DIVINE ORIGIN OF SCRIPTURE MORALS.

123

be an unvaried scene of peace and good-will. Now, let it be observed by whom this law was given to the world. It was never alleged that they were distinguished by eminence in intellectual vigor, by literary accomplishments, by metaphysical acumen, or by large experience of human life. The greater part of them, confessedly, could lay no claim to these qualifications. Yet they have delivered a code which far surpasses the most celebrated laws and precepts of the legislators and wise men of the heathen world.

To what cause can we ascribe their superiority? I. their wisdom was more than human, it must have been derived from a superhuman source. Since infidels will not admit this inference, let them substitute a better one.

Suppose it possible for the sacred writers to have invented this code of morality, would they have done so? Would impostors have labored to subject the world to a law so holy; a law which, in the first place, condemned themselves for presuming to use the name of God, with a design to deceive their fellow men? Would they who set out with a gross violation of truth and of charity, have been anxious to guard others against evil thoughts and contrivances? Would men who entertained no reverence for the Supreme Being, have placed him at the head of the system, and discovered a jealous care of his honor, a desire to make him the object of universal respect and love?

The precepts of the Bible are an irresistible proof that the Bible did not emanate from bad men: and good men would not have passed it on the world as divine, if it had originated from themselves. They might have presented it to the public as their view of a subject about which so many have delivered their sentiments; but they would have given it in such a form, and accompanied it with such declarations, as would have satisfied all that it was a work of their own.

275. What concessions have the most distinguished infidels published in reference to the morals taught in the sacred scriptures?

276. How will the morals of the Scriptures bear a comparison with the ethics of heathen sages?

277. Are we justified in asserting the completeness of the Bible code of precepts?

278. What sort of a standard of duty do the Scriptures hold up to men? 279. What inference is to be drawn from this alleged fact?

124

HOW DUTY IS TAUGHT IN SCRIPTURE.

280. Does the Christian code of morals extend its requirements and prohibitions beyond the external act?

281. How does Christian morality regard all outward forms of devotion? 282. What sort of character do the Christian morals go to form?

283. How does the superior excellence of the Christian morals appear from the basis on which they are made to rest?

284. May we not found an argument for the truth of revealed religion upon its moral precepts, the peculiar excellence of which has now been demonstrated?

CHAPTER III.

THE MANNER IN WHICH OUR DUTY IS TAUGHT IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

285. SOMETIMES the Scriptures enter into a detail of duties; but had they attempted to point out all the minutie of duty, they would have swelled to such a size as would have defeated their design, because few could have found leisure to peruse them, and still fewer would have been accurately acquainted with their multifarious

contents.

286. The sacred writers deliver their instructions in the

form of maxims, and of clear, decisive prohibitions or requirements, rather than in systematic treatises reasoned out in detail. And there is great advantage in such a course of instruction in our duty. It is brief and intelligible. The Ten Commandments, who cannot remember? The vindication of them, in the Sermon on the Mount, from the false glosses of the Jews, who cannot understand? The exposition of a right temper in the twelfth chapter of Romans, where is the heart that does not feel? The picture of charity, or love, in the thirteenth of the first of Corinthians, is familiar to a child. The maxims of the Book of Proverbs are in every mouth. Revelation, thus, does not reason as a philosopher, but commands as a lawgiver.

287. Revelation utters with sententious authority her brief determinations, as occasions require, in popular language, for the understanding of all; and leaves man to collect, as he can, her maxims into systems, or compare and illustrate them by the aid of sound reason and conscience.

HOW DUTY IS TAUGHT IN SCRIPTURE.

125

Human treatises on morals stop to define and prove every duty, to contrast it with its proximate defect and excess, and to reduce the whole to an elaborate system. Revelation takes for granted that man knows what temperance, chastity, fortitude, benevolence, mean, or may learn them from other sources, and contents herself with binding them upon the conscience. The consequence is, that a child at school, in a Christian country, knows more of the standard of morals, and the details of social virtue, than the most learned of the ancient sages.

288. The sacred writers set forth human duty by strong and affecting examples. This is peculiar to the writers of the Bible. All its precepts are illustrated and embodied in the historical parts. All the separate virtues, duties, graces, acts of abstinence and self-denial, effects of the Christian spirit, and of its principles carried out into habit and character, are set forth in the lives of Christ and of his apostles.

All the infirmities, and errors, and vices to be shunned, are exposed in the fearful punishments of guilty nations, in the destruction of the cities of the plain, in the deluge, in the captivity of Babylon, in the lives of wicked princes.

