THE GROUND OF INFIDELITY.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 6, 1856,

BY THE REV. HENRY MELVILL, B.D.

(Chaplain in Ordinary to Her Majesty, and Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's,)

AT ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH, LOTHBURY.

"For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."—John iii. 20.

Ir is often a good way of arguing, to reason up from natural things to spiritual. There is so striking an analogy between the dealings of God in the world of matter and those which are made known to us in the world of spirit, that we may regard the things of nature as an alphabet by which are told out to us the nobler and more precious things of Christ. And it were well if this analogy were more kept in mind, so that men might not imagine for themselves a mode of treatment as subjects of God, which is altogether different from what they experience as subjects of an earthly monarch. They seem for the most part to proceed on the supposition, that, though placed under the gospel, they may accept it or reject it, just as their own inclinations dictate, as though it were not a fearfully certain thing, that all who have ever been brought within the sound of the gospel will be tried by it at last, whatever the treatment which it may have received at their hands. It is not left to every man's choice in a Christian land, whether or not he will be subject to the gospel; subject he shall and must be, so as through obedience to obtain its rewards, or through disobedience its penalties. Neither is this a circumstance peculiar to the gospel; it rather belongs to the analogy ordinarily alleged to all laws which rest on sufficient authority. It is not a matter of option with a man who resides in a kingdom, whether or not he will be governed by the statutes of that kingdom. If he violate the laws of the land, it will avail him nothing to plead, that he never intended to take those laws as his guide. He cannot ward off an indictment, by urging that he took some other code as his rule, and that he does not choose to be tried, except by some statute-book which he has made or selected for himself. But if this be the case in human laws, it must be a hundredfold more so in those whose original is Divine. A man may resolve that he will have nothing to do with the gospel, that he will take natural religion, and natural religion alone, as his guide. He may put from him revelation, and declare himself a follower of reason. But there is no such ability of choice, as is thus most arrogantly assumed. No doubt the man, if he choose, may make something else than the gospel the rule of his life; but the solemn fact is, that the gospel, after all, continues the rule by which he shall be tried. When he appears at the judgment-seat of God, the judicial processes will have distinct reference to the dispensation beneath which it pleased God to place him, and not that under which he shall have chosen to consider him

self. The inhabitant of a Christian land may in every respect live as a heathen; but when he stands at the tribunal of his God, he shall not be dealt with as a heathen. It would avail him little say, 'I acted up to the light of nature, and I never professed to be led by any other light.' The absurdity would be the same as if in one of the courts of law an Englishman should plead-'I acted up to the laws of Japan, and I never professed to follow any other.' God's authority, as a legislator, admits of no dispute; and though a Deist may argue, that he is thoroughly obedient to the law which he has adopted as his rule, yet, since God has sent out another law, his boasted obedience is flagrant disobedience; so that in place of being accepted, because he has carefully followed the rule of his own choice, he must be condemned, because he has wilfully rejected the rule of the Almighty's appointment. And we think, that the gospel is thus brought before us under a most important and striking point of view, when represented as the system by which we shall be judged, though it may not have been the system by which we have lived. When God has made a new revelation of himself, it is not optional with us whether we will keep fast to the faith. His authority is distinctly set at nought, by every resolve to choose, as it were, our own dispensation; and the sin of having rejected the gospel would overwhelm a man through eternity, even had he thoroughly acted out the precepts of that natural religion, which alone he may profess to have taken as his guide. Here, however, comes in a question of no small importance, having to do with the causes why the gospel is rejected. If all who have rejected the gospel shall be condemned for that rejection, whatever may have been their diligence in working out their own system, it must follow that the rejection can in no place be pardoned; so that infidelity, to use the expression, can never be pleaded for as unavoidable. Is this the case? Can it be contended, that a man is necessarily blameworthy for being a Deist, or for being a Socinian May he not have sat down with a calm and decided wish to investigate truth, and have given himself to the study of the evidences or the doctrines of Christianity, and yet have risen from his patient and painstaking inquiry, confirmed in his scepticism, or strengthened in his heresy ? We know how common and specious it is to maintain, that a man may have endeavoured to believe, and yet not have been able. We are met by a vast parade of liberal sentiment; we hear much of candid mistake-of men who are quite willing to be convinced, provided only they could find ground of conviction. The case is urged as one of most possible occurrence, that of a man of honest and straightforward intentions, actuated by a simple desire to arrive at the knowledge of truth, but, though giving himself to the search in an earnest and teachable spirit, unable to receive Christianity, or to find in it the doctrines which are ordinarily found. Then we are asked, whether fault can fairly be fastened on this unwitting and necessary disciple of error; whether we can be harsh enough to maintain, that he who has striven vigorously, but unsuccessfully, to emancipate himself from falsehood, shall be dealt with hereafter as one who has set at nought the truth. We have a simple statement to bring forward in reply to these specious representations. We dare not take the blame off from men, and throw it upon God. If man may so endeavour to believe, as to be blameless for not believing, God has made his not believing unavoidable, and therefore is himself the author of the infidelity. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to adopt the blasphemous opinion, that God himself prevents men from attaining a knowledge of truth, though they desire it earnestly, and seek it rightly, we must pause before we suffer ourselves to be carried away by the well-sounding theory, that there may be such things as candid mistake and involuntary error. The man who rejects shall be condemned for rejecting; and therefore it is certain, that the rejection has not been unavoidable. It may sound illiberal, it may savour of the uncharitable, to contend that the case is an impossible one, of a man wholly wishing and striving, but in vain, to escape from the meshes of infidelity but it is better to be what the world calls illiberal, and what men call uncharitable, than to entertain an opinion which can only be supported by considering God himself as the Author of sin through placing any of his creatures under the invincible necessity of continuing in sin. We shall not be easily moved from the conviction that a man has only himself to blame if he

