In preparation, A Short Postscript to the Letters of Calvinus, which either will be subscribed by the Author’s name, or will otherwise announce it.
You may perhaps have heard of a French author who published a tract
entitled “Reponse au Silence de M. La
Motte.” I laugh at the title he chose; but I am going to follow his
example: and in answer to your silence on this occasion, I beg leave to tell you that you ought
to “speak because you believe.” I do not venture, you see, to set my opinion in
opposition to yours, till I have given it a strength not its own, and clad it in armour
borrowed from the Scripture. Thus armed I presume to say that you should before now, in the way
of reproof or disclamation, have con-
6 |
You belong to and adorn a function of which the members are emphatically declared
to be “the salt of the earth;”—an emblem than which none could express more
strongly the exalted purity of ministerial character, and the tendency of such character to
communicate its excellence, and keep others from corruption. Nobody, I am sure, knows better
than you do, that the success of all those moral teachers, whether ministers or philosophers,
who have laboured to improve the character and raise the value of mankind, has always depended
much more on their conduct than their discourses, their example
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All the preaching in the world will be utterly unprofitable, unless the living
clerical salt itself retain the savour which it endeavours to impart to discourse. If preaching
without example could have done, the Pharisees, with their long prayers and broad phylacteries,
might have reclaimed mankind; for the disciples were commanded by their
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His preaching much, but more his practice wrought
(A living sermon of the truths he taught).
With eloquence innate his tongue was armed,
Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charmed:
For, letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky.”
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Goldsmith describes the clergyman who was so justly “to all the country dear,” as a man that marched in front of his doctrine,—alluring to heaven, and leading the way,—consoling the maimed, and not abetting those who insulted them,—converting the scoffer in public, but not privately associated with him.
Neither the law of your example nor the law of your precept should be depressed
to the level of common imperfection. In neither case can you be wiser than the authority which
commands you, “Be ye therefore perfect,” &c. The laity will not in
general reach your standard; but the higher it is placed, the higher will the zealous rise in
aiming to reach it, and the more will all be salutarily humbled by a sense of imperfection and
the disproportion between their duty and their deeds. Advance piety not only by your
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A clergyman is not more exempt than other men from self-deceit; and, in some
respects, he is peculiarly exposed to it. He is apt, too easily, to think his own safety
attained by that outward formal regularity annexed to his office, and which even secular
motives compel him to observe; and to mistake his professional consideration of religion, and
frequent reference to it in his vocation, for the fruit of true piety in himself. To what else
can we ascribe the incautious strain in which that great and amiable man, Robert-
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It has been clearly propounded by the founders of your order, that a real
disciple will always be animated by a spirit widely different from that which generally
prevails in the world; that his exertions will be resisted not only by the enmity of the
profligate, but by “vain deceit and oppositions of science false-
12 |
We all have heard and read, that “wrath is revealed, from heaven upon all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness;” and it
would be well for us all, that we considered the denunciation more frequently. It is the duty
of your function never to lose sight of it for a moment, to grapple it to your souls with hooks
of steel, and, as far as you can, to impress it indelibly on the minds of your fellow men.
Abstracted as you are from the vulgar concerns of those who fret
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When thus “ye see your calling, brethren, and consider these things, what
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation,”—with what
single-mindedness ought you to press on to your great object, turning neither to the right nor
to the left from that strait and difficult path whence your highest vigilance will hardly keep
your flock from straying? If you do not contribute to save your flock now, you must account for
their loss, and either
15 |
Are you apprehensive of being considered harsh, severe, or obtrusively pious and
puritanical on the present occasion, if you chastise the profanity
to which I have so often called your attention? Remember that the only instance of severity
exercised on earth by your Master, was inflicted on those who had profaned the temple, and
prostituted things sacred to gross and vulgar uses. Surely you cannot think lightly of the
guilt and danger of this profanity. In France, the destruction of religion began not with open
argumentative attacks, but with satirical obscene tales and allegories like this performance.
The
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Are you willing to throw even a corner of your mantle over the disgrace incurred
by men whom you have unwittingly authorised to call you their associate? See that you defile
not your mantle by the impurity you lend it to cloak. If you cover up, and do not openly cut
off and cast from you the offending member, you may yourself be tainted with its offence.
