網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

What keen regrets, what sickness of the heart,
What yearnings o'er their forfeit land of birth,
Their distant dear ones?-

Long, with straining eye,

They watch the lessening speck.-Heard ye no shriek
Of anguish, when that bitter loneliness

Sank down into their bosoms?-No! they turn
Back to their dreary, famish'd huts, and pray!--
Pray, and the ills that haunt this transient life
Fade into air.--Up in each girded breast
There sprang a rooted and mysterious strength,-
A loftiness,--to face a world in arms,--
To strip the pomp from sceptres,--and to lay
Upon the sacred altar, the warm blood

Of slain affections, when they rise between
The soul and God.-

-And can ye deem it strange
That from their planting such a branch should bloom
As nations envy?-Would a germ embalm'd
With prayer's pure tear-drops, strike no deeper root
Than that which mad ambition's hand doth strow

Upon the winds, to reap the winds again?

Hid by its vale of waters from the hand

Of greedy Europe, their bold vine spread forth
In giant strength.—

-Its early clusters crush'd

In England wine-press, gave the tyrant host
A draught of deadly wine.- -Oh! ye who boast
In your free veins the blood of sires like these,
Lose not their lineaments.-Should Mammon cling
Too close around your heart,—
,—or wealth beget
That bloated luxury which eats the core
From manly virtue, or the tempting world
Make faint the christian purpose in your soul,
Turn ye to Plymouth's beach,-and on that rock
Kneel in their foot-prints, and renew the vow
They breathed to God.

THE

UNITARIAN ADVOCATE.

VOL. IV.

AUGUST, 1829.

No. II.

ON THE PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AS ADAPTED TO THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY.

If any one should cast his eye to the running title of the first part of this Essay, and hesitate about its meaning or its truth, I might say that I do consider it in fact as describing the natural order, by which our affections originally rise to piety. The child loves his parent before he can love his Maker, and that filial affection is the very step by which he should be taught to rise to the higher affections. But the object I have in view is different, as I shall now proceed to state.

I am about to inquire whether there does not need to be a decided advance in the notions of religious attainment that prevails among Christians. And not to leave this to be an indefinite question, I will still further state the specific object of the inquiry to be,-whether, in our system of moral instruction, there ought not to be added to virtue more of devotion; whether the sentiments which we cherish towards God should not be elevated to a higher plan, and brought into a more habitual exercise than it is commonly thought they ought to be; whether this part of religion does not need to be taught and urged with more earnestness than it has been.

[blocks in formation]

But I will attempt, by a slight preliminary survey of the ground, more fully to explain what is proposed in this question. We are all accustomed to admit that there has been a progress in God's revelations to the world, that the successive dispensations of religion which he has appointed have been accommodated to the unfolding capacities of men, that new aspects of religion have been presented as men needed, or could bear them. It has required one kind of religious instruction, for a barbarous people, and another, for a polished society. The acute and intelligent Greeks and Romans could not receive the cumbersome and minute ceremonies of the Jewish ritual; still less could we. How different was the tone of instruction in that an ancient age, from what it now is !—with how different a voice did their prophets commonly speak, from that of the great prophet of the new dispensation! It may have seemed surprising to us, that such continual stress could have been laid by the Jewish teachers upon a set of mere forms and institutions; that the burden of precepts, and expostulations, and threatenings, and promises should have rested so much upon matters of outward sacrifice and observance, which did not strictly or necessarily make their votaries any better or worse. Yet this was suited to the circumstances, to the age, and to the men. Jesus, the leader and Lord of a new dispensation, adopted a kind of instruction more pure, spiritual and practical, and equally suited to the wants of men in his time. He laboured to reform a corrupt state of moral sentiment and moral conduct. At the same time, he brought into view with more frequency and distinctness, the spiritual relations and intrinsic interests which bind men to their Maker. He brought more distinctly into

view, God as our heavenly Father, and invited us as his children, to a more free, unincumbered, habitual, and happy communion with him.

[ocr errors]

Now it appears to me that the moral part of his instructions, has had its accomplishment to a much greater extent, than the devotional. There has been an immense progress of moral sentiment since that period. The views of what is called common virtue, of moral qualities and actions, of industry, and good will, and charity to the poor, and self-denials and true goodness, have become, and are daily becoming more pure, intellectual, and exalted. But, I question whether there has been the same progress of devotional sentiment. And I desire the reader's particular attention to the remark, that while from growing knowledge, culture, and refinement the community less and less needs to be urged on the grosser and more palpable matters of moral sentiment, it does from the very same causes, more and more need to be directed to the influences and supports of devotion. In other words, and to make the case an individual one, a man of very strong intellectual habits, of much thought and literary taste, is less liable for those reasons, to fall into vice, into vicious and low sentiments, but he does so much the more need the refuge and reliance of a devout communion with God. This is taking an extreme case, I am aware. But in proportion as the community, or any considerable body of it, approaches towards this state of mind, in proportion as it is more cultivated, as there is more reading, more leisure, more freedom from the necessity of instant toil, is there more need of directing the general mind for interest, and support, and consolation, to the habitual thoughts of God, to a devout living in communion

with him, and to the glories of immortality. And not for support only, but for safeguard too-for to me it is apparent that the more, and the more freely men are lead to speculate on moral subjects, the more they discriminate, the more they perceive the insufficient grounds, on which in the general mind, not a few, even of good moral principles rest; the more they detect the vague, unsatisfactory and superstitious notions that prevail, the more do they need the safeguard of a high religious sensibility; the more do they need exalted and devout thoughts of God's constant presence and inspection.

Let us again turn back for a moment to the history and progress of religion. The Judaism of Christianity, if I may speak so the reign of forms, and ceremonies, and institutions, was in the hierarchy of the Romish Church. Under its full power, the religious mind was chiefly occupied with outward observances. At the Reformation it took a new direction. But after some ebullitions of zeal for freedom and thought, the rights of conscience, and the sufficiency of the scriptures, religion showed itself to have advanced but a single step, and leaving its engrossing concern about forms, to have settled down into a paramount attachment to doctrines. Then came speculations, scholastic arguments, metaphysics, and the modes of religious teaching. Religion was set forth too prominently in the form of a right faith, a belief in a certain system of doctrine; and that, too, in many of its parts a system very complicated and abstruse; or, at most, religion consisted in an accordance of the affections with this system. This speculative sort of religion, this religion of frames and exercises which were required to be conformed to a certain system of abstract speculation, removed the sub

« 上一頁繼續 »