Richard Hurd

“ Neither precept, nor example, moves him, who calls himself a man of honour, and is the slave of fashion. He has command enough of himself to assume an air of tranquillity, and to observe all the forms of good-breeding. But his hate is rancorous, his resentment hot as hell, his revenge, immortal. Let his pretences be what they will, his conduct cries aloud to all the world, “I renounce the Gospel, I am ashamed of the meek and merciful religion of Jesus.” ”

“ Consider, if there be one exception in all those whom the world most approves and admires: Consider, if there be not evident symptoms of this vanity in every single writer or speaker, that has undertaken to instruct or reform mankind. I deny not, that many of these have been persons of great modesty and distinguished virtue: Yet they never lose sight of their own mental accomplishments; they never forget, under some shape or other, in this respect, to preach themselves. Even He, who now so freely censures this infirmity in others, is, perhaps, at the instant, an example of it, himself. ”

“ When we know, in fact, what the method of God’s dealing with mankind has been, in any instance, we may be able perhaps to discern good reasons for it. But we can seldom affirm with any shew of reason, from any preconceptions or general speculations of our own, what it should or must be. Here we are manifestly out of our depth, and cannot stir a step without the hazard of absurdity or impiety.
If we have reason to admit the divine authority of our Religion, whatever conduct it ascribes to Jesus, must be fit and right, however impenetrable to us. ”

“ Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh; justified in the spirit; seen of Angels; preached to the Gentiles; believed on in the world; received up into glory.
The inspired writers, sometimes, dilate on the articles of the Christian religion; pursue them separately, and at length, for the fuller and more distinct information of the faithful. Sometimes, again, they give them to us, as it were, in clusters: they accumulate their awful doctrines and discoveries, to strike and astonish the mind with their united force. ”

“ But to all this it be said, “that the doctrine, here laid down, as scriptural, is strange and incredible; that it makes the virtue and happiness of men depend on others, and not themselves; that it supposes a power, adverse to the great Creator and Governor, and able, on many occasions, to prevail against him, which, degrades both his sovereignty and his wisdom; and that, above all, it represents weak simple men as exposed to the practices of great and subtle tempters, which overturn all our ideas of the divine justice and goodness.” ”

“ For, though eternal life be promised to favoured man in the Gospel, it is there promised to him, not as a debt, but as a free gift; and that, not in consideration of his good works, but of his faith in Jesus.
See then, to what the hopes of nature, the conclusions of reason and philosophy, amount, on this interesting subject. We are in the hands of an all-wise and all-righteous God, and are undone without his favour. Yet how that favour is to be obtained, we know not; or, if we do know, we are unable of ourselves to obtain it in the degree, we wish, and to the ends, for which we aspire to it. ”

“ Should our virtues merit no more than some abatement of future misery, so justly due to our innumerable ill deserts, how sad a prospect have we before us? or, if they do but free us from punishment, what man is so abject as not to shudder at the thought of extinction or insensibility? or, lastly, if they supply some faint hope of future reward, what generous man but wishes more to himself, than a slight, a precarious, and short-lived happiness ”

“ Still I agree to make a further concession to the pride of Virtue. Let the moral qualities of some men be so excellent, and the tenour of their lives so pure, as to entitle them to a positive reward from the great searcher of hearts and inspector of human actions: would not the daily blessings of this life be a suitable recompense for such desert; would not health, and prosperity, and reputation, and peace of mind, be an adequate return for their best services? ”

“ Or, have we a right to conclude that God, who sees through all the prevarication and duplicity of our hearts, must accept such repentance, on our profession of it? Let what virtue there will be in repentance, when seen by the unerring eye of God to be true and unfeigned, how shall man reckon on the efficacy of it, when he may so easily mistake, and cannot certainly know the real worth and character of what he calls repentance? ”

“ But the PLACE is unfit; and thou wilt send for Paul to confer in private with thee.
Wast thou then afraid to expose thy honour by this step? And did it seem too much to give to God and truth, the glory of thy conversion? True penitence knows nothing of these punctilios. The example had edified thy unbelieving court; and might have had its effect on the insensible Drusilla. Thy injustice and incontinence had been open to all men. Was it not fit thou shouldst atone for this scandal by as public a reformation? Yet still thy pretence is, a convenient season! ”

“ Do they not pervert, corrupt, destroy multitudes every day; and are not the weak and simple permitted to fall into the snares of the wise and crafty? Do not these things evidently take place in our world, and is it thought any derogation from the attributes of God that they should be allowed to do so? Are not men, too oft, a sort of devils to each other, and can we wonder that vice and misery are much in the power of such agents? ”

“ Is it credible that men, so attached, as they were, to their own laws and customs, should demand, or accept a sign, in such a juncture? Could all Paul’s miracles justify him, in their opinion, for not walking after their customs [332] ? Or, would a sign from heaven, of how transcendant a nature soever, have absolved Jesus in their apprehension, from a crime, so palpably proved upon him? ”

“ But the dignity of our character is concerned in keeping a strict hand over our inclinations of every sort: and, if it were only for an exercise of self-government, it would be worth the while to moderate, that is, frequently to suspend, the use of a favourite, though innocent gratification. To be enslaved by vicious habits, is the ignominy of a little mind: to be superior to all, is the glory of a great one. ”

