That man has no principle within himself, by whatever name it may be
called, which is adequate to all the purposes of his Salvation, or a
sufficient guide in matters of faith and practice.
----------
EPHESIANS ii. 12.
_That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the
Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world._
These words describe the state of the Ephesian Christians, who,
before the glorious Gospel was preached among, and, through
efficacious grace, embraced by them, were Gentiles. Like other pagan
nations, they were professed Idolaters. They were worshippers, we are
told, of the great Goddess Diana. _But when they knew that he was a
Jew, all with one voice, about the space of two hours cried out,
Great is Diana of the Ephesians.--And when the town-clerk had
appeased the people, he said, ye men of Ephesus, what man is there
that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper
of the great Goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from
Jupiter?_ But they were not further removed from the true knowledge
of the only right object of all religious homage and praise, or more
depraved in heart, than the heathen world, at large. _They were,_
says the Apostle, _dead in trespasses and sins._ This was their state
before renewing grace had quickened them, and made them alive to God
and virtue, to holiness and happiness. What is here affirmed of them,
no one will dispute, is equally applicable to, and equally true of
all mankind, in all ages and nations, before enlightened by a divine
revelation and sanctified by the power of divine grace. For all the
human race, throughout the world, are alike in this respect, as
destitute by nature of the principles of holiness. There is no
difference between Jew and Gentile--one and another. They are all,
before interested in a Redeemer and sprinkled with his precious
blood, without hope and without God in the world. They are _aliens
from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenants of
promise._ As long as they are without Christ, they have no part nor
lot in salvation. For without him, the great evangelical maxim is,
there is no salvation. His name is the only one given under heaven
among men, whereby we can attain to felicity, be pardoned as to our
sins, or justified as to our persons. No man can come to the father
without him. _Whosoever denieth the son, the same hath not the
father: but he that acknowlegeth the son, hath the Father also._--
What is intended, in the subsequent discourse, is to prove that the
world of mankind, merely by their own reason and wisdom, cannot
attain to a saving knowledge of God: or that man has no principle
within himself, antecedent to divine grace operating on the heart,
which is adequate to all the purposes of his salvation, by whatever
name it may be called.--
That we may do justice, as far as we are able, to this great and
important subject, we will attempt to show--
I. How far, the light of reason, without a celestial guide, can go,
in things of a religious and moral nature.----And--
II. Point out its insufficiency, in those respects, which are not
only very important, but altogether necessary.----
1. The first thing proposed, is to attempt to show how far the light
of reason, without a divine Revelation, can go, in things of a
religious and moral nature. If the state and character of mankind, in
regard to Religion, shall, in what may be now offered, be placed in a
new, or at least different light from what they are usually, when the
great and utter depravation of the human heart is intended to be
described, it is hoped it will not be less useful. Certainly an
attempt to investigate such a subject as is now before us is worthy
of particular attention. The proper study of mankind is man. Among
all the enquiries, in which the wise and reflecting have engaged,
that of discovering how far reason, of itself, without any
supernatural assistances, can carry us, in regard to the concerns of
our true and spiritual happiness, must be deemed one of the most
highly interesting.--
While mankind are without Christ, they are _aliens from the
Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the Covenants of promise_;
they are strangers to all saving blessings, and have no interest in
them. They have no good grounds upon which to expect the favour of
the supreme being, the pardon of Sin in this, or happiness in another
world. If without hope, they are in a lost and perishing situation.
They have nothing within them, let it be called by whatever name it
may, which can ensure this eternal peace and salvation. To assert or
pretend that they have any principle of real holiness, however small
a spark it may be considered, is to assert that they have some hope
from what is with themselves,--Some ground to hope for life eternal:
then, this being the case, they are not aliens from the Commonwealth
of Israel or strangers from the Covenants of promise. For, if while
without Christ, they are all, without exception, aliens from the
Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenants of promise,
they must be _without hope,_ or in a lost and desperate state. To _be
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the
Covenants of promise_ is, according to the very meaning of the
expressions, and the opinion of expositors, to have no lot or part,
more or less, in any assignable degree, in the peculiar blessings and
spiritual privileges of God's own people and servants. Before renewed
by saving grace, all men, without one exception, are _without
Christ._ They are without hope. And to be without hope in and from
ourselves, is to be in a lost and desperate state in and of
ourselves. It is added, they are also, _without God in the world._
And to _be without God in the world,_ is to be without an interest in
his special favour--without a saving knowledge of him--and of course,
without any title to his kingdom when they shall be removed from time
into Eternity. To be _without Christ_ in _the world,_ is to have no
interest in the saving blessings of his Gospel and purchase. The
severest critic cannot charge me with having extended, beyond just
bounds, the meaning of the text.
