Part 2

Solomon describes its nature, when he demands, in the name of Jehovah, "My son, give me thy _heart_." Prov. xxiii. 26. So does St. Paul, who says, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink," does not consist in outward things, "but is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Rom. xiv. 17. And again, when endeavouring to undeceive the Jews, who were blind on this very point, he says, "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew who is one _inwardly_, and circumcision is that of the _heart_, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God." Rom. ii. 28, 29. Forms may be excellent; the means of grace are necessary, and of divine institution. They are however but means, and operate, through the blessing of God, as the transparent medium does, which admits the light of the sun into a place of worship. But he who rests in them, and supposes a regular attendance upon them to be the whole of what is required in religious homage, thinks and acts as absurdly as a man, who, trusting to a transparent medium still to give him light, after the sun had quitted the horizon and ceased to illuminate the hemisphere, should find himself involved in the darkness of night. A sad but true emblem of the situation of the sinner, whose heart is not given up to God and changed by his grace; who sits down contented with the formalities of religion, though in the "region and shadow of death," till death dissolves the delusion, and consigns him to the blackness of darkness for ever.

When we say that religion is the religion of the heart, we mean to extend our description of its nature far beyond outward form, or mere moral decency. Religion includes morality, but it comprehends _much more_. A sinner may be outwardly moral, and inwardly immoral, as the pharisees were, full of self-righteousness, pride, love of the world, and hypocrisy. The civilization produced by morality alone, is like the whiting of a sepulchre, which is full of rottenness _within_. Our Lord's advice to such characters among the Jews, was, "cleanse _first_ that which is WITHIN." The essential characteristics of the religion of the heart, are _faith_, _humility_, and _love_: the first of these graces, leading the renewed sinner to eye nothing for the justification of his person before God, or the peace of his conscience, but the complete work of Jesus finished on the cross; the second, making him abhor himself and repent as in dust and ashes; and the third, prompting him to love, with a supreme and ardent affection, that gracious God, who hath loved him in his Son; and to whom, from that sacred and noble principle, he wishes heart and life to be solemnly and unreservedly consecrated. But, in the religion of a mere moralist, these three graces make no constituent part. _His_ faith is dead, being made up of speculation, and some general notions, without any regard to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. His humility, if he pretend to any, is feigned, or consists in condescending to let the Redeemer have a _share_ in the honour of his salvation. And his love, having no gospel root, is servile, or imaginary, or absolutely false, not springing from a sense of the pure love of God to sinners in his crucified Son. In short, he has every thing of religion but its essence. And, wanting that, nothing remains in his possession to boast of, but the shadow, and the form; whereas, religion itself is a sacred flame kindled at the cross of Christ; which, while contemplating the love that bound him there, has, like the living creatures in St. John's vision, Rev. iv. "eyes within," to view with sorrow the fallen and guilty nature, which requires his blood to cleanse it, and his love to conquer. A sight that softens the heart, and diffuses throughout all its powers a sense of the love of God, the strongest incentive to gratitude and obedience. Hence, a celebrated Christian poet of our own says,

"Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding love! Thou Maker of new morals to mankind! The grand morality is love of thee!"

