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SERMON VIII.

PREACHED APRIL 29, 1770.

1 TIM. i. 5.

The end of the Commandment is Charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.

THE Apostle, in the preceding verse, had warned Timothy against giving heed to fables and endless genealogies: by FABLES, meaning certain Jewish fictions and traditions applied to the explication of theological questions, and not unlike the tales of the pagan mythologists, contrived by them to cover the monstrous stories of their Gods; and, by GENEALOGIES, the derivation of Angelic and Spiritual na

tures, according to a fantastic system, invented by the Oriental philosophers, and thence adopted by some of the Grecian Sects. These fables and genealogies (by which the Jewish and Pagan converts to Christianity had much adulterated the faith of the Gospel) the Apostle sets himself to expose and reprobate, as producing nothing but curious and fruitless dis putations; being indeed, as he calls them, endless, or interminabler; because, having no foundation in the revealed word of God, they were drawn out, varied, and multiplied at pleasure by those, who delighted in such fanatical visions.

Then follows the text.-The end of the Commandment, is CHARITY: out of a PURE HEART: and of a GOOD CONSCIENCE; and of FAITH UNFEIGNED-As if the Apostle had said, "I have cautioned you against this pernicious. folly but, if ye must needs deal in the way of Mythology and Genealogy, I will tell you how ye may employ your ingenuity to more advantage. Take Christian Charity, for your theme: mythologize that capital Grace of your profession; or, deduce the parentage of it, according to the steps, which I will point out

q Called ones. See Grotius in loc.

* Απεράντοις.

to you.

For it springs immediately out of a pure heart; which, itself, is derived from a good conscience; as that, again, is the genuine offspring or emanation of faith unfeigned. In this way, ye may gratify your mythologic or genealogical vein, innocently and usefully; for ye may learn yourselves, and teach others, how to acquire and perfect that character, which is the great object of your religion, and the end of the Commandment."

Let us, then, if you please, attend to this genealogical deduction of the learned Apostle; and see, if the descent of Christian charity be not truly and properly investigated by him.

I. CHARITY, says he, is out of a pure heart: that is, it proceeds from a heart, free from the habits of sin, and unpolluted by corrupt affec tions.

To see with what propriety, the Apostle makes a pure heart the parent of charity, we are to reflect, that this benevolent temper, which inclines us to wish and do well to others, is the proper growth and produce, indeed, of the human mind, but of the human mind in its

s Dat nobis et Paulus brevem yaλoylav, sed, perutilem. GROTIUS.

native and original integrity. To provide effectually for the maintenance of the social virtues, it hath pleased God to implant in man, not only the power of reason, which enables him to see the connexion between his own happiness and that of others, but also certain instincts and propensities, which make him feel it, and, without reflexion, incline him to take part in foreign interests. For, among the other wonders of our make, this is one, that we are so formed as, whether we will or no, to rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep. But now this sympathetic tenderness, which nature hath put into our hearts for the concerns of each other, may be much impaired by habitual neglect, or selfish gratifications. If, instead of listening to those calls of nature, which, on the entrance into life, are incessantly, but gently, urging us to acts of generosity, we turn a deaf ear to them, and, charmed by the suggestions of selflove, yield up ourselves to the dominion of the grosser appetite, it cannot be but that the love of others, however natural to us, must decline, and become, at length, a feeble motive to action; or, which amounts to the same thing, be constantly overpowered by the undue prevalence.

t Rom. xii. 15.

of other principles. Thus we may see, how ambition, avarice, sensuality, or any other of the more selfish passions, tends directly, by indulgence, to obstruct the growth of charity; and how favourable an uncorrupt mind is to the production and maturity of this divine virtue.

But, further, the impurities of the heart do not only hinder the exertions of benevolence; they have even a worse effect, they cause us to pervert and misapply it. It is not, perhaps, so easy a matter, as some imagine, to divest ourselves of all attachment to the interest of our fellow-creatures. But, by a long misuse of our faculties, we may come in time to mistake the objects of true interest; and so be carried, by the motives of benevolence itself, to do irreparable mischief to those we would most befriend and oblige. This seems to be the case of those most abandoned of all sinners, who take pains to corrupt others, and not only do wicked things themselves, but have pleasure in those who do them ". All that can be said for these unhappy victims of their own lusts, is, that their perverted benevolence prompts them to encourage others in that course of life, from which, if it were

u Rom. i. 32.

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