THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER,

NEW SERIES.

*. VOLUME II. -NUMBER II.

BETHANY, VA. FEBRUARY, 1838.

MORALITY OF CHRISTIANS—No. II.

MORALITY without religion is conceivable, but religion without morality is impossible. Bodies there may be without souls; but on this wide earth a soul without a body is no where to be found. Christian morality is the effect of Christian religion; and not only do they stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect, but according to the measure of our piety will ever be the ratios of our morality.

The being, perfections, and will of God concerning us, are the themes, as we have seen, on which our piety will meditate, and feast, and invigorate itself forever. The declared will of the Self-Existent, all whose excellencies are infinite, immutable, and everlasting, will be the mainspring of all our volitions, efforts, and enterprize during the infinite ages of eternity. His making himself our divine and natural Father through the incarnation of his only begotten and infinitely beloved Son, whose wonderful name is EMANUEL, has laid a foundation for new classes of feelings which shall spring up eternally in the human breast, and endear us to one another by sympathies and attachments pure, and holy, and lasting as heaven itself. These shall continually enlarge our capacities of enjoyment and multiply our sources of plea. sure by the whole number of the innumerable millions of sons and daughters that the Captain of our salvation shall eventually lead into glory.

The roots of Christian morality spread themselves over the whole surface of these religious considerations, and strike deep into the

Divinity which has assumed human nature into personal union with itself, and elevated it to a throne which now commands the destinies of a universe. And while they thus bury themselves deep in these invisible and eternal realities, and derive nourishment divine and celestial from so many sources, they clothe with verdure and beauty that splendid vine whose branches embrace men of all nations, and whose rich and delicious clusters refresh and cheer every human being that sits under its fragrant shadow.

Christian Morality, being the daughter of Christian Religion, seeks to find in man as many objects to engage its affections as Christian Piety finds in our heavenly Father. These sacred three are the person, the character, and the property of our fellows, wherever they may happen to have been born, or wherever they may happen to live. The cold, calculating principle of that morality which makes utility to the State the standard of all its excellencies, is not of the royal family of heaven, and has impiously assumed to itself a name which it cannot adorn-a name which it desecrates on every occasion. It is mere selfishness arrayed in the costume of benevolence.

The morality of the gospel sees more in man than the philosopher, the statesman, or the merchant ever saw in him. While the philoso pher speculates upon his constitution, and the statesman upon his political rights and his political dues; while the lawyer sees in him only a client-the physician, a patient-the divine, a parishioner-the merchant and the mechanic, a customer; the Christian moralist sees in him a brother made in the image of God, and capable of being again restored to it and of becoming an immortal guest in the mansions of glory.

True, indeed, he often finds him so laden with sins and degraded with his follies, that there is nothing in him to love, nothing to esteem, every thing to make him ashamed of his brotherhood: but even then the reflection that he himself might have stood in his place, and been as wretched too, but for the kind protection and distinguishing grace of the Father of mercies, awakens in his bosom emotions of pity and compassion, which, when occasion requires, overflows to him in deeds of kindness and benevolence.

But that we may proceed in order in the consideration of this most important subject, we shall first consider the morality of Christians as respects the persons of our neighbors, of whom there are two distinct classes-those who are our neighbors only, and those who are both our neighbors and our brethren.

When a neighbor is all immersed into a brother, his person is much nearer to us than it was before; because it is now a member of

that mystical body of which the King of heaven is the true and proper head, and calls for that respect, attention, and affection which are due to a relative so high born, so intimately connected with the family of God, and who is bound up with us in the same bundle of life and to be our companion and delight in a world that shall never end. We owe to him honor, because of his pedigree and relatives; we owe to him affection, because of brotherhood: hence our counsel, assistance, protection, and constant good will are always to be actively employed in his behalf when necessity requires our interposition. He is also under all the same responsibilities, because he stands in the same relations to us that we stand to him; and therefore the obligations of Christian morality secure to us all that they demand from us, being altogether social and reciprocal.

Those who in any way violate or injure the persons of men, or those who, having it in their power, fail to relieve them in sickness or distress, are of course unworthy of the name of neighbor or brother. He that injures the person of his brother, is an evil doer of the first class-a sinner of the highest order, whether that injury be only temporary or perpetual. As most of the positive injuries inflicted on the persons of men, may, by some fatality, terminate in death, to lay one's hand upon man with any evil intent, is, in every case, of the essence of murder; and whatever it may be in effect, it is not in morality distinguishable from it. Hence the Good Book teaches us that he who only "hates his brother is a murderer," though that hatred should never ripen into actual violence against his life. To strike our neighbor or our brother in a passion, in the spirit of retaliation, is therefore one of the highest of moral misdemeanors, and must greatly pollute the conscience and degrade the character who does it.

Corporal chastisement, in any case, ought to be like cannon, the ultima ratio regum;—the last argument of those in authority. Parents and masters ought never to resort to it until reason and remonstrance have proved themselves inadequate means of reformation. Those Christian masters who have Christian servants, cannot, in any case violate their persons, inasmuch as they are brethren. The censures of the church are the only punishments which, on any Christian principle, can be inflicted on them. No man can lay his hand upon the person of one acknowledged as a Christian brother, although he may stand in the relation of father, or master, or magistrate, or officer of any rank, without insulting his Master in heaven, himself, and the whole community of Christians both in heaven and on earth.

