CHAP. I.] SKEPTICISM. 101 but that which is elicited by the influence of the Divine power. The inquiry into this solemn subject would lead us too wide from our general business. The truth, however, that "we know not what to pray for as we ought," is as truly applicable to extempore as to formal prayer. Words merely do not constitute prayer, whether they be prepared beforehand or conceived at the moment they are addressed. There is reason to believe that he only offers perfectly acceptable supplications who offers them "according to the will of God," and "of the ability which God giveth;" and if such be indeed the truth, it is scarcely compatible either with a prescribed form of words or with extempore prayer at prescribed times. Yet if any Christian, in the piety of his heart, believes it to be most conducive to his religious interests to pray at stated times or in fixed forms, far be it from me to censure this the mode of his devotion, or to assume that his petition will not obtain access to the Universal Lord. Finally, respecting uncommanded ceremonials and rituals of all kinds, and respecting all the appendages of public worship which have been adopted as helps to devotion, there is one truth to which perhaps every good man will assent,—that if religion possessed its sufficient and rightful influence, if devotion of the heart were duly maintained without these things, they would no longer be needed. He who enjoys the vigorous exercise of his limbs is encumbered by the employment of a crutch. Whether the Christian world is yet prepared for the relinquishment of these appendages and "helps,"—whether an equal degree of efficacious religion would be maintained without them,-are questions which I presume not to determine: but it may nevertheless be decided, that this is the state of the Christian church to which we should direct our hopes and our endeavours, and that Christianity will never possess its proper influence, and will not effect its destined objects, until the internal dedication of the heart is universally attained. To those who may sometimes be brought into contact with persons who profess skepticism respecting Christianity, and especially to those who are conscious of any tendency in their own minds to listen to the objections of these persons, it may be useful to observe, that the grounds upon which skeptics build their disbelief of Christianity are commonly very slight. The number is comparatively few whose opinions are the result of any tolerable degree of investigation. They embraced skeptical notions through the means which they now take of diffusing them among others, not by arguments, but jests; not by objections to the historical evidence of Christianity, but by conceits and witticisms; not by examining the nature of the religion as it was delivered by its Founder, but by exposing the conduct of those who profess it. Perhaps the seeming paradox is true, that no men are so credulous, that no men accept important propositions upon such slender evidence, as the majority of those who reject Christianity. To believe that the religious opinions of almost all the civilized world are founded upon imposture, is to believe an important proposition; a proposition which no man who properly employs his faculties would believe without considerable weight of evidence. But what is the evidence upon which the "unfledged witlings who essay their wanton efforts" against religion usually found their 102 MOTIVES TO SKEPTICISM. [ESSAY 2. notions? Alas! they are so far from having rejected Christianity upon the examination of its evidences, that they do not know what Christianity is. To disbelieve the religion of Christianity upon grounds which shall be creditable to the understanding involves no light task. A man must investigate and scrutinize; he must examine the credibility of testimony; he must weigh and compare evidence; he must inquire into the reality of historical facts. If, after rationally doing all this, he disbelieves in Christianity, be it so. I think him, doubtless, mistaken, but I do not think him puerile and credulous. But he who professes skepticism without any of this species of inquiry is credulous and puerile indeed: and such most skeptics actually are. "Concerning unbelievers and doubters of every class, one observation may almost universally be made with truth, that they are little acquainted with the nature of the Christian religion, and still less with the evidence by which it is supported." In France, skepticism has extended itself as widely perhaps as in any country in the world, and its philosophers, forty or fifty years ago, were ranked among the most intelligent and sagacious of mankind. And upon what grounds did these men reject Christianity? Dr. Priestley went with Lord Shelburne to France, and he says, "I had an opportunity of seeing and conversing with every person of eminence wherever we came :" I found "all the philosophical persons to whom I was introduced at Paris unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed atheists. As I chose on all occasions to appear as a Christian, I was told by some of them that I was the only person they had ever met with of whose understanding they had any opinion, who professed to believe in Christianity. But on interrogating them on the subject, I soon found that they had given no proper attention to it, and did not really know what Christianity was. This was also the case with a great part of the company that I saw at Lord Shelburne's." If these philosophical men rejected Christianity in such contemptible and shameful ignorance of its nature and evidences, upon what grounds are we to suppose