In the first gospel church, Heathen light had no other name, than Heathen darkness; and the wisdom of words was no more sought after, than that _friendship_ of the world, which is _enmity_ with God. In that new-born church, the _tree of life, which grew in the midst of paradise_, took root and grew up again. In the present church, the _tree of life_ is hissed at, as the visionary food of deluded enthusiasts; and the tree of _death_, called the tree of knowledge of good and evil, has the eyes and hearts of priest and people, and is thought to do as much good to Christians, as it did evil to the first inhabitants of paradise.――――This tree, that brought death and corruption into human nature, is now called a tree of _light_, and is, day and night, well watered with every corrupt stream, however distant or muddy with earth, that can be drawn to it.
But now, what follows from this new risen light? Why _Aristotle_’s atheism, _Cicero_’s height of pride and depth of dissimulation, and every refined or gross species of _Greek_ and _Roman_ vices, are as glaring in this new enlightened Christian church, as ever they were in old pagan _Greece_, or _Rome_. Would you find a _gospel Christian_, in all this _mid-day glory_ of learning, you may light a candle, as the philosopher did in the mid-day sun, to find an honest man.
How poorly was the gospel at first preached, if the wisdom of words, and if wit and imagination had been its genuine helps? But alas they stand in the same contrariety to one another, as self-denial and self-gratification. To know the truth of gospel-salvation, is to know that man’s natural _wisdom_ is to be equally sacrificed with his natural _folly_: for they are but one and the same thing, only called sometimes by one name, and sometimes by the other.
His intellectual faculties are, by the _fall_, in a much worse state than his natural animal appetites, and want a much greater self-denial. And when our own _will_, our own _understanding_ and _imagination_ have their natural strength indulged, and are made rich and honourable with the treasures acquired from a study of the _Belles Lettres_, they will just as much help poor fallen men to be _like-minded_ with Christ, as the _art_ of _cookery_, well and daily studied, will help a professor of the gospel, to the spirit and practice of Christian abstinence.
Who then can enough wonder at that bulk of libraries, which has taken place of the short gospel? Or at that number of champion disputants, who from age to age have been all in arms to support a set of opinions and practices, all which may be most cordially embraced without the least degree of self-denial, and most firmly held without _the least degree_ of humility.
What a grossness of ignorance, both of man and his Saviour, to run to Greek and Roman schools, to learn how to put off _Adam_, and to put on Christ? To drink at the fountains of Pagan poets and orators, in order more divinely to drink of the cup that Christ drank of?――――What can come of all this, but that which is already too much come, a _Ciceronian_ gospeller, instead of a gospel _penitent_?
This will be more or less the case with all the doctrines of Christ, whilst under classical acquisition, and administration. Those divine truths, which are no farther good and redeeming, but as they are spirit and life in us, will serve only to help _classic painters_ (as Dr. W.¹ calls them) to lavish out their colours on their own paper monuments of lifeless virtues.
¹ As this address was wrote sometime ago, in which are certain strictures upon Dr. _Warburton_’s writings, who has lately been consecrated a Right Reverend Lord Bishop; I thought it more candid not to alter my stile, than to take the advantage of charging such gross errors, on a Bishop of _Glocester_, which I only found in Mr. and Dr. _Warburton_.
The enemies to man’s rising out of the fall of _Adam_, through the Spirit and power of Christ, are many. But the great enemy is SELF-EXALTATION; when self-exaltation ceases, the last enemy is destroyed, and all that came from the _death_ of _Adam_, is swallowed up in victory.