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Page 70
The third virtue is charity. We have elsewhere said, that if
universal love or charity means only general benevolence, and a
desire to makes others happy, and to do them good, all this is
commanded by reason and the ancient revelation; but if by this
precept it is commanded to love those who hate, oppress or insult
us, we do not at all scruple to assert, that the thing is impossible,
and unnatural. For, though we can abstain from hurting our
enemy; or even can do him good, we cannot really love him. Love
is a movement of the heart, which is governed and directed by the
laws of our nature, to those whom we think worthy of it, and to
those only.
Charity, considered as general benevolence of disposition, is
virtuous and necessary. It is nothing more than a feeling which
interests us in favour of our fellow beings. But how is this feeling
consistent with the peculiar doctrines of the gospel? According to
its maxims, it is a crime to offer God a heart, whoso affections are
shared by terrestrial objects. And besides, does not experience
show, that devotees obliged by principle to hate themselves, are
little disposed to give better treatment to others?
We should not be surprised that maxims, originating with
enthusiasm, should aim at, and have the effect of, driving man out
of himself. In the delirium of its enthusiasm, this religion forbids a
man to love himself. It commands him to hate all pleasures but
those of religion, and to cherish a long face. It attributes to him as
meritorious, all the voluntary evils he inflicts upon himself. From
thence originate those austerites, those penances, destructive to
health; those cruel privations by which the inhabitants of the
monastic cell kill themselves by inches, in order to merit the joys
of heaven. Now, how can good sense admit that God delights in
seeing his creatures torment themselves?
It may be said to all this, perhaps, that this is mere declamation, for
Christians now a days do not torment themselves, but live as
comfortable as others. To this I answer that Christianity is to be
judged not by what Christians do, but by what it commands them
to do. Now, I presume it will not be denied that the New Testament
commands its professors to renounce the world, to be dead to the
world, to �crucify the flesh with its passions, and desires.�
Certainly these directions were literally complied with by the
primitive Christians; and, in doing so, they acted consistently. In
those times, the deserts, the mountains, the forests were peopled
with perfect Christians; who withdrew from the world, deprived
their families of support, and their country of citizens, in order to
lead unmolested �the divine life.� It was the New Testament
morality that spawned those legions of monks and cenobites, who
thought to secure the favour of heaven, by burying their talents in
the deserts, and devoting themselves to inaction and celibacy.
And at this very day we see these very same things in those
Christian countries, which are truly faithful to the principles of
their religion.
In fine, Christianity seems from the first, to have taken pains to set
itself in point blanc opposition to nature, and reason. If it admits
and includes some virtues ordered and appointed by God, good
sense, and universal experience; it drives them beyond their
bounds into extravagance. It preserves no just medium, which is
the point of perfection. Voluptuousness, adultery and debauchery
are forbidden by the laws of God and reason. But Christianity not
content with commanding, and encouraging marriage, as did the
Old Testament, must forsooth go beyond it, and therefore
encourages celibacy, as the state of perfection God says, in
Genesis, �it is not good that man should be alone. I will make a
companion for him.� And he blessed all his creatures, saying, �
increase and multiply.� But the gospel annuls this law, and
represents a single life to be most pleasing, to the very being,
whose very first command was, �increase and multiply�! It advises
a man to die without posterity, to refuse citizens to the state, and to
himself, a support for his old age.
�It is to no purpose to deny that Christianity recommends all this; I
say, it substantially does! and I boldly appeal,--not to a few
Protestant Divines,--but to the New Testament; to the Homilies
of the Fathers of the Church; to the History, and Practice of the
Primitive Christians; to the innumerable Monasteries of Europe,
and Asia; to the immense multitudes who have lived, and died
hermits; and, finally, (because I know very well, the Protestant
divines attribute these follies to the influence of Platonism,
Pythagoranism, and several other isms upon pure Christianity) I
appeal to living evidence now in the world, to the only
thoroughgoing Christians in it, viz., to the Society of the Shakers,
who I maintain, and can prove, to be true, genuine imitators of the
Primitive Christians, and a perfect exemplification of their
manners, and modes of thinking. I adduce them the more
confidently, because, being simple, and unlearned, their character
has been formed by the spirit of the New Testament, and perfectly
represents the effects of its principles fully carried out, and acted
upon. They never heard of Platonism, or of Pythagoras in their
lives, and, consequently, the polemic tricks, and evasions, which
have been, as hinted just now, resorted to by Protestant divines, to
shift from the shoulders of Christianity to those of Plato or
Pythagoras, the obnoxious principles we have been considering,
are of no use in this case, as, whatever the characters of these
Shakers may be, they were formed by the New Testament, and by
nothing else; and I believe, that every scholar in ecclesiastical
history, who reads Brown�s history of the Shakers, will be
immediately and powerfully struck with the resemblance
subsisting between them, and the Christians of the two first
centuries.
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