continue in unbelief whilst we find our Lord in the verse preceding our text emphatically declaring, "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil;" and in our text yet more clearly marking out the mainspring of infidelity, “Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

Now, we shall not enter at length on all those topics which might easily and naturally be evolved from the passage. Your attention might be engaged with the contrast which seems drawn between the gospel dispensation and every dispensation preceding it. It is represented as light in opposition to darkness. Or we might speak on the emphatic and unreserved denunciation, "This is the condemnation," showing how fearfully the having been privileged to hear the gospel will aggravate our doom if after all we reject it. But the great point which solicits examination is the connection here asserted between wrong faith and evil practice. You are familiar with the fact that faith is to be read in men's actions; you are taught by Scripture to conclude that where actions are evil faith cannot be genuine. But the representation of the text may be said to be the converse of this. The practice is here set before us as influencing the faith, and not the faith the practice. The creed is exhibited as depending on conduct rather than the conduct on the creed. Men prefer darkness to the light; they hate the light; they wish to continue ignorant of the truth, uninformed as to the things which Jesus came to disclose. On the simple account of their deeds being evil, they fear lest those deeds should be reproved. So that in our Lord's explanation of the causes of infidelity you find none of those courtierlike allowances for candour and ingenuousness and unavoidableness, with which the statements of a more fashionable and time-serving theology not unfrequently abound. The whole secret of rejection is resolved into unholiness of life; and in place of exceptions being made in favour of this or that description of persons,-of the worshipper of reason who cannot quite satisfy an over scrupulous intellect, or of the disciple of error who strives nobly, but unsuccessfully to emancipate himself from an involuntary bondage, there is but one account brought forward as applicable unreservedly to all classes of unbelievers: men will not come to the light lest their deeds should be reproved. It will, we think, be greatly for your profit if we carefully examine this alleged cause of unbelief or infidelity. We shall endeavour to make good two points, and we shall ask your close attention to each: the first that the Jews to whom our text was originally applied hated the light and would not come to it because their deeds were evil; and the second, that just the same explanation may be given of infidelity, whether open or concealed, amongst ourselves.

