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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010 with funding from
University of Pittsburgh Library System
http://www.archive.org/details/appealtomatterofOOinflet
AN
APPEAL
TO
MATTER OF FACT
AND
COMMON SENSE.
OR. A
RATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
OF
MAN'S CORR UPT AND LOST ESTATE.
YE pompous sons of Reason idoliz'd And vilify'd at once; of Reason dead, Then deify 'd, as mohardis were of old , W rong not the Christian ; think not Reason yours: *Tis Reason our great Master holds so dear ; Tis Reason's injured l-ights his wrath resents ; 'Tis Reason's voice ohey'd h:s glories crown ; To give lost Reason life he pour'd his own ; Believe, and shew the Reason of a Man ; Believe and taste the pleasure of a God ; Thro' Reason's wounds alone thy faith can die.
YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS.
THE SON OF MAN IS COME TO =iEEK AND TO SAVE THAT WHICH WAS LOST LUKE XIX. IO.
NEW-YORK:
PRINTED BY KIRK Iff ROBINSON, FOZ THE METHODIST SOClETYj
AND SOLD BY E. COOPER, AND J. WILSON, AT
THE BOOK ROOM.
1804.
jDar, BTlZO
F6/3 top,!
■■N
TO THE PRINCIPAL INHABITANT'S OF THE PARISH OF MADE LE^ IN THE COUNTT OF SALOP.
GENTLEMEN,
YOU are no less intitled to my private labours, than the inferior class of my parishioners. As you do not chuse to partake with them of my evening instruc- tions, I take the liberty to present you with some of my morning meditations. May these well-meant endeavours of my pen, be more acceptable to you than those of my tongue ! And may you carefully read in your closets, what you have perhaps inattentively heard in the church! I appeal to the Searcher of hearts, that I had rather im- part truth than receive tithes; You kindly bestow the lat- ter upon me; grant me, I pray, the satisfaction of see- ing you favourably receive the former, from
GENTLEMEN,
TOUR AFFECTIONATE MINISTER
AND OBEDIENT SERVANT,
J. FLETCHERE.
Madeley 1772.
CONTENTS.
AN INTRODUCTION.
FIRST PART.
THE Doctrine of man's corrupt and lost estate is stated at large, in the words of the Prophets, Apostles, and Jesus Christ ; and recapitulated in those of the Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy of the Church of England.
SECOND PART.
Man is considered as an inhabitant of the natural world, and his fall is proved by arguments deduced from the misery, in which he is now undeniably involved ; compared with the happiness, of which we cannot help conceiving him possessed, when he came out of the hands of his gracious Creator.
A view of this misery in the following particulars...!. The disorders of the globe we inhabit, and the dreadful scourges with which it is visited... .II. The deplorable and shocking cir- cumstances of our birth... .III. The painful and dangerous tra- vail of women... IV. The untimely dissolution of still-bom, o*
CONTENTS.
new-born children... .V. Our natural uncleanliness, helpless- ness, ignorance, and nakedness....VI. The gross darkness in which we naturally are, both with respect to God and a future state....VIl. The general rebellion of the brute creation against us.. ..VIII. The various poisons that lurk in the animal, vegeta- ble, and mineral world, ready to destroy us.. ..IX. The heavy curse of toil and sweat, to which we are liable ; instances of which are given in the hard and dangerous labours of the au- thor's parishioners....X. The other innumerable calamities of Iife...-And XI. the pangs of death.
THIRD PART.
Man is considered as a citizen of the moral world, a free agent, accountable to his Creator for his tempers and conduct; and his fall is further demonstrated by arguments drawn from.. ..XII. His commission of sin.... XIII. His omission of duty.. ..XIV, The triumphs of sensual appetites over his intellectual facul- ties ...XV. The corruption of the powers that constitute a good head ; the understanding, imagination, memory and rea- son.=..XVI. The depravity of the powers which form a good heart ; the will, conscience, and affections. ...XVII. His ma- nifest alienation from God. ...XVIII. His amazing disregard even of his nearest relatives... XIX. His unaccountable unconcern about himself.... XX. His detestable tempers.... XXI. The gen- eral out-breaking of human corruption in all individuals.... XXII. The universal overflowing of it in all nations ; Five objections answered.. ..XXIII. Some striking proofs of this de- pravity in the general propensity of mankind to vain, irrational, or cruel diversions ; and.. ..XXIV. In the universality of the most ridiculous, impious, inhuman, and diabolical sins.. ..XXV. The aggravating circumstances attending the display of this, corruption.. ..XXVI. The many ineffectual endeavours to stem its torrent ...XXVII. The obstinate resistance it makes to divine grace in the unconverted.... XXVIII. The amazing struggles of good men with it. ...XXIX. The. testimony of the heathens, and deists concerning it; and after all....XXX. The prepos-
CONTENTS.
terous conceit which the unconverted have of their own good- ness.
FOURTH PART.
Man is considered as an inhabitant of the christian world; and his fallen state is further proved by six scriptural arguments, introduced by a short demonstration of the authenticity of the scriptures and by a little attack upon the amazing cre- dulity of deists. The heads^of these arguments are. ...XXXI. The impossibility that fallen corrupt Adam, should have had an upright, innocent posterity ; with answers to some capital objections....XXXII. The spirituality and severity of God's law, which the unrenewed man continually breaks ; and.... XXXIII. Our strong propensity to unbelief, the most destruc- tive of all sins according to the gospel.... XXXIV. The absur- dity of the chr^tian religion with respect to infants, and strict moralists;. ...XXXV. The harshness and cruelty of Christ's fundamental doctrines ; and....XXXVI. The extravagance of the grand article of the christian faith ; //"mankind are not in a corrupt and lost estate.
FIFTH PART.
The doctrine of man's fall being established by such a variety of arguments ; first, a few natural inferences are added : secondly, various fatal consequences attending the ignorance of our lost es- tate: thirdly, the unspeakable advantages arising from the right knowledge of it.
The whole is concluded with an address to the serious reader, who enquires what he must do to be saved.... And with an appendix, concerning the evangelical harmony that subsists between living faith and loving obedience.
INTRODUCTION.
IN religious matters we easily run into ex- tremes. Nothing is more common than to see people embracing one error, under the plausible pretence of avoiding another.
Many, through fear of infidelity, during the night of ignorance and storm of passion, run a- gainst the "wild rocks of superstition, and enthu- siasm : and frequently do it with such force, that they make shi/iwreck of the faith, and have little of godliness left, -except a few broken pieces of its form.
Numbers, to shun that fatal error, steer quite a contrary course : supposing themselves guided by the compass of reason, when they only follow that of prejudice, with equal violence they dash their speculative brains against the opposite rocks of deism and profaneness ; and fondly congratu- late themselves on escaping the shelves of fana- ticism, whilst the leaky bark of their hopes is ready to sink, and that of their morals is perhaps sunk already. Thus, both equally over- look so- ber, rational, heart-felt piety, that lies between those wide and dangerous extremes.
INTRODUCTION. x
To point out the happy medium which they have missed, and call them back to the narrow path, where reason and revelation walk hand in hand, is the design of these sheets. May the Father of lights so shine upon the reader's mind, that he may clearly discover truth, and notwith- standing the severity of her aspect, prefer her to the most soothing error.
If he is one of those, who affect to be the warm votaries of reason, he is intreated to be a chse- thinker, as well as a/ree-thinker ; and with care- ful attention to consider reason's dictates, before he concludes, that they agree with his favourite sentiments. He has, no doubt, too much can- dour, not to grant so equitable a request ; too much justice, to set aside matter of fact ; and too much good sense, to disregard an appeal to com,' mon sense*
Should he incline to the opposite extreme, and cry down our rational powers; he is desired to remember, right reason, which is that I ap- peal to, is a ray of the light that enlightens every man who comes into the world, and a beam of the eternal Logos, the glorious Sun of righteousness*
God, far from blaming a proper use of the no- ble faculty, by which we are chiefly distinguish- ed from brutes, graciously invites us to the ex- ercise of it : Come now, says he, and let us rea- son together. Jesus commends the unjust steward, for reasoning better upon his wrong, than the children of light upon their right principles. Samuel desires the Israelites to Hand still, that
INTRODUCTION. xi
he may reason with them before the Lord. St. Peter charges believers to give an answer to every one, that asketh them a reason of their hope. And St. Paul, who reasoned so conclu- sively himself, intimates, that wicked men are unreasonable; and declares, that a total dedi- cation of ourselves to God is our reasonable service : and, while he challenges the vain dis- puters of this world, who would make jests pass for proofs, invectives for arguments, and sophis- try for reason ; he charges Titus to use, not merely sound speech, but, as the original also means, sound reason, that he who is of the con- trary part may be ashamed.
Let us then, following his advice and example, pay a due regard both to reason and revelation : So shall we, according to his candid direction, break the shackles of prejudice, prove all things, and, by divine grace, holdfast that which is good*
AN
APPEAL
TO
MATTER OF FACT, to.
FIRST PART.
IN every religion there is a principal truth or error, which like the first link of a chain, necessarily draws after it all the parts with which it is essentially connected. This leading principle, in Christianity distinguished from deism, is the doctrine of our cor rupt and lost estate : for if man is not at variance with his Creator, what need of a Mediator between God and him ? If he is not a depraved, undone creature, what necessity of so wonderful a Restorer and Saviour as the Son of God ? If he is not inslaved to sin, why is he redeemed by Jesus Christ ? If he is not polluted, why must he be washed in the blood of that immacu- late Lamb ? If his soul is not disordered, what occa- sion is there for such a divine Physician ? If he is not helpless and miserable, why is he perpetually invited to secure the assistance and consolations of the Holy Spirit? and in a word, if he isnot born in sin, why is anew birth so absolutely necessary, that Christ declares ■
U AN APPEAL, tfc. Part I.
with the most solemn asseverations, without it no man can see the kingdom of God ?
This doctrine then being of such importance, that genuine Christianity stands or falls with it ; it may be proper to state it at large : and as this cannot be done in stronger and plainer words, than those of the sacred writers, and our pious reformers ; I beg leave to collect them, and present the reader with a picture of our natural estate, drawn at full length by those ancient and masterly hands.
I. Moses, who informs us, that God created man in his own image, and after his likeness, soon casts a shade upon his original dignity, by giving us a sad account of his fall. He represents him after his dis- obedience, as a criminal under sentence of death ; a wretch filled with guilt, shame, dread, and horror ; and a vagabond, turnedout of a lost paradise into a curs- ed wilderness, where all bears the stamp of desolation for his sake. Gen. iii. 17. In consequence of this apostacy he died, and all die in him : for, by one man sin entered into the world, and c^eath by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned in him, who was all mankind seminally and federally collected in one individual. 1 Cor. xv. 22. Rom. v. 12.
The sacred historian, having informed us how the first man was corrupted, observes, that he begat a son in his own image, sinful and mortal like himself; that his first-born was a murderer; that Abel himself of- fered sacrifices to avert divine wrath, aud that the vio- lent temper of Cain soon broke out in all the human spe- cies. The earth, says he, was filled with violence. ...all flesh hadcorrupted its way.... and God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, so great, that every Ima- gination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, contin- ually. Only evil, without any mixture of good : and contin~ ■uatty, without any intermission of the evil. Gen.vi. 5.
When the deluge was over, the Lord himself gave the same account of his obstinately rebellious crea- ture. The imagination of man's heart, said he to
Part I. AN APPEAL, &ct 15
Noah, is evil from his youth, Gen. viii. 21.. ..Job's friends paint us with the same colours : One of them observes, that man is born like the wild ass's colt : And another that he is abominable and filthy, and drinks iniquity like water. Job xi. 12, and xv. 16.
David, doth not alter the hideous portrait: The Lord, says he, looked down from heaven upon the children of men ; to see if there were any that did un- derstand and seek God. And the result of the divine inspection is : They are all gone aside, they are alto- gether become filthy : There is none that doth good, no not one. Psal. xiv. 2. Solomon gives a finishing stroke to his father's draught, by informing us, that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, and not of a child only, for he adds, The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and while they live madness is in their heart. Prov. xxii. 15. Eccl. ix. 3.
Isaiah corroborates the assertions of the royal pro- phets, in the following mournful confession : All we, iik« oheep, have gone astray... .We are all as an un- clean thing, and all our rightousnesses are as filthy rags. Isa. liii. 6. and Ixiv. 6.
Jeremiah confirms the deplorable truth, where he says : the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond ; it is graven upon the. tables of their hearts. ...O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou may est be saved.... For the heart is deceitful above all things, and despe- rately wicked : Who can know it ? Jer. iv. 14. and xvii. 1. 9.
Thus the pro;* ets delineate mankind in a natural, impenitent state. And do the apostles dip their pen-^ cil in brighter colours ? Let them speak forthemselvs. The chief of them informs us, that the natural, un- renewed man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, and that they are foolishness to him. 1 Cor. ii. 14. And he lays it down as matter of fact, that the carnal mind, the taste and disposition of every unregenerate person, is not only averse to goodness,
16 AN APPEAL, &e* Part I.
but enmity itself against God, the adorable fountain of all excellence. A blacker line can hardly be drawn, to describe a fallen, diabolical nature. Rom. viii. 7. Various are the names, which the apostle of the gentiles gives to our original corruption ; and they are all expressive of its pernicious nature, and dread- ful effects. He calls it emphatically, sin, a sin so full of activity and energy, that it is the life and spring of all others :.... Indwelling sin, a sin which is not like the leaves and fruits of a bad tree, that appear for a time, and then drop off ; but like the sap that dwells and works within, always ready to break out at every bud :....The body of sin, because it is an assemblage of all possible sins in embryo, as our body is an assem- blage of all the members which constitute the human frame :....The law of sin, and the law in our members, because it hath a constraining force, and rules in our mortal bodies, as a mighty tyrant in the kingdom which he hath usurped :....The old man, because we have it from the first man, Adam ; and because it i» as old as the first stamina of our frame, with which it is most closely interwoven ;....The flesh, as being pro- pagated by carnal generation, and always opposing the Spirit, the gracious principle, which we have from Adam the second :....And concupiscence, that mystic Jezebel, who brings forth the infinite variety of flesh- ly, worldly, and mental lusts, which war against the soul.
Nor are St. James and St. John less severe than St. Paul, upon the unconverted man. The one ob- serves, that his wisdom, the best property naturally belonging to him, descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish : And the other posi- tively declares, that the whole world lieth in wicked- ness. Jam. iii. 15. 1 John, v. 19.
Our Lord, whose spirit inspired the prophets and apostles, confirms their lamentable testimony. To make us seriously consider sin, our mortal disease, he reminds us, that the whole have no need ©f a
Part I. AN APPEAL, &c. 17
physician, but they that are sick. Luke v. 31. He declares, that men love darkness rather than light. That the world hates him ; and that its works are evil. Johniii. 19 and xv. 18. and vii. 7. He directs all to pray for the pardon of sin, as being evil, and oweing ten thousand talents to their heavenly cre- ditor. Mat. fi. 12. vii. 11. xviii. 24. And he as- sures us, that the things, which defile the man, come from within ; and that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, and in a word, all moral evil. Mark vii. 21. Mat. xv. 19.
Some indeed confine what the scriptures say of the depravity of the human heart, to the abandoned heathens and persecuting Jews ; as if the professors of morality and Christianity, were not concerned in the dreadful charge. But if the apostolic writings affirm, that Christ came not to call the righteous, but shiners ; that he died for the ungodly ; and that he suf- fered, the just for the unjust ; it is plain that, unless he did not suffer and die for moral men and christians, they are by nature sinners, ungodly, and unjust as the rest of mankind. Rom. v. 6. 1 Pet. iii. 18.
If this assertion seems severe, let some of the best men that ever lived, decide the point, not by the experience of immoral persons, but by their own. [ abhor myself, says Job, and repent in dust and ashes. Job xlii. 6. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, says David, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Ps. li. 5. Wo is me for I am undone, says Isaiah, because lam a man of unclean lips. Isa. vi. 5. I know, says St. Paul, that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwellethno good thing. Rom. vii. 18. We ourselves, says he, to Titus, were sometimes foolish, disobedient, de- ceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. Tit. iii. 3. And speaking of himself, and the chris- tians at Ephesus, he leaves upon record, this memo- »3
18 AN APPEAL, isfc. Part I.
rable sentence : We were by nature the children of wrath even as others, Eph. ii. 3. Such humbling thoughts have the best of men entertained both of their natural estate, and themselves !
But as no one is a more proper person to appeal to, in this matter, than this learned apostle, who, by continually conversing with jews, heathens, and christians in his travels, had such an opportunity of knowing mankind ; let us hear him sum up the suff- rages of his inspired brethren. What then, says he, are we better than they ? Better than the immoral pagans and hypocritical jews, described in the two preceding chapters ? No, in no wise. And he proves it by observing: (1) The universality of human cor- ruption : all are under sin, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one : (2) The extent of it in individuals, as it effects the whole man, especially his mind ; there is none that understandeth the things of God : His affections, there is none that seeketh after God : And his actions, they are all gone out of the way of duty : There is none that doeth good, no not one ; For ail have their conversation in the lusts of the flesh and of the mind. ...(3) The out -breakings of this corruption through all the parts of the body : Their throat, their lips, their mouth, their feet, their eyes, and all their members are together become un- profitable, and instruments of unrighteousness. As for their tongue, says St. James, it is a world of ini- quity, it defileth the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. And lastly, its malignity and virulence : It is loathsome as an open sepulchre, terrible as one who runs to shed blood, and mortal as the poison of asps.
From the whole, speaking of all mankind in their unregenerate state, he justly infers that destruction and misery are in their ways. And, lest the self- righteous should flatter themselves, that this alarm- ing declaration doth not regard them, he adds, that the scriptures conclude all under sin ; that there is no
Part I. AN APPEAL, &c\ 19
difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God ; and that the moral law denounces a general curse against its violators, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Rom. iii. 9 to 23. vi. 19. Eph. ii. 2.
If man is thus corrupt and guilty, he must be liable to condign punishment. Therefore as the pro- phets and apostles agree with our Lord, in their dis- mal descriptions of his depravity ; so they harmonize with him, in their alarming accounts of his danger. Till he flies to the Redeemer as a condemned male- factor, and secures an interest in the salvation pro- vided for the lost, they represent him as on the brink of ruin.
They inform us, that the wrath of God is reveal- ed from heaven, not only againstsome atrocious crimes, but against all unrighteousness of men. Rom. i. 18. That every transgression and disobedience, shall re- ceive a just recompence of reward, Heb. ii. 2. That the soul that sinneth shall die, because the wages of sin is death. Ezek xviii. 4. Rom. vi. 23. They de- clare, that they are cursed, who do err from God's commandments : That cursed is the man, whose heart departeth from the Lord : That cursed is t ery one, who continues not in all things, which are writ- ten in the book of the law to do them : That who- soever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty ofall : And that, as many as have sin- ned without law, shall also perish without law. Ps. cxix. 21. Jer. xvii. 5. Gal. iii. 10. Jam. ii. 10. Rom. ii. 12.
They intreat us to turn, lest we should be found with the many, in the broad way to destruction. Ez. xviii. 23. Mat. 7. 13. They affectionately inform us, ihat it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God : That our God is a consuming fire to the unregenerate : that indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, hang over every soul of man who doeth evil : that the Lord shall be revealed from heaven in
20 AN APPEAL, Vc. Part I.
.flaming fire, to take vengeance on them, who know him not, and obey not the gospel : That the wicked, shall be turned into hell, and all the people that for- get God : that they shall be punished with eternal destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power : And that they all shall be damned, who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness. Heb. x. 31. and xii. 29. Rom. ii. 9. 2 Thes. i. 8. and ii. 12. Ps. ix. 17.
Nor does our Lord, who is both the fountain and pattern of true charity, speak a different language. He bids us fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell: Luke xii. 5. He solemnly charges us to oppose corrupt nature with the utmost resolu- tion, lest we be cast into hell, where the worm dieth not, find the fire is not quenched. Mark ix. 43. With tenderness he informs us, that whosoever shall say to Jiis brother, Thou fool ! shall be in danger of hell-fire ; that not only the wicked, but the unprofitable servant shall be cast into outer darkness, where will be weep- ing, wailing, and gnashing of teeth : And that he himself, far from conniving at sin, will fix the doom of all impenitent sinners, by this dreadful sentence : Depart from me, ye cursed : into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Mat. v. 22. and xxv. 30. 41.
II. I flatter myself that the doctrine, which we are to try by the touch-stone of reason, has been al- ready sufficiently established from scripture. Never- theless, that the reader may have the fullest view of so momentous a subject, I shall yet present him with a recapitulation of the whole, in the words of our pious reformers, taken out of the Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy of the church of England.
The 9th article thus describes our depravity and danger : " Original, or birth-sin, is the fault and cor- ruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam ; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is
Part t AN APPEAL, Uf ft 21
of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit ; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation."
The 35th article gives sanction to the Homilies in the following words : " The book of Homilies con- tains a good and wholesome doctrine, and therefore we judge them to be read in churches, by ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may -be understood by the people." Let us then see, how they set forth the good and wholesome, though lamentable and humbling doctrine of our lost estate.