With this view also, the sins and falls of the true servants of God are held forth for our caution, with a fidelity unknown except in the inspired scriptures-the drunkenness of Noah, the incest of Lot, the falsehoods uttered by Abraham and Jacob, the irritated expressions of Moses, the sin, the gross and awful sin of David, the rashness of Josiah.

The attempts made by infidel writers to misrepresent the purport of some of these narratives are too absurd to be noticed. The tendency of the scriptural exposure of vice is to excite abhorrence; to which the plainness and brevity of its descriptions, and even the directness of the terms which it employs, greatly conduce. A few expressions have acquired an import, from the mere lapse of time since our English translation was made, not originally designed, and are instantly corrected by every intelligent reader.

289. The sacred writers furnish examples which hold forth the duties of parents and children, of masters and servants, of husbands and wives, of ministers, of missionaries, and of teachers of youth. They supply us also

126 THE SCRIPTURES RENDER DUTY PRACTICAble.

with examples which display the faults and excellences of nations, of bodies politic, of legislators, of magistrates, and of churches.

290. The peculiar truths of the gospel, as well as those other parts of revelation with which the precepts are inseparably connected, are employed as fit and powerful motives to secure obedience to the maxims and precepts of duty.

291. The great facts on which the revealed doctrines rest, and which prepare for the operation of motives, are, the fall and corruption of man; the mercy of God in the gift of his Son; the birth, sufferings, and death of Jesus Christ; the descent and operations of the Holy Ghost; the promulgation of the Christian religion; and its offers to mankind.

The facts of Christianity, brought home to man's heart, that is, being truly believed, render morals practicable, natural, delightful.

292. The doctrines, which are explanatory of the facts. of revelation, are expressly designed and admirably adapted to produce, in those who believe them, a conformity to its moral precepts and maxims.

It might be shown also that the peculiar doctrines of revelation go to form exactly that sort of character, and no other, which the morals require; and that the precepts delineate and require that sort of character, and no other, which the doctrines go to form.

293. The promises and privileges of Christianity are attached to certain dispositions and states of mind, which are essential parts of the morals of revelation; and hence they become powerful motives to obedience.

294. The precepts are involved in all the other parts of revelation. There is scarcely a chapter in any of the merely historical books that is not fraught with moral instruction in the form of exhortations, examples, and warnings. In regard to the prophets, the scope of all their remonstrances, persuasions, and invitations is to induce the disobedient and immoral to a life of virtue and piety. The same, in a higher degree, may be said of the evangelical histories, and the epistles of the holy apostles.

In short, as the precepts without the doctrines of revelation prescribe an unattainable rule, so the doctrines without the precepts fail in their great purpose-evapo

INFERENCES FROM SCRIPTURE.

127

rate in mere emotions and sensibilities, and can neither sanctify nor save.

295. The details of human duty may be learned from the Scriptures by adopting the rules laid down in Book VI. Section VII.

296. In regard to the question whether it is lawful to draw inferences from Scripture, nothing is more plain, than that when a proposition is laid down from which certain inferences naturally arise, it is the office of the understanding to draw the conclusions, and to rest in them with equal confidence as in the premises from which they are deduced. This is the mode of procedure of all intelligent creatures, in the matters to which they turn their attention. Human knowledge would be exceedingly circumscribed and imperfect, if our views were strictly confined to facts; and these would be of little use, if we were not permitted to educe from them observations and maxims for the regulation of our conduct.

Had everything which it is necessary for us to know been delivered in express terms in the Scriptures, the Bible would have been too voluminous for general use; and beside, such minuteness was not necessary. God does not speak in it to children merely, but to men who are capable of reasoning on the common affairs of life, and can use this power in matters of religion.

297. The denial of the lawfulness of drawing inferences from Scripture, goes much further than the opponents of drawing inferences are awrae, and would place them and us in the most awkward and ridiculous situation; for it would follow that we must never write or speak about religion but in the words of inspiration, and that all theological books and all sermons should be discarded for of what do they consist but of inferences from Scripture, when they do not merely retail its words, but attempt to explain their meaning?

[Wilson's Evidences; Prof. Dick's Lectures.]

285. Do the Scriptures enter into a full detail of human duty? 286. What is the usual form in which human duty is taught by the sacred writers ?

287. In teaching morality, how does revelation differ from human treatises?

288. What other mode, beside that of brief maxims, requirements, or prohibitions, do the sacred writers employ, to make us acquainted with our various duties?