demonstrations of scientific theology. Since the problem has been solved, we can get on pretty comfortably. The old dark days of persecution are over. We are now required 'only to retrench our vain and sinful expenses; not to sell all and give to the poor, but to be charitable out of the superfluity of our plenty; not to lay down our lives, or even the comfortable enjoyments of life, but to forsake the unreasonable and unfruitful pleasures of sin,'1 and so on. Who would not accept so light and easy a yoke? The statement is a common one in the comfortable days of Queen Anne and the early Georges. Christianity was delightfully easy when it imposed no severer checks upon life, and studiously appealed to common sense. If a more heroic note occurs at intervals, it is when Clarke is dwelling upon the love of truth. His sixtyeighth sermon deals with that awkward virtue, Christian zeal. It has, of course, to be discriminated from its hated counterpart. True zeal aims at the practice of virtue; and right practice can only be built on the foundation of truth. Therefore, the object of zeal first in the order of nature is the knowledge of truth.' 2 Such zeal, he says, can never be excessive; and the cause of all corruptions in religion is the lukewarmness of men as to whether their beliefs be true or false." Elsewhere the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost is characteristically explained to mean a malicious and perverse refusal to be convinced by the greatest and highest evidences' which God has condescended to give to men ; inasmuch as a man so obstinate as to resist the strongest arguments can never be brought to repentance, for he can never be persuaded of his errors. 14. Love of pure truth-that is with Clarke the foundation and the superstructure, the beginning and the end of all true religion. All virtues are but corollaries from this fundamental virtue; and, naturally, logic is the one mode of converting men to Christ. The doctrine is, however, inadequate, though perhaps natural in a passionless age. At any rate, it is honourable, and is sincerely held by Clarke. We should be, perhaps, a little more impressed if we felt that his confidence. in his logical apparatus was more unhesitating; and Clarke, Clarke, i. 212. Ib. i. 421. * Ib. i. 422. • Ib. i. 540. though his preferment was injured by his honesty, somehow suggests to us the existence of unconscious mental reservations. 15. If Clarke represents the Latitudinarian, Sherlock may be taken as the best representative of that characteristic wisdom of the Church of England which delights in keeping the mean between two extremes. He hits the taste of his age 'between wind and water,' for the common sense which was worshipped by his contemporaries was his most prominent fuculty. It receives, however, a peculiar flavour from the strong legal bent of which I have spoken elsewhere. Sherlock is a lawyer in a cassock, and a thoroughly masculine lawyer. He does not condescend to the special pleading which irritates us as much in the sermons as in the ponderous treatise of the sham colossus Warburton. He is a vigorous advocate, convinced of the substantial soundness of his case, though not too candid to his adversaries; massing his arguments upon the vital points, instead of frittering them away in minute details; and at rare intervals rising to such eloquence as is produced by sheer strong sense, without much imagination or abstract thought. He is no philosopher, and takes for granted the primary doctrines which Clarke labours to demonstrate. The legal analogy pervades all his sermons. The religion of nature according to him resembles the common law of England, a traditional body of doctrine, which at some early period was sufficient for the government of an uncorrupted race. No religion has a right to be considered which contradicts one of the plain principles of this fundamental code. The fall of man, however, necessitated the promulgation of a body of statute law, re-enacting the old code, but adding to it a set of provisions under which sinners may obtain the favour of God. Reason proves the law of nature, and miracles prove the law of revelation. Remorse is the only punishment under the first code; the sanctions of heaven and hell have been added by the second. 16. The doctrine is perfectly clear and coherent in itself, and Sherlock does not trouble himself about its ultimate basis. He starts from the conception of the supernatural 'Sherlock has a peculiar theory as to the covenant with Noah, which places the Golden Age just after the Flood (Discourses on Prophecy,' No. 4; Works, iv. 76). 2 Ib. i. 175. chief-justice. To him Christianity is not the advent of a new spiritual force moulding men's hearts, nor the withdrawal of the veil of sense from the awful realities of the universe; it is simply the authoritative and duly authenticated statement of a new code for the discouragement of vice. There is no question of bowing in reverence before the inscrutable mysteries of the divine will. Sherlock treats the Jewish covenant as respectfully as a lawyer might speak of Magna Charta; and considers that the Gospel is the embodiment of perfect wisdom, as Blackstone might attribute the same excellence to the British Constitution. He expounds the relations of the codes, and extols their practical working, but is as little anxious as an ordinary constitutional lawyer to go into the ultimate philosophical questions. His argument against the deists is substantially the strong one that Christianity has worked better than the pure religion of nature. When the deist is out of sight, and he is not settling the limits of our moral and religious obligations, he discourses sensibly upon ordinary duties; he proves that the poor ought to work rather than steal; that idle words are wicked and the heart deceitful; that excessive discouragement