Remarks on Mr. Gilbert Wakefield's Enquiry
Into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship. (1792)
| ............... in swarming cities vast, |
| Assembled men, to the deep organ join |
| The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear, |
| At solemn pauses, through the swelling base; |
| And, as each mingling flame increases each, |
| In one united ardour rise to heaven. |
| THOMPSON. |
1. There are some practices which have not been defended because they have never been
attacked. Of this number is public or social worship. It has been recommended,
urged, enforced, but never vindicated. Through worldliness, scepticism, indolence,
dissatisfaction with the manner of conducting it, it has been often neglected; but
it is a new thing to hear it condemned. The pious and the good have lamented its
insufficiency to the reformation of the world, but they were yet to learn that it
was unfriendly to it. Satisfied with silent and solitary desertion, those who did
not concur in the homage paid by their fellow-citizens were content to acquiesce in
its propriety, and had not hitherto assumed the dignity of a sect. A late pamphlet
of Mr. Wakefield's has therefore excited the attention of the public, partly, no
doubt, from the known abilities of the author, but still more from the novelty and
strangeness of the doctrine. If intended as an apology,
no publication can be more
seasonable; but if meant as an exhortation, or rather a dehortation, it is a labour
which many will think, from the complexion of the times and the tendencies of
increasing habits, might well have been spared. It is an awkward circumstance for
the apostle of such a persuasion, that he will have many practical disciples whom he
will hardly care to own; and that if he succeeds in making proselytes, he must take
them from the more sober and orderly part of the community; and class them, as far
as this circumstance affords a distinction, along with the uneducated, the
profligate, and the unprincipled. The negative tenet he inculcates does not mark his
converts with sufficient precision: their scrupulosity will be in danger of being
confounded with the carelessness of their neighbours; and it will be always
necessary to ask, Do you abstain because you are of this religion, or because you
are of no religion at all?
2. It would be unfair, however, to endeavour to render Mr. Wakefield's opinions
invidious; they, as well as every other opinion, must be submitted to the test of
argument; and public worship, as well as every other practice, must stand on the
basis of utility and good sense, or it must not stand at all: and in the latter
case, it is immaterial whether it is left to moulder like the neglected ruin, or
battered down like the formidable tower.
3. It will stand upon this basis, if it can be shown
to be agreeable to our nature,
sanctioned by universal practice, countenanced by revealed religion, and that its
tendencies are favourable to the morals and manners of mankind.
4. What is public worship? Kneeling down together while prayers are said of a certain
length and construction, and hearing discourses made to a sentence of Scripture
called a text! -- Such might be the definition of an unenlightened person, but such
would certainly not be Mr. Wakefield's. The question ought to be agitated on much
larger ground. If these practices are shown to be novel, it does not follow that
public worship is so, in that extensive sense which includes all modes and varieties
of expression. To establish its antiquity, we must therefore investigate its nature.
5. Public worship is the public expression of homage to the Sovereign of the Universe.
It is that tribute from men united in families, in towns, in communities, which
individually men owe to their Maker. Every nation has therefore found some organ by
which to express this homage, some language, rite, or symbol, by which to make known
their religious feelings; but this organ has not always, nor chiefly, been words.
The killing an animal, the throwing a few grains of incense into the fire, the
eating bread and drinking wine, are all in themselves indifferent actions, and have
apparently little connexion with devo-
tion; yet all of these have been used as
worship, and are worship when used with the intention. The solemn sacrifices and
anniversary festivals of the Jews, at which their capital and their temple were
thronged with votaries from every distant part of the kingdom, were splendid
expressions of their religious homage. Their worship, indeed, was interwoven with
their whole civil constitution; and so, though in a subordinate degree, was that of
the Greeks and Romans, and most of the states of antiquity. There has never existed
a nation, at all civilized, which has not had some appointed form of supplication,
some stated mode of signifying the dependence we are under to the Supreme Being, and
as a nation imploring his protection. It is not pretended that these modes were all
equally rational, equally edifying, equally proper for imitation, equally suitable
for every state of society; they have varied according as a nation was more or less
advanced in refinement and decorum, more or less addicted to symbolical expression
-- to violent gesticulation -- and more or less conversant with abstract ideas and
metaphysical speculation. But whether the Deity is worshiped by strewing flowers and
building tabernacles of verdure; by dances round the altar, and the shouts of a
cheerful people; by offering the first-fruits of harvest, and partaking in the
social feast; by tones of music, interpreted only by the heart; or by verbal
expressions of gratitude and adoration -- whether the hallelujahs of assembled
multitudes rise together in solemn chorus; or whether they listen with composed and
reverential attention to the voice of one man, appointed by them to be the organ of
their feelings -- whether a number of people meet together like the Quakers, and
each in silence prefers his mental petition -- wherever men together perform a
stated act as an expression of homage to their Maker, there is the essence of public
worship; and public worship has therefore this mark of being agreeable to the nature
of man, -- that is has been found agreeable to the sense of mankind in all ages and
nations.
6. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine that beings, sensible of common wants and common
nature, should not join together in imploring common blessings; that, prone as men
are in every other circumstance to associate together, and communicate the electric
fire of correspondent feelings, they should act with unsocial reserve only where
those interests are concerned which are confessedly the most important. Such is the
temperament of man, that in every act and every event he anxiously looks around him
to claim the gratulation or sympathy of his fellows. Religion, says Mr. Wakefield,
is a personal thing: so is marriage, so is the birth of a child, so is the loss of a
beloved relative; yet on all these occasions
we are strongly impelled to public
solemnization. We neither laugh alone, nor weep alone, -- why then should we pray
alone? None of our feelings are of a more communicable nature than our religious
ones. If devotion really exists in the heart of each individual, it is morally
impossible it should exist there apart and single. So many separate tapers, burning
so near each other, in the very nature of things must catch, and spread into one
common flame. The reciprocal advantages, which public and private worship possess
over each other, are sufficiently obvious to make both desirable. While the former
is more animated, the latter comes more intimately home to our own circumstances and
feelings, and allows to our devotion to be more particular and appropriated. To most
of the objections made against the one, the other is equally liable. Superstition
can drop her solitary beads, as well as vociferate the repetition of a public
collect: if symptoms of weariness and inattention may be observed in our churches,
we have only to look into the diaries of the most pious christians, and we shall
find still heavier complaints of the dullness and deadness of their spiritual frame:
the thoughts may wander in the closet when the door is shut: folly and selfishness
will send up improper petitions from the cell as well as from the congregation. Nay,
public worship has this great advantage, -- that it teaches those to pray, who, not
being accustomed to think, cannot of themselves pray with judgement. To all, it
teaches that we are not to pray for exclusive advantages, but to consider ourselves
as members of community. Our inmost wishes learn restraint while our petitions are
thus directed, and our desires by degrees conform themselves to that spirit of
moderation and justice, without which we cannot join in the comprehensive prayer,
that must include the joint supplications of a numerous assembly. Public worship has
this further advantage over private, that it is better secured against langour on
one side, and enthusiasm on the other. If the devotional sentiment has not taken
deep root in his mind, a man will scarcely keep up, in silence and in solitude, an
intercourse to which he is prompted by no external appearance, and of which he is
reminded by no circumstance of time or place. And if his sense of invisible things
is strong enough to engage his mind in spite of these disadvantages, there is room
to fear, lest, by brooding in silence over objects of such indistinct vastness, his
bewildered ideas and exalted imagination should lead him to the reveries of
mysticism; an extreme no less to be dreaded than that of indifference. When Mr.