the ordinary striplings of infidelity reject it? How then does it happen that those who affect skepticism are so ambitious to make their skepticism known? Because it is a short and easy road to distinction; because it affords a cheap means of gratifying vanity. To "rise above vulgar prejudices and superstitions,"" to entertain enlarged and liberal opinions," are phrases of great attraction, especially to young men; and how shall they show that they rise above vulgar prejudices, how shall they so easily manifest the enlargement of their views, as by rejecting a system which all their neighbours agree to be true? They feel important to themselves, and that they are objects of curiosity to others: and they are objects of curiosity, not on account of their own qualities, but on account of the greatness of that which they contemn. The peasant who reviles a peasant may revile him without an auditor, but a province will listen to him who vilifies a king. I know not that an intelligent person should be advised to reason with these puny assailants; their notions and their conduct are not the result of reasoning. What they need is the humiliation of vanity and the exposure of folly. A few simple interrogations would expose their folly; and for the purposes of humiliation, simply pass them by. The sun that shines upon them makes them look bright and large. Let reason and truth with * Gisborne's Duties of Men. † Memoirs of Dr. Priestley. CHAP. 2.] PROPERTY. 103 draw their rays, and these seeming stars will quickly set in silence and in darkness. More contemptible motives to the profession of infidelity cannot perhaps exist, but there are some which are more detestable. Hartley says that "the strictness and purity of the Christian religion in respect to sexual licentiousness is probably the chief thing which makes vicious men first fear and hate, and then vilify and oppose it."* Whether therefore we regard the motives which lead to skepticism, or the reasonableness of the grounds upon which it is commonly founded, there is surely much reason for an ingenuous young person to hold in contempt the jests, and pleasantries, and sophistries respecting revelation with which he may be assailed. CHAPTER II. PROPERTY. DISQUISITIONS respecting the origin of property appear to be of little use; partly because the origin can scarcely be determined, and partly because, if it could be determined, the discovery would be little applicable to the present condition of human affairs. In whatever manner an estate was acquired two thousand years ago, it is of no consequence in inquiring who ought to possess it now. The foundation of the right to property is a more important point. Ordinarily, the foundation is the law of the land. Of civil governmentwhich institution is sanctioned by the Divine will-one of the great offices is, to regulate the distribution of property; to give it, if it has the power of giving; or to decide, between opposing claimants, to whom it shall be assigned. The proposition therefore, as a general rule, is sound,-He possesses a right to property to whom the law of the land assigns it. This however is only a general rule. It has been sufficiently seen that some legal possessions are not permitted by the moral law. The occasional opposition between the moral and the legal right to property is inseparable from the principle on which law is founded, that of acting upon general rules. It is impossible to frame any rule the application of which shall, in every variety of circumstances, effect the requisitions of Christian morality. A rule which in nine cases proves equitable may proves utterly unjust in the tenth. A rule which in nine cases promotes the welfare of the citizen may in the tenth outrage reason and humanity. It is evident that in the present state of legal institutions, the evils which result from laws respecting property must be prevented, if they are prevented at all, by the exercise of virtue in individuals. If the law assigns a hundred pounds to me, which every upright man perceives ought in equity to have been assigned to another, that other has no means of enforcing his claim. Either therefore the claim of equity must be disregarded, or I must voluntarily satisfy it. * Observations on Man. 104 INSOLVENCY. [ESSAY II. There are many cases connected with the acquisition or retention of property, with which the decisions of law are not immediately connected, but respecting which it is needful to exercise a careful discrimination, in order to conform to the requisitions of Christian rectitude. The whole subject is of great interest, and of extensive practical application in the intercourse of life. The reader will therefore be presented with several miscellaneous examples, in which the moral law appears to require greater purity of rectitude than is required by statutes, or than is ordinarily practised by mankind. INSOLVENCY.