evident marks of its importance and usefulness, do not, in the present imperfect state of human virtue, amount to a demonstration of its truth: it is an argument, however, of which we have it always in our own power to lessen or increase the force. Extent of that power, with which example recommends religion, pointed out.

DISCOURSE V.

THE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY BENEFICIAL.

[Preached on the fifth of November.]

MATTHEW, CHAP. X.-VERSE 34.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.

To prepare the minds of his disciples to support with firmness the difficulties and the dangers of the great office, which they had so readily undertaken, but of which they yet so little knew the nature; Jesus in these words does not describe the end, to the accomplishment of which their labors were to be directed; but forewarns them of the effect with which those labors would unhappily be but too often attended; that they must not expect to sit down in the peaceful enjoyment of the honors and riches of a temporal kingdom, nor even to find the world attentive to their admonitions, or grateful for their instructions that the contrary to all this would very generally take place; and they, like their Master, in the discharge of their important duty, would be deserted, betrayed, and persecuted: nor would the measure of affliction be exhausted in their sufferings; the preaching of the gospel of peace would be as it were the universal signal for the most inveterate and unnatural divisions, in which the closest ties of kindred and friendship would be dissolved: the father would be divided against the son, and the son against the father, and a man's foes be they of his own household.'

:

This prophecy, whether it be confined to the times of the

apostles and first converts; to the painful sacrifice they made, at the Christian altar, of whatever in this life is either valuable or delightful; or it be farther extended to the divisions which in every succeeding age have harassed and disgraced the church of Christ; in either of these senses, even the enemies of Christianity must own it to have been amply fulfilled by the event. And it seems to require considerable art to evade the claim of prescience, which is founded on the prediction of facts so strange and unlikely; as that, on the appearance of à religion, which breathed nothing but peace and submission, the Roman government would suddenly forget and abandon their hitherto undeviating maxims of toleration; or that the meekness and benevolence of the Christian system could possibly be so far perverted, as to produce effects more pernicious than any which had ever been experienced from the most cruel and abject superstitions.

But, allowing the accomplishment of this prediction to be a full proof of the prophet's discernment; is it, we may ask, quite reconcilable with those descriptions, in which the kingdom of the Messiah is elsewhere represented, where universal innocence is the character of his subjects, and universal peace their reward?

It may be answered, that these prophecies refer to different events, which were to take place in different periods of the Christian church: the first points out the violent opposition, which would impede its rise, from the power of heathens; as well as the more disgraceful obstructions, which would afterwards interrupt its progress, from the vices of believers: while the others describe to us its real and true tendency, and direct our hopes to the future scenes of glory and triumph, that will one day succeed to this mixed state of vice and apostasy, of division and distress, which the first preachers of the gospel foretold and lamented, and which its adversaries in every age have vainly represented as inconsistent with its heavenly origin.

It was certainly a bright period in the history of Christianity, when its advocates could boldly appeal, in proof of its divine original, to the effects that attended its progress, and the virtues that sprang up under its steps; when the vices, which the wisdom of the philosopher could not correct, and the power of

the magistrate could not control, had fled from the rebuke of a few simple, unlettered fishermen; and when the utmost ingenuity and malice of its opponents was challenged to detect a single instance of profligacy in a mixed crowd of unnumbered proselytes.

If we turn our eyes from this picture of primitive excellence, how are we confounded to find, that the vices of succeeding times have at length almost reversed the conclusion; and the same argument now pleads with specious eloquence against that religion, which it once supported with real strength, and recommended with irresistible persuasion!

But it must always be remembered, that the nature and force of these proofs are widely different. The one represents the genuine effects of religion in its proper and avowed province of directing the passions, and reforming the morals of mankind; while the other displays the accidental consequences which followed, when its spirit was debased and perverted by the very passions which it was designed to purify and govern; when the gospel of peace was made the instrument of war and faction; and the zeal of Christians extirpated those whom Christianity taught them to love.

We are indeed assured that false prophets shall be known by their fruits;'* by the manifest and essential tendency, by the real and constant effects of the doctrines they teach, and the precepts they inculcate but this method of arguing bears not the smallest resemblance to that, which would condemn religion, not from its natural fruits, but merely from the abuses and perversions of it; from the crimes, which are contrary to its general temper, as well as to its positive commands. No institution has ever prevented all the excesses which it forbad: nor is it peculiar to the laws of religion, that they have sometimes furnished a pretext for the introduction of those very evils and oppressions, which they were originally intended to remedy.

'It must needs be that offences come, but wo unto that man, by whom the offence cometh!' Now part of the offence and of the wo must belong, not only to those, who by their + Ib. xviii. 7.

* Matth. vii. 16.

unworthy deeds have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme,' but to those also, who, though perfectly sensible of the unfairness of the argument we are considering, have yet so artfully confounded the public history of the church with the genuine effects of religion, and the spirit of superstition and fanaticism with the genius of Christianity, that it is not every careless reader who will perceive or attend to the distinction between them, however obvious and however necessary. Nor are those without their share of blame, who carry on their insidious and concealed attack, by perpetually recurring to the tragical display of those wars, conspiracies, and persecutions, those mingled scenes of guilt and horror, which, could they be justly imputed to either, would be equally disgraceful to religion or to reason.

These arts are very disingenuous, and at the same time very successful: they insensibly interest the feelings of men in a cause, which ought to be left to the cool decision of the understanding; and they fix on weak minds an unfavorable impression, in which reason has no share, and which yet no subsequent reflection shall ever be able wholly to efface.

Were it possible for us to trace up events, each to its proper cause, and refer the several actions of men to their real and distinct motives; or were it as easy to discern the genuine effects of Christianity on the minds of those, who have sincerely obeyed its directions, as it is to darken its character with all the crimes and all the follies of those, who in every age have transgressed its laws, misunderstood its temper, or perverted its design; we should then be enabled to form a just judgment of the real importance of religion to the virtue and happiness of society; and the inquiry would certainly terminate in a complete vindication of the general utility of the Christian system, and would show that its effects have been really such, as, if they do not amount to a formal proof of its truth, are at least perfectly consistent with it.

Even without wishing to commence our researches with any such extraordinary advantages, whoever will attentively compare the morals of Christians, defective as they are, with those

* 2 Sam. xii. 14.