This, then, is the real state of all mankind, wherever they may
dwell, or to whatever nation they may belong, or whatever notions to
the contrary, they may imbibe, while unsanctified by efficacious
grace, _aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the
covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the
world._--A more wretched and forlorn condition can hardly be
imagined. They are dead in trespasses and sins. They are destitute of
the principles of true holiness, or the power of spiritual
life.--Like the inanimate lifeless body--held in the sleep of death,
they are without any motions of spiritual life towards God or
heavenly glories.--If they had any measure or degree of a really holy
temper, or spiritual life, it would, we may fairly presume, never be
lost, or extinguished, but be preserved until the day of Christ, when
all will be rewarded according to their character and works.
Perhaps, no one doctrine is so much, and so often insisted upon, in
sacred Writ, as the perishing condition of sinners. And, there is no
one, most certainly, that has been so much denied, or that is so
humiliating. It directly militates against our natural pride, and
those high notions of our dignity, of which we are so apt to
boast.--A patient and candid hearing is therefore requested.----There
can be but two notions of our state before renewed by saving grace:
_one_ is that we have no really holy principle of spiritual life, in
any degree, however small; and the _other_ that we have. All the
various ideas and ways of representing our condition before
regeneration, which have been adopted by different writers or sects,
are resolvable into one, or the other of these. And, that the
scripture is most clear and abundant, in the proof, that we are
altogether destitute, as we are by nature, of the true principles of
holiness or of spiritual life, no one who impartially weighs what it
offers, can, it is conceived, call in question. No words are more
full than these, _aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the
world._
The reason why any reject altogether the Gospel, or reproach it as a
mere fiction, is because they believe that the light of natural
reason or conscience is entirely adequate to the purposes of
discovering our duty, in its full extent, and guiding us safe to
happiness.--And the reason, also, why others, who profess to believe
it, have swerved so far from its pure doctrines, is a disbelief of
the lost condition of man, or his being wholly under the power and
dominion of sin.--Though it be acknowledged, that the world of
mankind cannot, by mere natural reason and wisdom, attain to a true
and saving knowledge of God; yet it may be very useful to enquire how
far the light of nature can go.--And, we readily allow, that the
light of nature and common reason may teach us some things concerning
the being of God. That he doth exist, the whole universe is a clear
demonstration. Sun, moon and stars declare that the hand which made
them is divine. Every thing around us, and above us lead us to the
Creator. The dawning and dying light equally proclaim the divine
existence. Let a man but reason on the nature of cause and effect,
and he cannot withhold his assent from this proposition, there doth
exist some great intelligent cause of all things, both in the natural
and moral world. Indeed, after opening our eyes on the beauties of
Creation, it is an infinitely greater absurdity not to believe in the
divine existence, than not to believe our own. In reason's ear, all
nature from the highest to the lowest, cries aloud that there is a
God. _Because that which may be known of God, is manifest in them for
God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from
the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead._--The
Psalmist hath a most lofty and sublime passage to the same effect:
_The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his
handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night
sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice
is not heard. Their light is gone out through all the earth and their
words to the end of the world._ It seems impossible for any, in the
exercise of reason, to deny the being of a God; and of course, none
can have any valid excuse for refusing to admit this first principle
of all religion. The very frame of our bodies--the structure of the
human mind--the curious and exquisite formation of every animal or
insect cannot fail to convince us, that there doth exist an Almighty
Creator. _Every house is built by some man, but he that built all
things is God._ The worlds rolling on high--the wonderful
revolution--the grandeur,--the distance,--the size of the heavenly
bodies--the beautifully variegated canopy of heaven, which cannot but
please and astonish us, when we open our eyes to behold it, prove,
beyond all contradiction, that there is a God. The light of reason is
sufficient to teach us, then, the divine existence. Accordingly we
find that God never sent a messenger to declare or reveal this to us;
or would have a miracle wrought to establish it.--_And there is none
but the fool in his heart can say there is no God._ If any men
claiming to be philosophers have been found to be speculative
atheists, it is owing to their having perverted reason, by their
sophistical arguments, and metaphysical reveries. If barbarous
nations and tribes of men have been discovered, in remote parts of
the world, where it appeared that they had no idea, at all, of a
supreme being, it is to be ascribed not to the insufficiency of
nature's light, but to their stupid inattention to that light.