The title of the 2d is, " A sermon of the misery of mankind, and of his condemnation to death ever- lasting by his sin." In the close of it, the contents cj*e summed up in these words : " We have heard how evil we are of ourselves ; how of ourselves, and by ourselves we have no goodness, help, or salvation : but on the contrary, sin, damnation, and death everlasting.
Our church is uniform in her woeful accounts of man's misery. Hear her in the 1st Homily for Whit- sunday : u Man of his' own nature (since the fall) is fleshly and carnal, corrupt and naught, sinful and disobedient to God, without any spark of goodness in him, without any virtuous or godly motion, only given to evil thoughts and wicked deeds."
In the Homily on the nativity she speaks thus : " He (disobedient man) was now cursed and abhorred : Instead of the image of God, he was now become the image of the devil, the bond-slave of hell. Altoge- ther spotted and denied, he seemed to be nothing else but a lump of sin ; and therefore, by the just judg- ment of God, he was condemned to everlasting death- Thus, in Adam, all men became universally mortal, having in themselves nothing but * everlasting dam- nation of body and soul."
* Prejudiced persons, who, instead of considering the entire system of truth, run away with a part detached from the whole.
22 AN APPEAL, fcV. Part I.
The same doctrine is delivered with the same plainness in the 2d part of the Homily on the passion. " Adam died the death, that is, became mortal, lost the favour of God, and was cast out of paradise, be- ing no longer a citizen of heaven, but a fire-brand of hell, and a bond-slave of the devil. And St. Paul bears witness, that by Adam's offence death came up- on all men to condemnation, who became plain re- probates, and cast -away s, * being perpetually damned to the everlasting pains of hell-fire.
Agreeably to this, we are taught, in the 2d part of the Homily on repentance, that " part of that vir- tue consists in an unfeigned acknowledgment of our sins to God, whom, by them, we have so grievously offended, that if he should deal with us according to his justice, we deserve a thousand hells, if there were so many."
The same vein of wholesome, though unpleasant <loctrine7 rims through the Liturgy of our church. She opens her service by exhorting us not to dissem- ble nor cloak our manifold sins and wickedness. She acknowledges in her confessions, that we have erred and strayed from God's ways, like lost sheep.... that there is no help in us.... that we are miserable sinners, miserable offenders, to whom our sins are grievous, and the burthen of them is intolerable.
She begins her baptismal office, by reminding us, that all men are conceived andborninsin. Sheteaches in her catechism, that we are by nature borninsin,and the children of wrath. She confesses in the collect be-
will be offended here, as if our church " damned every body.'' But the candid reader will easily observe, that, instead of doom- in?; any one to destruction she only declares, that the Saviour finds all men in a state of condemnation and misery, where they would eternally remain, were it not for the compassionate equity of our gracious God, which does not permit him to sentence to a consciousness of eternal torments, any one of his creatures, for a sin, of which they never were personally guilty ; and of which, consequently, they can never have any consciousness.
Part I. AN APPEAL, &c. 23
fore the general thanksgiving, that we are tied and bound with the chain of our sins, and entreats God to let the pitifulness of his great mercy loose us : and in her suffrages she beseeches him to have mercv up- on us, to spare us, and make speed to save us ; a lan- guage that can suit none but condemned signers.
Duly sensible of our extreme danger, till we have secured an interest in Christ, at the grave she suppli- cates the most holy God, not to deliver us into the bit- ter pains of eternal death ; and in the litany she be- seeches our Lord Jesus Christ, by his agony and bloody sweat, by his cross and passion, to deliver us from his wrath and everlasting damnation. Thus is our church every where consistent with herself, and with the oracles of God, in representing us as corrupt, condemned creatures, in Adam ; till we are penitent, absolved believers in Jesus Christ.
The doctrine to be demonstrated in this treatise being thus fully stated, in the consentaneous words of the sacred writers, and our pious reformers, I shall close this part by an appeal to the reader's candour and common sense. If such are the sentiments of our church, are those church-men reasonable, who in- timate that all the maintainers of them are either her open or secret enemies ? and may they rank with mo- dest, humble christians, who instead of the self-abas- ing scripture doctrine here laid down, boldly substitute pompous, pharisaic descriptions of the present dignity and rectitude of human nature ?.... without waiting for the obvious answer, I pass to the first class of argu- ments, on which the truth of this mortifying doctrine is established.
SECOND PART.
AS no man is bound to believe what is contrary to common sense ; if the above-stated doctrine ap- pears irrational, Scriptures, Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy, are quoted in vain : When men of parts are pressed with their authority, they start from it as an imposition on their reason, and make as honour- able a retreat as they possibly can- Some to extricate themselves at once, set the Bi- ble aside, as full of incredible assertions. Others, with more modesty, plead that the scriptures have been frequently misunderstood, and are so in the pre- sent case. They put grammar, criticism, and com- mon sense to the rack, to shew that when the inspired writers say, the human heart is desperately wicked, they mean that it is extremely good ; or at least like blank paper, ready to receive either the characters of virtue, or of vice. With respect to the testimony of our reformers, they would have you to understand, that in this enlightened age, we must leave their harsh, uncharitable sentiments, to the old puritans, mid the present methodists.
That such objectors may subscribe as a solemn truth, what they have hitherto rejected as a dange- rous error ; and that humbled sinners may see the pro- priety of an heart-felt repentance, and the absolute need of an almighty Redeemer ; they are here pre- sented with some proofs of our depravity, taken from the astonishing severity of God's dispensations to- ward s mank is d .
c
26 AN APPEAL, &c. Part IL
AXIOM.
If we consider the supreme Being, as creating a world for the manifestation of his glory, the display of his perfections, and the communication of his hap- piness to an intelligent creature, whom he would at- tach to himself by the strongest ties of gratitude and love i we at once perceive, that he never could form this earth and man in their present, disordered, de- plorable condition. It is not so absurd to suppose the meridian sun productive of darkness, as to imagine that infinite goodness ever produced any kind or de- gree of evil.
Infinite holiness and wisdom having assisted in- finite goodness, to draw the original plan of the world ; it could not but be entirely worthy of its glorious au- thor, absolutely free from every moral defilement, and natural disorder : Nor could infinite power possibly be at a loss, to execute what the other divine attri- butes had contrived. Therefore, unless we embrace the senseless opinion of the materialists, who deny the being of a God ; or admit the ridiculous creed of the manichees, who adore two Gods, the one the gracious author of all the good, and the other the mis- chievous principle of ail the evil in the world ; we must conclude with Moses, that every thing which God made, was at first very good ; or in other words, that order and beauty, harmony and happiness, were stamped upon every part of the creation, and espe- cially on man, the master-piece of creating power in this sublunary world. On this axiom I raise my
I. ARGUMENT,
Does not the natural state of the earth cast a light upon the spiritual condition of its inhabitants ? Amidst athousand beauties, that indicate what it was, when
Part II. AN APPEAL, fefe. 2-7
God pronounced it very good, and as the original also imports, extremely beautiful : Amidst the elegant and grand ruins, which form the variety of our smil- ing landscapes, and romantic prospects ; can an im- partial inquirer help taking notice of a thousand strik- ing proofs, that a multiplied curse rests upon this globe ; and that man, who inhabits it, is now dis- graced by the God of nature and providence ?
Here, deceitful morasses, or faithless quicksands obstruct our way : There, miry, impassible roads, or inhospitable sandy deserts, endanger our life. In one place, we are stopped by stupendous chains of rocky mountains, broken into frightful precipices, or hi- deous caverns : And in another, we meet with ruin- ous valleys, cut deep by torrents and water-falls, whose tremendous roar stuns the astonished traveller. Many of the hills are stony, rude, and waste ; and most of the plains are covered over with strata of bar- ren sand, stiff clay, or infertile gravel.
Thorns, * thistles, and noxious weeds grow spon- taneously every where, and yield a troublesome never- failing crop : While the best soil, carefully plowed by the laborious husbandman, and sown with precious seed, frequently repays his expensive toil with light sheaves ; or a blasted harvest.
Consider that immense part of the globe, which lies between the tropics : it is parched up by the scorching beams of the vertical sun : There, the tawny inhabitants fan themselves in vain ; they pant, they melt, they faint on the sultry couch ; and, like the birds of night, dare not appear abroad, till even-
* Those who oppose the doctrine of the fall, say that, " Weeds have their use " I grant they are serviceable to thou- sands of poor people, who earn their bread by pulling the general nuisance out of cur fields and gardens : But till our objectors have proved that thistles are more useful, and therefore grow- more spontaneously, and multiply more abundantly, than corn ; we shall discover the badness of their cause through the slightness of their objection.
28 AN APPEAL, Wc. Part II.
ing shades temper the insufferable blaze of day. View the frozen countries around the poles : In sum- mer, the sun just glances upon them by his feeble, horizontal rays : In winter, he totally deserts them, and they lie bound with rigorous frosts, and buried in continual night. There, the torpid inhabitants know neither harvest nor vintage, the ocean seems a bound- less plain of ice, and the continent immense hills of snow.
'The temperate zones are indeed blessed with mil- der climates : But even here, how irregular are the seasons ! To go no farther than this favoured island. What means the strange foresight, by which the ice ©f January is laid in to temper the ardours of July ; and the burning mineral is stored in June, to mitigate the frost in December ? But notwithstand'ng these precautions, what continual complaints are heard, about the intenseness of the heat, the severity of the cold, or the sudden pernicious change from the one to the other 1
Let us descend to particulars. In winter, how of- ten do drifts of snow bury the starved sheep, and in- tomb the frozen traveller ! In summer, how frequently do dreadful storms of hail cut down, or incessant showers of rain wash away the fruits of the earth ! Perhaps, to complete the desolation, water pours down from all the neighbouring hills ; and the swelling streams, joining with overflowing rivers, cause sud- den inundations, lay waste the richest pastures, and carry off the swimming flocks ; while the frighted in- habitants * of the vale, either retire to the top of their deluged houses, or by the timely assistance of boats fly from the imminent and increasing danger.
If heaven seems to dissolve into water in one place, in another it is like brass ; it yields neither fruitful rains nor cooling dews : The earth is like iron
* This was the case e.f several families in the author's parish, November, 1770.
Part II. AN APPEAL, tfc. if
under it, and the perishing cattle loll out their parched tongues, where they once drank the refreshing stream. Suppose a few happy districts escape these dreadful scourges for a number of years, are they not at last visited with redoubled severity ? And, whilst abused affluence vanishes as a dream before the in- tolerable dearth, do not a starving, * riotous populace, leave their wretched cottages, to plunder the houses of their wealthy neighbours, desperately venturing the gallows for a morsel of bread.
When some, secure from the attacks of water, quietly enjoy the comforts of plenty, fire perhaps surprises them in an instant : They awake involved in smoke, and surrounded by crackling flames, through which (if it is not tco late) they fly naked at the hazard of their neck, and think themselves happy if, while they leave behind them, young children or aged pa- rents, burning in the blaze of all their goods, they escape themselves with dislocated joints or broken bones. Their piercing shrieks, and the fall of their house, seem to portend a general conflagration ; loud confusion increases, disasterous ruin spreads ; and perhaps, before they can be stopped, a street, a suburb, a whole city is reduced to ashes.
Turn your imagination from the smoaking ruins, to fix it upon the terrifying effects of the air, agitated into roaring tempests and boisterous hurricanes, before their impetuous blast, the masts of ships and cedars of Lebanon, are like broken reeds ; men of war, and solid' buildings like the driven chaff. Here, they strip the groaning forest, tear the bosom of the earth, and ob- scure the sky with clouds of whirling sand : And there, they plow up the liquid foaming plains, and with sportive fury turn up mountains for ridges, or cut valleys instead of furrows. As they pass along, the confounded elements dreadfully roar under the mighty scourge, the rolling sea tosses herself up to
* This happened some years a%?oin this neighbourhood.
30 AN APPEAL, OV. Part II.
heaven, and solid land is swept with the besom of destruction.
To heighten the horror of the scene, thunder, the majestic voice of an angy God, and the awful ar- tillery of heaven, bursts in loud claps from the lowr- ing sky. Distant hills reverberate and increase the alarming sound, and with rocking edifices declare to man, that vengeance belongeth unto God : And, to enforce the solemn warning, repeated flashes of light- ning, with horrible glare, dazzle his eyes, and with forked fires strike consternation into his breast ; if they do not actually strike him dead, in the midst of his shattered habitation.
Nor doth heaven alone dart destructive fires ; earth, our mother earth, as if it were not enough fre- quently to corrupt the atmosphere by pestilential va- pours, borrows the assistance of the devouring ele- ment, to terrify and scourge her guilty children. By sudden, frightful chasms, and the mouth of her burn- ing mountains, she vomits clouds of smoke, sulphure- ous flames, and calcined rocks ; she emits streams of melted minerals, covers the adjacent plains with boil- ing fiery lavas ; and as, if she wanted to ease herself of the burthen of her inhabitants, suddenly rises against them, and in battles of shaking at once crushes, des- troys, and buries them in heaps of ruins..
These astonishing scenes, like a bloody battle that is seen at a distance, may indeed entertain us : They may amuse our imagination, when in a peaceful apart- ment, we behold them beautifully represented by the pen of a Virgil, or the pencil of a Raphael. But to be in the midst of them, as thousands are, sooner or later, is inexpressibly dreadful : It is actually to see the forerunners of divine vengeance, and hear the shaking of God's destructive rod : It is to behold at once a lively emblem, and an awful pledge of that fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, which the righteous. Governor of the world will rain upon the ungodly i when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise,
Part II. AN APPEAL, &ci 31
the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth, with the works that are therein, shall be burnt up.
Now as reason loudly declares, that the God of order, justice, and goodness, could never establish and continue this fearful course of things, but to pun- ish the disorders of the moral world by those of the natural ; we must conclude that man is guilty, from the alarming tokens of divine displeasure, which sooner or later are so conspicuous in every part of the habi- tual globe.
II. ARGUMENT.
We have taken a view of the residence of man- kind : let us now behold them entering upon the dis- ordered scene. And here reason informs usr that some mystery of iniquity lieshid under the loathsome, painful, and frequently mortal circumstances, which accompany their birth. For itcan never be imagined, that a righteous and good God, would suffer innocent and pure creatures, to come into- the world skilled in no language but that of misery, venting itself in bitter cries, or doleful accents.
It is a matter of fact, that infants generally return their first breath with a groan, and salute the light with the voice of sorrow ; Generally, I say, for some- times they are born half-dead, and cannot without the utmost difficulty be brought to breathe and groan. But all are born at the hazard of their lives : For, while some cannot press into the land of the living, without being dangerously bruised ; others have their tender bones dislocated. Some are almost strangled ; and it is the horrible fate of others, to be forced into the world by instruments of torture ; having their skull bored through or broken to pieces, or their quiver- ing limbs cut or torn off from the unfortunate trunk. Again,
While some appearonthe stage of life embarrassed with superfluous parts, others unnaccountably muti-
32 AN APPEAL, fc*. Part II.
lated, want those which are necessary : And what is more terrible still, a few, whose hideous, mishap en bodies seem calculated to represent the deformity of a fallen soul, rank among frightful monsters ; and to terminate the horror of the parents, are actually smothered and destroyed.
The spectators, it is true, concerned for the ho- nour of mankind, frequently draw a veil over these shocking and bloody scenes ; but a philosopher will find them out, and will rationally infer that the deplo- rable and dangerous manner in which mankind are born, proves them to be degenerate fallen creatures.*
III. ARGUMENT.
If we let our thoughts ascend, from the little suf- ferers, to the mothers that bear them ; we shall find another dreadful proof of the divine displeasure and of our natural depravity. Does not a good master, much more a gracious God, delight in the prosperity and happiness of his faithful servants ? If mankind were naturally in their Creator's favour, would he not or- der the fruit of the womb to drop from it, without any more inconveniency, than ripe vegetables fall from the opening husk, or full-grown fruit from the dis- burdened tree ? But how widely different is the case !
Fix your attention on pregnant mothers : See their disquietude and fears. Some go before hand through
* Logicians will excuse the author, if he prefers the common unaffected manner of proposing his arguments, to the formal me- thod of the schools. But they may easily try his enthymemes by giving them the form of syllogisms, thus.
I. Argument. If the rod of God is fearfully shaken over this globe, the disordered habitation of mankind ; it is a sign they are under his displeasure-
But God's rod is fearfully shaken over this globe, &c. There- fore mankind are under his displeasure.
II. Argument. A pure and innocent creature cannot be born, under such and such deplorable circumstances.
But man is born under such and such deplorable circumstances.- Therefore man is not a pure and innocent creature.
Part II. AN APPEAL, &c. 22
an imaginary travail, almost as painful to the mind, as the real labour is to the body. The dreaded hour comes at last. Good God ! What lingering-, what tearing pains ; what redoubled throes, what killing- agonies attend it ! See the curse. ...or rather see it not. Let the daughter of her who tasted the forbidden fruit without the man, drink that bitter cup without him. Fly from the mournful scene, fly to distant apartments ....But in vain.. ..The din of sorrow pursues and over- takes you there.
A child of man is at the point of being born ; his tortured mother proclaims the news in the bitterest ac- cents. They increase with her increasing agony. Sympathize and pray, while she suffers and groans.... Perhaps while she suffers and dies : For it is possibly her dying groan that reaches your ear. Perhaps na- ture is spent in the hard travail ; her son is born, and with Jacob's wife, she closes her languid eye and ex- pires. Perhaps the instruments of death are upon her : The keen steel mangles her delicate frame : As Ce- sar's mother ; she generously suffers her body to be opened, that her unborn child may not be torn from her in pieces ; and the fertile tree is unnaturally cut down that its fruits may be safely gathered.
Perhaps neither mother nor child can be saved, and one grave is going to deprive a distracted mortal of a beloved Rachel, and a long expected Benjamin. If this is the case, O earth, earth, earth, conceal these slain, cover their blood, and detain in thy dark bosom, the fearful curse that brought them there. Vain wish 1 Too active to be confined in thy deepest vaults,, it ranges through the world : With unrelenting fierce- ness it pursues trembling mothers, and forces them to lift up their voice for speedy relief : Though va- ried according to the accents of an hundred languages, it is the same voice.... that of the bitterest anguish : And while it is reverberated from hamlet to hamlet, from city to city, it strikes the unprejudiced inquirer, and makes him confess, that these clouds of unbribed
34 AN APPEAL, &c. Part II.
witnesses, by their loud, consentaneous evidence, im- peach Sin, the tormentor of the woman, and mur- derer of her offspring.
But suppose the case is not so fatal, and she is at last delivered ; her labour may be over, yet not her pain and danger ; a lingering weakness may carry her slowly to her grave. If she recovers she may be a mother, and yet unable to act a mother's part. Her pining child sucks her disordered breast in vain : Ei- ther the springs of his balmy food are dried up, or they overflow with a putrid loathsome fluid, and ex- truciating ulcers cause the soft lips of the infant, to appear terrible as the edge of the sword.
If she happily escapes this common kind of dis- tress, yet she may date the beginning of some chro- nical disease, from her dangerous lying-in ; and in consequence of her hard wrestling for the blessing of a child, may with the patriarch go halting all her days. How sensible are the marks of divine indignation, in all these scenes of sorrow ! and consequently how visible our sinfulness and guilt.
Nor can the justness of the inference be denied, under pretence that the females of other animals, which neither do nor can sin, bring forth their young with pain, as well as women. For, if we take a view of the whole earth, we shall not see any females, ex- cept the daughters of Eve, who groan under a peri- odical disorder that intails languor and pain, weakness and mortal diseases, on their most, blooming days. Nor do we in general find any, that are delivered of their offspring with half the sorrow and danger of women. These two remarkable circumstances loudly call upon us, to look for the cause of the sorrow, which attends the delivery of female animals, where that sorrow is most sensibly felt ; and to admire the perfect agreement that subsists between the ob- servations of natural philosophers, and the assertion ©f the most ancient historian. Gen. hi. 16.
Part II. AN APPEAL, &c. 35
IV. ARGUMENT.
If we advert to mankind, even before they burst the womb of their tortured mothers, they afford us a new proof of their total degeneracy. For rea- son dictates, that if they were not conceived in sin, the Father of mercies could not, consistently with his goodness and justice, command the cold hand of death to nip them in the unopened, or just opened bud. This nevertheless happens every hour. Who can number the early miscarriages of the womb ? How many millions of miserable embryos feel the pangs of death before those of birth, and preposterous- ly turn the fruitful womb into a living grave? And how many millions more of wretched infants, escape the dangers of their birth-day, and salute the trouble- some light, only to take their untimely leave of it, after languishing a few days on the rack of a convul- sive, or torturing disorder ? I ask again, would a good and righteous God seal the death-warrant of such multitudes of his unborn or newly-born creatures, if their natural depravity did not render them proper subjects of dissolution ?