Wakefield, to strengthen his argument for seclusion in our religious exercises,
directs our attention to the mount of Olives and the garden of Gethsemane, he should
recollect that our Saviour sustained a character to which we cannot presume to
aspire; and that, however favourable the desert and wilderness have been to prophets
visited by extraordinary illuminations, they cannot be equally suitable to the
regular devotion of ordinary christians. From the gloom of the cloister and the
loneliness of the cell have proceeded the most extravagant deviations from nature
and from reason. Enthusiasm is indeed most dangerous in a crowd, but it seldom
originates there. The mind, heated with intense thinking, adopts illusions to which
it is not exposed when its devotion is guided and bounded by addresses which are
intended to meet the common sentiments of a numerous assembly. Religion then appears
with the most benignant aspect, is then least likely to be mistaken, when the
presence of our fellow-creatures points out its connexion with the businesses of
life and duties of society. Solitary devotion, for worldly minds, is insufficient,
for weak minds it is not profitable, for ardent minds it is not safe.
7. We must however do that justice to the author of the Enquiry, as to confess that he
betrays no disposition to carry these exercises to any extreme. On the contrary,
some of his expressions seem to strike at the root of all prayer, properly so
called, as being the weak effort of an infirm and unphilo-
sophical mind to alter the
order of nature and the decrees of Providence, in which it rather becomes the wise
man to acquiesce with a manly resignation. Without entering into a discussion, in
which, perhaps, we might misrepresent his sentiments; as, in the greater part of his
pamphlet, he has taken the ground of Scripture, which undoubtedly countenances the
earnestness, and almost the importunity of petition; it may be sufficient for the
present purpose to observe, that if there exists a man who, believing himself to be
in the continual presence of Infinite Power, directed by infinite love and tender
compassion to all his creatures -- thinking often of this Being, and habitually
referring every disposition of events to his providence -- feeling himself more
constantly and intimately connected with him than with all creation besides -- can
in every vicissitude of his life, in sickness and in sorrow, in imminent danger,
anxious uncertainty, desertion or loss of friends, and all the trying circumstances
of humanity that flesh is heir to; forbear, for himself or for those dearer to him
than himself, to put up one petition to the throne of God, -- such a one may be
allowed to strike out every petition in the Lord's Prayer but that comprehensive
one, "thy will be done." If his faith be equally lively, his
devotional feelings equally fervent, his sense of dependence upon God equally felt
in his inmost soul, we dare not presume to censure the temperance of his religious
addresses. We respect the subdued sobriety of his wishes; and we do not, we cannot
suppose him deserted by the Supreme Being for that modest forbearance which proceeds
from a resignation so absolute and complete. Others, however, whose philosophy is
not of so firm a texture, may plead the example of him who prayed, though with meek
submission, that the cup of bitterness might pass from him; and who, as the moment
of separation approached, interceded for his friends and followers with all the
anxiety of affectionate tenderness. But we will venture to say that practically
there is no such philosopher. If prayer were not enjoined for the perfection, it
would be permitted to the weakness of our nature. We should be betrayed into it, if
we thought it sin; and pious ejaculations would escape our lips, though we were
obliged to preface them with, God forgive me for praying!
8. To those who press the objection, that we cannot see in what manner our prayers can
be answered, consistently with the government of the world according to those
general laws by which we find, in fact, that it is governed; it may be sufficient to
say, that prayer, being made almost an instinct of our nature, it cannot be supposed
but that, like all other instincts, it has its use; that no idea can be less
philosophical that one
which implies, that the existence of a God who governs the
world, should make no difference in our conduct; and few things less probable, than
that the child-like submission which bows to the will of a father, should be exactly
similar in feature to the stubborn patience which bends under the yoke of necessity.
9. It may be further observed, that petitions for temporal advantages, -- such, I mean,
as a spirit of moderation will allow us to wish with sufficient ardour to make them
the subject of our prayers, -- are not liable to more objections than petitions for
spiritual blessings. In either case the weak man does, and the wise man does not
expect a miracle. That the arrogant, the worldly, and the licentious, should on a
sudden, and without their own strenuous endeavours, be rendered humble,
simple-minded, and pure of heart, would be as great a violation of the order of
nature in the moral world, as it would be in the natural world that the harvest
should ripen without the co-operation of the husbandman, and the slow influence of
the seasons. Indeed, as temporal blessings are less in our power than dispositions,
and are sometimes entirely out of it, it seems more reasonable of the two to pray
for the former than for the latter; and it is remarkable that, in the model given us
in the Lord's Prayer, there is not a single petition for any virtue or good
disposition, but there is one for daily bread.
Good dispositions, particularly a
spirit of resignation, are declared and implied in the petitions, but they are not
prayed for: events are prayed for, and circumstances out of our own power, relative
to our spiritual concerns, are prayed for, -- as, the not being led into temptation;
but there is no prayer that we may be made holy, meek, or merciful. Nor is it an
objection to praying for health, that sickness may possibly turn out a blessing,
since it is no objection to the using all the means in our power to get rid of
sickness, which we do as eagerly and as unreservedly as if we had not the least idea
that it ever could be salutary. And we do right; for the advantages of sickness are
casual and adventitious; but health is in itself, and in its natural tendencies, a
blessing devoutly to be wished for. That no advantage of this nature ought to be
prayed or wished for, unqualified with the deepest submission to the will of God, is
an undoubted truth; and it is a truth likewise universally acknowledged by all
rational christians.
10. It cannot be denied, however, that great reserve is necessary in putting up specific
petitions, especially of a public nature; but generally the fault lies in our
engaging in wrong pursuits, rather than in imploring upon our pursuits the favour of
Heaven. Humanity is shocked to hear prayers for the success of an unjust war; but
hu-
manity and Heaven were then offended when the war was engaged in; for war is of a
nature sufficiently serious to warrant our prayers to be preserved from the
calamities of it, if we have not voluntarily exposed ourselves to them. The
frivolous nature of most national contests appears strongly in this very
circumstance, that petitions from either side have the air of a profanation; but if
in some serious conjuncture our country was ready to be overwhelmed by an ambitions
neighbour, -- as that of the Dutch was in the time of Louis the Fourteenth, -- in
such a season of calamity, the sternest philosopher would give way to the
instinctive dictates of nature, and implore the help which cometh from on high. The
reason why both sides cannot pray with propriety, is because both sides cannot act
with justice.
11. But supposing we were to discard all petition as the weak effort of infirm minds to
alter the unbroken chain of events; as the impatient breathings of craving and
restless spirits, not broken into patient acquiescence with the eternal order of
Providence -- the noblest office of worship still remains:
| Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds, |
| The jarring world's agreeing sacrifice. |
12. And this is surely of a social nature. One class of religious duties separately
considered, tends to depress the mind, filling it with ingenu-
ous shame and wholesome
sorrow; and to these humiliating feelings solitude might perhaps be found congenial:
but the sentiments of admiration, love, and joy, swell the bosom with emotions which
seek for fellowship and communication. The flame indeed may be kindled by silent
musing; but when kindled it must infallibly spread. The devout heart, penetrated
with large and affecting views of the immensity of the works of God, the harmony of
his laws, and the extent of his beneficence, bursts into loud and vocal expressions
of praise and adoration; and, from a full and overflowing sensibility, seeks to
expand itself to the utmost limits of creation. The mind is forcibly carried out of
itself; and, embracing the whole circle of animated existence, calls on all above,
around, below, to help to bear the burden of its gratitude. Joy is too brilliant a
thing to be confined within our own bosoms; it burnishes all nature, and with its
vivid colouring gives a kind of factitious life to objects without sense or motion.