2. The light of reason is sufficient to give all mankind some
knowledge of _some_ of the attributes of the divine nature. The
heathen world may know from the things that are, the wisdom, power,
and goodness of the Deity. If natural reason can discover the being
of God, by its own researches, it can also, discover some of the
attributes of his being; such as his Almighty power, infinite wisdom
and boundless goodness. The very idea of a divine existence implies,
a glorious existence--a necessary and eternal existence. It seems to
be a clear dictate of reason that if he exist at all, he must exist,
in such a manner, as no other being doth or can, by an absolute
necessity of nature: that he must be omnipresent--or every where, at
one and the same time: be excluded from, and confined to no space.
Reason teaches that he inhabits the infinitude of space.--If he be
the first cause and Maker of all things, HE must be independent,
alsufficient and uncontroulable; he must be infinitely the greatest
of all beings. Plato, a heathen philosopher who uttered more wise and
just sayings about the nature of the Supreme Being than any one of
the antient sages, speaking of the divine omnipresence, or ubiquity
of the Godhead, says, he is, "a Circle whose centre is every where,
and whose circumference is no where." That he must be omniscient, or
possessed of infinite knowledge, is a necessary consequence of his
omnipresence.--And reason is likewise able to prove his Eternity. For
if he made all things, he must be before all, and above all,--that
is, he must be eternal. Hence we find the greatest Lights in the
pagan world, when they are speaking of their celestial Divinities,
use the epithets _eternal--immortal--omnipotent._ This is a full
proof that reason teaches man, if duly improved, that eternity,
almighty power, and wisdom were some of the perfections of God. And
the incomprehensibility of these attributes is no evidence that
reason does not discover them to be perfections of the divine
existence. Far exalted, indeed, above all finite comprehension is the
self-existent--necessarily
existent--independent--all-sufficient--omnipresent God. All nature is
but a temple made by him, and filled with his presence. Heaven is his
throne, and the earth his footstool. His power is infinite. Wherever
we turn our eyes, we cannot help beholding the displays of it. The
heavens declare its glory. All things, in Creation and Providence,
speak forth its greatness.--Enough may be seen, in the occurrences of
human life, to satisfy all men, even where the light of the Gospel
has never shined, that the Deity bears long with his creatures; and
that he rules, in his divine greatness and majesty, among the
nations. They cannot, if they only exercise, in a proper manner their
rational faculties, but know, that he is their preserver, and the
benefactor of the world, who dispenses his favors, with a liberal
hand, to all men. Accordingly the Apostle Paul, when the Priests of
Jupiter, at the City of Lystra, would have done sacrifice, or paid
divine honours to him and Barnabas, as DIVINITIES, supposing that the
Gods were come down in the likeness of men, bid them desist, and told
them who alone was the PROPER OBJECT of religious homage; and, that,
in the course of his Providence, he had given sufficient tokens of
his preserving care and bounty: saying, _Sirs, why do you do these
things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto
you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God which
made heaven, and earth, and the Sea, and all things that are therein.
Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
Nevertheless he left not himself without a witness, in that he did
good, and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our
hearts with food and gladness._
3. The light of reason, and conscience, which last, all mankind have,
and which, also, is essential to moral agency and accountableness to
God, farther teaches all men that _worship_ and _obedience_ are due
from the Creature to the Creator. Every rational creature, throughout
all worlds, is indispensably bound by the very laws of his existence,
to pay reverence and honour, worship and fear, gratitude and
obedience to the author of the Universe. If reason can only once
discover that there doth exist an almighty, first, intelligent Cause
of all things--and that he is possessed of such attributes as wisdom,
goodness, omnipresence and omniscience, its voice will call all men
to pay divine honours to this great, eternal, almighty Being. It will
inform us, that such perfections as inhere in his nature, necessarily
claim from all men, homage and submission. Had we no divine
revelation, or suppose God never gave one to man, at all, but had
left him to the mere light of his own mind to find out the paths of
duty and of felicity, we should be indispensably obliged to pay honor
and homage to the ruler of the world. If we can prove that he made
us, and is the Creator of all things, we can, also, prove that we
ought to fear, reverence and worship him. That the Maker of the
world, the Father of our spirits and former of our bodies, deserves
our grateful acknowledgements and devout adorations, is one of the
most obvious dictates of reason. Before we can deny this, we must
have perverted our reason, or shut our eyes upon a very plain truth.
We can prove, from reason, the obligation to pay divine honours to
God, as clearly as we can the duty of justice between man and
man--the offices of humanity--and kindness--or any part of morality.
And, by similar arguments. Our obligations to moral Virtue--to do
justly and love mercy, to speak the truth and to relieve distress,
result from the relation we stand in, towards each other. Man bears
such a relation to man that he is bound to be just, faithful,
tender-hearted:--to mitigate the grief which he beholds, if in his
power, and to advance the welfare of society. We are all brethren. We
had our beings from one divine Author. We participate in the same
common nature. We are exposed to the same calamities, and are
Candidates for an endless existence, beyond the grave. We are,
therefore, bound, by our very make and station, in the universe of
the Almighty, to certain moral duties to each other. These moral
duties cannot be omitted or violated without high criminality. Our
obligations to pay divine homage to God, in the same manner, result
from the relations in which we, as rational Creatures, stand, towards
him, the greatest and best of all beings. He is our Creator--our
Preserver--our Benefactor. He is the sovereign Lord, legislator,
all-wise disposer, and proprietor of the world. _The earth is the
Lord's and the fulness thereof, the world and they that dwell
therein._ As HE bears such relations, reason, by its own exertions,
without any foreign assistance, teaches all men to revere--to trust
in--and to pay divine worship to him. To render unto God the things
that belong to him, is as much an exercise of justice, as to render
unto man the things that belong to him. A system of morals which
excludes the worship of the Deity, or the duties which we owe him, is
as essentially defective and as repugnant to reason, as if it
excluded all the duties of the social life, or which man owes to
man.--Agreeably to this, we find all the pagan world, who admitted
the being of a God, paying divine honours, of some kind, to their
fancied Divinities. Their mistaking in the OBJECT of worship and the
MANNER, does not weaken the force of the argument. It only proves the
absolute need of a divine Revelation to instruct us, in the alone
proper object of all religious adoration and praise, the one living
and true God, and the manner in which we may acceptably serve him.
Almost all the writers of pagan antiquity, who have come down to us,
and have not been buried in the rubbish of time, in some part of
their writings, either speak of, or recommend worship of their
Gods--or the divinities acknowledged, in the respective Countries
where they lived. This all know who have read them. I shall mention
but one particular instance, and that is of a Prince famed for his
greatness and amiable virtues; Xenophon informs us, that what Cyrus
the _great_ preferred before all other things was the worship of the
Gods. Upon this, therefore, he thought himself obliged to bestow his
first and principal care. He began by establishing a number of Magi,
to sing daily a morning service of praise to the honour of the Gods,
and to offer sacrifices, which was daily practised among the Persians
to succeeding ages.--
That natural reason, or the very nature of things, points out the
obligations of divine homage, is plain from the appeal made by the
supreme Being, in the following words; _a son honoureth his father,
and a servant his master, If then I be a Father, where is mine
honour? And if I be a Master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of
hosts._--The anxious enquiry of the awakened conscience is,
_wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the
high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves
of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or
with ten thousands of rivers of oyl? Shall I give my first born for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?_ The
solicitude is not whether the rational creature ought to worship and
serve the Deity; but how he is acceptably to worship and serve him;
in what manner he will be worshipped. And, here, as will be soon
proved, natural reason fails us. It cannot teach us the way, in which
we are to worship and serve God.