and excessive confidence are equally wrong, and antinomianism equally contrary to Christianity and common sense. The morality is for the most part of the prudential variety, and teaches us to make the best of both worlds. Sometimes the effect is unpleasant. The old argument against which Chillingworth had protested was that Catholicism was the safest creed, because Protestants were all damned on the Catholic theory, whereas Catholics might be saved on the Protestant theory. This appeal to cowardice had now been transplanted into the Christian argument against deists. The safety of staying in the old paths is the natural argument of all conservatives against reforms; but it has not an elevating effect. If-so Sherlock says frequently to the deists-there is a hell, we are far better off than you; if there is none, we are at least no worse off. It is ten to one,' he says elsewhere,' against you, that if you follow the world you get nothing or little by it; and therefore there are the same odds on the other side, that if you follow religion you lose little or nothing by it; so that, 1 Sherlock, ii. 323. 1 2 Ib. iii. 43. supposing religion to be uncertain, yet a man does not venture much for it, or put himself in a much worse condition than he was in before, by reason of the uncertain condition of the world.' It is thus but common prudence to be virtuous.2 17. Yet Sherlock was at times really eloquent. Of a Letter which he published on the occasion of the earthquakes in 1750 it is said that over 100,000 copies were circulated. It now reads like a commonplace diatribe against vice and Deism, in which Sherlock has forgotten not only philosophy, but his own common-sense remarks about the error of supposing that the world is growing worse. Earthquakes suggested very different thoughts to Voltaire. We are told that this letter produced a temporary show of outward decency. Perhaps Walpole spoke more accurately when he described Sherlock as running a race' with Secker for the old ladies.' 3 Another anecdote of Sherlock's powers is more remarkable. When he presented the collected edition of his sermons to Lord Hardwicke, it is said that Hardwicke repeated to him verbatim a passage from one of them which had been published separately thirty years before. We need not enquire too closely whether this proves that Hardwicke had learnt it at that distant period. But the passage is short as well as eloquent, and may be quoted as giving Sherlock at his best. The sermon is an answer to the deist objection founded on the multiplicity of revelations; and attempts to retort the argument by saying that the fact proves the incompetence of natural religion to repress superstition. The Gospel alone survives all other attempts at framing a universal creed, and was without competitor until Mahomet. In this case, he says, there can be no difficulty. Go to your natural religion; lay before her Mahomet and his disciples, arrayed in armour and in blood, riding in triumph over the spoils of thousands and tens of thousands who fell by his victorious sword; show her ? The oddest statement of this argument is to be found in the conclusion of Price's Review,' where he says that, assuming the chances against the truth of the doctrine of a future retribution to be ten to one, it would still be worth while to sacrifice the whole happiness of our lives for the chance of receiving a reward eleven times as great as that happiness. But the reward is infinitely greater; whence the wisdom of virtue is obvious (Price's 'Review,' p. 453, &c.). • Walpole's 'Correspondence,' ii. 201. the cities which he set in flames, countries which he ravaged and destroyed, and the miserable distress of all the inhabitants of the earth. When she has viewed this scene, carry her into his retirements; show her the prophet's chamber, his concubines and wives; let her see his adultery, and hear him allege revelation and his divine commission to justify his lust and oppression. When she is tired with this prospect, then show her the blessed Jesus-humble and meek, doing good to all the sons of men, patiently instructing both the ignorant and the perverse. Let her see him in his most retired privacies; let her follow him to the mount, and hear his devotions and supplications to God. Carry her to his table to view his poor fare, and hear his heavenly discourse. Let her see him injured, but not provoked; let her attend him to the tribunal, and consider the patience with which he endured the scoffs and reproaches of his enemies. Lead her to his cross, and let her view him in the agony of death, and hear his last prayer for his persecutors: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" 'When natural religion has viewed both, ask, Which is the prophet of God? But her answer we have already had; when she saw part of the scene through the eyes of the centurion who attended the cross; by him she spoke and said: "Truly this man was the Son of God."" This marks the highest level of eighteenth-century eloquence. It is terse, vigorous, and really to the point. 18. Atterbury may represent the High Church as Clarke the Low, and Sherlock the judicious mean. His contemporary reputation would justify lofty expectations. He had come off with momentary honour from his assault upon Bentley. Pope listened respectfully to his tolerably keen criticisms, and was encouraged to take to satire by his judicious, if not very Christian, appreciation of the famous lines upon Addison. His warm admiration for Milton is a proof of his literary taste. In the pulpit he was equally famous. The complacent dissenter, Doddridge, called him the 'glory of English orators and the model of courtly preachers.'" The meteoric Duke 'Sherlock's Works, i. 179, 180; and see the comparison between Paul and Socrates in the same spirit, i. 105 et seq. 2 Williams's Life of Atterbury,' i. 70. |