There cannot be a more striking proof of the social tendency of these feelings, than
the strong propensity we have to suppose auditors where there are none. When men are
wanting, we address the animal creation; and, rather than have none to partake our
sentiments, we find sentiment in the music of the birds, the hum of insects, and the
low of kine: nay, we call on rocks and streams and forests to witness and share our
emotions. Hence the Royal Shepherd, sojourning in caves and solitary wastes, calls
on the hills to rejoice and the floods to clap their hands; and the lonely poet,
wandering in the deep recesses of uncultivated nature, finds a temple in every
solemn grove, and swells his chorus of praise with the winds that bow the lofty
cedars. And can he who, not satisfied with the wide range of existence, calls for
the sympathy of the inanimate creation, refuse to worship with his fellow-men? Can
he who bids "Nature attend," forget to "join every living
soul" in the universal hymn? Shall we suppose companions in the stillness
of deserts, and shall we overlook them amongst friends and townsmen? It cannot be!
Social worship, for the devout heart, is not more a duty than it is a real want.
13. If Public Worship is thus found to be agreeable to the best impulses of our nature,
the pious mind will rejoice to find it, at least not discountenanced by revealed
religion. But its friends, in endeavouring to prove this, must carry on the argument
under some disadvantage, as Mr. Wakefield, though he lays great stress on the
presumptive arguments which seem to favour the negative side of the question, will
not allow the same force to those which may be urged on the other side. The practice
of Christ, he tells us, is an authority
to which all believers will bow the knee, a
tribunal by which all our controversies must be awarded: yet he gives us notice at
the same time, that to this authority, if brought against him, he will not bow the
knee; and from this tribunal, if unfriendly to his cause, he will appeal; for that
prayers and all external observances are beggarly elements, to be laid aside in the
present maturity of christian church; and that, even if social worship were an
original appendage of the Gospel, the idea of a "progressive
chrisitianity" would justify us in rejecting it. With this inequality of
conditions, which it is sufficient just to notice, let us consider the array of
texts which are drawn up against the practice in question; and particularly those
precepts which, Mr. Wakefield says, are evidences that directly and literally prove
public worship to be unauthorized by christianity, and inconsistent with it, and
which he distinguishes from those which condemn it merely by inference.
14. The first of these direct evidences is the injunction, not to worship as the
hypocrites, who are fond of exhibiting in the most public places. "And when
thou prayest, be not as the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the
synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men; verily
I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet, and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father who is in
secret." But is it not evident, that the force of this precept is not aimed
against public prayer, but against private prayer performed in public; against the
ostentatious display which seeks to distinguish us from others, not the genuine
sympathy which makes us desirous of blending our feelings with theirs? It was
devotion obtruding itself in the face of business, amidst the show and bustle of the
world. It did not seek for fellowship, but observation. It did not want the
concurrence of men, but to be seen by them. Even in the synagogue it was silent,
solitary, unsocial, and with sullen reserve and cold disdain kept itself aloof from
communion, and invited only applause. The Pharisee and the Publican both went up to
the temple to worship, but they worshiped not together. Certainly the delicate and
modest nature of sincere piety must shrink from an exhibition like this; and would
not wish to have its feelings noticed, but where at the same time they may be
shared. This text therefore seems to be only a caution respecting the proper
performance of our closet duties.
15. "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall
neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. But the hour
cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and
in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship
him. God is a spirit."
True it is, the hour is come in which it is allowed by all rational believers, that
the acceptableness of prayer does not depend on the sacredness of any particular
place. The Jews wanted to be informed of this. They, naturally enough, were apt to
consider their temple as the habitation of the Divine Being, in the same manner as a
palace is the habitation of an earthly sovereign, -- a place where men may come to
make their court, and bring presents, and ask favours in return. These ideas have
been done away by those more honourable notions of the Divine Being which our
Saviour, and good men after him have laboured to inculcate. We conceive of a church
as of a building, not for God to reside, but for men to assemble in; for, though God
is a spirit, men have bodies, and they cannot meet to do any thing without having
some place to do it in. "Neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem," means therefore exclusively, with an idea of any peculiar
sacredness, or superstitious preference to any other structure which might be
equally commodious.
16. With regard to the character of our Saviour himself, it is certain he did not always
call upon his disciples to share that more intimate, and, if I may say so,
confidential intercourse with his heavenly Father, which he may be supposed to have
been favoured with; and it must be confessed,
there is no formal mention made of any
exercises of this kind either with them, or with the people at large. But his whole
life was a prayer. He, who is his most familiar and convivial moments was raising
the thoughts of his hearers to God, and nourishing their piety by occasional
instruction, could not be supposed to leave them disinclined to the intercourses of
social piety. The beautiful commendatory prayer which he offered up when about to
leave the world, though it was not entirely of the nature of social prayer, as his
disciples did not join in it, yet, its being uttered in their presence, and their
being the object of it, seems to place it nearly on the same ground. In the very
miracle of the loaves, which Mr. Wakefield has produced as an instance of an
incident which might have given rise to public prayer, and which was suffered to
pass without it -- in the account of this very miracle there is a direct precedent
for the practice in question; for, looking up to heaven, "he
blessed" before he brake the bread. This, indeed, appears to have been his
constant practice. It certainly does not belong to private devotion, and is a
species of prayer more apt, perhaps, than any other, to degenerate into a mere form.
17. But if we do not find public worship, properly so called, in the life of our
Saviour, it is because we look for it in the wrong place. It is not to be
sought for
in his instructions, either to the multitude at large, or to his disciples in their
more private conversations. His public worship was paid where the rest of the Jews
paid theirs -- in the Temple. He came up, with the concourse of assembled
multitudes, to the appointed religious festivals; he ate the passover, and
associated with his fellow-citizens, even in those rites and that form of worship
which he knew was so soon to be abolished.
18. Our Lord seems indeed to have been an early and regular frequenter of whatever
public worship the Jews had among them. What this was, besides their sacrifices and
ceremonial observances, Mr. Wakefield is infinitely better able than the author of
these remarks to collect from the volumes of Rabbinical learning; but, without going
deeper into their antiquities than what may be gathered from those records of their
history which are in the hands of every one, it may be seen that verbal addresses to
the Divine Being often accompanied the public expressions of their thanksgiving. In
their earliest times we have the song of Moses, in the burden of which the whole
people, led by Miriam, joined in chorus. In a more polished age, the fine prayer of
Solomon at the dedication of the Temple, a composition which has never been
excelled, comes yet nearer to our ideas of an address to the Divine Being; and the
whole
people bore a part in the worship by the response, "For he is good,
for his mercy endureth for ever." A still more regular service is recorded
by Nehemiah, when the people, after their return from the captivity, entered into
the solemn renewal of their law described with so much affecting solemnity. They
stood and confessed their sins, then they read the law; after which the Levites
called upon them to stand up and bless the Lord their God. They stood up
accordingly, and joined in what I suppose the author of the Enquiry would call a
pretty long prayer. And when Ezra blessed the Lord, the people answered, Amen, Amen.
All this is sufficiently similar not only to the spirit, but to the very routine of
our present modes of worship. If it be said, that these instances all arose from
peculiar and striking occasions, it may be answered, that it is not likely any other
would be recorded; and that the regularity and grace with which they seem to have
been performed, indicate a people not unaccustomed to such exercises. Indeed the
Psalms of David afford every variety which any of our prayers do; confession,
ascription, thanksgiving, &c. These, it should seem, were many of them set
to music, and sung with proper responses; for even in the Temple, the chief business
of which was not prayer but sacrifice, the Levites and other singers, at the time of
the morning and evening sacrifice, sung psalms of praise to God before the altar, and in the conclusion the priests blessed the people1. And it is not probable, that
in a later period of their history, amidst a greater degree of refinement and
cultivation, they should have contented themselves with mere ritual observances.
