appointment, he
will live in a state of comparative, if not absolute independence
of God: he will not be a man of prayer; I mean, he will not wrestle
in prayer with God, to render his public ministry successful in the
conversion of sinners; _such a thing will not come into his mind_.
He thinks of himself more as a priest in the church, than as a
minister of Christ, labouring for the spiritual good of the people.
His self-sufficiency, which keeps him independent of God, tends to
inflate him with spiritual pride; he becomes arrogant, and expects
that the people will place themselves in submissive subjection
to his authority--believe what he dictates, and celebrate what
he prescribes. But when, like Paul and the rest of the apostles,
a clergyman has a piercing conviction of his insufficiency to
execute the trust committed to his charge, he will never enter a
pulpit to preach till he has been in his closet with God--praying
for assistance from him, and for the putting forth of his Divine
power, through the medium of his otherwise ineffective agency. His
opinion of himself, his feelings, and his retired devout exercises,
all harmonize with the following quotation, which I will now read
to you: 'Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle
of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the
Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly
tables of the heart. Who also hath made us able ministers of the
new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter
killeth but the spirit giveth life' (2 Cor. iii. 3, 6). And while
such a clergyman will depend on God for the success of his labours,
rather than on any conceived self-sufficiency, he will also, in
imitation of the apostles, place a subordinate degree of dependence
on the fervent prayers of his believing brethren. 'Finally,
brethren,' says Paul, who could work miracles to attest the Divine
origin of the message he delivered to the people, 'pray for us, that
the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as
it is with you' (2 Thess. iii. 1)."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"And what is the second error which you think we
hold?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"Why, you teach the people to depend on you for
spiritual blessings, instead of directing them to look to God, from
whom cometh every good gift, and every perfect gift; hence, they
come to church, go through the order of the service, and withdraw
when it is over, more like self-moving machines, whose movements
are regulated by laws imposed on them by human skill and authority,
than like intelligent beings, who feel their responsibility to
God, and their dependence on him. And this is the great practical
evil which is inflicted on the people, by the clergy assuming to
themselves a sufficiency of power to accomplish all the purposes
of their ministry--their hearers are not a praying people. Now, to
me nothing is more obvious, if I take the meaning of the uniform
language of the Bible, than this great important fact, that prayer
on the part of a minister and his hearers, is made essential to
their spiritual prosperity and happiness. Hence, after the promise
of a new spirit and a new heart was given, to excite the eager
expectation of the people of Israel: 'Thus saith the Lord God, I
will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it
for them' (Ezek. xxxvi. 37). Hence the importance and necessity of
prayer. Can we expect forgiveness unless we pray for it? and is not
the moral renovation of our nature of equal importance? and if, in
the economy of salvation, we are to be sanctified by the Spirit of
God as well as justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, are we to
be reprobated as deluded when we invoke his purifying agency? Let
us look around us, and what shall we see? What!--a scene not less
affecting than that which struck the eye of the prophet when he
received his commission from above to enter the mystic valley of
death. It was full of bones: 'And, behold, there were very many in
the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.' He was asked, 'Can
these dry bones live?' and he answered, 'O Lord God, thou knowest.'
What did he do? He prophesied as he was _commanded_; and when thus
engaged, the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they lived. If,
then, the ministers of grace wish to accomplish the great moral
design of their appointment, and acquire the deathless honour of
rescuing sinners from that state of guilt, degeneracy, and misery in
which they are involved, let them preach the gospel in a clear and
in a faithful manner, teaching them that every good thought, every
holy desire, every sacred principle, must proceed directly from the
Father of mercies, and God of all grace; and that, while they are
employed as his servants, in administering the revelation of his
will, if any good results from their labours, it must be in _answer
to the humble and fervent prayers of those who proclaim and those
who hear the truth_."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"The clergy have fallen very low in your
estimation."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"The Tractarian clergy have. They sink themselves
by their arrogance, and lofty assumptions of official dignity and
power; they are haughty and overbearing, and have no resemblance in
their spirit, or in their style of speech, to the prophets of the
Old Testament or the apostles of the New; and if not an importation
from Rome, they are in training to serve at her altars, and advocate
her assumed infallibility."
