stituted such sort of creatures, as from our very nature to feel certain affections or movements of mind, upon the sight or contemplation of the meanest inanimate part of the creation, for the flowers of the field have their beauty; certainly there must be somewhat due to him himself, who is the Author and Cause of all things; who is more intimately present to us than any thing else can be, and with whom we have a nearer and more constant intercourse, than we can have with any creature there must be some movements of mind and heart which correspond to his perfections, or of which those perfections are the natural object and that when we are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our mind, and with all our soul; somewhat more must be meant than merely that we live in hope of rewards or fear of punishments from him; somewhat more than this must be intended: though these regards themselves are most just and reasonable, and absolutely necessary to be often recollected in such a world as this. § 39. Collection of these Discourses, in great part It may be proper just to advertise the reader, that he is not to look for any particular reason for the choice of the greatest part of these Discourses; their being taken from amongst many others, preached in the same place, through a course of eight years, being in great measure accidental. Neither is he to expect to find any other connection between them, than that uniformity of thought and design, which will always be found in the writings of the same person, when he writes with simplicity and in earnest. STANHOPE, Sept. 16, 1729 SERMON I UPON HUMAN NATURE For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.-ROMANS xii. 4, 5. § 1. The primitive sense of the Christian incorporation; why so direct and lively. THE Epistles in the New Testament have all of them a particular reference to the condition and usages of the Christian world at the time they were written. Therefore as they cannot be thoroughly understood, unless that condition and those usages are known and attended to: so further, though they be known, yet if they be discontinued or changed; exhortations, precepts, and illustrations of things, which refer to such circumstances now ceased or altered, cannot at this time be urged in that manner, and with that force which they were to the primitive Christians. Thus the text now before us, in its first intent and design, relates to the decent management of those extraordinary gifts which were then in the church a, but which are now totally ceased1. And even as to the allusion that we are one body in Christ; though what the apostle here intends is equally true of Christians in all circumstances; and the consideration of it is plainly still an additional motive, over and above moral considerations, to the discharge of the several duties and offices of a Christian: yet it is manifest this allusion must have appeared with much greater force to those, who, by the many difficulties they went through for the sake of their religion, were led to keep always in view the relation they stood in to their Saviour, who had undergone the same; to those, who, from the idolatries of all around them, and their ill treatment, were taught to consider themselves as not of the world in which they lived, but as a distinct society of themselves; with a I Cor. xii. 1 How far are we to consider Butler's great authority as staked on this broad assertion? But slightly, as I think. A writer absorbed in a great subject can hardly address his faculties with equal force to outlying matters touched collaterally, and with no special reason to require exactitude, in the course of his argument. It perhaps was not material to Butler's purpose that the extraordinary gifts should have ceased totally: but only that they should have ceased to enter into the daily food and life of the Church. May not this then be considered as what, in dealing with the utterances of Judges in the Law Courts, is called an obiter dictum? Perhaps here is an assumption of the common opinion, rather than a well-digested and separately tested conclusion. 2 It would in truth require almost a Treatise to bring out fully the causes which bound so closely together Christians of the Apostolic age. Probably the most prominent among them is the sharpness of the separation between the Church and the world lying in wickedness around it. The spirits of the two are still in conflict as much as ever; but the innumerable victories, externally achieved by the Christian tradition, have clouded the atmosphere and coated over the field in which the struggle is carried on. It seems beyond our power, even after the greatest effort has been used, fully to recall and bring before the mind the position of the first Christians, and their relation to the business of life and their companions in it, after their conversion. laws and ends, and principles of life and action, quite contrary to those which the world professed themselves at that time influenced by. Hence the relation of a Christian was by them considered as nearer than that of affinity and blood; and they almost literally esteemed themselves as members one of another 1. § 2. Though our nature supplies religion with a claim anterior to the Gospel. It cannot indeed possibly be denied, that our being God's creatures, and virtue being the natural law we are born under, and the whole constitution of man being plainly adapted to it, are prior obligations to piety and virtue, than the consideration that God sent his Son into the world to save it, and the motives which arise from the peculiar relation of Christians, as members one of another under Christ our head. However, though all this be allowed, as it expressly is by the inspired writers; yet it is manifest that Christians at the time of the revelation, and immediately after, could not but insist mostly upon considerations of this latter kind. These observations show the original particular reference of the text; and the peculiar force with which the thing intended by the allusion in it, must have been felt by the primitive Christian world. They likewise afford a reason for treating it at this time in a more general way. 1 Butler speaks figuratively; but the figure seems appropriate, especially when we bear in mind the vast alteration in the laws of life and action which, after conversion, became applicable to Christians, as beings compounded of body, soul, and spirit. VOL. II. D |