This at least is evident, if in the time of our Saviour they had no worship similar
to ours, he could not mean by any thing he said to hint a dislike of it; and if they
had, he must have sanctioned the practice by conforming to it. But indeed it is
acknowledged by most, and Mr. Wakefield seems to admit, that after their return from
Babylonish captivity, when their hearts were purified by adversity and more attached
to their religion, they had regular and stated worship in their synagogues,
consisting of forms of prayer, reading the Scriptures, and expounding. In the
former, we are told, a minister, called from his office the angel or messenger of
the church, officiated as the mouth of the congregation; but for the latter part of
the service it was usual to call upon any stranger to take his share, who appeared
to be sufficiently qualified to read and expound the lessons of the day. And hence
probably it was, that our Saviour did not pray in the synagogues, though he often
taught there, and interpreted the Scriptures2. Of their forms of prayer eighteen
are given, held to be of high antiquity and peculiar sacredness; and these are in a
strain not dissimilar to the Liturgies of more modern times. In short, if we trace
the accounts given us both of the plan of the service, and of its presbyters,
ministers, and deacons, it will be found, that the christian church, in its
corresponding officers, its collects, litanies, and expositions, is the legitimate
daughter of the Jewish synagogue; and we shall be led to admire the singular fate of
nation, decreed to be at once imitated and despised.
19. Thus much may be sufficient to say upon a subject which, after all, is purely a
question of historical curiosity.
20. To return to the character of our Saviour. His great business in the world was
instruction; and this he dispensed, not in a systematic, but a popular manner; nor
yet in a vague and declamatory style, but in a pointed and appropriated one; not
where it would most shine, but where it was most wanted. He was the great reformer,
the innovator of his day; and the strain of his energetic eloquence was strongly
pointed against abuses of all kinds, and precisely those points of duty were most
insisted on which he found most neglected. Almost all his discourses are levelled
against some prevailing vice of the times, some fashionable worldy maxim, some
artful gloss of a well known precept, some evasion of an acknowledged duty. They
were delivered as occasion prompted,
and therefore it was that they came so home to
men's business and bosoms; for he might have delivered the most elaborate lectures
on morality, and religion too, without offending the Scribes and Pharisees, if he
had confined himself to system, and not attacked corruption. We shall therefore meet
with continual disappointment if, in the few scattered discourses, most of them too
conversations, which are preserved to us of our Saviour, we expect to find any thing
like a regular code of laws, and still less a formulary of rules. He referred to
known laws, and only endeavoured to restore the spirit of them, and to exalt the
motive of obedience. The great duty of honouring our parents had probably not found
a place in his instructions, but to expose the tradition which had made it of none
effect. It is therefore a very inconclusive argument against a practice, either,
that we are not expressly enjoined it in the Gospel, or that the abuses of it are
strongly dwelt upon; and this may serve for a general answer to Mr. Wakefield's
objections built upon the animated denunciations against those who, for a pretence,
make long prayers, and who cry, "Lord, Lord," -- against vain
repetitions -- upon the exhortations to worship in spirit and in truth -- the
declaration that the Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath -- with a
thousand others in the same strain, with which the Gospel undoubtedly abounds. But
is the utility of a practice destroyed by the abuse of it; or is it of none, because
it is not of the chief value? Are none of our duties subordinate, yet real? or have
they all the proud motto, Aut Cæsar aut nullus.3 -- As to the
idea of a "progressive Christianity," on which the author of the
Enquiry lays so much stress, as no new revelation has been pretended subsequent to
its original promulgation, it is difficult to conceive of any progress in it,
distinct from the progress of reason and civilization in the different countries
where it may be received. Now I do not know what right we have to suppose that the
Jews in the time of our Saviour, were so gross in their ideas as to require a mode
of worship which deserves to be stigmatized with the appellation of
"beggarly elements and the twilight of superstition." They were
probably as different from their countrymen in the time of the Judges, as we are
from our ancestors of the Saxon heptarchy. They had long had among them most of
those causes which end to develop the mental powers. A system of laws and polity,
writers of the most distinguished excellence, commercial and political intercourse
with other nations; they had acute and subtle disputants, and an acquaintance with
different sects of philosophy; and, under these circumstances, it is probable that
most of those questions would be agitated which, at similar periods, have exercised
and perplexed the human faculties. Be that as it may, Mr. Wakefield, by considering
public worship as a practice to be adapted to the exigencies of the times, evidently
abandons the textual ground, in which narrow path he seemed hitherto to have trod
with such scrupulous precaution, and places it on the broader footing of utility.
The utility of this practice therefore comes next to be considered.
21. It is an error, which is extremely incident to minds of a delicate and anxious
sensibility, to suppose that practices do no good which do not all the good that
might be expected from them. Let those who, in a desponding mood, are apt to think
thus of public worship, calculate, if they can, what would be the consequence if it
were laid aside. Perhaps it is not easy to estimate how much of the manners as well
as the morals -- how much of the cultivation as well as the religion of a people is
derived from this very source. If a legislator or philosopher were to undertake the
civilization of a horde of wild savages, scattered along the waste in the drear
loneliness of individual existence, and averse to the faces of each other -- if he
had formed a plan to gather them together, and give them a principle of cohesion; he
probably could not take a more effectual method than by persuading them to meet
together in one place -- at regular and stated times -- and there to join together
in a common act, imposing from its solem-
nity and endearing from the social nature of
its exercises. If an adventurer were stranded on some foreign shore, and should find
the inhabitants engaged in such an act, he might draw the conclusion, that the
blessings of order, internal peace, mutual confidence, and a considerable degree of
information, existed there, as surely as the philosopher drew a similar inference
from the discovery of mathematical diagrams traced upon the sand. And thus, in fact,
it was, that in the early beginnings of society, legislators called in the
assistance of religious ideas, and with the charm and melody of solemn hymns, like
those of Orpheus or of Linus, gathered round them the stupid, incurious
barbarians, roused them to attention and softened into docility. Agreeably to this
train of thinking, our great dramatic moralist places the influences of social
worship upon a par with the sacred touches of sympathetic sorrow, and the
exhilarating pleasures of the hospitable board, and makes it one of the features
which distinguish the urbanity of polished life from the rude and unfeeling ferocity
which belongs to a clan of unprincipled banditti.
| If ever you have looked on better days, |
| If ever been where bells have knolled to church, |
| If ever sate at any good man's feast, |
| If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, |
| And known what 'tis to pity and be pitied; |
| Let gentleness your strong enforcement be -- |
22. For, independent of the peculiar object of public religious assemblies, many
collateral advantages are derived from them which the liberal thinker will by no
means despise. The recurrence of appointed days of rest and leisure, which, but for
this purpose, would never have been appointed, divides the weary months of labour
and servitude with a separating line of brighter colour. The church is a centre of
union for neighbours, friends, and townsmen; and it is a reasonable and a pleasing
ground of preference in our attachments, that we have "walked to the house
of God in company." Even the common greetings that pass between those who
meet there, are hallowed by the occasion of the meeting, and the spirit of civic
urbanity is mingled with a still sweeter infusion of christian courtesy. By the
recurrence of this intercourse, feuds and animosities are composed, which
interrupted the harmony of friends and acquaintance: and those who avoided to meet
because they could not forgive, are led to forgive, being obliged to meet. Its
effect in humanizing the lower orders of society, and fashioning their manners to
the order and decorum of civil life, is apparent to every reflecting mind. The poor
who have not formed a habit of attending here, remain from week to week in their
sordid cells, or issue thence to places of licentiousness more sordid; while those
who assemble with the other inhabitants of the
place, are brought into the frequent
view of their superiors; their persons are known, their appearance noted; the
inquiring eye of benevolence pursues them to their humble cottages, and they are not
unfrequently led home from social worship to the social meal. If the rich and poor
were but thus brought together regularly and universally, that single circumstance
would be found sufficient to remove the squalidness of misery, and the bitterness of
want; and poverty would exist only as a sober shade in the picture of life, on which
the benevolent eye might rest with a degree of complacency when fatigued with the
more gaudy colouring of luxury and show.