4. In describing the _influence_ of religion, we mean not to extend it so far as to suppose it extirpates every vestige of the fall, or destroys all the relicks of human frailty. It is not the religion of angels, nor of "the spirits of just men made perfect," but the religion of the soul imprisoned in the body, and embarrassed by that enclosure, in the exertion of its faculties, that is the subject of our consideration. It is the religion of sinners, saved by grace; and, as sinners, to the very last moment of life, depending upon grace alone: in whom, amidst their various conflicts, and numberless infirmities, it nevertheless produces the most surprising effects. Observe its influence on the heart of a sinner. It softens what was obdurate as the rock, and fixes what was inconstant as the wind; arrests the fugitive in his flight from the ways of God, and brings the once profligate prodigal back to his father's house with a heart pierced with sorrow for past transgressions, and more deeply still by a sense of the love that pardons them. It makes the stout-hearted tremble before the majesty and power of Jehovah, and constrains the abandoned to give up the most beloved lusts. It produces greater wonder still, in obliging the pharisee to give up his self-righteousness, and the formalist to trust no longer in his forms. It can light up a sacred flame in the breasts that had been frozen with formality, and dilate with sentiments of pure benevolence a heart long contracted by self-complacency or worldly-mindedness. It bursts the bonds of the captive who had been "tied and bound with the chain of his sins;" and makes the self-conceited rationalist, who is no less a captive than the profligate, to sit down, Mary-like, at the feet of Jesus, in the character of a pupil, a novitiate, a fool. It pours the balm of comfort into the breast of the afflicted, tempted mourner, and makes "the bones that had been broken to rejoice." Psal. li. What was it that so instantaneously stopped Saul in his career of cruelty and persecution, and changed a blasphemer into a preacher of the faith, which once he destroyed? What was it that brought Magdalen, a prostitute, to bathe the feet of Jesus with tears of penitence and joy, and to wipe them with the hairs of her head? What was it that tore Zaccheus from an occupation of worldly-mindedness and extortion, and disposed him to make restitution, and to give half his goods to the poor? What was it that made Paul and Silas sing praises to God, though smarting under the lashes they had received, and when confined to a loathsome prison? that kept Stephen composed, and filled him with rapturous views of the glory of God, even when his murderers were taking his life; and that enabled those pious heroes of antiquity, mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to perform so many wonders? It was the _sovereign_ influence of religion in the first instance, its _softening_ and _converting_ power in the second, its _expanding_ efficacy in the third, and its _victorious_ operation in the last.

Mark the influence of religion on society. It is the grand cement of pure and permanent friendship among individuals; is the great preservative against disorder and discord in families; is the sacred bond of union in the assemblies of the righteous; the only safe guarantee of the faith of nations; the healer of divisions; the sovereign peace-maker between contending parties; and the most powerful antidote against strife, animosity, and revenge, and all the other vindictive and turbulent passions, that disquiet the breasts of individuals, break the bonds of domestic tranquillity, or disturb the peace of nations. "From whence come wars and fightings among you?" says St. James: From religion? No, from the want of it. "Come they not hence? even from your lusts that war in your members." Were religion but universally known, and the empire of the Prince of Peace as extensive as the dominion of pride and secular power, of ambition and revenge, we should then see all the belligerent powers of the earth "beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks," and wars of every kind cease for ever.

5. The _evidences_ of religion. Religion, when possessing its sacred empire in the heart, is in scripture called by different names, according to the different faculties which it governs, or the passions respectively which it controls. In the understanding, it is light; in the affections, love; in the will, acquiescence and submission. In the passions of the renewed mind, it is the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom; the hope that maketh not ashamed; the joy that is unspeakable and full of glory; the holy shame that covers the soul with overwhelming awe in a view of the presence and condescension of God; the peace that passeth all understanding. Under crosses, it is patience; under affronts and injuries, meekness; under persecution and losses for Christ's sake, fortitude and resignation; in prosperity, humbleness of mind; in adversity, spiritual support; in death, triumph. Considered in a complex point of view, either as implying the commencement of the divine power that produces, or the progressive influence of the grace that advances, that assemblage of the fruits of the Spirit, which form religion into a sort of bright constellation; it is, the new birth, sanctification, the divine life, the image of God restored, the soul's union to Christ, and a growing meetness for the everlasting inheritance of the saints in light.