Remember St Paul, who “withstood to the face”
even his friend and brother apostle when he conceived him wrong, and published his separation
from him among all the brethren: And remember your own Reformed Church of Scotland, which so
bold-
17 |
When I subscribe my name to this series of letters, you may perhaps (though I
hope not) be surprised to find that you have been addressed by a man of
whose highest regard and warmest esteem it is impossible you can entertain a doubt; and who
must cease to think of human virtue as any thing much solider than a name, ere he can cease to
respect and venerate you. If you suppose these letters the production of a man capable of
entertaining a feeling of hostility towards you, you have not made the most remote approach to
guessing who the author is. Whoever he is, he has preferred the risk of displeasing you by his
undressed eager sincerity, to suppressing a spark of his honest, though perhaps over-vehement,
zeal and concern for the efficacy of your virtues and the lustre of your reputa-
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I shall take the liberty of
reporting to you a piece of information that has just been very gravely conveyed to me by a
certain credulous gentleman of my acquaintance—were it only that you may see what strange
rumours your expressive silence hitherto has set afloat. He came open-mouthed to repeat, from
what he conceived good authority, that Mr Thomson had
determined to stand by the Magazine, to “pluck
up its drowned honour by the locks,” and restore its detected base metal to currency, by
stamping his own credit upon it. He added, what he seemed to
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This honest man certainly respects you, for he thinks you as wise as himself.
And yet what is it that he expects to see you do? He expects to see you forsake your present
elevation of sure and upright walking, and lend away so much of your force to a treacherous
ally, who will never restore it, that you must be smitten hip and thigh in your very first
battle with the British Critic or the Scotch
Episcopalians. He expects to see you shave away your locks of strength, and for the sake of
being hailed a Goliah among stunted pedants and broken-winded maudlin
poets, give up the lofty cause and self-approving confidence that made
David’s arm strong. He supposes you to feel complacency for the
parodist because he has not lampooned you, but
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There is no more distinction between continuing to write for the Magazine, and approving its actual and possible
blasphemy, than there is between the man who would make the distinction and a Jesuit. I should
hardly think that even the Editor could hope to prevail with you to go on from month to month,
believing his protestations that this is the last time, and then, positively the last time, of
blaspheming. The scorners have once deposited their spawn in these shallow waters; and though
they may lie by for a time, they will find their way back when their season returns. Beware of
their leaven, and let not yours be mixed with it. You cannot expect that they would ever permit
you to make this a religious magazine. You might as well
24 |
But excuse me for putting such a case. I need not ask your excuse for stating it
half ludicrously; for I should be ashamed to argue gravely on a supposition so absurd. Credat Judaeus, that you will ever contract to bake the halfpenny worth
of bread that is to he eaten with all the hogsheads of sour sack brewed for this
Magazine,—that you will ever consent, like Smollet’s publishing minister, the Reverend Mr
Jonathan Dustwich, to, write articles that are to be
revised by a man prosecuted for impious slander, and to be called on at times to write the
harder, because your fellow-labourer Ben
Bullock has run off
25 |
Leave him to his second-hand scribblers, and those tuneful dunces, his permanent
poets. What a goodly company! Full of themselves, from having little else in them,
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I have not spoken of them a whit more harshly than they merit. “’Tis certain,” said Sheridan, whose pure self-kindled wit scorned to borrow a spark from the collision of personal attack, “that unnecessarily to mortify the vanity of any writer, is a cruelty which mere dulness never can deserve; but where a base and personal malignity usurps the place of literary emulation, the agressor deserves neither quarter nor pity.” Seeing these creatures attempt to scratch as well as to caterwawl, I have dashed a bucket of water among them. Seeing one of my brethren suffer wrong at their hands, I have endeavoured to “avenge him that was struck, and smitten the Egyptian.”
Let any sober respectable man who is solicited to associate himself with this
levy of gabblers, and lend them his cloak for a banner, consider for a moment the nature of the
service, and the consolation of those who may get the whiskers of their reputation singed by
engaging in it. Among such, awkward recruits, trying their “chapping sticks” like
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To you, Sir, the suggestion of these considerations is unnecessary. I have chosen, however, through the respectable medium of an address to you, to convey them to others. You who preach so well, that “evil communications corrupt good manners,” and who charge others to “avoid, turn from, and not even pass by the way of evil men,” will never preserve amicable literary sodality with fools and scorners. You do not belong to that class of prophets to whom it was reproached, that when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again.”
That you may long continue, both by example and by precept, to animate the virtue of the good, to confirm the wavering, instruct the simple, and reclaim or at least abash the profligate, is the sincere wish of,