23. The good effect of public worship in this light is remarkably conspicuous in the
Sunday schools. Many of the children who attend have probably not very clearly
comprehended any religious system; but the moving and acting under the public eye,
together with a sense of duty and moral obligation, which, however obscure, always
accompanies the exercises of religion, soon transforms them into a different kind of
beings. They acquire a love of neatness and regularity; a sense of propriety
insinuates itself into their young minds, and produces, instead of the sullen and
untamed licentiousness which at once shuns and hates the restraints of better life,
the modest deference and chastened demeanour of those who respect others because
they respect themselves.
24. Public worship conveys a great deal of instruction in an indirect manner. Even those
didactic prayers which run out into the enumeration of the attributes of the Divine
Being, and of the duties of a virtuous life, though, perhaps, not strictly proper as
prayer, have their use in storing the minds of the generality with ideas on these
important subjects; and the beauty and sublimity of many of these compositions must
operate powerfully in lifting the heart to God, and inspiring it with a love of
virtue. Improper as public prayers may have sometimes been, private prayers are
likely to be still more so. Whatever contempt Mr. Wakefield may choose to throw on
the official abilities of those who lead the service, it will not be denied that
they are generally better informed than those who follow. Men to whom spiritual
ideas are familiar from reading and study, do not sufficiently appreciate the
advantage which the illiterate enjoy by the fellowship and communication of superior
minds, who are qualified to lead their ideas in the right track.
25. Public worship is a means of invigorating faith. Though argument be one means of
generating belief, and that on which all belief must ultimately rest, it is not the
only means, nor, with many minds, the most efficacious. Practical faith is greatly
assisted by joining in some act in which the presence and persuasion of others gives
a sort of reality to our perception of invisible things.
The metaphysical reasoner,
entangled in the nets of sophistry, may involve himself in the intricacies of
contradictory syllogisms till reason grows giddy, and scarcely able to hold the
balance; but when he acts in presence of his fellow-creatures, his mind resumes its
tone and vigour, and social devotion gives a colour and body to the deductions of
his reason. Berkeley, probably, never doubted of the existence of the material world
when he had quitted his closet. Some minds are not capable of that firmness of
decision which embraces truth upon a bare preponderancy of argument -- some, through
a timorous and melancholy spirit, remain always in a perplexed and doubting state,
if they rest merely on the conclusions built upon their own investigation. But every
act in consequence of our faith, strengthens faith. These, when they enter a place
of worship, amidst all the animating accompaniments of social homage, are seized
with a happy contagion; slow hesitating doubts vanish in a moment, and give way to
sincere and cordial feeling. These are not proofs, it is true; but they are helps,
adapted to our nature, necessary to the generality, expedient for all. As for the
multitude, so unaccustomed are they to any process of abstruse reasoning, and so
much do they require the assistance of some object within the grasp of their senses,
that it is to be doubted whether they could be at all persuaded of the existence of
a spiritual invisible power, if that existence was not statedly acknowledged by some
act which should impress the reality of it upon their minds, by connecting it with
places, persons, and times.
26. Let it be observed, in the next place, that Public Worship is a civic meeting. The
temple is the only place where human beings, of every rank and sex and age, meet
together for one common purpose, and join together in one common act. Other
meetings are either political, or formed for the purposes of splendour and
amusement; from both which, in this country, the bulk of inhabitants are of
necessity excluded. This is the only place, to enter which nothing more is necessary
than to be of the same species; -- the only place where man meets man not only as an
equal but a brother; and where, by contemplating his duties, he may become sensible
of his rights. So high and haughty is the spirit of aristocracy, and such the
increasing pride of the privileged classes, that it is to be feared, if men did not
attend at the same place here, it would hardly be believed they were meant to go to
the same place hereafter. It is of service to the cause of freedom therefore, no
less than to that of virtue, that there is one place where the invidious
distinctions of wealth and titles are not admitted; where all are equal, not by
making the low, proud; but by making the
great, humble. How many a man exists who
possesses not the smallest property in this earth of which you call him lord; who,
from the narrowing spirit of property, is circumscribed and hemmed in by the
possessions of his more opulent neighbours, till there is scarcely an unoccupied
spot of verdure on which he can set his foot to admire the beauties of nature, or
barren mountain on which he can draw the fresh air without a trespass. The
enjoyments of life are for others, the labours of it for him. He hears those of his
class spoken of, collectively, as of machines, which are to be kept in repair
indeed, but of which the sole use is to raise the happiness of the higher orders.
Where, but in the temples of religion, shall he learn that he is of the same
species? He hears there (and were it for the first time, it would be with infinite
astonishment,) that all are considered as alike ignorant and to be instructed; all
alike sinful, and needing forgiveness; all alike bound by the same obligations, and
animated by the same hopes. In the intercourses of the world the poor man is seen,
but not noticed; he may be in the presence of his superiors, but he cannot be in
their company. In every other place it would be presumption in him to let his voice
be heard along with theirs; here alone they are both raised together, and blended in
the full chorus of praise. In every other place it would be an offence to be near
them, without showing in his attitudes and deportment the conscious marks of
inferiority; here only he sees the prostrations of the rich as low as his, and hears
them both addressed together in the majestic simplicity of a language that knows no
adulation. Here the poor man learns that, in spite of the distinctions of rank, and
the apparent inferiority of his condition, all the true goods of life, all that men
dare petition for when in the presence of their Maker -- a sound mind, a healthful
body, and daily bread, -- lie within the scope of his own hopes and endeavours; and
that in the large inheritance to come, his expectations are no less ample than
theirs. He rises from his knees, and feels himself a man. He learns philosophy
without its pride, and a spirit of liberty without its turbulence. Every time Social
Worship is celebrated, it includes a virtual declaration of the rights of man.
27. It may be further observed, that the regular services of the church are to us the
more necessary, as we have laid aside many of those modes and expressions which gave
a tincture of religion to our social intercourse and domestic manners. The regard to
particular days and seasons is nearly worn off. The forms of epistolary
correspondence, and the friendly salutations which, in the last century, breathed a
spirit of affectionate piety, are exchanged for the degrading ceremo-
nial of
unmeaning servility. The "God be with you," "God bless
you," "If God permit," "Heaven have you in its
keeping," -- like the graceful Salam, or salutation of peace
among the eastern nations, kept up in the mind a sense of the surrounding providence
of the Divine Being, and might, in some measure, supersede the necessity of more
formal addresses; whereas, in the present state of society, a stranger might pass
day after day, and week after week, in the bosom of a christian country, without
suspecting the faith of its inhabitants (if public worship were laid aside) from any
circumstance, unless it were the obscure, half-pronounced blessing which is still
sometimes murmured over the table.
28. Let it therefore be considered, when the length and abstracted nature of our public
prayers is objected to, that we have nothing to take their place. If our attention
was excited by processions, garlands, altars, and sacrifices, and every action of
our lives intermixed with some religious rite, these expressions of our homage might
be more readily dispensed with; but, in reality, tedious as Mr. Wakefield may think
long prayers, they suit better with the gravity of the national disposition and the
philosophic turn of our ideas, than any substitute which could be suggested by the
most classic taste. Our prayers are become long, because our ceremonies are short.