THE TENDENCY OF EVANGELICAL PREACHING.
In his brother the Rev. Mr. Roscoe met with a more formidable
antagonist than he expected; and though foiled in some previous
encounters, yet he again resumed the debate.
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"I wonder how you can object to the strictures
which the Rev. Mr. Cole made in his sermon last Sunday, on the
censurable conduct of those clergymen who declaim against good
works, and exalt a dogmatic belief in certain crude opinions as the
only necessary condition on which sinners can obtain the forgiveness
of Almighty God."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"As I have not been in the habit of hearing many
of the evangelical clergy preach, I certainly cannot say from my
own personal knowledge how far the charge which you allege against
them is just or unfounded. If they do declaim against good works,
they are guilty of a serious dereliction of duty, and should not
receive the sanction of any wise or good man. I agree with you,
that this is not the age in which virtue, in any of her forms or
requirements, should be made light of, especially by those who are
professedly her ministers. For if they, who ought to stop up the
passes to evil, turn their weapons of war against the bulwarks of
practical righteousness, the common enemy will meet with an ally
where he ought to find a foe, and the capital and its dependencies
will soon be taken. But though I have not heard many of them preach,
I have been in the habit of reading their published discourses,
and it is my opinion that from the press they push the claims of
practical righteousness to such an extreme, that I have often heard
them censured for their excessive strictness; and it is fair to
presume that they are not less urgent and severe when they are in
the pulpit. But admitting, for the sake of the argument, that they
do declaim against good works, we know that they practise them; and
their hearers, with some few exceptions, will bear a comparison with
the most virtuous members of society."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"Then you admit that some of their hearers are
not men of virtue--hence, does it not necessarily follow that their
ministers preach a doctrine which leads to licentiousness?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"But this argument which you employ against the moral
tendency of evangelical preaching is liable to two very formidable
objections--it is fallacious, and it proves too much. It supposes
that the conduct of a _minority_ is the test by which the orthodoxy
of the preacher is to be decided. But why fix on the _minority_ as
the test, when their relative number is a tacit proof that they
are the exception to the general class of his hearers? If a few in
a district are turbulent and factious, and disposed to rebellion,
while the larger proportion of the people are peaceable and
submissive, revering the authority of the laws, and cultivating the
virtues of social life, would you recommend the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus, as though the entire mass were in a state of revolt?
Where would be the equity or the expediency of such a measure? Why
impugn the character of all because a few are criminal, and why
involve the innocent and the guilty in one indiscriminate visitation
of punishment? And would not your argument apply with equal, if not
with stronger force, to the anti-evangelical clergy? Have they no
immoral hearers? Have they none who set at open defiance the laws
of God and man? Have they no scoffers who visit their temples?--no
infidels who commune at their altars? Can they say of all in their
congregations, 'Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of
Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit
of the living God'?"
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"But, you know, _we enforce virtue_, and tell
our hearers that their final salvation depends on their becoming
virtuous. This, you will admit, is a more powerful motive than that
which an evangelical preacher employs, who says that we may be saved
without it."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"No, he does not say that we can be saved without
becoming virtuous. This is an accusation which cannot be
substantiated; and to bring it forward is to bear false witness
against another. He does not require virtue on our part as a
prerequisite to recommend us to the favour of God; but he enforces
it as expressive of our reverence for his authority, and of our
gratitude to his sovereign goodness in redeeming us from the curse
of a violated law. He does not substitute our very defective
righteousness for the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which would
be an entire abandonment of one of the most essential doctrines of
the gospel; but he tells us that _the grace of God that bringeth
salvation, teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present
world_. Indeed, the evangelical minister requires, on the part of
his adherents, a higher degree of virtue than his opponent, and he
employs more powerful motives to enforce it. He requires the entire
renovation of the soul, and such a conversion from all the evil
habits and impure propensities of our nature, as shall constitute
us _new creatures in Christ Jesus_. Do you enforce virtue from an
appeal to the authority of God? so does your evangelical brother.