I. Now, so far as the Jews were concerned, it must be so clear as scarce to need any demonstration that their national rejection of our Lord was the result of their national depravity. There was something in the genius of Christianity which opposed itself at once and irreconcileably to the habits and feelings and prejudices of the people. If you put out of sight the records of profane history, which bear an explicit witness, we gather enough from the incidental notices of the inspired historians to assure us that when Christ came upon earth Judea was overrun with almost universal profligacy. It is scarcely possible to imagine language more awfully emphatic than fell on many occasions from the lips of him who was meekness itself, when the voices of the chief men amongst the Jews called forth his indignant rebuke. There is a soul-stirring emphasis in his "Woe unto you Pharisees!" "Woe unto you Sadducees!" And no man of common feeling can read the denunciations without a consciousness that a fierce, unblushing depravity must have reigned amongst these teachers and rulers of the people ere the lowly and compassionate Jesus could have poured forth such a torrent of vehement reproach. It was moreover amongst the great men of the land that the rejection of Christ was most determined and unfliching. By their example, by their incitement the common people were led to desire his crucifixion; so that it is quite fair, without attempting to push the inquiry into the details of the national character, to set it down as an ascertained fact that the national rejection of Jesus took place at a period of great national depravity, and that

consequently, if ever infidelity may fairly be traced to the simple cause marked out by our text, that cause existed so largely among the Jews that the effect was to be looked for in its highest exhibitions. We have only then, since the elements of the argument are thus furnished by the circumstances of the case, to inquire into the connection between the depravity and the infidelity, and, so far as the Jews are concerned, the assertion of the text would be fully borne out.

Observe, then, that it is the striking characteristic of the religion of our Lord, wherever and whenever promulgated, that it allows of no truce with the passions or infirmities of our nature. Proffering, indeed, a pardon for every iniquity, it, nevertheless, after a singular but most powerful manner, makes that very pardon the ground of a demand that "men should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world ;" and, hence it must always come to pass that the apparently wonderful phenomenon will be exhibited, that the very same men who would have shrunk away from Christ, had God sent Him into the world to condemn the world, do equally shrink away from Christ now that the design of his being sent has been the saving of the world. He did, indeed, come on an embassage of mercy, but then he came equally on an embassage of holiness, and where there would have been open arms to receive him, had he left unmolested the rivalry and the haughtiness of earth, there can be nothing but opposition when he comes to say"unless you will renounce what has been long dearly cherished, you shall have no part in the blessings which I come to bestow." And all this general reasoning applies with special force to the particular case of the Jew. His sensuality and his pride had been fostered and flattered by the expectation which he had entertained of a long-promised Deliverer. Fastening on what was gorgeous in the prophetic delineations of Messiah, and overlooking what was humiliating, bringing to bear on the transmitted writings of his ancestry a carnal imagination which could in no degree appreciate spiritual benefits, and which, therefore, delighted itself exclusively with the splendid visions of conquest and sovereignty, the Jew lived in anticipation of a season when, triumphing over every enemy, he should be enabled to give full scope to a licentious and arrogant spirit. Thus, there was on the part of the Jews a kind of pre-arranged resistance to the lowly and self-denying Teacher, such as can scarcely be supposed in any other community to which the gospel may be sent. It was not merely that their deeds were evil, it was that their deeds had been made more evil, had been encouraged and strengthened in evil by false views of the character of Christ; and, therefore, when the real nature of his kingdom was brought plainly before them, why, almost as a matter of course, their habits of evil doing rose up to protest against their reception of Christ. Over and above the native inclination to reject what would demand the renunciation of their fleshly indulgence, there was the acquired inclination to receive as Messiah one only who should answer to the false but alluring description. Had their evil deeds been in no way associated with their expectation of Christ, they would still, as we shall afterwards perceive, have powerfully militated against their acknowledging the pretensions of Jesus of Nazareth; and, seeing that their evil deeds were mixed up with their expectations so closely the one with the other, there can be nothing fairer than to affirm of the Jews, that "they loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." It was not that, standing amongst them in poverty and humiliation, the Saviour did not put forth tokens sufficiently clear to convince his kinsmen after the flesh, that he had indeed come commissioned by God. Was it, think ye, candid error, was it involuntary mistake, when the grave had given back to the world the body of Lazarus, animated afresh, and new strung with energy, which sat down to compass the destruction of the Being by whom the life-giving word had been uttered? It is, we think, most worthy of remark, that there seems to have been no attempt on the part of the Jewish elders to deny the miracle, or explain away its wonder; on the contrary, they unreservedly allowed the greatness and wonderfulness of the marvel. The Chief Priests and Pharisees gathered together and said "What do we, for this man doeth many miracles?" You might have supposed that such an admission of his power would have been followed by an admission of his pretensions, whereas, precisely an oppo