29. If we suppose these views of the subject to have established the general utility of
public worship, a question still arises, Is the obligation to it universal? Is
attendance on its exercises to be expected from those whose own minds are temples
more hallowed than any they can enter; and whose knowledge and cultivation render it
probable, that in every popular service they will meet with much to object to, and
little to interest a taste rendered fastidious by critical accuracy and elegant
refinement? Without presuming to condemn the conduct of those who are in every
respect so competent to form their own plans according to their own judgement, I
would mention some considerations which, even to them, may present it in a light not
unworthy their attention. It is, in the first place, an act of homage, and as such
equally incumbent on all. It is a profession of faith, less dubious even than the
performance of moral duties, which may proceed from a well-directed prudence, or the
harmony of a happy temperament. It is right and proper that Religion should have the
honour of those who are calculated to do her honour. It is likewise useful for a
pious man to be connected with pious people as such. Various associations are formed
upon the ground of something which men wish to improve or to enjoy in common.
Literary men associate, musical men associate, political men associate to-
gether; and
as there is a great deal of the commerce of the world in which it would be
impossible to introduce religion, there ought by way of balance to be some society
of which that is the ground and principle; otherwise, from the very nature of our
connexions with each other, we shall find religion less in our thoughts than almost
any thing else in which we have an interest, and insensibly it will waste and die
away for mere want of aliment. But the attendence of men of literature and knowledge
is perhaps most important from its effect upon others. The unenlightened worship
with most pleasure where those worship whose opinions they respect. A religion that
is left for the vulgar will not long satisfy even them. There is harshness in saying
to the bulk of mankind, "Stand aside, we are wiser than you."
There is harshness in saying, "Our affections cannot move in concert; what
edifies you, disgusts us; we cannot feel in common, even where we have a common
interest." In the intercourses of life, the man of urbanity makes a
thousand sacrifices to the conciliating spirit of courtesy and the science of
attentions. The exercises of devotion, Mr. Wakefield says, are wearisome. Suppose
they were so; how many meetings do we frequent, to how many conversations do we
listen with benevolent attention, where our own pleasure and our own improvement are
not the objects to which our time is given up? He who knows much must expect to be
often present where he can learn nothing. While others are receiving information, he
is practising a virtue. He, who in common life has learned to mix a regard to the
feelings and opinions of others with the pursuit of his own gratifications, will
bear, in the spirit of love and charity, the instruction which to him is
unnecessary, the amplification which to him is tiresome, the deficiencies of method
or of elocution, to which his ear and his judgement are acutely sensible; the
imperfections, in short, of men or of societies inferior to himself in taste or
knowledge; -- as in conversation he bears with the communicative overflowings of
self-importance, the repetition of the well-known tale, and the recurrence of the
numerous, burdensome forms of civilized society.
30. It becomes us well to consider what would be the consequence, if the desertion of
men of superior sense should become general in our assemblies. Not the abolition of
public worship, -- it is a practice too deeply rooted in the very propensities of
our nature; but this would be the consequence, that it would be thrown into the
hands of professional men on the one hand, and of uninformed men on the other. By
the one it would be corrupted; it would be debased by the other. Let the friends of
moderation and good sense consider
whether it is desirable, whether it is even safe,
to withdraw from the public the powerful influence of their taste, knowledge, and
liberality. Let them consider whether they are prepared to take the consequences of
trusting in the hands of any clergy, so powerful an engine as that of public worship
and instruction, without the salutary check of their presence who are best able to
distinguish truth from falsehood, to detect unwarrantable pretensions, and to keep
within tolerable bounds the wanderings of fanaticism. Attentive to the signs of the
times, they will have remarked on the one hand, a disposition to give into
deception, greater than might naturally have been presumed of this age, which we
compliment with the epithet of enlightened. Empiric extravagancies have been
adopted, which violate every sober and consistent idea of the laws of nature, and
new sects have sprung up distinguished by the wildest reveries of visionary
credulity. On the other, they will have observed indications of a desire to
discourage the freedom of investigation, to thicken the veil of mystery, and to
revive every obsolete pretension of priestly power, which, in the most ignorant
periods, the haughtiest churchman has ever dared to assume. They will have read with
astonishment an official exhortation to the inferior clergy -- it was not fulminated
from the Vatican, it was not dragged to light from the mould and rust of remote ages
-- It was delivered by an English divine of the eighteenth century, brilliant in
parts and high in place: he knew it was to meet the notice and encounter the
criticism of an enlightened and philosophic people, and he has not scrupled to tell
them -- that good works of a heretic are sin; and that such a one may go to hell
with his load of moral merit on his back. He has not scrupled to rank the first
philosopher of this kingdom, and the man in it perhaps of all others most actively
solicitous for the spread of what he at least believes to be genuine christianity,
with infidels and atheists; and thus by obvious inference has piously consigned him
to the same doom. He has revived claims and opinions which have upon their heads
whole centuries of oblivion and contempt; and by slandering Morality, has thought to
exalt Religion. -- Reflecting on these things, they will consider whether the man of
judgement does not desert the post assigned him by Providence, when he withdraws
from popular assemblies both the countenance of his example had the imposing awe of
his presence; they will conceive themselves as invested with the high commission to
take care nequid respublica detrimenti capiat; they will consider
themselves as the salt of the earth, the leaven of the lump, not to be secluded in
separate parcels, but to be mingled in the whole mass, diffusing through it their
own spirit and savour.
31. The author of the Enquiry chooses to expatiate, -- it is not difficult to do it, --
on the discordant variety of the different modes of worship practised amongst men,
and concludes it with characterizing this alarming schism by the comparison of the
poet:
| One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg; |
| The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg. |
32. But might we not venture to ask, -- Where, pray, is the harm of all this? unless
indeed I will not allow my neighbour to boil his egg because I roast mine. Eggs are
good and nutritious food either way; and in the manner of dressing them, fancy and
taste, nay caprice, if you will, may fairly be consulted. If I prefer the leg of a
pheasant, and my neighbour finds it dry, let each take what he likes. It would be a
conclusion singularly absurd, that eggs and pheasants were not to be eaten. All the
harm is in having but one tale for guests of every description; and yet even there,
were I at a public ordinary, good in other respects, I would rather conform my taste
in some measure to that of my neighbour, than be reduced to the melancholy necessity
of eating my morsel by myself alone.
33. The dissenters cannot be supposed to pass over in silence Mr. Wakefield's strictures
upon the manner in which they have chosen to conduct their public and social
worship. They are surprised
and sorry to find themselves treated with such a mixture
of bitterness and levity by a man whose abilities they respect, and whom they have
shown themselves ready to embrace as a brother. They have their prejudices, they
acknowledge -- and he perhaps has his. Many forms and observances may to them be
dear and venerable, through the force of early habit and association, which to a
stranger in their Israel may appear uncouth, unnecessary, or even marked with a
shade of ridicule. They pity Mr. Wakefield's peculiar and insulated situation.
Separating through the purest motives from one church, he has not found another with
which he is inclined to associate; divided by difference of opinions from one class
of christians, and by dissonance of taste from another, he finds the transition too
violent from the college to the conventicle: he worships alone because he stands
alone; and is, naturally perhaps, led to undervalue that fellowship which has been
lost to him between his early predilections and his later opinions. If, however, the
dissenters are not so happy as to gain his affection, they must be allowed to urge
their claims upon his esteem. They wish him to reflect, that neither his classical
knowledge, nor his critical acumen, nor his acknowledged talents, set him so high in
the esteem of good men, as that integrity which he possesses in common with those
whom he de- spises; they believe further consideration would suggest to him, that it
were more candid to pass over those peculiarities which have originated in a
delicate conscience and the fervour of devotion; and they cannot help asking,
Whether they had reason to expect the severity of sarcastic ridicule from him, whose
best praise it is that he has imitated their virtues and shared their sacrifices?
