The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety, Chapter 3
CHAP. III. A survey of the Mischiefs arising from Inconsideration.
THE last Section having defeated all the promising hopes of the former, by shewing us how sadly we have frustrated all the designs and engagements of our profession, enervated all those apt and powerful methods, and how perfectly contrary our practices are to our rules, mere curiosity would more prompt us to enquire what are the hidden causes of those so strange effects, what unhappy propriety there is in the soil, that after so much culture and husbandry it should produce nothing but wild Grapes: and by what arts and wiles Satan has not only evaded, but even retorted those blows which were aim'd at him. But as in diseases the pains and languishings are obvious to the grossest sense, but the springs and originals of them most frequently lye deep, and are so complicated and interwoven, that they require much art to search and to distinguish them: nay, do often mock the most subtile inquisitor, and send him back with meer conjectures and uncertain guesses: so in this Epidemick Spiritual distemper, the malady is notorious and visible, but the causes of it not so easily determin'd, yet that not so much from the darkness as the number of them; so many do pretend, and that with very good colour, to this unhappy, this monstrous birth, that a Solomon himself must have made the proposal of dividing it, as not being able to have assign'd it entire to any one Mother.
INDEED so many are the concurrents towards it, that it would far exceed the limits of this little Tract, but to point at them: I shall not therefore undertake any such exact enumeration, but shall only take notice of those which either for the generality or degree of their efficacy appear the most eminent.
AND first the great and stupid Inconsideration which most men have concerning their Religion, may well pass for a main cause of its frustration. Christianity may make Archimedes his challenge, give it but where it may set its foot, allow but a sober advertence to its proposals, and it will move the whole world: it comes with most invincible and controuling arguments, but still they are arguments, and those must first obtain attention, before they can force assent; they will most infallibly weigh down the scales, though the whole world were the counter-balance, but then that must presuppose their being put into those Scales: being entertain'd with so much of deliberation, as may try and examine their weight. In a word, they address to us as men, that is creatures endued by God, with rational Souls and discursive faculties, but if we will suppress these, and set up only the brute to give audience, we must not expect Balaams prodigy shall be every day repeated, that the beast should be wiser than the rider, and consequently cannot wonder if the Success vary with the Auditors.
AND 'tis to be fear'd, this is the state of most of us, that all the convincing Logick, that demonstration of the Spirit, as St. Paul calls it: and all the perswasive Rhetorick of the Gospel, find us so stupid and unconcern'd, that they can make no impression: all the avenues are so blockt up, that they can find no way of approaching us. We are like the Indian Serpents Phylostratus mentions, proof against all charms, but such as with their glittering splendor assault our Eyes: nothing moves us but what courts our Senses, and what is not gross enough to be seen, we think too nice to be consider'd. The form and name of Christianity men find ready to their hands, and it costs them no labour to put it on: but should they be interrogated of the import and significancy of it, I fear many would be at a loss what to answer. Men call themselves Christians as they do French or English, only because they were born within such a territory, take up their Religion as a part of their fate, the temper of their Climate, the entail of their Ancestors, or any thing most remote from their choice, the profession of it descends to them by way of inheritance, and like young careless Heirs, they never are at the charge to survey it, to inform themselves either of the Issues, or Revenues of it; what burdens it lays or what advantages it promises. Every man sees they are vast multitudes that have entered the Baptismal vow, and I fear no small numbers of them, that weigh it as little when they should perform it, as they did when they made it. Have no other notion of Baptism, but as a custom of the place, or a time of festivity: consider no farther significancy in these spiritual bands, than they do in the Swadling-cloaths of their infancy, and can give no better account why they took on them Christs livery, than why they wear such garments as the common fashion of their Country prescribes them.