It is true, the young beasts suffer and die, as well as infants ; but it is only because they areinvolvedinour misery. They partake of it, as the attendants of a noble traitor share in his deserved ruin. Sin, that inconceivably virulent and powerful evil, drew down God's righteous curse upon all that was created for man's use, as well as upon man himself. Hence only springs the degeneracy and death, that turn beasts to one promiscuous dust with mankind. Com- pare Gen. iii. 17. Rom. v. 12. and viii. 22. We may then justly infer from the sufferings and death of still-born or new-born children, that man is totally degenerate, and liable to destruction, even from his mother's womb.
36 AN APPEAL, tfc. Part II.
V. ARGUMENT.
But take your leave of the infant corpse, already buried in the womb, or deposited in a coffin of a span long ; fix your attention on the healthy, sucking child. See him stupidly staring in his nurse's lap, or aukwardly passing through childhood to manhood. How visible is his degeneracy in every stage I
Part of the divine image, in which he was made in Adam, consisted in purity, power, and knowledge : but now, he is naturally the least cleanly, as well as the most helpless and ignorant of all animals. Yes, if the reader could forgive the indelicacy of the asser- tion, for the sake of its truth, I would venture to shew, that there is no comparison between the cleanliness of the little active animals, which suck the filthy swine ; and of helpless infants, who suck the purer breasts of their tender mothers. But, casting a veil over the dribbling, loathsome, little creatures : with- out fear of being contradicted, I aver, that the young of those brutes, which are stupid to a proverb, know their dams, and follow them as soon as they are drop- ped ; whilst infants are months without taking any particular notice of their parents, and without being able, I shall not say to follow them, but even to bear the weight of their swaddled body, or stand upon their tottering legs.
With reference to the knowledge necessary for the support of animal life, it is undeniable that brutes have greatly the advantage of mankind. Fowls and fishes, immediately and with amazing sagacity, sin- gle out their proper nourishment, among a thousand useless and noxious things : But infants put indif- ferently to their mouth all that comes to their hand, whether it be food or poison, a coral or a knife : And, What is more astonishing still, grown up persons scarce ever attain to the knowledge of the quantity,
Part II. AN APPEAL, &c. 3*
*r quality of the meat and drink, which are most sui- table tc their constitutions.
All disordered dogs fix at once upon the salutary- vegetable, that can (in some cases) relieve their dis- tress : Bnt many physicians, even after several years study and practice, hurt and sometimes kill their pa- tients by improper medicines. Birds of passage by mere instinct, find the north and the south more readily than mariners by the compass. Untaught spiders weave their webs, and uninstructed bees make their combs to the greatest perfection : But fallen man must serve a tedious apprenticeship to learn his own business ; and with all the help of masters, tools, and patterns, seldom proves an ingenious artist.
Again, other animals are provided with a natu- ral covering, that answers the double end of useful- ness and ornament : But indigent man is obliged to borrow from plants, beasts, and worms, the materials with which he hides his nakedness, or defends his feebleness ; and a great part of his short life is,spent in providing, or putting on and off garments the gaudy * "tokens of his shame, or ragged badges of his fall.
Are not these plain proofs, that man, who accord- ing to his superior rank, and primitive excellency, should in all things have the pre-eminence, is now a degraded being, cnrsed for his apostacy with native uncleanliness, helplessness, ignorance, and nakedness above all other animals ?
VI. ARGUMENT.
"Man's natural ignorance, great as it is, might nevertheless be overlooked, if he had but the right knowledge of his Creator. But alas I The holy and righteous God judicially withdraws himself from his unholy apostate creature. Man is%not properly ao cjuaintedwithhimin whom he lives, and moves, and hath s
38 AN APPEAL, &i. Part IX.
his being. This humbling truth may be demonstrated by the following observations.
God is infinitely perfect ; all. the perfection which is found in the most exalted creatures, is but the re- flection of the transcendent effulgence, belonging to that glorious Sun of spiritual beauty ; it is but the sur- face of the unfathomable depths of goodness, and love- liness, which regenerate souls discover in that bound- less ocean of all excellence. If therefore men saw God, they could far less heip being struck with holy awe, overwhelmed with pleasing wonder, and ravish- ed with delightful admiration, than a man born blind, and restored to sight in the blaze of a summer's day, could help being transported at the glory of the new and unexpected scene.* Could we but see virtue in all her beauty, said an heathen, she would ravish our hearts : flow much greater would our ravishments be, if we were indulged with a clear, immediate dis- covery of the divine beauty, the eternal original of r11 virtue, the exuberant fountain of all perfection and delight ? But alas 1 how few thus behold, know, arid admire God, may easily be seen by the impious or vain conduct of mankind.
If a multititude of men ingenuously confess, they know not the king ; iithey take his stetue, or one of his attendants for him ; or if they doubt whether there be a king ; or sport with his name and laws in his pre- sence ; we reasonably conclude, that they neither see nor know the royal person. And is not this the case of the superstitious, who, like the Athenians, wor- ship an unknown God ? Of idolaters, who bow to fa- vourite mortals, or lifeless images, as to the true God ? Of infidels, who doubt the very being c'fa God ? And of open sinners, the bulk of mankind, who live every where as if there was none ?
* Si virtus fccm.ricerettfr oculis, mirabiles amores exci'aret sni. Cic,
Part If. AN APPEAL, b*c. 39
Our natural ignorance of God, manifests itself still more evidently, by the confessions both of real and nominal christians. 'The former, beiore they knew God, and were admitted to behold his glory shining; in the face of Jesus Christ, bitterly complained as Isaiah, Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself ; cr mournfully asked with David, How long wilt thou hide thy face from me ? It is plain then, that, by nature, they were as others, without God (practical atheists) in the world, and have as much reason as St. Paul to. declare, that the world by wisdom knew not God.
As for nominal christians, though they daily pray that tiie fellowship of the Holy Ghost may be with us all, it is evident they are utter strangers to commu- nion with God by his Holy Spirit. For if we affirm, that he blesses his children with a spiritual discovery of his presence, and, manifests himself to them as he doth not to the world, they say we are mad, or call us enthusiasts. This behaviour, shews beyond all con- fessions, that they are totally unacquainted with the light of Goal's countenance : For what greater proof can a blind man give, that he has no knowledge of the sun, than to suspect his neighbour of lunacy, for af- firming that sunshine is a delightful reality.
From this moral demonstration of our natural igno- rance of God, I draw the following conclusion. If the Lord, who is a mild and condescending king to all his loyal subjects, a father full of endearing and tender love to all his dutiful children, hides his face fiom mankind in a natural state; and if what little they know of him, is only by conjecture, hear-say, or * in- ference ; it is a proof, that they are under his dis- pleasure ; and consequently, that they are rebellious fallen creatures.
* This is the knowledge of God mentioned, Rom i. 21. It is sufficient to leave without excuse those who do not improve it till they attain to the saving knowledge mentioned, John xvii. 3. I John v. 20.
40 AN APPEAL, tfc- Part II.
For, what but rebellion could thus separate between beings so nearly related, as an infinitely gracious Creator, and favourite creatures, whose soul is, ac- cording to an heathen, divime particula aurae ; and according to Moses, the very breath of God ? We may then rationally conclude with the evangelical pro- phet, that our iniquities have separated between us and our God, and that our sins have hid his face from us, eclipsed the sun of righteousness, and brought such darkness on our souls, that, by nature, we know nei- ther what we are, nor what we should be ; neither whence we come nor whither we are going ; neither the grand business we have to do, nor the danger that attends our leaving it undone.
VII. ARGUMENT.
If by nature mankind know not the Lord to be their God, is it surprising that beasts should not know mankind to be their lords ? Nevertheless reason agrees with scripture in maintaining, that man, by far the noblest work of God here below, should, according to the reason and fitness of things, bear rule over all the sublunary creation. But alas ! even in this re- spect, How is the crown fallen from his head ! Infe- rior animals have as little regard for him, as he has for his God.
Notwithstanding his artful contrivances, greedy birds and mischievous beasts eat up, trample down, or destroy part of the fruit of his rural labour. In warmer climes, armies of locusts, more terrible than hosts of men, frequently darken the air, or cover the ground, and equally mock at human power and craft. Wherever they light, all verdure disappears, and the summer's fruitfulness is turned into wintry desolation.
If locusts do not reach this happy island ; caterpil- lars, and a variety of others seemingly insignificant, but really formidable insects, make a more constant,
Part II. AN APPEAL, &c u
though less general attack upon our trees and gardens. In vain are they destroyed by millions, they cannot bs fully conquered ; and the yearly returning plague forces the considerate spectator, to acknowledge the finger of a sin-avenging providence.
Happy would it be for man, if rebellious animals were satisfied with the produce of his fields and or- chards : But alas ! They thirst after his blood, and attack his person. Lions, tigers, rattle-snakes, cro- codiles, and sharks, whenever they have an opportu- nity, impetuously attack, furiously tear, and greedily devour him. And what is most astonishing, the ba- sest reptiles are not afraid to breed in his stomach, to live in his very bowels, and to consume his inward parts : while swarms of flying, leaping, or creeping- insects, too vile to be named, but not to humble a proud apostate, have the insolence to fix upon his skin ; and by piercing or furrowing his flesh, suck his blood, and feast upon him from his cradle to the grave.
Domestic animals, it is true, do man excellent service ; but is it not because he either forces, er bribes them to it, by continual labour and expence, with which he breaks and maintains them ? What business have multitudes of men, but to serve the drudges of mankind I What are smiths, farriers, far- mers, servants, grooms, hostlers, &c. but the slaves of brutes, washing, currying, shoeing, feeding, and waiting upon them both by day and by night ?
And yet, notwithstanding the prerogative granted to Noah's piety, Gen. ix. 2. and the care taken of domestic animals, do they not rebel as often as they dare ? Here, sheep deemed the quietest of all, run astray, or break into the fields of a litigious neighbour : There, the furious bull pursues and gores, or the raging dog sets upon the inoffensive traveller. To day you read, that an impetuous, foaming steed hath hurried away, thrown oft', and dragged along his un- fortunate master* whose blood sprinkling the dust*. d 2
42 AN APPEAL, &c. Part II.
and brains dashed upon the stones, direct the search of his disconsolate friend : And to-morrow you may hear, that a vicious horse has darted his iron fenced hoof into his attendant's breast or forehead, and has lamed or killed him on the spot.
And would the wise governor of the world, the kind protector of his obedient creatures, permit this rebellion, even of the tamest aminals, and basest ver- min against man, if man himself was not a daring re- bel against him ?
VIII. ARGUMENT.
That a contemptible insect should dare to set upon, and be able to devour a proud monarch, an Herod in the midst of his guards, is terrible : But the mischief stops not here. Numerous tribes of other base animals are armed with poisonous tongues or stings, and use them against jmankind with pecu- liar rage. To say nothing of mad dogs, have not asps, * vipers, tarantulas, scorpions, and other ve- nomous serpents and insects, the destructive skill of extracting the quintessence of the curse which sin, our moral poison, hath brought upon the earth ? when we come within their reach, do they not bite or sting us with the utmost fury I and by infusing their subtle venom in our blood, spread they not anguish and de- struction through our agonizing frame ? answer, ye thousands, who died in the wilderness of the bite of fiery serpents : and ye multitudes, who in almost all countries have shared their deplorable fate.
Let us descend to the vegetable world. How many deceitful roots, plants, and fruits deposite their perni- cious juices in the stomach of those, who unwarily feed upon them I Did not Elisha, and the sons of the
* Some will say that viper's flesh is useful in physic. I grant it ; but is the poison of that creature useful ? This must be proved before the argument can be invalidated .
Part H. AN APPEAL, CsV. 4*
prophets narrowly escape being poisoned all together, by one of them fatally mistaking a pot-herb ? And do not many go quickly, or slowly to their grave by such melancholy accidents ?
Minerals and metals are not the last to enter into the general conspiracy against mankind. Under in- offensive appearances, do not they contain what is destructive to the animal frame r and have not many fallen a sacrifice to their ignorance of the mischief lurking in arsenic, and other * mineral productions ? Nor are metallic effluvia less hurtful to hundreds ; and the health of mankind is perhaps more injured by copper alone, than it is preserved by all the mineral waters in the world. : It is acknowledged, that num- bers are poisoned by food prepared in utensils made of that dangerous metal : and how many are insensi- bly hurt by the same means, is only known to a wise and righteous providence.
Thus God leaves us in the world, where mischief lurks under a variety of things apparently useful, without giving us the least intimation of destruction near. To say that infinite goodness can deal thus with innocent creatures, is offering violence to our reason, and an affront to divine justice. Conclude then with me, reader, that we have lost our original inno- cence, and forfeited our creators favour.
IX. ARGUMENT.
But if the generality of mankind escape all the various sorts of poison, do they escape the curse of toil and sweat ? and is not a great majority of them,
* It is objected, that excellent remedies are prepared with an- timony and mercury. But it is well known that the persons who use them only expel one poison with another : as the decayed constitutions of those who have frequent recourse to such violent medicines abundantly prove.
44 AN APPEAL, &c. Part IL
reduced to such sordid want, and pressing necessity, as to be obliged to do the greatest drudgery for a wretched maintenance ?
When God made them to have dominion over the works of his hands ; when he put ail things in subjection under their feet, and crowned them with glory and honour ; they filled up each happy hour in evidencing their love to him and to each other ; they spent their golden moments in admiring the variety and beauty of his works, finding out the divine signa- tures impressed upon them, swaying their mild scep- ter over the obedient creation, and enjoying the rich, in- corruptible fruits, which the earth spontaneously pro- duced in the greatest perfection and abundance. Thus their pleasure was without idleness or pain, and their employment without toil or weariness.
But no sooner did disobedience open the flood- gates of natural evil, than arduous labour came in, full-tide, upon mankind ; and a thousand painful arts were invented to mitigate the manifold curse which sin had brought upon them.
Since the fall, our bodies are become vulnerable and shamefully naked ; and it is the business of thou- sands to maker or sell all sorts of garments for our de- fence and ornament. The earth has lost her original fertility ; and thousands more with iron instruments open her bosom, to force her to yield us a mainte- nance ; or with immense labour secure her pre- carious, decaying fruits : Immoderate rains deprive her of her solidity, and earthquakes or deluges de- stroy her evenness ; numbers therefore are painfully employed in making or mending roads. Each coun- try affords some only of the necessaries or convenien- cies of life ; this obliges the mercantile inhabitants to transport, with immense trouble and danger, the produce of one place, to supply the wants of another- We are exposed to a variety of dangers : Our per- sons and property must be secured against the incle- mency of the weather, the attacks of evil beasts, and
Part II. AN APPEAL, &c. 45
assaults of wicked men : Hence the fatigue of millions of workmen in wood and stone, metals and minerals : and the toils and hazards of millions more, who live by making, wearing, or using the various instruments of war and slaughter.
Disorder and injustice give rise to government, politics, and a labyrinth of laws ; and these employ myriads of officers, lawyers, magistrates, and ru- lers. We are subject to a thousand pains and mala- dies ; hence myriads more prescribe and prepare re- medies, or attend and nurse the sick. Our universal ignorance occasions the tedious labour of giving and receiving instruction, in all the branches of human and divine knowledge. And to complete the whole, the original tongue of mankind is confounded, and even neighbouring nations are barbarians to each other : from hence arise the painful lucubrations of critics and linguists, with the infinite trouble of teaching and learning various languages.
The curse introduced by sin is the occasion of all these toils, They are soon mentioned, but alas ! how long, how grievous do they appear to those that feel their severity ? How many sighs have they forced from the breasts, how much sweat from the bodies of mankind ! Unite the former, a tempest might ensue : Collect the latter, it would swell into rivers.
To go no further than this populous parish, with what hardships, and dangers do our indigent neigh- bours earn their bread 1 See those who ransack the bowels of the earth to get the black mineral we burn : How little is their lot preferable to that of the Spanish felons, who work the golden mines ?
They take their leave of the light of the sun, and suspended by a rope, are let down many fathoms per- pendicularly towards the centre of the globe : They traverse the rocks through which they have dug their horizontal ways : The murderer's cell is a palace, in comparison of the black spot to which they repair:
46 AN APPEAL, &c. Part IT.
The vagrant's posture in the stocks, is preferable to that in which they labour.
Form if you can an idea of the misery of men kneeling, stooping-, or lying on one side, to toil all day in a confined place, where a child could hardly stand : Whilst a younger company, with their hands and feet on the black dusty ground, and a chain about tiieir body, creep and drag along like four-footed beasts, heavy loads of the dirty mineral, through ways almost impassible to the curious observer.
In these low and dreary vaults all the elements seem combined against them. Destructive damps and clouds of noxious dust infect the air they breathe. Sometime water incessantly distills on their naked bodies ; or bursting upon them in streams, drowns them and deluges their work. At other times, pieces of detached rocks crush them to death, or the earth breaking in upon them buries them alive. And fre- quently sulphureous vapours, kindled in an instant by the light of their candles, form subterraneous thunder and lightening : What a dreadful phenomenon ! How impetuous is the blast 1 How fierce the rolling flames I How intolerable the noisome smell ! How dreadful the continued roar I How violent and fatal the ex- plosion 1
Wonderful providence ! some of the unhappy men have time to prostrate themselves ; the fiery scourge grazes their back, the ground shields their breasts ; they escape. See them wound up out of the blazing dungeon, and say if these are not brands plucked out of the fire. A pestiferous steam, and clouds of suf- focating smoke pursues them. Half dead them- selves, they hold their dead or dying companions in their trembling arms. Merciful God of Shadrach ! Kind protector of Meshech ! Mighty deliverer of Abednego ! Patient preserver of rebellious Jonah ! Will not these utter a song.. ..a song of praise to thee ....praise ardent as the flames they escape.... lasting as
Part II. AN APPEAL, fcV. 47
the life thou prolongest i....Alas ! they refuse ! and some....O tell it not among the heathens, lest they for ever abhor the name of christian.. ..Some return to the very pits, where tney have been branded with sulphureous fire by tne warning hand of providence ; and there, sporting themselves again with the most infernal wishes, call aloud for a fire that cannot be quenched, and challenge the Almighty to cast them into hell, that bottomless pit whence there is no return.
Leave these black men at their perilous work, and see yonder barge-men hauling that loaded vessel against wind and stream. Since the dawn of day, they have wrestled with the impetuous current ; and now, that it almost overpowers them, how do they exert all their remaining strength, and strain their every nerve ! How are they bathed in sweat and rain ! Fastened to their lines as horses to their traces, where- in do they differ from the laborious brutes ? Not in an erect posture of body, for in the intenseness of their toil they bend forward, their head is foremost, and their hands upon the ground If there is any differ- ence, it consists in this : Horses are indulged with a collar to save their breasts ; and these, as if theirs was not worth saving, draw without one : The beasts tug in patience, silence and mutual harmony ; but the men with loud contention and horrible impre- cations. O sin, what hast thou done ! Is it not enough that these drudges should toil like brutes, must they also curse one another like devils.
If you have gone beyond the hearing of their im- pious oaths, stop to consider the sons of Vulcan con- fined to these forges and furnaces. Is their lot much preferable : a sultry air, and clouds of smoke and dust, are the element in which they labour. The con- fused noise of water falling, steam hissing, fire-en- gines working, wheels turning, files breaking, ham- mers beating, ore bursting, and bellows roaring, form ■ the dismal concert that strikes the ears : while a con-
48 AN APPEAL, &c. Part II.
tinual eruption of flames, ascending from the mouth of their artificial voicanos, dazzle their eyes with an horrible glare. Massy bars of hot iron are the heavy tools they handle, cylinders of the first magnitude the enormous weights they heave, vessels full of melted metal the dangerous loads they carry., streams of the same burning fluid the fiery rivers, which they con- duct into the deep cavities of their subterraneous moulds ; and millions of flying sparks, with a thou- sand drops of liquid, hissing iron, the horrible show- ers to which they are exposed. See them cast ; you would think them in a bath and not in a furnace : They bedew the burning sand with their streaming sweat : Nor are their wet garments dried up, either by the fierce fires that they attend, or the fiery streams which they manage. Certainly, of all men, these have reason to remember the just sentence of an of- fended God : In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, all the days of thy life.
All indeed do not go through the same toil : but all have their share of it. either in body or in mind. Behold the studious son of learning ; his intense ap- plication hath wasted his flesh, exhausted his spirits, and almost dried up his radical moisture. Consider the man of fortune : Can his thousands a year exempt him from the curse of Adam ? No : he toils perhaps harder in his sports and debaucheries, than the poor plowman that works his estate.
View that corpulent epicure, who idles away tha whole day, between the festal board and the dozing couch. You may think that he, at least, is free from the curse which I describe : but you are mistaken : While he is living as he thinks, a life of luxurious ease and gentle inactivity, he fills himself with crude humours, and makes way for the gnawing gout and racking gravel. See even now, how strongly he per- spires, and with what uneasiness he draws his short breath, and wipes his dewy, shining face 1 Surely he toils under the load of an undigested meal. A porte-r
Part II. AN APPEAL, &c. 49
carries a burden upon his brawny shoulders, but this wretch has conveyed one into his sick stomach. He will not work ; let him alone, and ere long acute pains will bathe him in as profuse a sweat as that of the furnace-man ; and strong medicines will exercise him to such a degree, that he will envy even the col- lier's lot.
