Page images
PDF
EPUB

to him as the foretaste of Heaven, will be passing from him, and he will gradually become a different man. He may still, in a cold, calculating way, show fidelity to his worldly trusts, and be obedient to the demand of his several stations in life but he cannot continue, like a disciple of Jesus, his heart glowing with holy feeling, and his mind enlarged, interested and elevated by habitually acting in sight, as it were, of invisible and infinite things.

[ocr errors]

As a religious man, therefore, he ceases to improve. He never retires from the world, and the world by degrees monopolizes all his thought and concern. He suffers himself to be always in the society of men, and to men therefore his affections and cares become wholly devoted. He keeps his eyes and his thoughts on the things that are temporal; he makes no effort to fix them on things eternal, and therefore they gradually get beyond his view, and he loses perhaps the power to discern them. He is satisfied to go from business to pleasure, and from pleasure to business, and to occupy all his time upon things without; and thus soon comes to neglect and forget the things within, until his heart at length loses its purity, his thoughts rebel, his dispositions become unholy, and his whole soul clings to the earth.

No man can look at this subject for a moment, without being persuaded that these ruinous consequences must inevitably attend such a course of life. How is it possible that he should know any thing or do any thing about the discipline and salvation of his immortal part, who is perpetually overwhelmed and distracted in the cares of life, harassed in the crowd of the busy, talking with the idle, and running to and fro with the dissipated multitude, who flutter from pleasure to pleasure and call it enjoying life! How is it possible that a spiritual life should exist in the midst of a worldly, when not a moment is devoted to it exclusively, but time and affections and interest are all swallowed up by the worldly! No Christian can long live so, and continue to be a Christian.

It is, then, absolutely necessary, if we would make any progress in religious excellence and not finally forget that we are pledged to remember Jesus and Eternity, that we maintain that solitary discipline which Jesus himself recommended and practised. In vain shall we read and understand the holy scriptures, in vain worship with the multitude in God's house, in vain join the friends of the Lord at his table, and share in all the privileges and honours of the gospel, if we do not sometimes step aside to inquire if we are using them aright, and if the inner man makes progress in proportion to external light and aid.

Thus only can we tell whether our faith and profession be sincere. Thus only can we save ourselves from degenerating into formality, hypocrisy, or indifference. Thus only shall we see ourselves as God sees us,-naked, single, unconnected, apart from every other being, and shall judge ourselves, as he will judge us, by what we really are, and not by what we profess or seem to be.

ADDRESS OF THE FRENCH CLERGY, ON THE DANGERS OF INFIDELITY.

[A respected friend has loaned us a manuscript translation of the "Admonition of the Clergy of France, (assembled at Paris by permission of the King, 1770,) to the faithful of the kingdom, on the Dangers of Infidelity.” It is from this that we make the following extracts.]

One

MODERN infidels are not more agreed among themselves, than the ancient philosophers. Divided not only on the first maxims of religion, but also on the principles of our actions, on the extent of our duties, on the influence of vice and virtue, on the nature of the passions, on the authority of laws, both natural and civil, if some of them have perceived the truth with respect to certain subjects, their ideas remained scattered and without connexion; they have not collected them into a doctrinal form, which was, however, necessary to render them useful. among them has wished, in these later times, to form a complete system.* But let us still hope, that that audacious and revolting system will find some opponents even among those who seem to be united with the author to combat religion. His rash and sacrilegious assertions will be contradicted by others, who had already proscribed and refuted them. So true is it, that error cannot agree with itself. It seems that God may have treated the false sages, who carried their rash views into his essence and his decrees, like those madmen, who wished to raise a building to heaven to withdraw themselves from his vengeance. He has given them up to ignorance, to uncertainty, to the confusion of their ideas; and they leave no monuments but the deformed traces of their foolish enterprise.

What ought we then to conclude from this variety of opinions and of systems? If in a well governed state, a man should pre

[merged small][ocr errors]

sent himself, who said to the inhabitants, the form of government on which you trust for security, is founded on uncertain principles; on prejudices; on errors; you will not be happy till you have renounced it: And if at the same time this pretended legislator proposed neither laws nor regulations, or if he announc ed only some ideas, ill-digested, and ill-combined, how could we believe that he would deserve well of his country? This is, however, what impiety does. Its destructive spirit carries war and ravage every where, but it can establish nothing. It strives to deprive man of the rule of conduct which guides his steps; but it offers him neither light nor support; and if, like those phosphori, which shine only in the darkest night, it throws sometimes into the midst of the darkness which it produces, a feeble and transient splendor; this splendor soon disappears, and renders the obscurity still more profound and frightful.