THIS is in many the effect of gross ignorance, that really know nothing that borders upon Religion: and where that is the principle, we cannot think it strange to see their practices proportionable; this returns them into the state of Heathenisin, and while they walk in that darkness, it is no wonder if they often fall: the only matter of admiration is, that there should be any such darkness among us; that the glorious light, as St. Paul terms it, of the Gospel of Christ, should not long ere this have dispell'd it out of our Horizon, and certainly that it has not, must be owing to some very great guilt, so that concerning such persons the Disciples question, Io. 9. is very pertinent, Who did sin, this man or his Parents? Where men are so ignorant it must necessarily infer their Parents negligence in infusing, or their own stubborn perveseness in resisting instruction, but 'tis more probable to conclude the former, since if Children were early instituted, knowledge would insensibly insinuate its self, before their years had arm'd them with obstinacy enough to make head against it: but when by the Parents remisness the proper Seeds-time is lost; the soil grows stiffe and untractable; the labour of learning averts their Childhood, and the shame of it their Manhood, and so they grow old in their ignorance, are ready to leave this world before they come to know any thing of that which is to succeed it. This is a common, but certainly a most deplorable case, and as it loudly accuses those Parents, who thus wretchedly hazard their Childrens greatest concernments, so certainly it reflects not very laudably upon those, who by slighting that excellent Order of Confirmation in this Church, have besides all other advantages of it, robb'd them of that happy reserve, which the care of their Spiritual Parent, had provided to repair the negligence of their Natural; but guilt has a miserable kind of infinity, and lessens not by being communicated; and therefore though these unknowing persons may with justice enough accuse others, yet can they never the more absolve themselves. Indeed they cannot tax others omissions towards them, without a tacite reproach of their own: for if it were a fault in the Parent, to let their infancy want those necessary infusions, 'tis surely so in themselves, to let their riper years continue in that destitution. And sure 'tis not probable there could be a more irrational motive to the former, than that which prevails with the later; to wit, the fear of shame, which certainly much more properly belongs to him that lies stupidly under his want, than he that industriously sets to cure it: so that while they go thus preposterously to avert reproach, they invite it; nay, and do besides betray one of their most important secrets, discover themselves more solicitous about appearances than realities; to be thought knowing than to be so. A strange kind of speculative Hypocrisie, which yet leads to all the practical profaneness incident to those, who live without God in the world.
BUT would God the unchatechiz'd were the only persons we had to complain of in this matter: There is another sort as ignorant, who have not that plea; who by a wretchless Inconsideration, have made a shift to unlearn what they had once been taught. That this is naturally very possible no man can question, that observes how desuetude will rob a man of any Science, or other habit. But in this case there is yet a farther concurrent towards it, Christs parable tells us of Fowles that devoured the Seed, which himself interprets to be the wicked one, which catcheth away the word sow'n in mens hearts: When that spiritual seed lies loose and scatter'd upon the surface, and is not by deep and serious meditation, harrowed as it were into the ground, it offers it self a ready prey to the devourer, and God knows the event is too ready to attest the truth of the observation: For do we not see many whose childhoods have wanted nothing of Christian nurture, that have had all advantages to the making them wise unto salvation, yet suffer their manhood to wear out and obliterate all those rudiments of their youth; and that not only out of their practice, but even out of their memory too: this (would we be patient to have the experiment made) would, I doubt not, be found too true in divers, and they would appear less able to approve themselves not only to the Confessor, but even to the Catechist in their adult age, than they were in their Minority: as having scarce ever thought of the principles of their religion, since they conn'd them to avoid correction; and then 'tis no wonder if they pass into the same forgetfulness with other the occurrences of that slippery age.