It is evident therefore, that mankind are under a curse of * toil and sweat, according to the divine sen- tence recorded by Moses ; and that they are frequent- ly condemned by providence to as hard labour for life, as wretched felons rowing in the galleys, or digging in the mines. t But, as it is absolutely incredible, that a good god, who by a word can supply the wants of ail his creatures, should have sentenced innocent man- kind tothese inconceivable hardships, to procure or en- joy the necessaries of life; it is evident they are guilty, miserable offenders
X. ARGUMENT.
Hard labour and sweat, make up but one of the innumerable calamities, incident to the wretched in- habitants of this world. Turn your eyes which way you please, and you will see some flying from, others
* It has been asserted that the short pleasure of eating and drinking makes amends for the severest toil The best way to bring such idle, sensual objectors to reason would be to make them earn every meal by 2 or 3 hours threshing. Besides what great pleasure can those have in eating who actually starve, or just stay gnawing hunger by food coaiser than that which tiieir rich neighbours give to their dogs ?
f God's image disinherited of day, Here plung'd in mines forgets a sun was made ; There, beings deathless as their haughty lord, Are haramer'd to the galling oar for life, And plow the winter's wave and reap despair.
Young.
50 AN APPEAL, &c. Part II.
groaning under the rod of God ; and the greatest number busily making a scourge for the backs of their fellow creatures, or their own.
To pass ever the misery of the brute creation : To say nothing of the subtility and rapaciousness, with which (after the example of men*) they lay wait for, and prey upon one another : To cast a veil over the agonies of millions, that are daily stabbed, stran- gled, shot, and even flead, boiled, or swallowed up alive, for the support of man's life, or the indulgence of his luxury : And not to mention again the almost uninterrupted cries of feeble infancy : Only take no- tice of the tedious confinement of childhood, the blasted schemes of youth, the anxious cares of riper years, and the deep groans of wrinkled, decrepid, tottering old age. ...Fix your attention upon family trials : Here a prodigal father ruins his children, or undutiful children break the hearts of their fond parents : There, an unkind husband embitters the life of his wife, or an imprudent wife stains the honour of her husband : A servant disobeys, a relation misbehaves, a son lies ill, a tenant breaks, a neighbour provokes, a rival supplants, a friend betrays, or an enemy triumphs : Peace seldom continues one day.
Listen to the sighs of the afflicted, the moans of the disconsolate, the complaints of the oppressed, and shrieks of the tortured : Consider the deformity of the faces of some, and distortion or mutilation of the limbs of others : To awaken your compassion, f
* Eager ambition's fiery chase I see ;
I see the circling hunt of noisy men,
13ur?t Jaw's inclosure, leap the mounds of right,
Pursuing and pursued, each other's prey ;
As wolves, for rapine ; as the fox for wiles ;
Till death, that mighty hunter, earth's them all.
f Some for hard masters broken under arms, In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs, Beg bitter bread thro' realms their valour sav'd.
Young.
Younc.
Part II. AN APPEAL, fcfr. 5 {
here a beggar holds out the stump of a thigh or an arm : There, a ragged wretch hops after you, upon one leg and two crutches ; and a little farther you meet with a poor creature, using his hands instead of feet, and dragging through the mire the cumbrous weight of a body without lower parts .
Imagine, if possible, the hardships of those who are destitute of one of their senses : Here, the blind is guided by a dog, or gropes for his way in the blaze of noon : There, the deaf lies on the brink of danger, inattentive to the loudest calls : Here, sits the dumb sentenced to eternal silence : There, dribbles the idiot doomed to perpetual childhood ; and yonder the pa- ralytic shakes without intermission, or lies senseless, the frightful image of a lifeless corpse.
Leaving these wretched creatures, consider the tears of the disappointed, the sorrows of the captive, the anxieties of the accused, the fcars of the guilty, and terrors of the condemned. Take a turn through jails, inquisitions, houses of correction, and places of execution. Proceed to the mournful rooms of the languishing, and wearisome beds of the sick ; and let not the fear of seeing human woe, in some of its most deplorable appearances, prevent you from visit- ing hospitals, infirmaries, and bedlams :
A place
Before your eyes appears, sad, noisom, dark, A lazar-house it seems, wherein are laid Numbers of all diseas'd : all maladies Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms Of heart-sick agony, all fev'rcus kinds, Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, Intestine stone, and ulcer, cholic-pangs, Dcemoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy, And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, Dropsies, and asthma's, and joint-racking rheums. Dire is the tossing 1 Deep the groans ! Despair
52 AN APPEAL, Wc. Part II-
Attends the sick, busiest from couch to couch : And over them, triumphant Death his dart Shakes ; but delays to strike, tho' oft invoked With vows, as their chief-good j and final hope.
Milton
To close the horrible prospect, view the ruins of ci- ties and kingdoms, the calamities of wrecks and sieges, the horrors of sea-fights and fields of battle ; with all the crimes, devastations, and cruelties, that accom- pany revenge, contention, and war ; and you will be obliged to conclude with Job, that corrupt man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards ; with David, that the earth is full of darkness and cruel habita- tions ; and with every impartial enquirer, that our depravity, and God*s justice, concur to make this world a vale of tears as well as a field of toil and sweat ; a vast prison for rebels already " tied with the chains of their sins," a boundless scaffold for their ex- ecutiSija golgotha, ?,n aceldama, an immense field of torture and blood.
Some will probably say ; " This picture of the world is drawn with black lines, but kinder providence blends light and shade together, and tempers our ca- lamities with numberless blessings." I answer : It cannot be too thankfully acknowledged, that while pa- tience suspends the stroke of justice, God," forChrist's sake, restores us a thousand forfeited blessings, that his goodness many lead us to repentance. But alas ! What is the consequence, where divine grace does not prove victorious over corrupt nature ? To all our sins, do we not add the crime of either enjoying the favours of providence with the greatest ingratitude, or of abu- sing them with the most provoking insolence.
Our actions are far more expressive of our real sen- timents, than our words. Why this variety of exqui- site food, says the voluptuary, whose life loudly speaks what his lips dare not utter ? Why this abundance of delicious wines, but to tempt my unbridled appetite,
Part II. AN APPEAL, &c. 53
and please my luxurious palate ?.... Would God have given softness to silks, brightness to colours, and lus- tre to diamonds, says the self- applauding- smile of a foolish virgin, who worships herself in a glass? Would he have commanded the white of the lilly thus to meet the blush of the rose, and heighten so elegant a pro portion of features, if he had not designed that the uni- ted powers of art, dress, and beauty, should make me share his divine honours ?....Why are we blessed with dear children and amiable friends, says the ridiculous behaviour of fond parents and raptured lovers, but that Ave should suspend our happiness on their ravishing smiles, and place them as favourite idols in the shrine of our hearts ?....And why has heaven favoured me both with a strong constitution, and an affluent fortune, says the rich slave of brutish lusts, but that I may drink deeper of earthly joys and sensual delights ?
Thus blessings abused or unimproved, become curses in our hands : God's indulgence encourages us to offend him: We have the fatal skill of extracting; poi- son from the sweetest flowers ; and madly turn the gifts of providence into weapons, to attack our Benefactor and destroy ourselves. That there are then such per- verted gifts, docs not prove that mankind are innocent, but that God's patience endureth yet daily, and that a Saviour ever liveth to make intercession for us.
Should it be farther objected, that " our pleasures counter-balance our calamities :" I answer : The greatest part of mankind are so oppressed with want and cares, toil and sickness, that their intervals of ease may rather be termed " an alleviation of misery," than an enjoyment of happiness." Our pains are real and lasting, cur joys imaginary and momentary. Could we Cxercise all our senses upon the most pleasing ob- jects, thetooth-ach would render all insipid and bur- densome : a fit of the gout alone damps every worldly joy, while all earthly delights together cannot give ujs ease under it : So vastly superior is the bitterness cf e 2
54 AN APPEAL, tfc. Part II
one bodily pain, to the sweetness of all the pleasures of sense !
If objectors still urge, that " sufferings are need- ful for our trial :" I reply, they are necessary for our punishment and correction, but not for cur trial. A good king can try the loyalty of his subjects, without putting them to the rack. Let Nero and Bonner try the innocent by ail sorts of tortures, but let not their barbarity be charged upon a God strictly just, and infi- nitely good.
However " calamities prove a blessing to some." And so does transportation : But who ever inferred from thence, that reformed felons were transported for the trial of their virtue, and not for the punishment of their crimes ? I conclude therefore, that our calami- ties and miseries demonstrate our corruption, as strongly as the punishments of the bastinado and pil- lory, appointed by an equitable judge, prove the guilt of those, on whom they are frequently and severely in- flicted.
XL ARGUMENT.
Would to God the multiplied calamities of life, were a sufficient punishment, for our desperate wick- edness ! But alas 1 they only make way for the pangs of death. Like traitors, or rather like wolves and vipers, to which the Son of God compares natural men, we are all devoted to destruction. Yes, as we kill those mischievous creatures, so God destroys the sinful sons of men.
If the reader is offended, and denies the mortify- ing assertion, let him visit with me the mournful spot, where thousands are daily executed, and where hundreds make this moment their dying speech. I cV> not mean what some call " the bed of honour," a &.ld of battle, but a common death-bed.
Part II. AN APPEAL, Vc. 55
Observing, as we go along, those black trophies of the king of terrors, those escutcheons, which pre- posterous vanity fixes up in honour of the deceased, when kind charity should hang them out as a warning to the living ; let us repair to those mournful apart- ments, where weeping attendants support the dying, where swooning friends embrace the dead, or whence distracted relatives carry out the pale remains of all their joy.
Guided by their groans and funeral lights, let us proceed to the dreary charnel-houses and calvaries, which we decently call vaults and church-yards : And without stopping to look at the monuments of some, whom my objector remembers as vigorous as him- self ; and of others, who were perhaps his partners in nightly revels ; let us hasten to see the dust of his mouldered ancestors, and to read upon yonder coffins the dear name of a parent, a child, perhaps a wife, turned off' from his bosom into the gulph of eternity.
If this sight does not convince him, I shall open one of the noisome repositories, and shew him the deep hollows of those eyes, that darted tender sensa- tion into his soul ; and odious reptiles fattened upon the once charming, now ghastly face, he doted upon. But, methinks he turns pale at the very proposal, and, rather than be confronted with such witnesses, ac- knowledges that he is condemned to die, with all his dear relatives, and the whole human race.
And is this the case r Are we then under sen- tence of death ? How awful is the consideration ! Of all the things that nature dreads, is not death the most terrible ? And is it not (as being the greatest of temporal evils) appointed by human and divine laws, for the punishment of capital offenders ; whether they are named felons and traitors, or more genteelly called men and sinners ? Let matter of fact decide.
Whilst earthly judges condemn murderers, and traitors, to be hanged or beheaded ; does not the Judge of all, sentence sinful mankind, either to pine
56 AN APPEAL, &c. Part II.
away with old age, or be wasted with consumptions, burned with fevers, scalded with hot humours, eaten up with cancers, putrified by mortifications, suffoca- ted by asthmas, strangled by quinseys, poisoned by the cup of excess, stabbed with the knife of luxury, or racked to death by disorders as loathsome, and ac- cidents as various as their sins ?
If you consider the circumstances of their execu- tion, where is the materal difference between the malefactor and the sinner ? The jailor and the turn- key confine the one to his cell : The disorder and the physician confine the other to his bed. The one lives upon bread and water : The other upon draughts and boluses. The one can walk with his fetters : The other loaded with blisters can scarcely turn himself. The one enjoys freedom from pain, and has the per- fect use of his senses : The other complains he is racked all over, and is frequently delirious. The ex- ecutioner does his office upon the one in a few minutes : But the physician and his medicines make the other linger for days, before he can die out of his misery. An honest sheriff, and constables armed with staves, wait upon one : while a greedy undertaker and his party, with like emblems of authority, accompany the other : And if it is any advantage to have a nume- rous attendance, without comparison the felon has the greater train.
When the pangs of death are over, does not the difference made between the corpses consist more in appearance than reality ? The murderer is dissected in the surgeon's hall, gratis, and the rich sinner is embo welled in his own apartment at great expence. •• The robber exposed to open air, wastes away in hoops of iron ; and the gentleman confined to a damp vault, moulders away in sheets of lead : And while the fowls of the air greedily prey upon the one, the vermin of the earth eagerly devour the other.
And if you consider them as launching into the world of spirits ; is not the advantage, in one^ re-
Part II. AN APPEAL, Vc. 57
spect, on the malefactor's side ? He is solemnly as- sured he must die ; and when the death-warrant comes down, all about him bid him prepare, and make the best of his short time : But the physician and chaplain, friends and attendants, generally flatter the honourable sinner to the last : And what is the consequence ? He either sleeps on in carnal security, till death puts an end to all his delusive dreams ; or, if he has some notion that he must repent, for fear of discomposing his spirits, he still puts it off till to- morrow ; and in the midst of his delays God says, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. What wonder is it then, if when the converted thief goes from the ignominious tree to paradise, the im- penitent rich man passes from his purple bed, into an awful eternity, and there lifts up his eyes in unexpected torments ?
If these are truths too obvious to be denied, wilt thou, Sinner, as the thoughtless vulgar, blunt their edge, by saying, with amazing unconcern, " Death is a debt we must all pay to nature r" Alas ! This is granting the point ; for if all have contracted so dreadful a debt, all are in a corrupt and lost estate. Nor is this debt to be paid to nature, but to justice ; otherwise dying would be as easy as sleeping, or any other natural action : But it is beyond expression ter- rible to thee, from whose soul the Redeemer has not extracted sin, the monster's sting : And if thou dost not see it now in the most alarming light, it is be- ca.use either thou imaginest it at a great distance ; or the double veil of rash presumption, and brutish stu- pidity, is yet upon thy hardened heart.
Or wilt thou, as the poor heathens, comfort thy- self with the cruel thought, that "thou shalt not die alone ?" Alas ! dying companions may increase, but cannot take off the horror of dissolution, Besides, though we live in a crowd, we generally die alone : Each must drink that bitter cut, as if he were the only mortal in the universe.
58 AN APPEAL, isfc. Part II.
What must we do then, in such deplorable cir- cumstances ? What ! But humble ourselves in the dust, and bow low to the sceptre of divine jus- tice ; confessing that since the righteous God has con- demned us to certain death, and in general to a far more lingering and painful death, than murderers and traitors are made to undergo, we are certainly degene- rate creatures and capital offenders, who stand in abso- lute need of an Almighty Redeemer.
Permit me now, candid reader, to make a solemn appeal to thy reason assisted by the fear of God. From all that has been advanced, does it not appear, that man is no more the favoured, happy, and innocent creature he was, when he came out of the hands of his infinitely gracious Creator ? And is it not evident that, whether we consider him as bcrn into this disor- dered world, or dying out of it, or passing from the womb to the grave, under a variety of calamitous cir- cumstances, God's providential dealings with him, prove that he is by nature in a corrupt and lost estate ?
A part, how small ! of this terraqueous glebe
Is tenanted by man, the rest a waste.
Rocks, deserts, frozen seas, and burning sands,
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings, and death ;
Such is earth's melancholy map ; but far
More sad, this earth is a true map of man ;
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights
To woe's wide empire, where deep troubles toss,
Loud sorrows howl, invenom'd passions bite,
Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,
And threat'ning fate wide opens to devour.
Yovxg.
- * it *.♦
THIRD PART.
WE have hitherto considered man as a mi- serable inhabitant of a wretched world. \Ve have seen him surrounded by multitudes of wants : pur- sued by legions of distresses, maladies, and woes ; arrested by the king of terrors : cast into the grave ; and shut up there, the loathsome prey of corruption and worms. Let us now consider him as a moral agent ; and by examining his disposition, character, and conduct, let us see whether he is wisely punish- ed, according to the sentence of impartial justice ; or wantonly tormented, at the caprice of arbitrary power.
We cannot help acknowledging, it is highly rea- sonable, first, that all intelligent creatures should love, reverence, and obey their Creator ; because he is most eminently their Father, their Master, and their King : Secondly, that they should assist, sup- port, and love each other, as fellow subjects, fellow servants, and children of the same universal parent: and thirdly, that they should preserve their souls and bodies in peace and purity ; by which means alone they can be happy in themselves, profitable to man, and acceptable to God. This is what we generally call natural religion, which is evidently founded upon eternal' reason, the fitness of things, and the essential relation of persons.
60 AN APPEAL, Wc. Part III.
The propriety of these sanctions is so self-evident that the Gentiles, who have not the written law, are a law unto themselves, and do (but alas ! how sel- dom and from what motives !) the things contained in the law, thus shewing that the work, the sum and substance of the law, though much blotted by the fall, is still written in their heart. Nor will it be erased thence in hell itself ; for nothing but a sight of the equity of God's law, can clear his vindictive jus- tice in the guilty breast, give a scorpion's sting to the worm that gnaws the stubborn offender, and arm his upbraiding conscience with a whip of biting ser- pents.
Since the moral law so strongly recommends it- self to reason, let us see how universally it is observ- ed or broken ; So shall matter of fact decide, whether we are pure and upright, or polluted and depraved.
XII. ARGUMENT.
Those who reject the scriptures, universally agree that all have sinned, and that in many things we of- fend all. Hence it appears, that persons of various constitutions, ranks, and education ; in all nations, religions, times, and places ; are born in such a state and with such a nature, that they infallibly commit many sins in thought, word or deed.
But one transgression would be sufficient, to ren- der them obnoxious to God's displeasure, and to bring them under the fearful curse of his broken law : For, even according to the statutes of this realm, a man, who once robs a traveller of a small sum of money, forfeits his life ; as well as the bloody high- wayman, who for years barbarously murders all those whom he stops, and acumulates immense wealth by his repeated barbarities.
The reason is obvious : Both incur the penalty of the law which forbids robbery ; for both effectually
Part III. AN APPEAL, Ofc. 61
break it, though one does it oftner, and with far more aggravating circumstances than the other. So sure then as one robbery deserves the gallows, one sin deserves death : for the soul that sinne.th, says God's law, and not the soul that committeth so many sins, of such or such an heinousness, it shall die. Hence it is, that the first sin of the. first man was punished both with spiritual and bodily death, and with ten thousand other evils. The justice of this sanction will appear in a satisfactory light, if we con- sider the following remarks.
1 . In our present natural state, we are such stran- gers to God's glory, and the spirituality of his law ; and we are so used to drink the deadly poison of ini- quity like water, that we have no idea of the horror, which should sieze upon us, after a breach of the di- vine law. We are therefore as unfit judges of the atrociousness of sin, as lawless, hardened assassins, who shed human biood like water, are of the heinous- ness of murder.
2. As every wilful sin arises from a disregard of that sovereign authority, which is equally stamped upon all the commandments; it hath in it the princi- ple and nature of all possible iniquity, that is, the disregard and contempt of the Almighty.
3. There is no proper merit before God, in the longest and most exact course of obedience, but infi- nite demerit in one, even the least act of wilful diso- bedience. When we have done all that is command- ed us,we are still unprofitable servants ; for the self- sufficient God has no more need of us, than a mighty monarch, of the vilest insects that creep in the dust beneath his feet ; And our best actions, strictly speak- ing, deserve absolutely nothing from our Creator and Preserver, because we owe him all we have, and are, and. can possibly do. But if we transgress in one point, we ruin ail our obedience, and expose ourselves to the just penalty of his broken law. The follow- ing example may illustrate this observation.
j
62 AN APPEAL, &c. Part III.
If a rich man gives a thousand meals to an indi- gent neighbour, he acts only as a man, he does no- thing but his duty ; and the judge allows him no re- ward. But if he gives him only one dose of poison, he acts as a murderer, and must die a shameful death : So greatly does one act of sin outweigh a thousand acts of obedience 1 How exceedingly ab- surd then, is the common notion, that our good works counter-balance our bad ones ! Add to this, that >4. Guilt necessarily rises in proportion to the base- ness of the offender, the greatness of the favours con- ferred upon him, and the dignity of the person of- fended. An insulting behaviour to a servant is a fault, to a magistrate it is a crime, to a king it is treason. And what is wilful sin, but an injury offer- ed by an impotent rebel, to the infinitely powerful lav-giver of the universe, to the kindest of benefactors, to the gracious Creator and preserver of men. ...an insult given to the supreme Majesty of heaven and earth, in whose glorious presence the dignity of the greatest potentates and arch-angels, as truly disap- pears as the splendour of the stars in the blaze of the meridian sun ? Sin therefore flying into the face of such a law-giver, benefactor and monarch, has in it a kind of infinite demerit from its infinite object ; and rebellious, ungrateful, wretched man, who commits it a thousand times with a thousand aggravations, may, in the nervous language of our church, be said in some sense, to deserve a thousand hells if there were so many.