Those, too, who deficiently and meanly clothe their domestics, or who deprive them of proper food and lodging, under whatever pretence

it may be done, cannot, without the highest profanation of Christian principle and character, assume to themselves the holy profession of Christ. Humanity,, to say nothing of Christianity, is outraged by such conduct. If Jesus said that he would certainly reward every one that gave only a cup of cold water to any of his disciples, what shall be the doom of those professors, who, while they enrich themselves with the toils of Christian brethren, withhold from them necessary and comfortable food and raiment, as well as lodging, medicine, and attendance when they become necessary!! Such Christians are not enrolled in heaven nor recognized in the New Testament.

Personal rights are paramount rights; hence all violations of them are crimes of the deepest die. Sins against property, how enormous soever, are venal, compared with sins against one's person. Better take away by violence a man's whole patrimony than one of his eyes; better invade his possession than break his skin or injure his person. To neglect a brother in distress is a high misdemeanor: "I was sick and in prison and you visited me not." How much more to injure him by a positive infraction of his rights! But when the Christian has refrained from all these, he must not imagine that he has attained any excellence. His virtues are yet rather of the negative than of the positive kind. Christian morality not only says, 'You must do no evil;' it says also, 'You must do good.' Its first precept to the penitent, is, "Cease to do evil-learn to do well."

Good manners, or what is sometimes called politeness or courtesy, belong to this chapter of personal rights. Personal respect is due to all men. One of the injunctions of the Apostle Paul, is, "Render to all their dues-honor to whom honor, and reverence [or fear] to whom reverence is due." Peter also commands us to "honor all men," or to treat all men with respect, as well as to "fear God and honor the king." Indeed, the very essence of all politeness is found in the apostolic maxim, "In honor prefer one another;" or, in the Christian precept, "Deny yourself."

A selfish person is always impolite, ungentlemanly, and unchristian in his manners. This is manifest even in the beggarly elements of indecency, from the tobacco-chewer up to the veriest gormandizer, or from him who smokes in your face up to him who smites you upon the cheek. A due, and becoming, and graceful respect for the personal

* I received the other day a very interesting letter from a sensible lady in Philadelphia, on the grievances to which herself and others had been subjected by tobacco-chewers in the church. Not only was the floor of the synagogue polluted by their ambeer pools, so that kneeling was rendered impossible, but even the cup of blessings bore upon it the indig nity of the narcotic perfume of some tobacco-breathing brother, whose juicy lips had either defiled the cup or impregnated the symbolic wine. This is really intolerable. Last year the General Assembly, that supreme and august court of the Presbyterian church, was prohibited the use of the best meeting-houses in "the city of brotherly kindness," bec ause

rights of others, taught Abraham to bow down to the sons of Heth; the Patriarchs to make their humble obeisance to the Governor of Egypt; and David to bow himself to the unworthy Saul. It insinuated itself into the Jewish code, and was sanctioned by a divine precept, which said, "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God." It taught Paul not only to address men in authority with the most honorable epithets, but to teach Christians to respect aged men and women; and not to look every man upon his own welfare, but to pay a just regard to that of his neighbor. The Christian spirit is the spirit of true politeness, and Christian morality is the very standard of good manners. A perfect Christian, while reason and good taste retain their supremacy on earth, will always be found to be a perfect gentleman in every thing that rightfully enters into the composition of such a personage. A. C.

MR. LYND'S DISCOURSE ON SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE.

No. II.

From the Cross & Baptist Journal.

THE INFLUENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. REPLY TO MR. CAMPBELL.

[CONTINUED FROM PAGE 35.]

5. In my essay I had premised that some truths are revealed which are beyond our comprehension, and gave an instance in relation to the mode of the divine existence.Upon this Mr. Campbell observes-"We admit the mode of the divine existence is incomprehensible; but this is a question about the nature of a power, not of a mode of being; and it will never suffice in the eye of reason or philosophy to make the incomprehensibility of one doctrine a proof that another in debate is incomprehensible." Certainly Mr. Campbell's logical sagacity has forsaken him, for there is no such argument in my essay.— I did not suppose for a moment, that the incomprehensibility of the divine existence proved the incomprehensibility of the Spirit's influence. I did not say so. The very object I had in view by that example was completely attained. It was to show the fallacy of a favorite idea of Mr. Campbell, on which he dwells with great apparent satisfaction. In the person of Timothy he says to Austin-"Can you give no name to, nor definition of, that power or influence? or is it an indistinct and indescribable influence of which you can form no idea? for, remember, if you can form no idea of it, it is impossible to think of it, or to speak of it intelligibly." But who can form an idea of the unity of the divine existence in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Yet is it less true because it is above our comprehension? Then suppose we cannot form a clear idea of the nature of the Spirit's influence, will this prove that no such influence exists. This was the design of my remark, and it was so stated. This was à point upon which poor Austin, who had no intellect of his own, was utterly confounded.

of the pollutions of its priesthood at the shrine of the idol TOBACCO. They were, as we earn, almost literally turned out of doors, because no decent synagogue would throw open its doors to be inundated and strewed with the libations of these devotees to the stupifying

herb.

As I have been reclaimed from this vice, I can lift up my voice against it, and testify that in my judgment it is deservedly obnoxious to the reprobation of the philosopher, the physician, the moralist, the gentleman, and the Christian. 5*

VOL. II.-N. S.