34. The dissenters, however, do not make it their boast that they have nothing to reform.
They have, perhaps, always been more conspicuous for principle than for taste; their
practices are founded upon a prevalence of religious fervour, an animation and
warmth of piety, which, if it no longer exists, it is vain to simulate. But what
they do make their boast is, that they acknowledge no principle which forbids them
to reform; that they have no leave to ask of bishops, synods, or parliaments, in
order to lay aside forms which have become vapid. They are open to conviction; they
are ready to receive with thankfulness every sober and liberal remark which may
assist them to improve their religious addresses, and model them to the temper of
the public mind. But, with regard to those practices of superabundant devotion which
have drawn down upon them the indignation of the critic, it is the opinion of those
who best know the dissenters of the present day,
that they might have been suffered
to fall quietly of themselves: they are supported by no authority, defrayed by no
impost. If they make long prayers, it is at the expense only of their own breath and
spirits; no widows' houses are devoured by it. If the present generation yawn and
slumber over the exercises which their fathers attended with pious alacrity, the
sons will of course learn to shorten them. If the disposition of their public
services wants animation, as perhaps it does, the silent pews will be deserted one
by one, and they will be obliged to seek some other mode of engaging the attention
of their audience. But modes and forms affect not the essence of public worship;
that may be performed with a form or without one; by words alone, or by symbolical
expressions, combined with or separated from instruction; with or without the
assistance of a particular order appointed to officiate in leading the devotions: it
may be celebrated one day in seven, or in eight, or in ten. In many of these
particulars a certain deference should be had to the sentiments of that society with
which, upon the whole, we think it best to connect ourselves, and as times and
manners change, these circumstances will vary; but the root of the practice is too
strongly interwoven with the texture of the human frame ever to be abandoned. While
man has wants, he will pray; while he is sensible of blessings, he will offer
praise; while he has common wants and common blessings, he will pray and praise in
company with his fellows; and while he feels himself a social being, he will not be
persuaded to lay aside social worship.
35. It must, however, be acknowledged, that, in order to give public worship all the
grace and efficacy of which it is susceptible, much alteration is necessary. It is
necessary here, as in every other concern, that timely reformation should prevent
neglect. Much might be done by judgement, taste, and a devotional spirit united, to
improve the plan of our religious assemblies. Should a genius arise amongst us
qualified for such a task, and in circumstances favourable to his being listened to,
he would probably remark first, on the construction of our churches, so ill adapted
are a great part of them to the purposes either of hearing or seeing. He would
reprobate those little gloomy solitary cells, planned by the spirit of aristocracy,
which deform the building no less to the eye of taste than to the eye of
benevolence, and insulating each family within its separate inclosure, favour at
once the pride of rank and the laziness of indulgence. He might choose for these
structures something of the amphitheatrical form, where the minister, on a raised
platform, should be beheld with ease by the whole wave of people, at once bending
together in deep humiliation, or spreading forth their hands in the earn-
estness of
petition. It would certainly be found desirable that the people should themselves
have a large share in the performance of the service, as the intermixture of their
voices would both introduce more variety and greater animation; provided pains were
taken by proper teaching to enable them to bear their part with a decorum and
propriety, which, it must be confessed, we do not see at present amongst those whose
public services possess the advantage of responses. The explaining, and teaching
them to recite, such hymns and collects as it might be thought proper they should
bear a part in, would form a pleasing and useful branch of the instruction of young
people, and of the lower classes; it would give them an interest in the public
service, and might fill up agreeably a vacant hour either on Sunday or on some other
leisure day, especially if they were likewise regularly instructed in singing for
the same purpose. As we have never seen, perhaps we can hardly conceive, the effect
which the united voices of the whole congregation, all in the lively expression of
one feeling, would have upon the mind. We should then perceive not only that we were
doing the same thing in the same place, but that we were doing it with one accord.
The deep silence of listening expectation, the burst of united praises, the solemn
pauses that invite reflection, the varied tones of humiliation, gratitude, or
persuasion, would swell and melt the heart by turns; nor would there by any reason
to guard against the wandering eye, when every object it rested on must forcibly
recall it to the duties of the place. -- Possibly it might be found expedient to
separate worship from instruction; the learned teacher from the leader of the public
devotions, in whom voice, and popular talents, might perhaps be allowed to supersede
a more deep and critical acquaintance with the doctrines of theology. One
consequence, at least, would follow such a separation, that instruction would be
given more systematically. -- Nothing that is taught at all is taught in so vague
and desultory a manner as the doctrines of religion. A congregation may attend for
years, even a good preacher, and never hear the evidences of either natural or
revealed religion regularly explained to them: they may attend for years, and never
hear a connected system of moral duties extending to the different situations and
relations of life: they may attend for years, and not even gain any clear idea of
the history and chronology of the Old and New Testament, which are read to them
every Sunday. They will hear abundance of excellent doctrine, and will often feel
their hearts warmed and their minds edified; but their ideas upon these subjects
will be confused and imperfect, because they are treated on in a manner so totally
different from every thing else which bears the name of instruc- tion. This is
probably owning, in a great measure, to the custom of prefixing to every
pulpit-discourse a sentence, taken indiscriminately from any part of the Scriptures,
under the name of a text, which at first implying an exposition, was afterwards used
to suggest a subject; and is now, by degrees, dwindling into a motto. -- Still,
however, the custom subsists; and while it serves to supersede a more methodical
course of instruction, tends to keep up in the minds of the generality of hearers a
very superstitious idea, -- not now entertained, it is to be presumed, by the
generality of those who teach, -- of the equal sacredness and importance of every
part of so miscellaneous a collection.
36. If these insulated discourses, of which each is complete in itself, and therefore can
have but little compass, were digested into a regular plan of lectures, supported by
a course of reading, to which the audience might be directed, it would have the
further advantage of rousing the inattentive and restraining the rambling hearer by
the interest which would be created by such a connected series of information. They
would occupy a larger space in the mind, they would more frequently be the subject
of recollection and meditation; there would be a fear of missing one link in such a
chain of truths; and the more intelligent part of a congregation might find a useful
and interesting employment in assisting the teacher in the in-
struction of those who
were not able to comprehend instruction with the same facility as themselves. When
such a course of instruction had been delivered, it would not be expected that
discourses, into which men of genius and learning had digested their best thoughts,
should be thrown by, or brought forward again, as it were, by stealth; but they
would be regularly and avowedly repeated at proper intervals. It is usual upon the
continent for a set of sermons to be delivered in several churches, each of which
has its officiating minister for the stated public worship; and thus a whole
district partakes the advantage of the labours of a man eminent for composition.
Perhaps it might be desirable to join to religious information some instruction in
the laws of our country, which are, or ought to be, founded upon morals; and which,
by a strange solecism, are obligatory upon all, and scarcely promulgated, much less
explained. -- Many ideas will offer themselves to a thinking man, who wishes not to
abolish, but to improve the public worship of his country. These are only hints,
offered with diffidence and respect, to those who are able to judge of and carry
them into effect.