XIII. ARGUMENT.
Our natural depravity manifests itself by constant omissions of duty, as much as by flagrant commis- sions of sin, and perhaps much more. Take one instance out of many, that might be produced. Con- stant displays of preserving goodness, and presents.
Part III. AN APPEAL, &c. 63
undeservedly and uninterruptedly bestowed upon us, deserve a perpetual tribute of heart-felt gratitude : God demands it in his law ; and conscience, his agent in our souls, declares, it ought in justice to be paid.
But where shall we find a deist, properly con- scious, of what he owes the supreme being, for his " creation, preservation, and ali the blessings of this life ?" And where a christian duly sensible of" God's inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ V9 A due sense of his ever multiplied mercies, would fill our souls with never- ceasing wonder, and make our lips overflow with rap turous praise. The poet's language would suit our grateful sensations, and without exaggeration paint the just ardour of our transports.
Bound ev'ry heart, and ev'ry bosom burn. Praise, flow for ever (if astonishment Will give thee leave) my praise, for ever flow : Praise ardent, cordial, constant, &c.
Is not any tiling short of this thankful frame of mind, a sin of omission, a degree of ingratitude, of which all are naturally guilty ; and for which, it is to be feared, the best owe ten thousand talents both to divine goodness and justice ?
Throwr only a few bones to a dog, and you ran him : He follows you : Your word becomes his law : Upon the first motion of your hand he fiies through land and water to execute your commands : Obedi- ence is his delight, and your presence his paradise : He convinces you of it by all the demonstrations of joy, which he is capable of giving : And if he unhap- pily loses sight of you, he exerts all his sagacity to trace your footsteps ; nor will he rest, till he finds his benefactor again.
Shall a brute be so thankful to a man for some of- fals, while man himself is so full of ingratitude to God who created him, preserves, his life from destruction.
64 AN APPEAL, life. Part III.
and hourly crowns him with mercies and loving-kind- ness I How should shame cover our guilty faces ! Surely if the royal prophet coukl say, he was as a beast before God ; may we not well confess, that in point of gratitude, we are worse than the dullest, and most stupid part of the brute creation ? For even the ox says the Lord, knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth not know me, my peo- ple doth not consider my daily favours. And if the very heathens 'affirmed, that *to call a man ungrate- ful to an human benefactor was to say of him all possi- ble evil in one word ; how can we express the base- ness and depravity of mankind, who are universally so ungrateful, to so bounteous a benefactor as God himself?
XIV. ARGUMENT.
But, though we seem made of cold inattention, when the sight of divine mercies should kindle onr heart into gratitude and praise ; we scon get out of this languid frame of mind : For, in the pursuit of sensual gratifications, we are all activity and warmth : we seem an ardent compound of life and fire.
What can be the reason of this amazing differ- ence ?.... What but rebellious sense, and wanton appetite, raised at the sight or idea of seme forbidden cbjtct I The bait of pleasure appears, corruptnature summons all her powers, every nerve of expectation is stretched ; every pulse of desire beats high : theblocdis in a gene- ral ferment ; the spirits are in an universal hurry ; and though the hook of a fatal consequence is often apparent, the alluring bait must be swallowed. The fear of God, the most inestimable of all treasures, is already gone ; and if the sinful gratification cannot
Ingratum si diieris, omnia dicis. ]vr.
Part III. AN APPEAL, &c. 65
be enjoyed upon any other term, a good reputation shall go also. Reason indeed makes remonstrances ; but the loud clamours of flesh and blood, soon drown her soft whispers. The carnal mind ste<ps impe- riously upon the throne : Sense, that conquers the greatest conquerors, bears down all opposition : The yielding man is led captive by a brutish lust ; and while angels blush, there is joy in hell over the ac- tual, and complete degradation of an heaven-born spirit.
Some indeed affirm, that these conflicts suit a state of probation and trial. But it is evident that either our temptations are too violent for our strength? or our strength too weak for our temptations ; since, notwithstanding the additional help of divine grace, there never was a mere mortal, over whom they never triumphed.
Nor can we exculpate ourselves by pleading, that these triumphs of sense over reason, are neither long nor frequent. Alas ! how many perpetrate an act of wickedness in a moment, and suffer death itself for a crime which they never repeated !
See that chrystal vessel. Its brightness and brit- tleness represent the shining, and delicate nature of true virtue. If I let it fall, and break it, what avails it to say, " I never broke it before.... I dropped it but once. ...I am excessively sorry for my carelessness.... I will set the pieces together, and never break it again :" Will these excuses and resolutions prevent the vessel from being broken.. ..broken for ever ? the reader may easily make the application.
Even heathen moralists, by their fabulous account of the companions of Ulysses, turned into swine, up- on drinking once of Circe's enchanted cup, teach us, that one fall into sensuality, turns a man into a brute ; just as one slip into unchastity or dishonesty, changes a modest woman into a strumpet, or an honest man i&to atliief. Again.
F 2
66 AN APPEAL, *&. Part III.
Ought not reason to have as absolute a command over appetite, as a skilful rider has over a well bro- ken horse ? But suppose we saw all horsemen univer sally mastered, one time or other, by their beasts ; and forced, though but for a few minutes, to receive the bit, and go or stop at the pleasure of the wanton brutes : Should we not wonder, and justly infer, that man had lost the kind of superiority, which he still maintains over domestic animals ? And what then, but the com- monness of the case, can prevent our being shocked, when we see rational creatures overcome, and led captive by carnal appetites ? Is net this the wanton, rebellious beast mounting upon his vanquished, das- tardly rider ?
We may then conclude, that the universal rebel- lion of our lower faculties against our superior powers, and the triumph? of sense over reason, demonstrate, that human nature has suffered as fatal a revolution, as these kingdoms did, when a degraded king was seen bleeding on the scaffold, and a base usurper lording it in the seat of majesty.
XV. ARGUMENT.
Happy would it be for us, if our fall manifested itself only by some transient advantages of sense over reason. But alas 1 the experience of the best demon- strates the truth of Isaiah's words, the whole head js sick.
To say nothing of the gross stupidity, and uncon- querable ignorance, that keep the generality of man- kind just above the level of brutes ; how strong, how clear is the Understanding of men of sense in worldly ■affairs I How weak, bow dark in spiritual things I How few idiots are there, but can distinguish between the shadow and the substance, the cup and the liquor, the dress and the person 1 But how many learned men, to
Part III. AN APPEAL, <Jc. &7
this day, see no difference between water-baptism and spiritual regeneration, between the means of grace and grace itseLf, between the form and the power of godhness ! at our devotions, is not our mind gene- rally like the roving butterfly ; and at our favourite diversions, and lucrative business, like the fastening leach I Can it not fix itself or any thing sooner than on the one thing needful ; and find out any way, be- fore that of peace and salvation ?
What can be more extravagant than our Imagina- tion ? Kow often have we caught this wild power, forming and pursuing phantoms, building and pul- ling down castles in the air ! how frequently hath it raised us into proud conceits, and then sunk us into gloomy apprehensions ! and where is the man, that it never led into such mental scenes of vanity and lewd- ness, as would have made him the object of universal contempt, if the veil of a grave and modest counte- nance, had not happily concealed him from public notice ?
And has our Memory escaped unimpaired by the fall ? Alas ! let us only consider, how easily we for- get the favours of our Creator, and recollect the in- juries of our fellow-creatures ; how little we retain of a good book or pious discourse, and how much of a play or frivolous conversation : and how exactly we remember an invitation to a party of pleasure, whilst the loudest calls to turn 10 God and prepare for death, are no sooner heard than forgotten.... Let us, I say, consider these things, and we shall be forced to con- fess, that this useful power loses like a sieve the liv- ing water of truth, drinks in like a spunge the muddy streams of vanity, and is never so retentive, as when it is excited by revenge, or some other detestable temper.
" A wretch that is condemned to die to-morrow cannot forget it," says Baxter ; " yet poor sinners, who are uncertain to live an hour, and certain speedily to see the Majesty of the Lord, to their inconceivable joy
68 AN APPEAL, UV. Part III.
or terror, can forget these things, for which they have their memory; and which, one would think, should drown the matters of this world, as the report of a can- non does a whisper, or as the sun obscures the poorest glow-worm. O wonderful stupidity of an unrege- nerate soul I O astonishing distraction of the ungodly 1 That ever men can forget eternal joy, eternal woe, the eternal God, and the place of their unchangeable abode ; when they stand even at the door, and there is but the thin veil of flesh between them, and that amazing sight, that eternal gulph, into which thousands are daily plunging."
Nor does our * Reasvn make us amends for the de- fects of our other faculties. Its beams, it is true, wonderfully guide some persons through the circle of sciences, and the mazes of commercial or political af Fail's. But when it should lead us in the search of the truth which is after godliness, unless it is assisted from above, how are its taint rays obstructed by the gross medium of flesh and blood, broken by that of pas- sion, and sometimes lost in that of prejudice I Wise sons of reason, learned philosophers, your two hun- dred and eighty eight opinions concerning the chief good, are a multiplied proof of my sad assertion : all miss the mark. Not one of them makes the supreme felicity to consist in the knowledge and enjoyment of God, the amiable and adorable parent of all good.
True reason, alas ! is as rare as true piety. The poor thing, which, in spiritual matters, the world calls reason, is only the ape of that noble faculty. How partial, how unreasonable f i i this false pretender J. If
* By reason I mean that power, by which we pass judgment upon, and draw inferences from what the understanding ha* sim- ply apprehended.
t Our earth's the bedlam of the universe, Where reason (undiseas'd in heaven) runs mad, And nurses folly's children as her own, Fotsd of the foulest.
Yovng.
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it does not altogether overlook the awful realities of the invisible world, which is too frequently the case ! how busy is it to reason away faith, and raise objections against the most evident truth, * even that which I now
* A late publication in vindication of Pelagianism appears to me no small instance of this. The Rev. Author take* his estimate of human nature, not fiom universal experience, but his indulged imagination ; not from St. Paul the chief of the apostles, but from Dr. Taylor, to whom he acknowledges his obligations for several of the best passages in his sermon. Passing over the exposition of his text, where he oddly supposes that our Lord meant, by the drawings of God, the natural powers of man ; which is as reason- able as to suppose, that when he said, without me ye can do no- thing, he meant that me should signify ourselves :. -Passing this over, I shall just point out his capital mistake He tells us, that all our faculties and powers are good and beautiful in their order? [that they were so before the fall is fully granted] and tend natu- rally to the happiness both of the individual and the system; and he adds, that How weak soever and imperfect our intellectual fa- culties may be, yet to speak reproachfully of them in general is a species of blasphemy against our Creator. If to expose the present weakness of our rational faculties, and shew how greatly they are disordered and impaired by the fall, is what this divine calls speak- ing reproachfully of them, have not the best men been found guilty of this pretended blasphemy ? How far the Apostles and Refor- mers carried it, may be seen in the first part of this treatise. How he can clear himself of it, as a subscriber to the 9th, 10th, and 35th articles of our church, I cannot see : And by what means he will justify his conduct to the world, in receiving hundreds a year to maintain the doctrine of the church of England, while he pub- licly exposes it as a species of blasphemy, is still a greater mystery. Far from seeing that all the faculties and powers, by which this is done, are good and beautiful, I cannot help thinking that some of them are materially defective ; and that though such a conduct may very much tend to the emolument of the individual, it has little tendency to the happiness of the system. For may part, were I to commence advocate for the uprightness of human na- ture, 1 would save appearances, lest Dr. Taylor himself should say,
Non defensoribus istis, &c But dropping this point, I appeal to
common sense : Who is most gulity of blasphemy against our Crea- tor ; he who says God made man both holy and happy, affirming that the present weakness of our rational powers, is entirely owing to the original apostacy of mankind : Or he. who intimates, that the gracious Author of our being, formed our intellectual faculties weak and imperfect as they now are ? If it is not the latter, my
understanding is strangely defective. In vain does this learned
divine tell us, that the candle of the Lord which was lighted up in man at first, when the inspiration of the Almighty gave him
70 AN APPEAL, Vc. Part III.
contend for ? And when right reason has been worsted by sense, how ready is the impostor to plead against the faculty which it personates ! How skilful in cloak- ing bad habits under the genteel name of" human foi- bles!" And how ingenious, in defending the most ir- rational and dangerous methods of losing time, as « in- nocent sports, and harmless diversons 1"
These observations, which must appear self-evi- dent to all, who know the world or themselves, inccn- testably prove the degeneracy of all our rational powers, and consquently the universality of our natu- ral corruption.
XVI. ARGUMENT.
When the whole head is sick, is not the whole heart faint ? Can our will, conscience, and affections, run parallel to the line of duty ; when our understand- ing, imagination, memory, and reason are so much warped from original rectitude ? Impossible ! Eperi- ence, thou best of judges, I appeal to thee. Erect thy fair tribunal in the reader's breast, and bear an honest testimony to the truth of the following asser- tions.
Our frilly in general is full of obstinacy : We must have our own way, right or wrong. 'Tis pregnant with inconstancy : we are passionaelty fond of a thing
understanding, was not extinguished by the original apostacy, but has kept burning ever since, and that the divine flame has catched from father to son, and has been propagated quite down to the present generation. If it is reasonable to charge with a species of blasphemy those, who reverence their Creator too much, to father our present state of imperfection upon him, I must confess my reason fails : 1 have outlived the divine flame for one, or it never
catched from my father to me A fear lest some well-meaning
person should mistake the taper of Pelagins, or the lamp of Dr. Taylor, for the candle of the Lord, and follow it in the destruc- tive paths of error, extorts this note from my pea- See the objec- tions that follow the xxii. Argument.
Part III. AN APPEAL, Ufc. 7\
one day, and tired of it the next : We form good re- solutions in the morning, and break them before night. 'Tis impotent : When we see what is right, instead of doing it with all our might we frequently remain as inactive, as if we were bound by invisible chains , and we wonder by what charm, the wheels of duty thus stop against our apparent inclination : till we dis- cover that the spring of our will is broken, or natu rally works the wrong way : Yes, it is not only unable to follow the good, that the understanding approves ; but full of perverseness to pursue the evil, that reason disapproves : We are prone to do, contrary to our de- sign, tiiose things which breed remorse and wound conscience ; and sooner or later, we may all say with the heathen princess, who was going to murder her child,
* Video meliora, proboque, Deteriora sequor.
Nor is Conscience itself untainted. Alas : how slow is it to reprove in some cases ! In others, how apt not to do it at all ! In one person, it is easy under mountains of guilt ; and in another, it is unreasonably scrupulous about mere trifles : It either strains out a gnat, or swallows a camel : When it is alarmed, in some it shews itself ready to be made easy by every wrong method ; in others, it obstinately refuses to be pacified by the right. To day, you may with pro- priety compare it to a dumb dog, that does not bark at a thief ; and to-morrow, to a snarling cur, that flies indifferently at a friend, a foe, or a shadow ; and then madly turns upon himself, and tears his own flesh.
If conscience, the best power of the unconverted man, is so corrupt, Good God 1 what are his Affec-
* If the reader wants to know the English of these words, he may find it, Rom. vii. 15.
72 AN APPEAL, 6Tt. Part III.
tions ? Almost perpetually deficient in some, and ex- cessive in others, when do they attain to, or stop at, the line of moderation I Who can tell, how oft he has been the sport of their irregularity and violence 1 One hour we are hurried into rashness by their impe- tuosity : the next, we are bound in sloth by their in- activity. Sometimes every blast of foolish hope, or ill- grounded fear ; every gale of base desire, or unrea- sonable aversion ; every wave of idolatrous love, or sinful hatred ; every surge of misplaced admiration, or groundless horror ; every billow of noisy joy, or undue sorrow, tosses, raises, or sinks our soul ; as a ship in a storm, which has neither rudder nor ballast. At other times, we are totally becalmed ; all our sails are furled, not one breath of devout or human afiec- tion stirs in our stoical, frozen breast ; and we remain stupidly insensible, till the spark of temptation, drop- ping upon the combustible matter in our hearts, blows us up again into loud passion : And then, how dread- ful and ridiculous together, is the new explosion !
If experience pronounces, that these reflections are just, the point is gained. Our whole heart is faint, through the unaccountable disorders of our will, the lethargy or boisterous fits of our conscience, and the swooning or high fever of our affections : And we may without hypocrisy, join in our daily confession, and say, There is no health in us.
XVII. ARGUMENT.
The danger of these complicated maladies of our souls,evidences itself by the niostfetal of all symptoms, our manifest alienation from God. Yes, shocking as the confession is, we must make it, if truth has any dominion in our breast : Unrenewed man loves not his •■God. That eternal beauty, for whose contemplation ; that supreme good, for whose enjoyment he w?s cre- ated, is generally forgotten, despised, or hated. If the
Part III. AN APPEAL, isfc. 73
thought of his Holy Majesty presents itself, he looks upon it as an intruder : It lays him under as disagree- able a restraint, as that, which the presence of a grave, pious master puts upon a wanton idle servant: Nor can he quietly pursue his sinful courses, till he has driven away the troublesome idea; or imagined, with the Epi- cure, a careless God, who wants resolution to call him to an account, and justice to punish him for his ini- quity.
Does any one offer an indignity to his favourite friend, or only speak contemptibly of the object of hi* esteem, he feels as if he was the person insulted, and reddening with indignation directly espouses his cause: But every body, the meanest of his attendants not ex- cepted, may with impunity insult the King of kings in his presence, and take the most prophane liberties with his name and word, his laws and ministers : He hear*> the wild blasphemy, and regards it not ; he sees the horrid outrage, and resents it not ; and yet amazing infatuation ! he pretends to love God.
If he goes to the play, he can fix his roving eyes and wandering mind, three hours together upon the same trifling object, not only without weariness but with uncommon delight. If he has an appointment with the person, whom he adores as a deity; his spirits are ele- vated, expectation and joy flutter in his dilated breast : He sweetly anticipates the pleasing interview, or im- patiently chides the slowly flowing minutes : His feel* ings are inexpressible. But if he attends the great congregation, which he too often omits upon the most frivolous pretences, it is rather out of form and de- cency, than out of devotion and love ; rather with indif- ference or reluctance, than with delight and transport. And when he is present there, how absent are hi* thoughts ! How wandering his eyes ! How trifling, su- pine, irreverent * his whole behaviour ! he would be
* Men homage pay to men,
Thoughtless beneath whose dreadful eye they bow
74 AN APPEAL, Wc. Part III.
ashamed to speak to the meanest'of his servants with as little attention as he sometimes prays to the Ma- jesty of heaven. Were he to stare about when he gives them orders, as he does when he presents his supplications to the Lord of lords, he would be afraid that they would think he was half drunk, or had a touch of lunacy.
Suppose he still retains a sense of outward decency, while the church goes through her solemn offices ; yet how heavy are his spirits I How heartless his confes- sions ; how cold his prayers i the blessing comes at last, and he is blessed indeed.. ..not with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, for that he gladly leaves to " poor enthusiasts," but with a release from his confinement and tedious work. And now that he has " done his duty, and ser- ved God," he hastes away to the company that suits his taste.
See him there. Do not his very looks declare, he is in his own element ?" With what eagerness of spirit, energy of gesture, and volubility of tongue, does he talk over his last entertainment, chase, or bargain? Does not the oil of cheerfulness make all his motions as free and easy, as if weight and friction had no place at all in his light and airy frame ?
Love of God, thou sweetest, strongest of all powers, didst thou ever thus metamorphose his soul, and im- part such a sprightly activity to his body ? and youj that converse most familiarly with him, did you ever! hear him say ? Come and I will tell you what the Lord has done for my soul : Taste, and see how good the Lord is.... No, never ; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh ; Nor can it be expected
In mutual awe profound, of clay to clay, Of guilt to guilt, ^nd turn their backs on Thee, Great Sire ! whom thrones celestial ceaseless sing; To poatrate aiigels an amazing scene !
Young.
Part III. AN APPEAL, Wc. 75
that God, who hath no place in his joyous reflections, should have one in his cheerful conversation. On the contrary, it will be matter of surprise to those who introduce the delightful subject of the love of God, if he does not wave it off, as dull, melancholy, or enthu- siastical.
But as he will give you to understand, "he is no hy- pocrite, and therefore confines devotion to his closet," follow him there.... Alas ! he scarce ever bends the knee to him that sees in secret: Or, if he says his prayers as regularly as he winds his watch, it is much in the same spirit : For suppose he does not hurry them over, or cut them as short as possible ; yet the careless, for- mal manner in which he offers them up, indicates as plainly as his public conduct, the aversion lurking in his heart against God : And yet he fancies he loves him : With a sneer that indicates self-appiause, and a pharisaic contempt of others ; " Away with all your feelings and rapures, say he, This is the love of God that we keep his commandments. But alas ! which of them does he keep ! Certainly not the first... .for the Lord is not the supreme object of his hopes and fears, his confidence and joy : Nor yet the last.. ..for discon- tent and wrong desires are still indulged in his selfish and worldly heart. How unfortunate therefore is his appeal to the commandments, by which his secret enmity to the law, government, and nature of God is brought to the clearest light !