Religion, when it can produce tempers so sacred, and so benign, must necessarily display its nature in a course of external evidence before the world. Being in its effects "pure," and preserving him who is the subject of it "undefiled" from the corruptions that are in the world, it must necessarily teach us to live "righteously, soberly, and godly," amidst every temptation to injustice, intemperance, and impiety, to which we are every day exposed; as well as provide for the laws by which every relation in social life ought to be governed, from the prince and subject, down to the very lowest ranks of subordinate characters. But let us attend to the particular evidence adduced by St. James. "Pure religion and undefiled before God, even the Father, is this; to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Of all the situations, which the calamities of life distinguish among the sons and daughters of affliction, none could be more to the apostle's purpose, than that of the orphan and the widow; and none more apposite, as an evidence of true religion, than to visit _such_. The state of the orphan is greatly to be pitied, as being destitute of the guide of his youth, and deprived by a premature stroke of him, to whom nature directs him to look up as to his guardian and support; in a world too, in a passage through which, youth stands so much in need of all that a wise and tender father can do for his offspring. The widow is an object of still greater commiseration; who, besides the affliction of having been bereft of her dearest earthly friend, is left to struggle alone with the difficulties of a family and of the world, to educate with maternal solicitude the party that became an orphan by the same calamity which made her a widow, and to suffer an affliction, which is the more poignant, as her sex, age, and the tender relation in which she had been placed, would contribute to make her feel more sensibly the loss, to which the orphan seldom adverts. These are the parties, whom pure and undefiled religion enjoins us to visit; not for the purpose of mere form or curiosity, but for the purpose of administering actual relief, and mingling with the acts of beneficence the counsel and consolations, which the religion of Jesus inspires. But how few love to make _such_ visits! and how fewer still, to make them in _this_ style! Had our apostle made it a mark of religion to frequent scenes of dissipation, to run the round of worldly pleasure, to mix with each convivial assembly, and to visit only the house of laughter and levity, what multitudes would put in their claim to religion and to the recompense annexed to it! But let not the sons and daughters of dissipation deceive themselves. Religion seeks different society, loves different pleasures, visits the abodes of wretchedness and sorrow, and prefers the house of mourning, where it can shew its sympathy, impart its benefits, and learn lessons suited to the condition of suffering and short lived humanity, above all the gilded scenes of earthly splendor. And we may be bold to say, that if the pleasure-taker could, from the highest style of sensual indulgence, prove, that he tasted delight in any degree equal to that, which _he_ feels, who makes the "widow's heart to dance for joy;" we would then leave him in peaceable possession of the amusements that engross his time. But as he can never possibly prove it, we must mortify him in the midst of his gratifications, by telling him, that he who liveth in pleasure is "dead while he liveth;" dead to the life of religion and to the offices of real humanity; and that there is an awful day approaching, in which the Judge of heaven and earth shall say to sinners of a certain description, "In as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me."

But humanity and charity do not constitute the whole of religion. Something more is required; and that is, that a man "keep himself unspotted from the world." The christian character, or the conversation of a true believer, is, according to scripture metaphor, represented under the emblem of a white garment; the color denoting purity and glory. They who walk consistently with their profession, are described as not sullying the purity of it. So our Lord says of some in the church of Sardis, "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy." Rev. iii. 4. Perhaps the allusion in both places is made to the custom of arraying, as the word signifies, all candidates for offices, as among the Romans, in white robes. Christians are candidates for glory. They are adorned in the white garment of Christ's righteousness for their justification before God; Rev. iii. 5; and they wear the sacred robe of personal holiness, as the justification of their character before men. The former is incapable of defilement, and is that "fine linen, clean and white, in which the bride, the Lamb's wife," is to be adorned in the grand solemnization of her nuptials in the last day. The latter, when under the inspection of omniscience, and compared with the extensive purity of the law, requires to be "washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb." Rev. viii. 14. It is this last robe, the Christian's walk and character, which it is incumbent upon him to keep unspotted from the world. And as a white garment shews any accidental defilement on it sooner and more conspicuously, than one of a different color; this application of the emblem points out the greater necessity of watching against every inconsistency, that would disgrace his profession and bring his character into suspicion. The world watches for his halting, and will be ready upon every occasion to impute faults where there are none, and to aggravate and triumph in real ones. If defamation, false charges, misrepresentations, untruths, could really blot the Christian's garment, it would be never white. But the blackening of the wicked in this respect, is all their own. Happy and blessed the Christian, who, when "the world says all manner of evil of him," proves by his conduct, that it is "falsely for Christ's sake." But it is not from hence that his principal danger arises. The world is less to be feared when it frowns, than when it smiles; and many a professor, who has stood firm in the midst of opposition, has been hugged to death by caresses. In short, he, who is truly wise, will consider the world as a hostile country, in which the enemy of his soul has spread ten thousand snares for the purpose of alluring to destruction. The whole armour of God, and all the power of grace, will be requisite to guard and keep him amidst such innumerable dangers as compass him about. The power, which the world has of accommodating its baits and changing its temptations, will demand the exertion of every grace of the christian soldier. His experience will instruct him when to resist, and when to flee; when to exercise caution, and when to summon up fortitude. Sometimes he will be in danger of loving the world; at other times, of fearing it too much. "The course of this world" being totally opposite to the word of God, and its principles, maxims, and amusements, tending to promote error, vanity, and sin, he will often recollect the words of Solomon, "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her, shall not be innocent." Prov. vi. 27, 29. And he will pray with David, "Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me, then I shall be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression." Psal. xix. 13. The words of St. Paul too, warn and animate him. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the _unclean thing_, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18.