To this defect of system and of uniformity, let us oppose the sublime connexion of the doctrine which Jesus Christ came to teach men. It is not those vague and confused ideas, those superficial and irregular discoveries, those flashes or appearances which come at intervals to enlighten or fascinate the mind. All the parts of religion lend each other a mutual aid, and are held together by necessary relations. No truth in it is barren or insulated. Moses and Jesus Christ, the old and the new covenant, patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, concur in the same object, and mutually serve as testimonies to each other. There is no doctrine which has not an influence on the practice of precepts; no precept, which does not either recal or suppose the belief of doctrines; and the worship which is prescribed to us is the true and solemn expression of both the one and the other. Not only is every thing connected in religion, but the edifice which it forms is no less astonishing for the multitude and richness of its parts, than for their agreement and their solidity. The belief of one God, the Creator and Redeemer, is the basis and the foundation of it. From this fruitful principle, flow all the duties of man, the rules which direct the practice of them, the motives which lead him to fulfil them, the means which Providence has devised for him to be faithful to them, the rewards and punishments attached to his fidelity and his disobedience. Of what kind of succors and lights can he have need, which religion is not ready to furnish him? It satisfies his questions about the divinity; it developes the different relations of man. There is no action of life, which it does not regulate or sanctify; it is sufficient for all states, all conditions, all events; it embraces heaven and earth; that which is finite, and that which is not so;

time and eternity. Let them cite to us in the opinions of men a body of doctrine so well connected in all its parts, so extensive, so universal; and then, according to the sentiment of Lactantius, this body of doctrine would not be different from that. which religion presents. The ways of error are numberless; but the path of truth is one; and he, who to know it, (adds the same defender of the faith,) relies upon his own capacities, resembles the imprudent pilot, who neglects to read in the heavens, the sign of his course which is there traced, and who, soon wandering, at the pleasure of opposite currents and winds, is punished for his temerity by a wretched shipwreck.

Besides, is it true, that this superiority, in which infidels pride themselves, is so general as they seek to have it believed? If arts and sciences have been carried to a degree of perfection unknown to our fathers, is it the same with regard to metaphysics and morals? Above all, is it true, that modern infidels have committed no mistake of which they have to blush even in the eye of reason? To know no other principles of obedience than the imperious law of the strongest, no other rule of conduct than private interest; no other agent than fatality; to regard shame as the invention of the will, libertinism as indifferent in itself, vice as the support of society, the pleasures of the senses as the most powerful incentives to virtue; to reject the testimony of nature, the cry of conscience, the cons it of nations, who render homage to the deity. We do not im te such blasphemies to reason. But is not revelation necessary, if those who abandon it are capable of such vagaries?

We wish not, however, to make our age the accomplice of these errours; and we allow with satisfaction that we cannot attribute to it the same absurdities as those with which the fathers reproached the most brilliant ages of Greece and Rome. But is it to reason, or to the gospel that this astonishing revolution is owing? Infidels, said Tertullian, boast of teaching the same. things with us; innocence, justice, patience, sobriety, modesty; they forget that they have learnt them of us; and they impute to philosophy what they are obliged to borrow from religion. This is what infidelity does at this day. Because religion has destroyed the worship of idols, and the impostures of magic; because it has abolished the bloody festivals of Paganism, slavery, and barbarous customs; because in all the regions where it has penetrated, it has spread a spirit of peace and charity, shewn the vanity of riches and of honours, strengthened the ties of blood and those of society; because the fury of war, the despotism of princes, the cruelty of nations, have yielded to its powerful inspiration ;

because it has softened the manners, reformed the laws, and improved the policy of nations; some writers, who have drawn their instructions out of our sacred books, profited by the pre cepts of the gospel, and enjoyed its advantages, dare to despise the source of them, and to attribute to a vain wisdom what is the work of divine wisdom. Why, then, if human reason is so powerful, have those fables and those absurdities for which we blush at this day, been proscribed by the preaching of the gospel? Why do they yet subsist in part, among people who are not illuminated with the light of faith? Why, among these people, are the most simple principles of natural law often mistaken, and actions contrary to the same law, adopted, and erected into precepts? St. Paul said to the sages assembled at Athens, In passing through this city, I beheld an altar with this inscription, To the unknown God; this God whom you know not, is he, whom I declare to you. He made heaven and earth. He has marked the succession of times; determined the course of the stars, given laws to the elements, and we are the first work of his hand. We are not less indebted to him for the unexpected changes which both in moral and political order make our glory and our happiness. In drawing the human race from ignorance and error, it seems as if providence had a second time drawn it out of nothing. Happy in the benefits which religion has produced, let us beware of mistaking the author of them, and of adding the most foolish presumption to the blackest ingratitude.

The

The irregularities of reason, and the bounds which are prescribed to it, are not the only proofs of its insufficiency. If the study of celestial truths, said Aquinas, was left to the sole light of reason, there would result from it three inconveniences, first, that few persons would have the knowledge of them; the second, that even those who had, would acquire it but very late; the third, that almost always falsehood and error would be mingled with it.

We do not pretend that every infidel has lost all idea of morals in speculation, and all virtuous sentiment in practice. The cry of conscience, some principles of rectitude engraved in every heart, some good inclinations, a natural superiority of mind, good education, may preserve in some ingenuous souls the moral sense of good and evil, make some tender and generous affections spring up in them, and produce in them the love of order which is the foundation of virtue.

But we say, that these principles are strengthened in the Christian by the motives which religion adds to them; and that, therefore, to weaken the belief of religion, is to weaken these

« PreviousContinue »