-Why is a man obliged to pay his debts? It is to be hoped that the morality of few persons is lax enough to reply-Because the law compels him. But why then is he obliged to pay them? Because the moral law requires it. That this is the primary ground of the obligation is evident; otherwise the payment of any debt which a vicious or corrupt legislature resolved to cancel, would cease to be obligatory upon the debtor. The Virginian statute which we noticed in the last Essay would have been a sufficient justification to the planters to defraud their creditors. A man becomes insolvent and is made a bankrupt: he pays his creditors ten shillings instead of twenty, and obtains his certificate. The law therefore discharges him from the obligation to pay more. The bankrupt receives a large legacy, or he engages in business and acquires property. Being then able to pay the remainder of his debts, does the legal discharge exempt him from the obligation to pay them? No: and for this reason, that the legal discharge is not a moral discharge; that as the duty to pay at all was not founded primarily on the law, the law cannot warrant him in withholding a part. It is however said, that the creditors have relinquished their right to the remainder by signing the certificate. But why did they accept half their demands instead of the whole? Because they were obliged to do it; they could get no more. As to granting the certificate, they do it because to withhold it would be only an act of gratuitous unkindness. It would be preposterous to say that creditors relinquish their claims voluntarily; for no one would give up his claim to twenty shillings on the receipt of ten, if he could get the other ten by refusing. It might as reasonably be said that a man parts with a limb voluntarily, because, having incurably lacerated it, he submits to an amputation. It is to be remembered too, that the necessary relinquishment of half the demand is occasioned by the debtor himself: and it seems very manifest that when a man, by his own act, deprives another of his property, he cannot allege the consequences of that act as a justification of withholding it after restoration is in his power. The mode in which an insolvent man obtains a discharge, does not appear to affect his subsequent duties. Compositions, and bankruptcies, and discharges by an insolvent act are in this respect alike. The acceptance of a part instead of the whole is not voluntary in either case; and neither case exempts the debtor from the obligation to pay in full if he can. If it should be urged that when a person intrusts property to another, he knowingly undertakes the risk of that other's insolvency, and that if the contingent loss happens, he has no claims to justice on the other, the answer is this: that whatever may be thought of these claims, they are CHAP. 2.] REFORM OF PUBLIC OPINION. 105 not the grounds upon which the debtor is obliged to pay. The debtor always engages to pay, and the engagement is enforced by morality: the engagement therefore is binding, whatever risk another man may incur by relying upon it. The causes which have occasioned a per son's insolvency, although they greatly affect his character, do not affect his obligations: the duty to repay when he has the power is the same whether the insolvency were occasioned by his fault or his misfortune. In all cases, the reasoning that applies to the debt applies also to the interest that accrues upon it; although, with respect to the acceptance of both, and especially of interest, a creditor should exercise a considerate discretion.-A man who has failed of paying his debts ought always to live with frugality, and carefully to economize such money as he gains. He should reflect that he is a trustee for his creditors, and that all the needless money which he expends is not his, but theirs. The amount of property which the trading part of a commercial nation loses by insolvency is great enough to constitute a considerable national evil. The fraud too that is practised under cover of insolvency is doubtless the most extensive of all species of private robbery. The profligacy of some of these cases is well known to be extreme. He who is a bankrupt to-day riots in the luxuries of affluence to-morrow; bows to the creditors whose money he is spending, and exults in the success and the impunity of his wickedness. Of such conduct we should not speak or think but with detestation. We should no more sit at the table, or take the hand, of such a man, than if we knew he had got his money last night on the highway. There is a wickedness in some bankruptcies to which the guilt of ordinary robbers approaches but at a distance. Happy, if such wickedness could not be practised with legal impunity! Happy, if public opinion supplied the deficiency of the law, and held the iniquity in rightful abhorrence !† Perhaps nothing would tend so efficaciously to diminish the general evils of insolvency as a sound state of public opinion respecting the obligation to pay our debts. The insolvent who, with the means of paying, retains the money in his own pocket, is, and he should be regarded as being, a dishonest man. If public opinion held such conduct to be of the same character as theft, probably a more powerful motive to avoid insolvency would be established than any which now exists. Who would not anxiously (and therefore in almost all cases successfully) struggle against insolvency, when he knew that it would be followed, if not by permanent poverty, by permanent disgrace? If it should be said that to act upon such a system would overwhelm an insolvent's energies, keep him in perpetual inactivity, and deprive his family of the benefit of his exertions,-I answer, that the evil, supposing it to impend, would be much less extensive than may be imagined. The calamity being foreseen would prevent men from becoming insolvent; and it is certain that the majority might have avoided insolvency by sufficient care. Besides, if a man's principles are such that he would rather sink into inactivity than exert himself in order to be just, it is not necessary to mould public opinion to his character. The question too is, not whether some men would not prefer indolence to the calls of justice, but whether the public should judge accurately respecting what those calls are. The state, and especially a family, might lose occasionally by this reform of opinion, |