4. The light of reason and the conscience of mankind, moreover, give
_some_ faint and glimmering prospect of a future state. Conscience
and reason are different faculties and powers. Conscience is that
moral reflecting power in the soul, that respects right and wrong,
good and evil; or it is the moral sense; or a sense of right and
wrong. That all mankind have this sense, unless by a long course of
sinning and perverse reasoning, they have stupified it, no one ever
did deny, or dispute; or can dispute, when he either inspects the
operations of his own mind, or recollects that Christ is represented
as the _true Light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the
world._ He, as the Creator, has given to every man the light of
reason and conscience; otherwise man could not be a moral agent, or
accountable creature, any more than the brutal world. And, that the
heathen have this light of Conscience, the Apostle to the Romans
expressly declares. _And when the Gentiles which have not the law, do
by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law,
are a law unto themselves, which shew the works of the law written in
their hearts, their Conscience also bearing witness, and their
thoughts mean while accusing or else excusing one another._ All men
have, and must have a Conscience; a sense of right and wrong in moral
things; an accuser when they do evil, and an excuser when they do
well.--_If thou do well, shalt thou not be accepted? Who is he that
will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?_ Now this
Conscience points out an hereafter to man. There is some thing in the
Soul that always looks forward to another state of existence, and
upward to a superior power, conscious of his avenging arm when we do
evil, knowingly and habitually--feeling that all its exercises and
most secret movements are open to an omniscient eye. That there will
be an hereafter, a world of retribution is the voice of nature.--
The light of reason, or the knowledge, which we may attain by the
exercise of our reasoning faculties, gives all men some feeble and
distant glimmerings of another life, after this, where the good will
be rewarded, and the wicked punished. Man seems to wish to exist
longer, and still longer. He cherishes the fond desire of
immortality. He shrinks back from the bare thought of annihilation.
NOT TO BE is an idea indescribably painful. But, without a divine
revelation, reason only, as it were, casts a wishful glance over into
another world.--It is matter of fact, that the wisest and best among
the learned Greeks and Romans rather hoped, than believed, that there
will be a future state--Cicero, the prince of Roman Eloquence, who
was at once an orator, a moralist, a philosopher, and theologian, in
one of his learned works, sums up all that the most celebrated
philosophers of his own time, and earlier days, had said or written
on the grand subject of the immortality of the soul. He, in a lengthy
dialogue, ingeniously exhibits all that the philosophers had said
for, or against it. And, he closes all, with this remarkable saying,
"that he rather hoped than believed, that there was another state of
being after this."--Reason, then, only conjectures about an Eternity.
But the immortality of the soul is necessary to all religion. To talk
of religion, if we be not to exist hereafter--if we be to fall into
nothing at death, and shall sleep eternally in the grave, is the
greatest absurdity.--Reason, then, leaves us much in the dark, on a
point so important, as that of a future state. What folly and
madness, then, to prefer the boasted oracles of reason to the clear
light of divine revelation!--We stand in perishing need of a safer
guide, in our voyage through this tempestuous Sea of life. And to
refuse a perfect directory, the Chart of life, is like the mad
seaman, who should venture to traverse the wide extended ocean
without a Compass by which to steer his course. While making our
voyage through life, we do not sail on a pacific Ocean. We need all
the help therefore we can procure. And happy, if we may but reach the
haven of eternal rest! In our enquiries on this subject, whether
there be any principle in man, by whatever name it may be called,
which is adequate to all the purposes of his salvation, or a
sufficient guide in matters of faith and practice, we will give all
the credit to the reason and conscience of mankind, which can be
given, consistently with fact, and the page of history. The light of
reason can no further go, than I have conceded, it is apprehended.
And, that it _did_ no further go, in matters of religion, among the
most learned and civilized heathen nations, I appeal to all, who have
ever read their history. What the light of reason is able to do, on
MORAL SUBJECTS, will be stated, in the progress of our argument, in
its proper place.--