But it is not only from the spots of gross criminality, or the commission of flagrant offences, that religion teaches us to keep ourselves pure and undefiled. Even the smallest approaches to these, or a _temptation_ to any, in the secret workings of inward depravity, give the Christian infinitely more pain, than acts of injustice do the fraudulent; a life of unremitted excess, the licentious; or adultery, that epitome of all villanies, the wretch, who, by committing it, gives the most deadly stab to his own reputation, and the deepest wound to his neighbour's peace. An idea in the imagination, a thought, a word, any sudden sally of unguarded temper, that cannot be justified or harboured, without grieving the Holy Spirit, and violating truth, will give him pain, and excite resistance, and produce humiliation. The conscience of the believer being "cleansed from dead works to serve the living God," is susceptible of the slightest spot; while that, which is totally defiled by long accumulated guilt, feels no uneasy sensation, and sees not its own pollution. Being made the seat of sensibility as well as of purity, the conscience, though wounded with even a slight offence, is like the tender organ of the eve, when only a mote incommodes or lacerates its delicate texture. It makes him weep, and robs him of repose, till that blood which washes out the deepest or the slightest stain of sin, and that Spirit who subdues its power, renew their respective and sovereign influence. This guard against the access of inward defilement, and this gospel mode of cleansing it, are the only safe preservatives from grosser corruptions. Therefore, as the heart, like tinder, is too susceptive of the sparks of temptation, he shuns the converse of those, through whom he might be drawn aside; thinking his character too sacred to be habitually mixed or trusted with the company of the gay and irreligious; and his peace too precious, to be lost by what, in review, must often give so much pain, without the smallest real advantage. Even if there were no other argument to enforce the necessity of keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, this is sufficiently strong and alarming; that that very world, by a sinful conformity to which, men contract guilt and risk salvation, after having acted as _tempter_, will, like Satan, be the very first to turn _accuser_, and _tormentor_.

The _consolations_ of religion. When we recommend the consolations of religion, as an argument to engage men to enter upon the experience and practice of it, we cannot so far delude their hopes, as to insinuate, that it excludes every idea of trouble and conflict, as well as every sensation of sorrow and solicitude. As compared to a warfare, a pilgrimage, a race, religion must, of course, presuppose enemies, who cannot be overcome without fighting; a journey, that cannot be undertaken and completed without difficulties; and a prize, which cannot be won by indolence and inaction.

Every science and art is attended with difficulties; and nothing that is useful and ornamental in the business of life can be acquired without study, and toil, by which the value and pleasure of the acquisition are proportionably increased. Can any persons, then, reasonably expect, that in a world lying in the wicked one, they should meet with no opposition? in a body of sin and death, they should feel no conflicts? that their peace should remain undisturbed by any annoyance from Satan? that no thorns should perplex their path in a wilderness, in which nothing naturally grows but sorrow, sin, and care? and that their head should be hereafter adorned with an immortal crown, without sustaining one previous cross, or making one sacrifice in their way to it? They cannot suppose this. The great Author of religion says, "Except a man deny himself, take up his cross and follow me, he cannot be my disciple. Strive to enter in at the strait gate." Yet, to encourage the diffident, and fix the resolution of the hesitating and the timid, an apostle assures us, that God "hath given everlasting consolation and good hope through grace" to all believers in Christ.