BUT if with some the memory have been so invincibly faithful, as not to have resign'd its depositum: if it do happen obstinately to retain those early impressions which were made on it. Yet alass that alone will be of little avail: 'tis true that is the store-house, and 'tis good to have that well replenisht; but if its plenty be only within its self uncommunicated, if the granary though never so full, be seal'd up, it gives no security against a famine: a mans remembrance of his Creed may tell him there is a God, and that he is Almighty; but if his reason be so much a sleep, as not to inferr from thence the necessity of reverencing and obeying him who is all powerful to revenge our contempts: he may repeat the Article every day and yet never the less Atheistically. In like manner he may go on to the Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, but if he weigh not the obligations to gratitude and duty which devolve on him from thence he may remember his Birth, and yet never be regenerate: his Death, and yet not dye to sin: and his Resurrection, and yet lie rotting in his own corruption, and not rise with him to newness of life. So he may proceed to his coming to Iudge the quick and the dead, but if he reflect not on his own particular concernment in it, if he consider not that for every the secretest thing, Eccl. 11. God will bring him, as well as others to judgment: he may talk of Dooms-day as men do of such Assizes as they have no trial at, but it will never set him a trembling, or give him the providence to anticipate his sentence; so judge himself here, that he may not be judged of the Lord. And so proportionably in all the parts of our Christian Faith: he that does not extract from them their proper and just inferences, shall never feel their efficacy. He has indeed in that excellent Systeme, a most infallible Catholicon, against all his spiritual Maladies, but 'tis a Medicine, not a Charm; to be taken, not laid by him; and if he fail in application, he will as certainly miss of the cure: and this gives us one too clear a reason, why so many, in the most fatal sense, are weak and sick among us, and faln asleep; are first lethargick, and then stark dead in trespasses and sins. Men do not by sober consideration suck out the vertue which would heal them: they look on the Creed as Christs badge, and so long as they bear that they think none must question their Christianity: whereas 'tis indeed more properly his Military Symbolum, or recognition of the cause, and General they fight for; an engaging them to all the obedience, fidelity and constancy of resolute souldiers: and to this purpose it is that we stand up at the recital of the Creed, as owing our Baptismal promise to fight manfully under our Saviours Banner against Sin, the World, and the Devil; and if we do not thus, 'tis not material what professions we make, we are the same desertors whether we stay in our own Camp, or run over to the enemies; throw away our Arms, or not use them; renounce our Christian faith, or not improve it. Sloth is as mischievous in war as treachery or cowardize, and he that keeps his sword in the sheath, is as unformidable an enemy, as he that brings none into the field.
AND how many such insignificant combatants are there in the Christian Camp: that only lend their Names to fill up the Muster-roll: but never dream of going upon service. 'Tis certain there are as many such, as there are careless unconsidering Professors: and these 'tis to be fear'd make so great a number, that were the Church put to estimate her forces, and examine what effectively her strength is, she would find the deceit of false musters as great among the Spiritual as the Civil Souldiery. It is indeed a most amazing thing to see, that that which is the one great and important interest of all men, should of all other things meet with the least regard. If we make a proposal of worldly profit, though incumbred with many difficulties and liable to many uncertainties, we shall not only have an attentive hearing, but active care and diligent pursuit of the design, it will be driven to the last glimpse of hope and if the first attempt miscarry, the next occasion is laid hold of; but here where the prize is so rich, the conditions so easie, the acquest so certain, yet (as if these were deterring, averting qualities) we cannot be got to take the matter into our deliberation. Alas, what stupid folly has possest men? and by what measures do they make their estimates? how are their precious Souls become so vile in their eyes, that they are the only part of them, which they think below their regard? In an Epidemick disease every man looks out for Antidote or Medicine for his own peculiar, and does not acquiesce in that silly confidence that he shall do as well as other men: yet in this greater danger, that is their avowed comfort, and keeps them as cheerful as if they had the most solid grounds of security. Alas, can numbers out-face damnation, or do men hope that by going in troops to hell they shall master the native inhabitants, subdue those legions of tormentors, and become conquerors in stead of sufferers? This is sure too wild an imagination for any to entertain, yet what more sober one can any pretend, in favour of so stupendous an improvidence?
BUT 'twill be much more seasonable to reform than Apologize or Rhetoricate; and therefore 'twill import those men, who like the inhabitants of Laish, dwell careless, quiet, and secure, to look about them: to enter into serious consultation how they may avert that ruine which waits upon such a supine temper, not to suffer themselves to perish in the midst of such possibilities, nay solicitations to be saved: but at last afford an audience to that Embassie which is sent them from Heaven. Ponder well those easie terms of reconciliation which are propos'd: the inestimable advantages consequent to the embracing that amity; and the as inestimable detriment of refusing it: in a word, not to please themselves with the empty title, but to penetrate the full purport and significancy of their Christianity, and when they have done this soberly and attentively: having removed this first and most general obstruction to piety, they will find themselves assaulted by such force of reason that they must either be very ill Logicians, or very good Christians.