37. Above all, it would be desirable to separate from religion that idea of gloom which
in this country has but too generally accompanied it. The fact cannot be denied; the
cause must be
sought, partly in our character, which I am afraid is not naturally
either very cheerful or very social, and which we shall do well to meliorate by
every possible attention to our habits of life; -- and partly to the colour of our
religious systems. No one who embraces the common idea of future torments, together
with the doctrine of election and reprobation, the insufficiency of virtue to escape
the wrath of God, and the strange absurdity which, it should seem, through
similarity of sound alone has been admitted as an axiom, that sins committed against
an infinite being do therefore deserve infinite punishment -- no one, I will venture
to assert, can believe such tenets, and have them often in his thoughts, and yet be
cheerful. Whence a system has arisen so incompatible with that justice and
benevolence, which in the discourses of our Saviour are represented as the most
essential attributes of the Divine Being, is not easy to trace. It is probable,
however, that power, being the most prominent feature in our conceptions of the
Creator, and that of which we see that most striking image here on earth (there
being a greater portion of uncontrouled power than of unmixed wisdom or goodness to
be found amongst human beings), the Deity would naturally be likened to an absolute
monarch; -- and most absolute monarchs having been tyrants, jealous of their
sovereignty, averse to freedom of investigation, ordering affairs, not with a view
to the happiness of their subjects, but to the advancement of their own glory; not
to be approached but with rich gifts and offerings; bestowing favours, not in
proportion to merit, but from the pure influence of caprice and blind partiality; to
those who have offended them severe, and unforgiving, except induced to pardon by
the importunate intercession of some favourite; confining their enemies, when they
have overcome them, after a contest, in deep dark dungeons under ground, or putting
them to death in the prolonged misery of excruciating tortures -- these features of
human depravity have been most faithfully transferred to the Supreme Being; and men
have imaged to themselves how a Nero or a Domitain would have acted, if from the
extent of their dominion there had been no escape, and to the duration of it no
period.
38. These ideas of the vulgar belief, terrible, but as yet vague and undefined, passed
into the speculations of the schoolmen, by whom they were combined with the
metaphysical idea of eternity, arranged in specific propositions, fixed in creeds,
and elaborated into systems, till at length they have been sublimed into all the
tremendous horrors of the Calvinistic faith. These doctrines, it is true, among
thinking people, are losing ground; but there is still apparent, in that class
called se-
rious christians, a tenderness in exposing them; a sort of leaning towards
them, -- as in walking over a precipice one should lean to the safest side; an idea
that they are, if not true, at least good to be believed, and that a salutary error
is better than a dangerous truth. But that error can neither be salutary nor
harmless, which attributes to the Deity injustice and cruelty; and that religion
must have the worst of tendencies, which renders it dangerous for man to imitate the
being whom he worships. Let those who hold such tenets consider, that the invisible
Creator has no name, and is identified only by his character; and they will tremble
to think what being they are worshiping, when they invoke a power capable of
producing existence, in order to continue it in never-ending torments. The God of
the Assembly's Catechism is not the same God with the deity of Thomson's Seasons,
and of Hutcheson's Ethics. Unity of character in what we adore is much more
essential than unity of person. We often boast, and with reason, of the purity of
our religion, as opposed to the grossness of the theology of the Greeks and Romans;
but we should remember, that cruelty is as much worse than licentiousness, as a
Moloch is worse than a satyr. -- When will christians permit themselves to believe
that the same conduct which gains them the approbation of good men here, will secure
the favour of Heaven hereafter? When will they cease making their court to their
Maker by the same servile debasement and affection of lowliness by which the vain
potentates of the earth are flattered? When a harmless and well-meaning man, in the
exaggerated figures of theological rhetoric, calls himself the vilest of sinners, it
is in precisely the same spirit of false humility in which the courtier uses
degrading and disqualifying expressions, when he speaks of himself in his adulatory
addresses to his sovereign. When a good man draws near the close of a life, not free
indeed from faults, but pure from crime, a life spent in the habitual exercise of
all those virtues which adorn and dignify human nature, and in the uniform approach
to that perfection which is confessedly unattainable in this imperfect state; when a
man -- perhaps like Dr. Price, whose name will be ever pronounced with affectionate
veneration and deep regard by all the friends of philosophy, virtue, and mankind --
is about to resign his soul into the hands of his Maker, he ought to do it, not only
with a reliance on his mercy, but his justice; a generous confidence and pious
resignation would be blended in his deportment. It does not become him to pay the
blasphemous homage of deprecating the wrath of God, when he ought to throw himself
into the arms of his love. He is not to think that virtue is one thing here, and
another in heaven; or that he one whom blessings and eulogiums are ready to burst
from all honest tongues, can be an object of punishment with Him who is infinitely
more benevolent than any of his creatures.
39. These remarks may be thought foreign to the subject in question; but in fact they are
not so. Public worship will be tinctured with gloom while our ideas of its object
are darkened by superstition; it will be infected with hypocrisy while its
professions and tenets run counter to the genuine unperverted moral sense of
mankind; it will not meet the countenance of philosophers so long as we are obliged
to unlearn our ethics, in order to learn divinity. Let it be considered that these
opinions greatly favour immorality. The doctrine that all are vile, and equally
merit a state of punishment, is an idea as consolatory to the profligate, as it is
humiliating to the saint; and that is one reason why it has always been a favourite
doctrine. The indecent confidence of a Dodd,4 and the debasing terrors of a
Johnson, or of more blameless men than he, spring from one and the same source. It
prevents the genuine workings
of real penitence, by enjoining confessions of
imaginary demerit; it quenches religious gratitude, because conceiving only of two
states of retribution, both in the extreme; and feeling that our crimes, whatever
they may be, cannot have deserved the one, we are not sufficiently thankful for the
prospect of the other, which we look upon as only a necessary alternative. Lastly,
it dissolves the connexion between religion and common life, by introducing a set of
phrases and a standard of moral feeling, totally different from those ideas of
praise and blame, merit and demerit, upon which we do and must act in our commerce
with our fellow-creatures.
40. There are periods in which the human mind seems to slumber, but this is not one of
them. A keen spirit of research is now abroad, and demands reform. Perhaps in none
of the nations of Europe will their articles of faith, or their church
establishments, or their modes of worship, be able to maintain their ground for many
years in exactly the same position in which they stand at present. Religion and
manners reciprocally act upon one another. As religion, well understood, is a most
powerful agent in meliorating and softening our manners; so, on the other hand,
manners, as they advance in cultivation, tend to correct and refine our religion.
Thus, to a nation in any degree acquainted with the social feelings, human
sacrifices
and sanguinary rites could never long appear obligatory. The mild spirit
of christianity has, no doubt, had its influence in softening the ferocity of the
Gothic times; and the increasing humanity of the present period will, in its turn,
produce juster ideas of christianity, and diffuse through the solemnities of our
worship, the celebration of our sabbaths, and every observance connected with
religion, that air of amenity and sweetness, which is the offspring of literature
and the peaceful intercourses of society. The age which has demolished dungeons,
rejected torture, and given so fair a prospect of abolishing the iniquity of the
slave-trade, cannot long retain among its articles of belief the gloomy perplexities
of Calvinism, and the heart-withering prospective of cruel and never-ending
punishments.
41. THE END.
1. * See Prideaux's Connection, vol. ii p. 528. [author, Anna Barbauld] BACK
2. ** Ibid. p. 538. [author, Anna Barbauld] BACK
3. "Either Caesar or nothing." [Poetess Archive Editor] BACK
4. *** "And admitted, as I trust I shall be, to the realms of bliss before you, I shall hail your arrival where with transport, and rejoice to acknowledge that you was my comforter, my advocate, and my friend," - Letter from Dr. Dodd to Dr. Johnson. See Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii. p. 140. [author, Anna Barbauld] BACK
Date: 1825
(revised 07/16/2007) Author:
Anna Letitia Barbauld
(revised Laura Mandell).
The editing on this page is copyrighted; this page may be used according to the rules of fair use.