“ These interpreters, I know, pretend (and many of them, I dare say, with good faith) a zeal for the honour of God, in their attempts of this nature. But let them look deep into themselves. They will, perhaps, find, that they are paying, at the same time, a secret homage to their own understandings, as if the whole of God’s moral government lay open to their view, and they were able to pervade every part of it; that they hold a revelation in no esteem, which puzzles their philosophy ”

“ There are, certainly, few persons, at least in civilized life, of so base a temper, as to insult others, and much less to insult them the more, for their gentle inoffensive manners. Or, if such monsters there be, they will soon become detestable in society; while the objects of their unprovoked fury find an asylum in the general good-will and favour of mankind.
They, therefore, who pretend that the world cannot be kept in order, but by resentment and revenge, will do well to make trial of the opposite conduct, before they have recourse to so boisterous a remedy. ”

“ Some, bolder than the rest, would expunge whole chapters, nay books, from the sacred canon, when the narrative rises above their faith, or the doctrine will not sink to a level with their wisdom; others content themselves with nibbling at single sentences, or, perhaps, words; and, if no obscure manuscript be at hand to favour the system they adopt, take refuge in a forced, unnatural punctuation. How many ancient and modern heresies have we seen supported by that presumptuous, or this minute strain of criticism! ”

“ Nay, we expose ourselves to needless temptation, even in the midst of these lawful pleasures; and we bring no power with us, hardly the inclination, to withstand it. The present scene distracts the mind, and fascinates the senses. And, in this delirium of the whole man, without God in his thought, or heaven in his eye, what wonder if he become the sport, and, almost before he is aware, the victim of every passion! ”

“ For, in withdrawing his claim of being the Messiah, the King of Israel, he must have owned himself an impostor; in asserting it, at this time, clearly and openly, he would have given his enemies a pretence for treating him, as a criminal of state; an imputation which could not consist with the truth or dignity of his mission. He came into the world to suffer death, indeed; but not as convicted of any crime, not as colourably condemned by any legal sentence. His innocence was to be conspicuous, and his honour unimpaired [130] . ”

“ If men would take their ideas of this divine teacher immediately from his own doctrines, and not as they are misrepresented, or at best imperfectly represented by the glosses of others, they would come, of themselves, to this important conclusion: if they would make the Gospel their serious study, and not their casual amusement, they would want no monitor to let them into the merits, or the use of it. They would more than see, they would feel the spirit, with which Jesus spake; and they would readily offer to him, not their barren applause, but their sincere obedience. ”

“ After all, in contemplation of that infinite mercy which surrounds the throne of God, and of the infirmity incident to frail man, I am willing to suppose (as it is our common interest to do) that repentance, at all times, and how oft soever renewed, is a ground, on which he may reasonably build fair hopes and chearful expectations. To repent, is always the best thing we can do: It is always a conduct right in itself; and, as such, is intitled, we will say, on the principles of natural religion, to the divine acceptance. ”

“ From that suspicious, and this delirious state of the human mind, infidelity sprung up, and on either stock it still grows. “We have been deceived in many things, with regard to this religion; therefore in every thing.” “We know much; therefore we are capable of knowing all things.”—These, as extravagant as they appear, are the two sophisms, into which all modern free-thinking is to be resolved. ”

“ However, soften it to ourselves, as we will, under any fashionable denomination, the spirit must be cured of this vice, or the promises of the Gospel are lost upon us. And the proper remedy is but one. We must resolve, at all events, to acquire the contrary habit of consideration. We must meditate much and often on what we believe: we must force our minds to dwell upon it: we must converse more with ourselves, how bad company soever we take that to be, and less with the world, which so easily dissipates our thoughts, and oversets our best resolutions. ”

“ Could any man in his senses pretend, even to himself, that a Virtue of sixty or seventy years, though ever so perfect, ever92 so constant, deserved immortal life in bliss and glory? Incredible: impossible: the merit and the recompense are too widely disjoined, the disproportion between them is too vast, to give the least colour of reason to such expectations. A Saint, or a Martyr, has no claim of right to so immense a reward, so transcendant a felicity. ”

“ In all views, then, whether we consider the matter, the authority, the wisdom, or the effect of Christ’s discourses, we must needs be convinced that the text is amply verified, and that never man spake like this man.
To conclude: I have not amused you, in this discourse, with vain declamation. I am not solicitous to establish the credit of Jesus, as a consummate orator. My views are other and far higher. I would convince you, by a reference to plain facts, that he was more than man; that he spake by the unerring spirit of God; that his word demands not your praise, but your adoration. ”

“ Christianity, if it be indeed divine, will bear the strictest examination; and it is the prerogative of our protestant profession to support itself on the footing of free inquiry. The way of argument is so far from being hurtful to the cause of revelation, that it is, in truth, the basis and foundation of it. We dishonour, we affront our holy faith, if we believe it hath, or can have any other. ”

“ Nay, there are many instances, in history, and common life, of prodigious, almost unimaginable wickedness, strangely conceived and executed, which, if they do not prove this doctrine, in the way of sensible experience, perfectly fall in, and harmonize with it. It seems, as if the soul of some men were demoniacal, as the bodies of others have been. Let me appeal to yourselves. ”