Do you enforce it by a reference to its own loveliness, and its
tendency to promote personal and relative happiness? so does he. But
he goes a step further--he presses into the service of the pulpit
the motives which arise from the redemption of the soul by the death
of Christ; and if we look around us, we shall perceive that these
exert a more powerful influence on the principles and conduct of
men, than any other which ever has been or ever can be employed. Men
who will resist authority may be subdued by clemency, and many whom
a dread of punishment could not reclaim from evil, have been turned
from the error of their ways after that the kindness and love of God
our Saviour toward them hath appeared. And then, like the eunuch of
the Scriptures, they have gone on their way rejoicing, ever ready to
give to others a reason of the hope within them; saying, under the
impulse of devout gratitude, rather than vainglorious ostentation,
'Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he
hath done for my soul.'"
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"We very well know that those who admire
evangelical preaching are, generally speaking, more loquacious on
the subject of religion, and more religiously disposed in their
habits, than others; but this is one of the objections which we have
against it. If _we_ feel _too_ little, _they_ feel _too_ much; and
if _we_ are not quite so religious in our habits as we ought to be,
_they_ go to the opposite extreme, and become enthusiasts. _We_ keep
within the boundary which reason and decorum mark out, but _they_
cross it; and while _we_ restrain our passions, and rarely discuss
the awful subjects of religion in our social interviews, _they_
yield to impulses and excitements, which they rashly ascribe to a
mental intercourse with an invisible world, and thus they approach
to the very verge of fanaticism."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"But surely you do not object to a person who has
felt the renewing power of the grace of God, ascribing the great
change to its real cause, expressing at the same time his joyful
gratitude to God for effecting it."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"What I dislike and condemn is the strong
effervescence of feeling which so often makes its appearance amongst
the admirers of evangelical preaching, and which leads them to use
terms of expression which are more nearly allied to rhapsody than
sober truth and reality."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"You know that, on all subjects, men speak as they
feel; and therefore, when their passions are strongly excited by
religious truth, they ought not to be condemned or censured if
they do give utterance to some expressions which may appear rather
extravagant to an apathetic mind; they speak naturally, that is,
in character. Let me give you an example. Can a man of a refined
taste, and who is very excitable, avoid being deeply interested
by the sublime or beautiful in the natural, or by the pathetic or
tragical in the moral world? No. It is impossible. He is affected
before he is conscious of feeling, and often when he is incapable of
assigning the cause of it. To argue that this liability to strong
excitement is a proof of the imbecility of our mind, or of our
tendency to fanatical illusions, is nothing less than a begging of
the question--a species of artifice which cannot be tolerated. Our
nature is liable to excitement, and we cannot avoid it. It is, upon
the whole, considered a favourable symptom of a fine taste or a good
disposition. We prefer it to stoicism, to apathy, and to a mental
dulness, which neither harmonious sounds nor enchanting scenes can
move. If, then, our passions are necessarily stirred within us, and
sometimes powerfully stirred by external objects, by what law is it
rendered improper for a man to be deeply affected by the momentous
truths of revelation? Does the law of our nature forbid it? No. You
yourself have confessed that the admirers of evangelical preaching
are in general strongly, too strongly affected by what they believe.
To strip your charges of the measured language in which they are
brought, do you mean to say that they are too deeply affected by
the awful descriptions which the sacred writers have given us of
the miseries of the damned; or too strongly animated by the sublime
anticipations of a blissful immortality; or too grateful to the Lord
of glory for bearing their sins in his own body on the tree; and
too intense in their desires after a more perfect conformity to the
purity of the Divine nature? But is this possible?"
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"We certainly cannot love Almighty God too
much, nor can we be too grateful to him for his mercies, temporal
and spiritual; but when we are speaking to each other about our
religious feelings, I think, as the apostle says, we should let our
moderation be known."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"But, to speak naturally, we should speak as we
feel. I remember a poor woman of the name of Allen, who often used
to perplex me when we conversed together on religious topics; she
always left a vague impression on my mind that there was a something
in religion which I had never discovered."