XVIII. ARGUMENT.
But as the heart-felt love of God is supposed to be downright enthusiasm by some moralists, who dash- ing in pieces the first table of the law against the se- cond, pretend that all our duty to God consists in the love of our neighbour; let us examine the uncon- verted man's charity, and see whether he bears more love to his fellow -creatures, than to his Creator.
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Nothing can be more erroneous than his notions of charity. He confounds it with the bare giving of alms; not considering that it is possible to do this kind of good, from the most selfish and uncharitable motives. Therefore, when the fear of being accounted covetous, the desire of passing for generous, the vanity of seeing his name in a list of noble subscribers, the shame of being outdone by his equals, the teazing importunity of an obstinate beggar, the moving address of a solicitor whom he would blush to deny, or the pharisaic notion of making amends for his sins and purchasing heaven by his alms....wjien any, I say, of these sinister mo- tives sets him upon assisting industrious poverty, reliev- ing friendless old age, or supporting infirm and mu- tilated indigence, he fancies, that he gives an indubi- table proof of his charity.
Sometimes too he affixes to that word, the idea of a fond hope, that every body is going to heaven : For if you intimate, that the rich voluptuary is not with Lazarus in Abrahams's bosom, and that the foolish virgins are not promiscuously admitted to glory with the wise, he wonders at " your un charitableness," and thanks God " he never entertained such unchristian thoughts of his neighbours."
He considers not, that charity is the fair offspring of the love of God, to which he is yet an utter stranger ; and that it consists in an universal, disinterested bene- volence to all mankind, our worst enemies not excepted: a benevolence, that sweetly evidences itself by bearing with patience the evil which they do to us, and kindly doing them all the good we possibly can, both with re- spect to their soul and body, their property and repu- tation.
If this is a just definition of charity, the unrenewed man has not even the outside of it. To prove it, I might appeal to his impatience and ill-humour, his un- kind words and cutting railleries (for I suppose him too moral ever to slander or curse any one :) 1 might men- tion his supercilious behaviour to some, who are intitledi
Part III. AN APPEAL, &c. 77
to his affability as men, countrymen and neighbours : I might expatiate on his readiness to exculpate, en- rich, or aggrandize himself at the expence of others, whenever he can do it without exposing himself.
But waving all these particulars, I ask : Whom does he truly love ? You answer : " Doubtless the per- son to whom he makes daily protestations of the warm- est regard." But how does he prove this regard ?
Why, perhaps by the most artful insinuations, and dangerous attempts to rob her of her virtue. Perhaps he has already gained his end.... Unhappy Magdalen ! How much better would it have been for thee, to have fallen into the hands of an highway -man ? Thou wouldst only have lost thy money, but now thou art de- spoiled of the honour of thy sex, and the peace of thy mind : thou art robbed at once of virgin innocence, a fair reputation, and possibly an healthy constitution. If this is a specimen of the unconverted man's love, what must be his hatred I
But I happily mistake : " He is no libertine, he has a virtuouswife,and amiable children, and he loves them," say you, " with the tenderest affection." I reply, that these relations, being immortal spirits, confined for a few years, in a tenement of clay, and continually on the remove for eternity : his laudable regard for their frail bodies, and proper care of their temporal prospe- rity, are not a sufficient proof, that he loves them in a right manner. For even according to * wise heathens, our soul is our better part, our true self. And what tender concern does the unrenewed man feel for the soul of his bosom friend ? Does he regard it more than the body of his groom, or the life of his horse ? Does he, with any degree of importunity, carry it daily in the arms of love and prayer, to the throne of grace for life and salvation ? Does he, by good instructions, and a
• * Nos non corpora sumus : Corpus quidem vas est aut aliquod* animi receptaculum- Cic. Tusc. Qusest.lib.U G 2
7S AN APPEAL, Ifc. Part flL
Yirtuous example, excite his children to secure an eternal inheritance ? and is he at least as desirous to see them wise and pious ; as well-bred, rich, hand- some, and great ? alas ! I fear it is just the reverse* He is probably the first to poison their tender minds, with some of the dangerous maxims, that vanity and ambition have invented : and, supposing he has a fa- vourite dog, it is well if he is not more anxious for the preservation of that one domestic animal, than for the salvation of all their souls.
If these observations are founded upon matter of fact, as daily experience demonstrates, I appeal to common sense, and ask : Can the natural man, with all his fondness, be said to have a true love even for his nearest relatives ? And is not the regard that he ma- nifests for their bodies, more like the common instinct, by which doves cleave to their mates, and swallows provide for their young ; than like the generous affec- tion, which a rational creature ought to bear to im- mortal spirits, awfully hovering in a scale of probation, which is just going to turn for hell or heaven.
XIX. ARGUMENT.
Nor is it surprising, that the unrenewed man should be devoid of all true love to his nearest rela- tions : for he is so completely fallen, that he bears no true love even to himself. Let us overlook those who cut their throats, shoot, drown, or hang them- selves. Let us take no notice of those who sacrifice a year's health for a night's revel ; who inflame their blood into fevers, or derive putrefaction into their bones, for the momentary gratification of a shameful appetite ; and are so hot in the pursuit of a base plea- sure, that they leap after it ev^en into the jaws of an untimely grave : Let us, I say, pass by those innu- merable, unhappy victims of intemperance, and de- bauchery, who squander their money upon panders
Part III. AN APPEAL, \fc. 79
and harlots, and have as little regard for their healthy as for their fortune and reputation ; and let us consi- der the case of those good-natured, decent persons* who profess to have a real value for both.
Upon the principle laid down in the last argu- ment, may I not ask, What love have these for their immortal part, their time self ? What do they do for their souls ? Or rather what do they not leave un- done ? And who can shew less concern for their greatest interest than they ?
Alas ! in spirtual matters, the wisest of them seem on a level with the most foolish. They anxiously se- cure their title to a few possessions in this transitory world, out of which the stream of time carries them with unabated impetuosity ; while they remain * stu- pidly thoughtless of their portion in the unchangeable world, into which they are just going to launch : They take particular notice of every trivial incident in life, every idle report raised in their neighbourhood, and supinely overlook the great realities of death and judg- ment, hell and heaven.
You see them perpetually contriving how to pre- serve, indulge, and adorn their dying bodies; and daily neglecting the safety, welfare, and ornament of their immortal souls. So great is their folly, that earthly toys make them slight heavenly thrones I So
* Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites,. Hell threatens ; all exerts ; in effort all : More than creation labours ! labours more I And is there in creation, what, amidst This tumult universal, wing*d dispatch, And ardent energy, supinely yawns ? Man sleeps ; and man alone ; and man, whose fate, Fate irreversible, in tire, extreme, Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulph A moment trembles ; drops ! and man, for whom All else is in alarm, man, the sole cause Of this surrounding storm ! and yet he sleeps, As the storm rock'd to rest ,
Ywic.
80 AN APPEAL, &c. Part III.
wilful their self-deception, that a point of time * hides from them a boundless eternity 1 So perverted is their moral taste, that they nauseate the word of truth, the precious food of souls, and greedily run upon the tempter's hook, if it is but made of solid gold, or gilt over with the specious appearance of honour, or only baited with the prospect of a favourite diversion. And whilst, by uneasy fretful tempers, they too often im- pair their bodily health ; by exorbitant affections and pungent cares, they frequently break their hearts, or pierce themselves through with many sorrows.
Does such a conduct deserve the name of well- ordered self-love, or preposterous self-hatred ? O man, sinful man, how totally art thou depraved, if thou art not only thine own most dangerous enemy, but often thy most cruel tormentor I
XX. ARGUMENT.
This depravity is productive of the most detestable brood. When it has suppressed the love of God, per- verted the love of our neighbour, and vitiated self- love; it soon gives birth to a variety of execrable tempers, and dire affections, which should have no place but in the breast of fiends, no out-breaking but in the chambers of hell.
If you ask their name : I answer.... Pride, that odious vice, which feeds on the praises it slyly pro- cures, lives by the applause it has meanly courted
And is it in the flight of threescore years To push eternity from human thought, And bury souls immortal in the dust ? A soul immortal spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness ; Thrown into tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd, At ought this scene can threaten, or, indulge, Resembles Ocean into tempest wrought To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
Young.
Part III. AN APPEAL, &c. ,81
and is equally stabbed by the reproof of a friend, and the sneer of a foe.. ..The spirit of independence, which cannot bear controul, is gaiLed by the easiest yoke, gnaws the slender cords of just authority, as if they were the heavy chains of tyrannical power ; nor ever ceases struggling till they break, and he can say : " Now I am my own master.". ...Ambition and Vanity, which, like Proteus, take a thousand shapes, and wind a thousand ways, to climb up to the high seat of power, shine on the tottering stage of honour, wear the golden badge of fortune, glitter in the gaudy pomp of dress, and draw by distinguishing appear- ances, the admiration of a gaping multitude. ...Sloth, which unnerves the soul, enfeebles the body, and makes the whole man deaf to the calls of duty, loath to set about his business, (even when want, fear, or shame drives him to it) ready to postpone or omit it upon any pretence, and willing to give up even the in- terests of society, virtue and religion, so he may saun- ter undisturbed, doze the time away in stupid inacti- vity, or enjoy himself in that dastardly indolence, which passes in the world for quietness and good-na- ture....Envy, that looks with an evil eye at the good things our competitors enjoy, takes a secret pleasure in their misfortunes, under various pretexts exposes their faults, slyly tries to add to our reputation what it detracts from theirs, and stings our heart when they eclipse us by their greater success or superior excel- lencies....Covetousness, which is always dissatisfied with its portion, watches it with tormenting fears, in- creases it by every sordid mean, and turning its own executioner, justly pines for want over the treasure, it madly saves for a prodigal heir.... Impatience, which frets at every thing, finds fault with every person, and madly tears herself under the distressing sense of a present evil, or the anxious expectation of an absent good.... Wrath, which distorts our faces, racks our breasts, alarms our households, threatens, curses, stamps and storms even upon imaginary or trifling
82 AN APPEAL, fcfr. Part III.
provocations... Jealousy, that through a fatal skill in diabolical optics, sees contempt in all the words of a favourite friend, discovers infidelity in all his actions, lives upon the wicked suspicions it begets, and turns the sweets of the mildest passion into wormwood and gall.... Idolatrous love, which preys upon the spirits, consumes the flesh, tears the throbbing heart, and when it is disappointed, frequently forces its wretched slaves to lay violent hands upon themselves. ...Hatred, of our fellow-creatures, which keeps us void of tender benevolence, a chief ingredient in the bliss of angels ; and fills us with some of the most unhappy sensations belonging to accursed spirits. ...Malice, which takes an unnatural, hellish pleasure in teazing beasts, and hurt- ing men in their persons, properties, or reputation.... And the offspring of malice, Revenge, * who always thirsts after mischief or blocd ; and shares the only delight of devils, when he can repay a real or fancied injury seven-fold. ...Hypocrisy, who borrows the cloke of religion ; bids her flexible muscles imitate vital piety ; attends at the sacred altars, to make a show of her fictitious devotion ; there raises her affected zeal in proportion to the number of the spectators ; calls upon God to get the praise of man ; and lifts up adulterous eyes and thievish hands to heaven, to pro- cure herself the good things of the earth... .And hy- pocrisy's sister, narrow-hearted Bigotry, who pushes from her civility and good-nature, stops her ear*
Man hard of heart to man ! Of horrid things
Most horrid ! Midst stupendous, highly strange !
Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs ;
Pride brandishes the favours he confers,
And contumelious his humanity :
What then his vengeance ? Hear it not, ye stars !
And thou pale moon ! turn paler at the sound,
Man is to man the sorest, surest ill
Heav'ns Sovereign saves all beings, but himself, That hideous sight, a naked human heart.
Younc.
Part IIL AN APPEAL, &c. 83
against arguments and entreaties ; calls huguenots, infidels, papists, or heretics, all who do not di- rectly subscribe to her absurd or impious creeds ; dogs them with a malignant eye ; throws stones or dirt at them about an empty ceremony, or an indiffer- ent opinion ; and at last, if she can, sets churches or kingdoms on fire, about a turban, a surplice, or a cowl....Perfidiousness, who puts on the looks of true benevolence, speaks the language of the warmest af- fection ; with solemn protestations invites men to de- pend on her sincerity, while she lays a deep plot for their sudden destruction ; and with repeated oaths be- seeches heaven to be witness of her artless innocence, while she moves the center of hell to accomplish her dire designs. The fatal hour is come ; her stratagem has succeeded ; and she now kisses and betrays, drinks health and poisons ; offers a friendly embrace, and gives a deadly stab.... Despair, who scorns to be be- holden to mercy, gives the lie to all the declarations is- sued from the throne of grace, obstinately turns his wild eyes from the great expiatory sacrifice ; and at last, impatient to drink the cup of trembling, wildly looks for some weapon to destroy himself.... Distrac- tion, begotten by the shocking mixture of two, or more of these infernal passions raised to the highest degree of extravagance : Distraction, that wrings her hands, tears her dishevelled hair, fixes her ghastly eyes, turns her swimming brains, quenches the last spark of reason ; and like a fierce tiger, must at last be chained by the hand of caution, and confined with iron bars in her dreary dwelling.
And to close the dismal train, Self-murder, who always points wretched mortals to ponds and rivers, or presents them with cords, razors, pistols, daggers, and poison, and perpetually urges them to the choice of one of them. " You are guilty, miserable crea- tures, whispers he : The sun of prosperity is for ever set, the deepest night of distress is come upon you : You are in a hell of w^oe : The hell prepared for sa-
84 AN APPEAL, Ife Part III.
tan, cannot be worse than that which you feel, but it may be more tolerable : Take this, and boldly force your passage out of the cursed state in which you groan." He persuades, and his desperate victims, tired of the company of their fellow-mortals, fly for refuge to that of devils : they shut their eyes ; and, horrible to say ! But how much more horrible to do ! Deliberately venture from one hell into another to seek ease ; or, to speak with more truth, leap with all the miseries of a known hell, into all the horrors of one which is unknown.
And are your hearts, O ye sons of men, the fa- rourite seats of this infernal crew ? Then shame on the wretch that made the first panegyric on the dig- nity of human nature ! He proved my point : He began in pride, and ended in distraction.
Detestable as these vices and tempers are, where is the natural man, that is always free from them ? Where is even the child ten years old, who never felt most of these vipers, upon some occasion or other, shooting their venom through his lips, darting their baleful influence through his eyes, or at least stirring and hissing in his disturbed breast ? If any one never felt them, he may be pronounced more than mortal : But if he has, his own experience furnishes him with a sensible demonstration, that he is a fallen spirit, in- fected with the poison that rages in the devil him- self.
XXI. ARGUMENT.
Bad roots, which vigorously shoot in the spring, will naturally produce their dangerous fruit in sum- mer. We may therefore go one step further, and ask, where is the man thirty years old, whose depra- vity has not broke out into the greatest variety of sin- ful acts ? among the persons of that age, who never were esteemed worse than their neighbours, shall wc
Part III. AN APPEAL, Ufc. S5
find a forehead that never betrayed daring insolence ? ....A cheek, that never indicated concealed guilt by an involuntary blush, or unnatural paleness ?....A neck, that never was stretched out in pride and vain confi- dence ?.... An eye, that never cast a disdainful, malig- nant or wanton look ?....An ear, that an evil curiosity never opened to frothy, loose ordefaming discourse ?.... A tongue, that never was tainted with unedifying, false, indecent, or uncharitable language ?....A palate, that never became the seat of luxurious indulgence ? ....A throat, that never was the channel of excess ?.... A stomach, that never felt the oppressive load of abused mercies ?.... Hands, that never plucked, or touched the forbidden fruit of pleasing sin ?....Feet, that never once moved in the broad, downward road of iniquity ?....And a bosom, that never heaved under the dreadful workings of some exorbitant passion ? Where, in short, is there a face ever so disagreeable, that never was the object of self- worship in a glass ? And where a body, however deformed, that never was set up as a favourite idol, by the fallen spirit that inhabits it ?
If iniquity tkus works by all the powers, and breaks out through all the parts of the human body ; we may conclude by woful experience, not only that the plague of sin is begun, but that it rages with uni- versal fury ; and to use again the evangelical pro- phet's words, that from the sole of the foot, even to the head of the natural man, there is no spiritual soundness in him, but wounds, and bruises, and pu- trefying sores.
XXII. ARGUMENT.
What can be said of each individual, may, with
the same propriety, be affirmed of all the different
nations of the earth. Let an impartial judge take
four unconverted men, or children, from the four parts
it
S3 AN APPEAL, &c Part III.
of the world : Let .him examine their actions, and trace them back to their spring ; and, if he 'makes some allowance for the accidental difference of their climate, constitution, taste, and education ; he will soon find their disposition as equally earthly, sensual, and devilish, as if they had all been cast in the same mould. Yes, as oak-trees are oaks all the world oveiy though by particular circumstances some grow taller and harder, and some more knotted and crooked than others : So all unregenerate men resemble one an- other ; for all are proud, self-willed, impenitent, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
Do not sloth, gluttony, drunkenness, and un- cleanness ; cheating, defrauding, stealing, and op- pression ; lying, perjury, treachery and cruelty ; stalk openly, or lurk secretly every where ? Are not all these vices predominant among black and white peo- ple, among savage and civilized nations, among Turks and Jews, heathens and christians ? whether they live- on the banks of the Ganges or the Thames, the Mis- issippi or the Seine ? Whether they starve in the snows of Lapland, or burn in the sands of Guinea ?
O Sin, thou fatal pest, thou soul -destroying plague, would to G od thy fixed abode were only in the Le- vant ! and that, like the external pestilence, thou wert chiefly connned to the Turkish dominions ! But alas : the gross immorality and profaneness, the various crimes and villanies, the desperate impiety and wild blasphemy,' under which every kingdom and city have groaned, and still continue to do night and day, over the face of the whole earth, are black spots so similar, und symptoms so equally terrible, that we are obliged to confess they must have a common internal princi- ple ; which can be no other than a bad habit of soul ; a fallen corrupted nature. Yes, the universality and equality of the effects, shew to an unprejudiced mind, that the cause is universal, and equally interwoven with the nature, which is common to all nations, and remains the same in ail countries and ages.
Part III. AN APPEAL, Wfe. 87
FIVE OBJECTIONS.
I. If the self-righteous moralist answers, that " sin and wickedness are not so universal as this argument supposes :" I reply that the more we are acquainted with ourselves, with the history of the dead, and secret transactions of the living ; the more we are convinced, that, if all are not guilty of outward enor- mities, all are deeply tainted with spiritual wicked- ness.
Even those excellent persons who, like Jeremiah, have been in part sanctified before they came forth out of the womb, can from sad experience confess with him, that the heart is deceitful above all things, and say . with David, My heart showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly.
Thousands indeed boast of the goodness of their hearts : they natter themselves that to be righteous, it is enough to avoid the gross acts of intemperance and injustice : with the pharisees they shut their eyes against the destructive nature of the love of the world, the thirst of praise, the fear of men, the love of ease, sloth, sensuality, indevotion, self-righteousness, discontent, impatience, selfishness, carnal security, unbelief, hardness of heart, and a thousand other spi- ritual evils. Full of self-ignorance, like Peter, they imagine there is no combustible matter of wickedness in their breasts, because they are not actually fired by the spark of a suitable temptation. And when they hear what their corrupt nature may one day prompt them to, they cry out with Hazael, Am I a dog, that I should do this thing ? Nevertheless, by and by they do it, if not outwardly as he did, at least in their vain thoughts by day, or wicked lewd imagi- nations by night. So true is the wise man's saying i He that trusteth his own heart is a fool.
II. " If histories give us frequent accounts of the " notorious wickedness of mankind (says the aclvo- " cates for human excellence) it is because private
B8 AN APPEAL, &c. Part III.
" virtue is not the subject of history : and to judge " of the moral rectitude of the world by the corrup- " tion of courts, is as absurd as to estimate the health " of a people from an infirmary ."
And is private vice any more the subject of his- tory than private virtue ? If it were, what folios would contain the fulsome and black accounts of all the lies and scandal, the secret grudges and open quarrels, the filthy talking and malicious jesting, the unkind or unjust behaviour, the gross or refigned intemperance, which deluge both town and country ?
Suppose the annals of any one numerous family were published, how many volumes might be filled with the detail of the undone fondness, or forbidden cold- ness ; the variance, animosity, and strife, which break out between husbands and wives, parents and chil- dren, brothers and sisters, masters and domestics, up- per and lower servants, &c. What ridiculous, imper- tinent scenes would be opened to public view ! What fretfulness, dissimulation, envy, jealousy, tale-bearing, deceit 1 What concealed suspicions, aggravated charges, false accusations, underhand dealings, ima- ginary provocations, glaring partiality, insolent beha- viour, loud passions !
Was even the best moralist to write the memoirs of his own heart, and give the public a minute ac- count of all his impertinent thoughts, and wild imagi- nations ; how many paragraphs would make him blush ! How many pages, by presenting the astonished reader with a blank or a blot, would demonstrate the truth of St. Paul's assertion, They are all gone out of the way, there is none that doeth good, none but spoils, his best works by a mixture of essential evil ! Far then from finding * " those vastly superior numbers, " who in safe obscurity are virtuously and innocently " employed," we may every where see the truth of
* See the note [mark'd * ]p. 69.