came

site result is produced, and solely, as we contend, through their deeds being evil. For what did they say? "If we let him alone, all men will believe on him and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation." You observe the point on which we have insisted the fear of being a despised people in place of a dominant one, the dread that their flattering dreams would be falsified, and that after gazing delightedly on the pictures of Judea as supreme amongst the kingdoms, wealth and greatness flowing in as the undisputed portion of their sons and daughters, they should be compelled to look upon their land as an oppressed and subjugated district-these were the stirring motives which ranged themselves as antagonists to the witness of miracles, and which, urging on the Pharisees, so that they grew more furious in proportion as the proofs of Christ's mission grew more convincing, brought about the extraordinary result, that Christ Jesus " unto his own, and his own received him not." And thus we trace with sufficient clearness the strong and close connection between the evil deeds of the Jews, and their rejection of Jesus as the Christ. They literally "loved darkness rather than light." They were so wedded to their own system of a temporal prince leading on his countrymen to certain victory and widespread possession, that when a counter-system was proposed to them of a spiritual monarch heading his followers, and the keeping under the body and the master sin, all the warmest feelings in their hearts rose up in opposition, and prompted the throwing scorn on this pretender to the Messiahship of Israel. Analyze the matter as nicely as you will, you cannot avoid allowing that it was just because the darkness of the false system favoured and fostered their evil deeds, whilst the light of the true system poured upon them shame, and required their banishment, that with a tenacity which excites our surprise, and a fierceness which moves our indignation, the Jews scorned the Saviour when he stood amongst them and displayed the credentials of a marvellous and manifold miracle. And thus it was that there was no deficiency in evidence. It was not that, after patient and candid investigation they had been unable to receive_the_proofs of Christ's mission. Infidelity possessed the people and reigned undisputed amongst them, with here and there a solitary exception. The grand secret of the national rejection lay, after all, in national depravity; and never did a truer saying flow from the lips of him who was truth itself, than when in the early stages of his ministry, looking around upon the elements of scorn and antipathy-elements which were easily to be discovered in the pursuits and prejudices of a dissolute and power-loving nation, he pronounced that darkness would be preferred to light, because their deeds were evil; saying alike of the Pharisee and of the Sadducee, of the Priest and of the Levite, and of every class who rejected him-"Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

II. But we have already hinted, that even if we threw out of calculation those special circumstances which cause national depravity to be linked with national infidelity, there would remain sufficiency of proof, that it was their evil practices which moved the Jews to the rejection of Christ. We think, however, there cannot be occasion to detain you with separate demonstration on this point. The instant the thought is abstracted from the peculiar situation of the Jew, at the period of Christ's appearing upon earth, he may be said to stand nearly in the same position as ourselves; and if we, therefore, now go on to show you, that in the present day men hate the light, and will not come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved, we shall at one and the same time have made good the assertion of which we have not yet adduced proof. And it were well to observe, that the phraseology of our text, and its context shuts out many of those reasons which might possibly be adduced, as illustrating the connection between the doing of evil and of remaining in unbelief. You will remark, that the gist of the passage lies in the fact of men hating the light, avoiding the light, prefering the darkness; and we therefore have to ascertain, what it is which produces the preference-not merely the remaining in darkness, but the liking to remain in darkness. There is a difference here. For example, it admits of no question, that indulging in known sin indisposes a man for the operations of the Holy Spirit. For there is no truth better ascertained than this, that although