"I am fully convinced," said Mrs. John Roscoe, apologizing for
obtruding her remarks, "that those who embrace evangelical
sentiments are more religious in their conversation and habits
than those who do not. But it is at the awful hour of death that
the difference becomes the more apparent and striking. We had a
servant, a member of a Dissenting chapel, who lived with us some
years, but when she was taken ill she left us to go to her father, a
poor pious man, with whom she resided for several months before she
died. I often went to see her, and was standing by her side when she
breathed her last. She was composed and even cheerful in prospect
of death, but it was the cheerfulness of a spirit made happy by the
consolations of religion, and which expected to be still happier
in the celestial world.[15] I recollect asking her what made her
so happy when death was so near, and her reply, though I did not
then, and do not yet comprehend its full import, made such a strong
impression, that I have never forgotten it--'His sweet promise,
_Come unto me, and I will give you rest_. I do come to him; he has
given me rest of soul; and he has provided a rest for me in heaven.
And you, dear Madam, must come to him to be saved and made happy.'"
[15] The author once knew a lady who was celebrated, in the town
in which she lived, no less for her benevolence, than she was for
her utter dislike to those persons who had embraced evangelical
sentiments. She generally used to term them, by way of reproach,
Methodists, enthusiasts, or fanatics. For many years she was in the
habit of visiting the poor and the infirm, sympathizing with them
when in trouble, giving them money to purchase the necessaries and
comforts of life; and she originated several public institutions,
which still remain as the memorial of her practical goodness. Often
has she sat beside the lingering sufferer, wiping away the cold
sweats of death, and administering, with her own hands, the last
portion of food or of medicine which nature consented to receive.
This lady, when conversing with a friend, whose prejudices against
the fanatics of the day (as the disciples of the Redeemer are
styled) ran as high as her own, said, "_I don't know how to account
for it, but I find these people know more about religion than we do,
and appear more happy in their dying moments than any others I ever
meet with_." Happy would it have been for her if some friend had
been present to explain the cause of it; but no--living under the
sombrous gloom of a pharisaical faith, which admits not of the clear
light of the truth, she lived in ignorance of the nature of faith in
Christ, and in ignorance she died.
_Mr. Roscoe._--"It is now about twelve months since I was travelling
with an eminent physician. Our conversation happened to turn on
the state of religion in the country, and on the evangelical and
anti-evangelical clergy and laity of our own church; when he stated
that, in the discharge of his professional duties, he was often
called to witness the termination of human life--the retiring of the
actors from the busy stage--the departure of intelligent beings from
one world to another--and that he had uniformly found, that those
who imbibe evangelical sentiments die much more like the Christians
of the Bible than those who do not. He gave it as the result of long
experience, that evangelical religion, though much despised, is
greatly conducive to the happiness of man, especially in his last
moments. This fact produced a deep impression on my mind, as he said
it had done on his."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"Yes; the imagination, when acted upon by
evangelical opinions and impulses, very often holds a pretended
intercourse with Heaven, and sees sights and hears sounds which are
supernatural; but are we so far gone from the sober restraints of
reason as to become the advocates of enthusiastic raptures?"
_Mr. Roscoe._--"I am not surprised at what you say, as I once
used to talk in a similar strain, but now, blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the delusion has vanished, and I
am convinced that what I then called, and what you still call the
raptures of a disordered imagination, are the triumphs of faith over
the terrors of death; and that the glowing expressions which often
fall from the lips of the dying believer are entirely in accordance
with the genius of the gospel."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"I have no doubt but such strongly excitable
persons will be saved, if they are sincere."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"And why should you doubt their sincerity? If you
see a man devoting his mind to the pursuits of commerce, or of
literature, or of pleasure, you do not feel at liberty to impugn
his motives; then why should you do so when you see him devoting
his mind to religion? Is religion the only subject which we are
forbidden to approach? or if we do approach it with reverence for
its authority, with ardent gratitude for its sacred communications,
with strong interest in its sublime enunciations of a future state
of existence, are we to be reproached for insincerity and hypocrisy?
You accuse us of ostentation, because we make a more decided
profession of religion than some of our neighbours; but allow me to
ask you if the spirit in which this charge originates has not exuded
its venom against pure and undefiled religion in every age of the
Christian church, when it has been embodied in a living character?"
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"Why, you know that some who have made the
greatest pretensions to religion, have been guilty of the most
dishonourable conduct!"