Part III. AN APPEAL, tfc. 89
the confession, which our objectors make in the church, "There is no health in us/'
I say every where, for is cabal confined to court, any more than lewdness to the army, and prophane- ness to the navy ? Does not the same spirit of self- interest and intrigue which influences the choice of ministers of state, preside also at the election of mem- bers of parliament, mayors of corporate towns, bur- gesses of boroughs, and petty officers in a country parish ? We may then, (notwithstanding the unfortu- nate comparison, on which this objection is founded) conclude without absurdity, that as all men, sooner or later, by pain, sickness, and death, evidence their na- tural weakness and mortality'; whether they live in infirmaries, palaces, or cottages : So all men, sooner or later, by their thoughts, words and actions, demon- strate their natural corruption ; whether they crowd the jail-yard, the drawing-room, or the obscure green of a country village.
III. The same objectors will probably reply :'fIf corruption is universal, it cannot be said to be equal ; for numbers lead a very harmless, and not a few a very useful life."
To this I answer, that all have naturally an evil heart of unbelief, forgetful of, and departing from the living God. In this respect, there is no difference, all the world is guilty before God. But thanks be to the Father of mercies, all do not remain so. Many cherish the seed of supernatural gra.ce, which we have from the Redeemer ; they bow to his scepter, become new creatures, depart from iniquity, aud are zealous of good works. And the same gracious power, that has renewed them, is at work upon thousands more ; hourly restraining them from much evil, and daily ex- citing them to many useful actions.
With respect to the harmlessness, for which some unrenewed persons are remarkable, it cannot spring from abetter nature than that of their fei low- mortals j for the nature of all men, like that of all wolves, H 2
90 AN APPEAL, &c. Part III.
is the same throughout the whole species. It must then be owing to the restraing grace of God, or to a happier constitution, a stricter education, a deeper sense of decency, or a greater regard for their charac- ter : perhaps only to the fear of consequences, and to the want of natural boldness, or of a suitable tempta- tion and fair opportunity to sin. Nor are there lew, who pass for temperate, merely because the diaboli- cal pride lurking in their heart, scorns to stoop so low, as to indulge their beastly appetites : While others have the undeserved reputation of good-natured, be- cause they find more deiight in quietly gratifying their sheepish indolence or brutal desires, than in yielding to the uneasy, boisterous tempers, which they have in common with devils.
As to the virtues by which some of the unconver- ted distinguish themselves from others, they either spring from God's preventing grace, or are only vices in disguise. The love of praise, the desire of honour, and the thirst of gold, excite thousands to laudable designs, and useful actions. Wicked men, set on work by these powerful springs, do lying wonders in the moral world, as the magicians did in the land of Egypt. They counterfeit divine grace, and for a time seem even to cut-do believers themselves. Hence it is, that we frequently see the indolent industrious, the coward brave, the covetous charitable, the pharisee religious, the magdalen modest, and the dastardly slave of his lusts a bold asserter of public liberty. But the searcher of hearts is not deceived by fair ap- pearances : he judges of their actions according to the motives whence they spring, and the ends for which they are performed : You are, says he to all these seemingly virtuous sinners, like wkited sephulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly ; but with- in are full of dead men's bones, and of all unclean- ness.
Were I to describe these saints of the world by a comp.uison* I would say, that some of them re-
Part III. AN APPEAL, a*. *r
semble persons, who artfully conceal their ulcers, un- der the most agreeable appearance of cleanliness and health. Many that admire their faces and looks, little suspect what a putrid, virulent fluid runs out of their secret sores. Others of them, whose hypo- crisy is not of so gross a kind, are like persons infected with a mortal disease, who though the mass of their blood is tainted, and some noble part attacked, still walk about, do business, and look as fresh-coloured as if they were the picture of health. Ye sobs of iEscu- lapius, who, without feeling their pulse, and carefully weighing every symptom, pronounce them very well upon their look alone, do ye not blunder in pnysic, just as my objectors do in divinity ?
IV. But still they urge," that u It is wrong to father our sinfulness upon a pretended natural depravity, when it may be entirely owing to the force of ill ex- ample, the influence of a bad education, or the strong ferments of youthful blood."
All these, I reply, like rich soil and rank manure, cause original corruption to shoot the higher, but do not form its pernicious seeds. That these seeds lurk within the heart, before they are forced up by the heat of temptation, appears indubitable, if we consider, (1.) That all children, on particular occasions, mani fest some early inclination to those sins, which the ieebleness of their bodily organs, and the want of pro- per ferments in their blood do not permit them to commit: (2.) That infants betray envy, ill-humour, impatience, selfishness, anger and obstinacy, even be- fore they can take particular notice of ill-examples, and understand bad counsels : And (3.) That though uncleannesS} fornication, and adultery, on account of the shame and danger attending them, are committed with so much secrecy, that the examples of them are seldom, if ever, given in public ; they are neverthe- less some of the crimes which are most universally or eagerly committed*
92 AN APPEAL, &c. Part III.
Besides, if we were not more inclined to vice than virtue, good examples would be as common, and have as much force, as bad ones. Therefore the generality of bad examples cannot arise but from the general sinfulness of man ; and to account for this general sinfulness by the generality of bad examples, is beg- ging the question, and not proving the point.
Add to this, that as weeds, since the curse, grow even in fields sown with the best wheat ; so vice since the fall, grows in the midst of the best examples, and the most excellent education : Witness the barbarous crimes committed by pious Jacob's children, and pe- nitent Adam's eldest son.
V. " But if Cain sinned, say our objectors, and all mankind sin also, it is no more than Adam himself once did by his own free choice, though he was crea- ted as exempt from original depravity as an angel. What need is there then to suppose, that he commu- nicated to his posterity an inbred proneness to sin ?"
To this I reply : It is not one accident or single event, but a continual repetition of the same event, that proves a proneness. If a man, who is perfectly in his senses, by some unforeseen accident ; falls into a fit of madness, we may account for his misfortune from that accident ; and no certain judgment can be formed of the bodily habit of his family. But if all his children, through an hundred generations, are not only subject to the same mad fits, but also die in consequence of them, in all sorts of climates, and un- der all sorts of physicians ; common sense will not allow us to doubt, that it is now a family disorder, in- curable by human art. The man is Adam, the family mankind, and the madness sin. Reader, you are de- sired to make the application.
Part III. AN APPEAL, Wc. 9 3
XXIII. ARGUMENT.
" But all are not employed in sin and wickedness, for many go through a constant round of innocent di- versions ; and these, at least, must be innocent and happy." Let us then consider the amusements of mankind : or rather, without stopping to look at the wise dance of the Israelites round the golden calf, and the modest, sober, and humane diversions of the Hea- thens, in the festivals of their lewd, drunken and bloody gods ; let us only see, how far our own plea- sures demonstrate the innocence and happiness of mankind.
How excessively foolish are the plays of children ! How full of mischief and cruelty the sports of boys * How vain, foppish and frothy the joys of young peo- ple ! And how much below the dignity of upright, pure creatures, the snares that persons of different sexes perpetually lay for each other ! When they are together, is not this their favourite amusement, till they are deservedly caught, in the net, which they im- prudently spread ? But see them asunder.
Here a circle of idle women, supping a decoction •of Indian herbs, talk or laugh all together, like so many chirping birds or chattering monkies, and scan- dal excepted, every way to as good purpose.... And there, a club of grave men blow, by the hour, clouds of stinking smoke out of their mouth, or wash it down their throat with repeated draughts of intoxicating liquors. The strong fumes have already reached their heads ; and while some stagger home, others triumphantly keep the field of excess ; though one is already stamped with the heaviness of the ox, ano- ther worked up to the fierceness and roar of the lion, and a third brought down to the filthiness of the vomit- ing dog.
Leave them at their manly sport, to follow those musical sounds, mixed with a noise of stamping : and
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you will find others profusely perspiring, and violently fatiguing themselves, in skipping up an down a room for a whole night, and ridiculously turning their backs and faces to each other an hundred different ways. Would not a man of sense prefer running ten miles upon an useful errand, to this useless manner of los- ing his rest, heating his blood, exhausting his spirits, unfitting himself for the duties of the following day, and laying the foundation of a putrid fever or a con- sumption, by breathing the midnight air corrupted by clouds of dust, by the unwholesome fumes of candles, and by the more pernicious steam, that issues from the body of many persons, who use a strong exercise in a confined place.
In the next room indeed they are mere quiet, but are they more rationally employed ? Why do they so earnestly rattle those ivory cubes ; and so anxiously study those packs of loose spotted leaves ? Is happiness graven upon the one, or stamped upon the other ? An- swer, ye gamesters, who curse your stars, as ye go home with an empty purse and a heart full of rage.
" We hope there is no harm in taking an inno- cent game at cards, reply a ridiculous party of super- annuated ladies ; gain is not our aim, we only play to kill time." You are not then so well employed as the foolish Heathen Emperor, who amused himself in kil- ling troublesome flies and wearisome time together. The delight of rational creatures, much more of Chris- tians on the brink of the grave, is to redeem, improve, and solidly enjoy time ; but yours alas ! consists in the bare, irreparable loss of that invaluable treasure. Oh, what account will you give of the souls you neg- lect, and the talents you bury 1
And what shall we kill each day ! If trifling kill, Sure vice must butcher : Oh ! what heaps of slain Call out for vengeance on us ! time destroy'd Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt.
Young.
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And are public diversions better evidences of our innocence and happiness ? Let reason decide. In cities some are lavish of the gold, which should be laid by for payment of their debts, or the relief of the poor, to buy an opportunity of acting under a mask an im- pertinent or immodest part without a blush ; and others are guilty of the same injustice or prodigality, that they may be entitled to the honour of waiting up- on a company of idle buffoons, and seeing them act what would make a modest woman blush, or hearing them speak what persons of true piety, or pure morals, would gladly pay them never to utter.
Are country amusements more rational and inno- cent ? What shall we say of those christian, or rather heathenish festivals called Wakes, annually kept in ho- nour of the saint to whom the parish -church was formerly dedicated? are they not celebrated with the idleness, vanity, and debauchery of the floralia ; with the noise, riots, and frantic mirth of the bacchanals ; rather than with the decent soiemnitv, pious cheerful- ness, and strict temperance, which characterise the religion of the holy Jesus ?
The assizes are held, the judge passes an awful sentence of transportation or death upon guilty wretches who stand pale and trembling before his tri- bunal ; and twenty couple of gay gentlemen and la- dies, as if they rejoiced in the infamy and destruction of their fellow -mortals, and dance ail night, perhaps in the very apartment, where the distracted victims of justice a few hours before wrung their hands, and rattled their irons.
The races are advertised, all the country is in motion, neither business, rain, nor storm, can prevent thousands from running for miles, and sometimes through the worst of roads, to feast their eyes upon the danger of their fellow-creatures, and divert them- selves with the misery of the most useful animals. Daring mortals hazard their necks upon swift cour- sers, which are tortured by the severest lashes of the
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whip, and incessant pricks or tearing gashes of the spur, that they may exert their utmost force, strain every nerve, and make continued efforts even beyond the powers of nature : Whence (to say nothing of fa- tal accidents, which yet alas ; too frequently happen) they sometimes pant away their wretched lives in a bath of sweat and blood ; and all this, that they may afford a barbarous pleasure to their idle, wanton, and barbarous .beholders.
In one place the inhuman sport is afforded by an unhappy bird, fixed at a distance, that the sons of cru- elty may long exercise their merciless skill, in its lin- gering and painful destruction : Or by two of them trained up, and high-fed for the battle. The hour fixed for the obstinate engagement is come : and as if it was not enough that they should pick each other's eyes out, with the strong bills, that nature has given them ; human malice, or rather diabolical cruelty > comes to the assistance of their native fierceness. Silver spurs, or steel talons, sharper than those of the eagle, are barbarously fastened to their feet ; thus armed they are excited to leap at each other, and in an hundred repeated onsets to tear their feathers and flesh as if they were contending vultures ; and if at last one blinded, covered with blood and wounds, and unable to stand any longer the metalic claws of his antagonist, enters into the agonies of death ; the nu- merous ring of stamping, clapping, shouting, eagerly- betting, or horribly cursing spectators, is as highly delighted, as if the tortured, dying creature, was the common enemy of mankind.
In another place, a multitude of spectators is de- lightfully entertained by two brawny men, who unmer- cifully knock one another down, as if they were oxen appointed for the slaughter, and continue the savage play, till one^Yvrith his flesh bruised and his bones shat- tered, bleeding and gasping as in the pangs of death, yields to his antagonist, and thus puts an end to the shocking sport.
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But it is perhaps a different spectacle, that recom- mends itselfto the bloody taste of our baptized heathens. Fierce dogs are excited by fiercer men, with fury to fasten upon the nose, or tear out the eyes, of a poor confined animal, which pierces the sky with his pain- ful and lamentable bellowings, enough to force com- passion from the heart of barbarians, not totally lost to nil sense of humanity ; whilst in the mean time the sur- rounding savage mob, rends the very heavens with the most horrid imprecations, and repeated shouts of ap- plauding joy ; sporting themselves with that very mi- sery, which human nature (were it not deplorably cor- rupted) would teach them to alleviate.*
These are thy favourite amusements, O England, thou centre of the civilized world, where reformed Christianity, deep-thinking wisdom, and polite learning, with all its refinements, have fixed their abode ! But, in the name of common sense, how can we clear them from the imputation of absurdity, folly, and madness ? And by what means can they be reconciled, I will not say to the religion of the meek Jesus, but to the philo- sophy of a Piato, or calm reason of any thinking man? How perverted must be the taste, how irrational and
* « I ever thought,' says judge Hale, in his contemplations, « that there is a certain degree of justice due from man to the crea-
* tures, as from man to man ; and that an excessive use of the crea-
* ture's labour is an injustice, for which he must account. I have « therefore always esteemed it as a part of my duty, and it has al- 1 ways been my practice to bs merciful to my beasts ; and upon
* the same account I have declined any cruelty to any of thy crea-
* tures, and, as much as I might, prevented it in others as a ty-
* ranny I have abhorred those sports that consist in the torturing
* of thy creatures ; and if any n >xious creature must be destroyed, « or creatures for food must be taken, it has been my practice to ' do it in the manner that may be with the least torture or cru-
* elty to the creature ; ever remembering, that though God has 1 given us a dominion over his creatures, yet it is under a law of •justice, prudence, and moderation: otherwise we should be-
* come tyrants and not lords over God's creatures : and therefore « those things of this nature, which others have practised as re- « creations, 1 have avoided as sins.'
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cruel the diversions of barbarians, in other pans of the globe ! And how applicable to all, the wise man's ob- servation ! " Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, and madness in the breasts of the sons of men."
XXIV. ARGUMENT.
The total corruption of our nature appears, not only in the inclination of mankind to pursue irrational, and cruel amusements ; but in their general propensity to commit the most unprofitable, ridiculous, inhuman, impious, and diabolical sins.
1st. The most unprofitable : For instance, that of sporting in prophane oaths and curses with the tre- mendous name of the Supreme Being. Because of swearing the land moarneth, said a prophet thousands pf years ago ; and what land even in Christendom, yea What parish in this reformed island mourns not, or ought not to mourn/for the same provoking crime? a crime, which is the hellish offspring of practical atheism, and heathenish insolence, a crime, that brings neither pro- fit, honour, nor pleasure to the prophane wretch who commits it, a crime for which he may be put to open shame, forced to appear before a magistrate, and sent %for ten days to the house of correction, unless he pays an ignominious fine ; and what is more awful still, a crime, which, if persisted in, will one day cause him to gnaw his impious tongue in the severest torments. Surely man, who drinks this insipid, and yet destructive iniquity like water, must have his moral taste strangely vitiated, not to say, diabolically perverted.
2 dry. The most ridiculous sins. In what country, town or village do not women betray their silly vanity ? Is it not the same foolish disposition of heart, which makes them bore their ears in Europe, and slit their noses in America, that they may unnaturally graft in their fiesh, pieces of glass, shining pebbles, glittering gold, or trinkets of meaner metal ? And when female
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Hottentots fancy they add to the importance of their filthy person, by some yards of the bloody intestines of a beast twisted round their arms or necks, do they not evidence the very spirit of the ladies in our hemisphere, who two often measure their dignity by the yards of coloured silk bands, with which they crown them- selves, and turn the grave matron into a pitiful' may- queen ?
3dly. The most inhuman sins. " An hundred thousand mad animals, whose heads are covered with hats," say Voltaire, " advanced to kill, or to be killed, by the like number of their fellow-mortals covered with turbans. By this strange procedure they want, at best, to decide whether a tract of land, to which none of them all lays any claim, shall belong to a certain man whom they call Sultan, or to another whom they name Caesar, neither of whom ever saw, or will see the spot so furiously contended for: And very few of those creatvires, who thus mutually butcher one another, ever beheld the animal for whom they cut each other's throats. From time immemorial this has been the way of mankind almost over all the earth. What an excess of madness is this 1 And how deser- vedly might a superior Being crush to atoms this earthly ball, the bloody nest of such ridiculous mur- derers 1"
The same author makes elsewhere the following reflections, on the kme melancholy subject!. " Famine, pestilence, and war, are the three most famous ingre- dients of this lower world. The two first come from God, but the last, in which all three concur, comes from the imagination of princes or ministers. A king fancies, that he has a right to a distant province. He raises a multitude of men, who have nothing to do, and nothing to lose ; gives them a red coat and a laced hat, and makes them wheel to the right, wheel to the left, and march to glory. Five or six of these bel- ligerent powers sometimes engage together, three against three, or two against four : but whatever part
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they take, they all agree in one point, which is, to do their neighbour ail possible, mischief. The most asto- nishing thing, belonging to their infernal undertaking, is, that every ring-leader of those murderers, gets his colours consecrated, and solemnly blessed in the name of God, before he marches up to the destruction of his fellow-creatures. If a chief warrior has had the good fortune of getting only two or three thousand men slaughtered, he does not think it worth his while to thank God for it : But if ten thousand have been de- stroyed by fire and sword, and if (to complete his good fortune) some capital city has been totally overthrown ; a day of public thanksgiving, is appointed on the joyful occasion. Is not that a fine art which carries such desolation through the earth : and one year with an- other, destroys forty thousand men, out of an hundred thousand !"
4thly. The most impious sins ; for instance that of idolatry ; " Before the coming of Christ," says a late divine, " all the polite and barbarous nations among the Heathens, plunged into it with equal blind- ness. And the Jews were so strongly wedded to it, that God's miraculous interposition, both by dreadful judgments and astonishing mercies, could not for eight hundred years, restrain them from committing it in the grossest manner."
Nor need we look at either Heathens or Jews, to see the proneness of mankind to that detestable crime : Christians alone can prove the charge. To this day, the greatest part of them pray to dead men and dead wo- men ; bow to images of stone, and crosses of wood ; and make, adore, and swallow down, the \v afer-god : And those, who pity them for this ridiculous idolatry, till converting grace interposes, daily set up their idols in their hearts, and without going to the plain of Dura, sacrificee 11 to the king's golden image.
And 5thly. The most diabolical sin : Persecution, that favourite offspring of Satan transformed into an smgel of light. Persecution, that bloody, hypocritical
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monster, which carries a bible, a liturgy, and a bundle of canons in one hand ; with fire, faggots, and all the weapons invented by cruelty in the other ; and with sanctified looks, distresses, racks, or murders men, ei- ther because they love God, or because they cannot all think alike.
Time would fail to tell of those, who, on religious ac- counts, have been stoned and sawn asunder by the Jews, cast to the lions and burnt by the Heathens, strangled and impaled by the Mahometans, and butchered all manner of ways by the Christians.
Yes, we must confess it, Christian Rome hath glut- ted herself with the blood of martyrs, which Heathen- ish Rome had but comparatively tasted : and when Protestants fled from her bloody pale, they brought along with them too much of her bloody spirit : Prove the sad assertion, poor Servetus : When Romish in- quisition had forced thee to fly to Geneva, what recep* tion didst thou meet with in that reformed city ? Alas ! the Papists had burned thee in effigy, the Protestants burned thee in reality, and Molock triumphed to see the two opposite parties, agree in offering him the hu- man sacrifice.
So universally restless is the spirit of persecution, which, inspires the unrenewed part of mankind, that when people of the same religion have no outward op- poser to tear, they bark at, bite, and devour one ano- ther. Is it not the same bitter zeal, that made the Pharisees and Sadduces among the Jews, and now makes the sects of Ali and Omar among the Maho- metans, those of the Jansenists and Molinists among the Papists, and those of the Calvinists and Arminians among the Protestants, oppose each other with such accrimony and virulence ?
