GATHERED FROM JENYN'S INTERNAL EVIDENCES, WITH ADDITIONS AND
MODIFICATIONS.
When the religion of Christ made its appearance it was entirely new,
infinitely above, and altogether different from any other which had at
any time entered into the mind of man. Its object was new. It was to
prepare us with fitness of character, through a state of trial, for
mutual association with the pure and lovely in the kingdom of heaven.
This is presented in all the gospel, as the chief end of the Christian's
life. Until Christ, no such reward was offered to mankind, nor means
provided for its attainment.
Many of the philosophers in old times had ideas of a future state, but
they were mixed with a great deal of uncertainty and misgivings.
Ancient legislators endeavored to inculcate the idea of rewards and
punishments after death, to give sanction to their laws. This was the
sole end in view, and when their laws were virtuous, it was a noble, a
praiseworthy end. But the religion of Christ is related to the same
object, brings it about; and, also, has a nobler end in view, and that
is to prepare us here for a more noble society among the citizens of
the kingdom of God in the great hereafter.
In all the older religions the good of the present was the direct, and
the first object, but in the religion of Christ it is the second. The
first great object of the gospel of Christ is to prepare us for the
realities of eternity.
There is a great contrast between adhering to morality from the motive
of present profit, in expectation of future reward, and living such a
life as to qualify us for the realization of future happiness.
The character of those who are governed by these different principles is
not the same. On the first principle, present utility, we may have mere
moralists, men practicing simple justice, temperance and sobriety. On
the second, we must add to those graces of moral nature faith in God,
resignation to his will, and habitual piety. The first will make us very
good citizens in a civil government, but will never be sufficient to
make us Christians. So the religion of Christ insists upon purity of
heart and benevolence, or charity, because these are essential to the
end proposed.
"That the present existence is one of trial with reference to another
state of being, is confirmed by all that we know in what is termed the
course of nature. Probation is the only key that unfolds to us the
designs of God in the history of human affairs, the only clue that
guides us through the pathless wilderness, and the only plan upon which
this world could possibly have been formed, or upon which its history
can be explained."
This world was not formed upon a plan of unconditioned happiness,
because it is overspread with miseries. Neither was it formed upon a
plan of unconditioned misery, for there are many joys interspersed
throughout the whole. It was not formed for the unconditional existence
of both vice and virtue, for that is no plan at all, the two elements
being, as we know, destructive of each other. By the way, in this very
fact we find the grand necessity for the remedial scheme.
The mixture of vice and virtue, of happiness and misery, is a necessary
result of a state of probation, trials and sufferings consequent upon
offending or violating the will of heaven.
The doctrine of the religion of Christ, with its ultimate object and its
ideas of God and man, of the present and the future life, and of the
relations which these all bear to each other, was and is wholly unheard
of until you come to the teachings of Christ. No other religion ever
drew such pictures of the worthlessness of earthly-mindedness and of
living merely for this present world. And no other ever set out such
beautiful, lively and glorious pictures of heavenly-mindedness, along
with the joys of a future world, nor such pictures of victory over death
and the grave, nor of the last judgment, nor of the triumphs of the
redeemed in that tremendous day. The personal character of the great
author, Christ, is as new and peculiar to this religion as anything else
that we can possibly name--"He spake as never man spake."
He is the only founder of a religion which is "unconnected with all
human policy and government," and, as such, should not be prostituted to
any mere worldly purposes whatever. Numa, Mohammed, and even Moses,
blended their religious institutions with their civil, and by such means
controlled their adherents. Christ neither exercised nor accepted such
power. He rejected every motive which controlled other leaders, and
chose those which others avoided. Power, honor, riches and pleasure were
alike disregarded. He seemed to court poverty, sufferings and death.
Many impostors and enthusiasts have tried to impose upon the world with
pretended communications from the world of spirits--some of them have
died rather than recant; but no history is found to show one who made
his own sufferings and death a necessary part of his plan and essential
elements in his mission. This distinguishes the Savior of the world from
all mere enthusiasts and imposters. He declared his death in all its
minutia; with a prophet's vision he saw it, declared it was necessary,
and voluntarily endured it; and he was neither a madman nor idiot. Look
at his lessons, his precepts and his wonderful conduct, and then
imagine him insane if you can. Still, if he was not what he pretended to
be, he can be viewed in no other light; and yet under the character of a
madman he deserves much attention on account of such sublime and
_rational insanity_. There is no other person known in the world's
history so _rationally_ and _sublimely_ mad.
In what madman's career can you find such a beautiful lesson as his
instructions given upon the mount. What other leader enforced his
precepts and lessons upon men's credulity with such assurances of reward
as, "Come, ye blessed of my father! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungered, and ye gave me
meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took
me in; I was naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I
was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him,
saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee; or thirsty,
and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in; or
naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick and in prison, and
came unto thee? Then shall he answer and say unto them, Verily, I say
unto you, inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, my
brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Before the appearance of Christ there existed nothing like the faith of
Christ and Christianity upon the face of the earth. The Jews alone had a
few of its types and shadows, but the great mystery of Christ had been
kept hid since the world began. All the Gentile nations were wrapped up
in the very worst idolatry, having little or no connection whatever with
morality, except to corrupt it with the infamous examples of their gods.
"They all worshiped a multitude of gods and demons, whose favor they
sought by obscene and ridiculous ceremonies, and whose anger they tried
to appease with the most abominable cruelties." With them, heaven was
open only to legislators and conquerors, the civilizers and destroyers
of mankind. This was the summit of their religion, and even this was
limited to a few prodigies of genius and learning, which was but little
regarded and understood by the great masses. One common cloud of
ignorance and superstition involved them. At this time Christ came as a
teacher; his appearance was like a rising sun, dispelling the darkness
and blessing the earth with light and heat.
If any man can believe that the son of a carpenter, together with twelve
of the meanest and most illiterate mechanics, unassisted by any
superhuman wisdom and power, should be able to invent and promulgate a
system of theology and ethics the most sublime and perfect, which all
such men as Plato, Aristotle and Cicero had overlooked, and that they,
by their own wisdom, repudiated every false virtue, though universally
admired, and that they admitted every true virtue, though despised and
ridiculed by all the rest of the world--if any man can believe that they
were _impostors_ for no other purpose than the promulgation of truth,
_villains_ for no purpose but to teach honesty, and _martyrs_ with no
prospect of honor or advantage; or that they, as false witnesses, should
have been able, in the course of a few years, to have spread this
religion over the most of the known world, in opposition to the
interests, ambition and prejudices of mankind; that they triumphed over
the power of princes, the intrigues of states, the forces of custom, the
blindness of zeal, the influence of priests, the arguments of orators,
and the philosophy of the world, without any assistance from God, he
must be in possession of more faith than is necessary to make him a
Christian and continues an unbeliever from mere credulity. If the
credulous infidel, whose convictions are without evidence and against
evidence, should, after all, be in the right, and Christianity prove to
be a fable, what harm could ensue from being a Christian? Are Christian
rulers more tyrannical and their Christian subjects more ungovernable?
Are the rich more insolent _when Christianized_? Are poor Christians
most insolent and disorderly? Does Christianity make worse parents and
worse children? Does it make husbands and wives, friends and neighbors
less trustworthy? Does it not make men and women more virtuous and happy
in every situation in life? If Christianity is a fable, it is one the
belief of which retains men and women in a regular and uniform life of
virtue, piety and devotion to truth. It gives support in the hour of
distress, of sickness and death.
"If there were a few more Christians in the world it would be very
beneficial to themselves and by no means detrimental to the public."