But let us look around us at home : When perse- cuting Popery had almost expired in the fires, in which it burned our first church-men, how soon did those who survived them commence persecutors of the Presbyterians ? When these, forced to fly to New- i 2
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England for rest, got there the staff of power in their hand, did they not in their turn fall upon, and even hang the Quakers ? And now that an act of toleration binds the monster, and the lash of pens consecrated to the defence of our civil and religious liberties, makes him either afraid or ashamed of roaring aloud for his prey ; does he not shew, by his supercilious looks ma- licious sneers, and settled contempt of vital piety, what he would do should an opportunity offer ? And does he not still, under artful pretences, go to the utmost length of his chain, to wound the reputation of those, whom he cannot devour, and inflict at least * acade- mic death upon those whose person is happily secured from his rage ?
O ye unconverted among mankind, if all these abominations every where break out upon you ; what cages of unclean birds, what nests swarming with cruet vipers, are your deceitful and desperately wicked hearts !
XXV. ARGUMENT.
How dreadfully fallen is man, if he has not only a propensity to commit the above-mentioned sins, but to transgress the divine commands with a variety of shocking aggravations ! Yes, mankind are prone to sin :
I. Immediately, by a kind of evil instinct : as chil- dren, who peevishly strike the very breast they suck ; and betray the rage of their little hearts, by sobbing and swelling, sometimes till, by forcing their bowels out of their place, they bring a rupture, upon themselves ; and frequently till they are black in the face, and al- most suffocated. ...II. Deliberately, as those, who hav- ing life and death clearly set before them, wilfully, ob- stinately chuse the way that leads to certain destruc-
* ?ce Pietas Oxoniensi*.
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tion....III. Repeatedly, witness liars, who, because their crime costs them but a breath, frequently commit it at every breath.... IV. Continually, as rakes, who would make their whole life one uninterrupted scene of de- bauchery, if their exhausted strength, or purse, did not force them to intermit their lewd practices ; though not without a promise to renew them again, at the first convenient opportunity.... V. Treacherously, as those Christians, who forget divine mercies, and their own repeated resolutions, break through the solemn vows and promises made in their sacraments, and sin- ning with an high hand against their profession perfi- diously fly in the face of their conscience, the church, and their Saviour.... VI. Daringly, as those who steal under the gallows, openly insult theirparents or their king, laugh at all laws human and divine, and put to defiance all that are invested with power to see them executed.. ..VII. Triumphantly, as the vast number of those, who glory in their shame, sound aloud the trum- pet of their own wickedness, and boast of their horrid, repeated debaucheries, as admirable, and praise-wor- thy deeds.... VIII. Progressively, till they have filled up the measure of their iniquities, as individuals; witness Judas, who from covetousness, proceeded to hypoc- risy, theft, treason, despair and self-murder : Or, as a nation ; witness the Jews, who after despising and kil- ling their prophets, rejected the Son of God; affirmed he was mad; stigmatized him with the name of De- ceiver ; said he was Beelzebub himself ; offered him all manner of indiginities ; bought his blood ; prayed it might be on them, and their children : rested not, till they had put the Prince of Life to the most ignomi- nious death ; and horrible to say ! made sport with the groans, which rent the rocks around them, and threw the earth into convulsions under their feet. ...IX. Unna- turally : (1.) By astonishing barbarities ; as the wo- men, who murder their own children ; the Greeks and Romans, who exposed them to be the living prey of wild beasts : the savages, who knock their aged parents,
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on the head ; the Cannibals, who roast and eat their pri- soners of war; and some revengeful people, who, to taste all the sweetness of their devilish passion, have mur- dered their enemy, and eaten up his liver and heart. (2.) By the most diabolical superstitions : As the Israelites, who, when they had learned the works of the Heathens, sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils ; and by the horrible practices of witchcraft, endeavoured to raise, and deal with infernal spirits: And (3.) by the most preposterous gratification of sense : Witness the incests *and rapes committed in this land : the infa- mous fires, which drew fire and brimstone down from heaven upon accursed cities ; and the horrid lusts of the Canaanites, though alas ! not confined to Canaan ; which gave birth to the laws recorded, Lev. xviii. 7, 33. and xx. 16.f Laws that are at once the disgrace of mankind, and the proof of my assertion.... X. What is most astonishing of all, by Apostacy : As those, who having begun in the spirit, and tasted the bitterness of repentance, the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, make shipwreck of the faith, deny the Lord that bought them, account the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing : and so scandalously end in the flesh, that they are justly compared to trees withered, plucked by the roots, twice dead, and to raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
* The reason, which engaged the publisher of these sheets, to preach to some of the colliers in his neighbourhood, was the hor- rid length they went in immorality. One of them, whose father was hanged, upon returning himself from transportation, in cool blood attempted to ravish his own daughter in the presence of his own wife, and was just prevented from compleating his crime, by the utmost exertion of the united strength of the mother and the child. When brutish ignorance, and heathenish wickedness break eutinto such unnatural enormities, who would not break through the hedge of canonical regularity ?
f In the la6t century, an Irish Bishop was clearly convicted of the crime forbidden ip tho&e law*, and suffered death for k.
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Good God ! what line can fathom an abyss of cor- ruption, the overflowings of which are more or less at- tended with these multiplied and shocking aggrava- tions r
XXVI. ARGUMENT.
If the force of a torrent may be known by the height and number of the banks, which it overflows ; the strength of this corruption will be rightly estimated from the high, and numerous dikes raised to stem it, which it nevertheless continually breaks through.
Ignorance and debauchery, injustice and impiety, in all their shapes, still overspread the whole earth : notwithstanding innumerable means used in all ages to suppress and prevent them.
The almost total extirpation of mankind by the deluge, the fiery showers that consumed Sodom, the ten Egyptian plagues, the entire excision of whole na- tions who were once famous for their wickedness, the captivities of the Jews, the destruction of thousands of cities and kingdoms, and millions of more private judg- ments, never fully stopped immorality in any one country.
The striking miracles wrought by prophets, the alarming sermons preached by divines, the infinite number of good books published in almost all lan- guages, and the founding of myriads of churches, reli- gious houses, schools, colleges and universities, have not yet caused impiety to hide its brazen face any where. The' making of all sorts of excellent laws, the appointing of magistrates and judges to put them in force, the forming of associations for the reformation of manners, the filling of thousands of prisons, and erecting of millions of racks and gallows, have not yet suppressed one vice.
And what is most amazing of all, the life, mira- cles, sufferings, death, and heavenly doctrine of the
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Son of God ; the labours, writings, and martyrdom of his disciples ; the example, and intreaties of millions that have lived and died in the faith ; the inexpressible horrors and frightful warnings of thousands of wicked men, who have testified in their last moments, that they had worked out their damnation, and were just going to their own place ; the blood of myriads of martyrs, the strivings of the Holy Spirit, the dreadful curses of the law, and the glorious promises of the gos- pel....All these means together, have not extirpated immorality and prophaneness, out of one single town or village in all the world ; no, nor out of one single fa- mily for any length of time. And this will probably continue to be the desperate case of mankind, till the Lord lays to his powerful hand ; seconds these means by the continued strokes of the sword of his Spirit ; pleads by fire and sword with all flesh ; and according to his promise, causes righteousness to cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea.
Is not this a demonstration founded on matter of feet, that human corruption is not only deep as the ocean ; but impetuous as an overflowing river, which breaks down all its banks, and Jeaves marks of devas- tation in every place ? This will still appear in a clear- er light, if we consider the strong opposition, which our natural depravity makes to divine grace in the uncon- verted.
XXVIL ARGUMENT.
When the Lord, by the rod of affliction, the sword of the spirit, and the power of his grace, attacks the hard heart of a sinner ; how obstinately does he resist the sharp, though gracious operation ! To make an honourable and vigorous defence, he puts on the shin- ing robes of his formality ; he stands firm in the boast- ed armour of his moral powers ; he daubs with untem- pered mortar the ruinous wall of hi* conduct ; with
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self-righteous resolutions, and pharisaic professions of virtue, he builds as he thinks, an impregnable tower ; musters and draws up in battle array his poor works, artfully putting in the front those that make the finest appearance, and carefully concealing the vices, which he can neither disguise, nor dress up in the regimen- tals of virtue.
In the mean time he prepares the carnal weapons of his warfare, and raises the battery of a multitude of objections to silence the truth that begins to gall him. He affirms, " the preachers of it are deceivers and mad men ;" till he sees the Jews and Heathens fixed even upon Christ and St. Paul the very same approbrious names : He calls it a " new doctrine f* till he is obliged to acknowledge that it is as old as the Reformers, the Apostles, and the Prophets : He says " it is fancy, de- lusion, enthusiasm ;" till the blessed effects of it, on true believers, constrain him to drop the trite and slanderous assertion : He declares, that " it drives peo- ple out of their senses, or makes them melancholy," till he is compelled to confess, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that none are so happy and joyful, as those who truly love, and zeal- ously serve God : He urges, that " it destroys good works;" till a sight of the readiness of believers, and of his own backwardness, to perform them, makes him ashamed of the groundless accusation : He will tell you twenty times over, " there is no need of so much ado ;" till he discovers the folly of being careless on the brink of eternal ruin, and observes that the nearness of temporal danger puts him upon the utmost exertion of all his powers. Perhaps, to get himself a name among his prophane companions, he lampoons the scriptures, or casts out firebrands and arrows against the despised disciples of Jesus, "they are all poor illite- rate," says he, " fools or knaves, cheats and hypo- crites," Sec. Sec. till the word of God stops his mouth, and he sees himself the greatest hypocrite, with whom lie is acquainted.
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When by such heavy charges, he has long kept off the truth from his heart, and the servants of God from his company, this kind of ammunition begins to fail ; and he barricades himself with the fear of being undone in his circumstances, till experience convinces him, that no good thing shall God with-hold from them that live a godly life, and that all things shall be added to them, who seek first the kingdom of God. He then hides himself in the crowd of the ungodly, and says, " if he perishes, many will share the same fate ;" till he sees the glaring absurdity of going to hell for the ^ake of company. He shelters at last under the pro- tection of the rich, the great, the learned despisers of Christ and the cross ; till the mines of their wickedness springing on all sides around him, makes him fly to the sanctuary of the Lord ; and there he sees the ways and understands the end of these men.
When all his batteries are silenced, and a breach is made in his conscience, he looks out for some secret way to leave Sodom, without being taken notice of, and derided by those who fight under Satan's banner; and the fear of being taken for one of them that fly from the wrath to come, and openly take the part of an holy God against a sinful world, pierces him through with many sorrows.
Are the outworks taken, has he been forced to part with his gross immoralities, he has generally recourse to a variety of stratagems : Sometimes he publicly dismisses Satan's garrison, fleshly lusts which war against the godly, and keep under the ungodly soul ; but it is only to let them in again secretly, either one by one, or with forces seven times greater, so thathis last state is worse than the first. At other times he hoists up the white flag of truth, apparently yields to conviction, favours the ministers of the gospel, admits the language of Canaan, and warmly contends for evangelic a doctrines : But alas : the place has not surrendered, his heart is not given up to God : spi- ritual wickedness, under fair shows of zeal, still keeps
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possession for the God of this world ; and the shrewd hypocrite artfully imitates the behaviour of a true Israelite, just as Satan transforms himself to an angel of light.
Is he at last deeply convinced, that the only mean of escaping destruction, and capitulating to advantage, is to deliver up the traitor Sin ? Yet what a long par- ley does he hold about it I What a multitude of plausi- ble reasons does he advance to put it off from day to day ! " He is yet young. ...The Lord is merciful.. ..All " have their foibles. ...We are here in an imperfect " state. ...It is a little sin.. ..It may be consistant with " loyalty to God.. ..It hurts nobody but himself.... " Many pious men were once guilty of it.... By and by " he will repent as they did, See. &c." When louder summons and increasing fears, compel him to renounce the lusts of the flesh, how strongly does he plead for those of the mind ! And after he has given up his bo- som-sin with his lips, how treacherously does he hide it in the inmost recesses of his heart.
Never did a besieged town dispute the ground with such obstinacy, and hold out by such a variety of stratagems, as corrupt man stands it out against the repeated attacks of truth and grace. If he yields at all, it is seldom before he is brought to the greatest extremity. He feeds on the dust of the earth ; he tries to fill his soul with the husks of vanity ; and fares hard on sounds, names, forms, opinions, withered ex- perience, dry notions of faith, and empty professions of hope, and fawning shows of love, till the mighty- famine arises, and the intolerable want of substantial bread, forces him to surrender at discretion, and with- out reserve.
Some stand it out thus, against the God of their sal- vation, ten or twenty years ; and others never yield, till the terrors of death storm their affrighted souls, their last sickness batters down their tortured bodies, and the poison of the arrows of the Almighty drinks up
K
1 10 AN APPEAL, &c Paet III.
their wasted spirits. What a strong proof is this, of the inveteracy, and the obstinacy of our corrupt tion I
XXVIII. ARGUMENT.
But a still stronger may be drawn, from the amazing- struggles of God's children with their depravity : even after they have, through grace, powerfully sub- dued, and gloriously triumphed over it. Their Re- deemer himself is the Captain of their salvation : They are imbarked with him and bound for heaven : They look at the compass of God's word : They hold the rudder of sincerity : They croud all the sails of their good resolutions, and pious affections, to catch the gales of divine assistance : They exhort one ano- ther daily, to ply the oars of faith and prayer with watchful iudustry : tears of deep repentance and fer- vent desire, often bedew their faces in the pious toil : they would rather die than draw back to perdition : but alas : the stream of corruption is so impetuous, that it often prevents their making any sensible pro- gress in their spiritual voyage : and if in an unguarded hour, they drop the oar, and faint in the work of faith, the patience of hope, or the labour of love, they are presently carried down into the dead sea of religious for- mality, or the whirlpools of scandalous wickedness. Witness the lukewarmness of the Laodiceans, the adul- tery of David, the perjury of Peter, the final apostacy of Judas, and the shameful flight of all the disciples.
XXIX. ARGUMENT.
When evidences of the most opposite interest, agree in their deposition of a matter of fact, its triiUi is greatly corroborated, To the last argument,
Part III. AN APPEAL, tfc. 1 1 1
taken from some sad experiences of God's people, I shall therefore add one drawn from the religious rites of paganism, the confessions of ancient heathens, and the testimony of modern deists.
When the heathens made their temples stream with the blood of slaughtered hecatombs, did they not often explicitly deprecate the wrath of heaven and im- pending destruction ? and was it not a sense of their guilt and danger ; and an hope, that the punishment they deserved, might be transferred to their bleeding victims, which gave birth to their numerous, expiatory and propitiatory sacrifices ? If this must be granted, it is plain, those sacrifices were so many proofs, that the considerate Heathens were no utter strangers to their corruption and danger.
But let them speak their own sentiments. Not to mention their allegorical fables of Prometheus, who brought a curse upon earth by stealing fire out of hea- ven ; and of Pandora, whose fatal curiosity let all sorts of woes and deseases loose upon mankind : Does not Ovid in his Metamorphoses give a striking account of the fall, and its dreadful consequences ? Read his description of the golden age, and you See Adam in Paradise ; proceed to the iron age, and you behold the horrid picture of our consummate wickedness.
If the ancients had no idea of that native propensity to evil which we call original depravity : what did Plato mean by our *Natural wickedness ? And Pythagoras by fThe fatal companion, the noxious strife that lurks with- in us, and was born along with us ? Didnot Solon take for his motto the well known saying, which, though so much neglected now, was formerly written in golden capitals
* Kahia en pbusei. Hence that excellent definition of tru* religion Tberapeia patches The cure of a diseased soul.
< f Euroe^ar tunopsados eris bhptouna lelet'.^u Sumpbtu. Aur. Carta.
m AN APPEAL, &c. Part III.
over the door of Apollo's temple at Delphos,* [Know thy- self ? Are we not informed by Heathen Historians that Socrates, the Prince of the Greek Sages, acknowledg- ed he was naturally prone to the grossest vices ? Does not Seneca,, the best of the Roman philosophers, ob- serve, fWe are born in such a condition, that we are not subject to fewer disorders of the mind than of the body ? Yea that JA11 vices are in all men, though they <io not break out in every one : and that, §To confess them is the beginning of our cure ? and had not Cicero lamented before Seneca, that men are brought into life by nature as a step-mother, with a naked, frail, and infirm body ; and a soul prone to divers lusts I
Even some of the sprightliest poets bear their testimony to the mournful truth I contend for. Pro- pertius could say, **every body has a vice, to which he is inclined by nature. Horace declared, that ttNo man is born free from vices, and that he is the best man who is oppressed with the least.. ..That J J Mankind rush into wickedness, and always desire what is forbidden.... That §§youth hath the softness of wax to receive vicious impressions and the hardness of a rock to resist virtuous admonitions. ...In a word : that we are mad enough to attack heaven itself, and that our repeated crimes do suffer God of heaven to lay by his wrathful thunder- bolts.^
* Onotbi scautorr.
f Hac conditione nati sumus . Animalia obnoxia non paucio* ribus animi quam corporis morbisi
\ Omnia in omnibus vitia sunt, sed non omnia in singulis extant.
§ Vitia sua confiteri sanitatis principium est- ' ** Unicuique dedit vitium natura creato. tt Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur, optimus ille est, Qui minimis urgetur. ft Gens humanaruit per vetitum nefas,
Nitimurin vetitum semper cupimus que negata- , §§ Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper. ^ Caelum ipsum petimus stultitia ; neque Per nostrum patimur scclus Iracunda Jovem ponere Culmina.
Part III. AN APPEAL, &c. 1 13
And Juvenal, as if he had understood what St. Paul says of the carnal mind, affirms that * Naturr unchangeably fixt, tends, yea runs back to wickedness? as bodies to their centre.
Thus the very depositions of the Heathens, in their lucid intervals, as well as their sacrifices, prove the depravity and danger of mankind. And so does likewise the testimony of some of our modern, deisti- cal philosophers.
The ingenious author of a book, called Philosophi- cal Enquiries concerning the Americans, informs us, it is a custom among some Indians that as soon as the wife is delivered of a child, the husband must take to his bed, where he is waited on by the poor woman, who should have been brought there ; and that to this day, the same ridiculous custom prevails in some parts of France. " From this and other instances," says our Enquirer, " we may collect, that however men may differ in other points, there is a most striking confor- mity among them in absurdity"
The same philosopher, who is by no means tainted, with what some persons are pleased to call enthusi- asm, confirms the doctrine of our natural depravity by the following anecdote, and the ironical observation with which it is closed. The Eskimaux (the wildest and most sottish people in all America) call them- selves men, and all other nations barbarians. " Hu- man vanity, we see, thrives equally well in all climates ; in Labrador as in Asia. Beneficent nature has dealt out as much of this comfortable quality to a Green- lander, as to the most consummate French pettit maitre."
The following testimony is so much the more strik- ing, as it comes from one of the greatest poets, philo- sophers, and deists, of this present free-thinking age.
* Ad mores natura recurrit Damnatos, fixa et mutari nescia. K 3
1 14 AN APPEAL, bfr. Part III.
1 Who can without horror, consider the whole earth as 4 the Empire of destruction ! It abounds in wonders, 4 it abounds also in victims ; it is a vast field of carnage 4 and contagion. Every species is, without pity, pur-
* sued and torn to pieces through the earth, and air,
* and water. In man there is more wretchedness,
* than in all other animals put together : he smarts 4 continually under two scourges, which other animals
* never feel ; anxiety, and a listlessness in appetence, 4 which make him weary of himself. He loves life, 4 and yet he knows that he must die. If he enjoys 4 some transient good, for which he is thankful to hea-
* ven, he suffers various evils, and is at last devoured
* by worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative : 4 Other animals have it not. He feels it every mo- 1 ment, rankling and corroding in his breast. Yet he 4 spends the transient moment of his existence, in dif- 1 fusing the misery that he suffers ; in cutting the 4 throats of his fellow-creatures for pay ; in cheating 4 and being cheated, in robbing and being robbed, in 4 serving that he may command, and in repenting of all
* that he does. The bulk of mankind are nothing i more than a crowd of wretches, equally criminal and 4 unfortunate, and the globe contains- rather carcasses 4 than men. I tremble, upon a review of this dreadful 4 picture, to find that it implies a complaint against 4 providence, and I wish that I had never been born.' Voliairt^a Gos/iel of the Day.*
* Wild error is often the guide, and glaring contradiction the badge, both of those, who reject revelation, like Voltaire ; and of those, who indirectly set aside one half of it, like the pharisees and antinomians around us See a striking proof of it. This very author, in another book, (O ! sec what antichrLtian morality comes to !) represents the horrible sin of Sodom as ah excusable mistake of nature, and assures us, that "At the worst of times, there is at most upon earth, one man in a thousand that can be called v< icked." Now for the proof ! " Hardly dowe see one of those t nor- mous crimes, that shock human nature, committed in ten years ;t F ome, Pari?, or London , those cities where the thirst of gaint which i> the pvau of all crimes, is carried to the highest piuh....Ii men
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XXX. ARGUMENT.
And yet, O strange infatuation ! vain man will be wise, and wicked man pretends to be righteous ! Far from repenting in the dust ; he pleads his innocence, and claims the rewards