Chapter 13: True Submission quoting and explaining passages to the same point, showing that all pure religion consists in disinterested benevolence.
Before I go farther, I wish to mention several objections to this view, which may arise in your minds. I do this more particularly because some of you may stumble right here, and after all get the idea that it is right to have our religion consist in aiming at our own salvation as our great object.
Objection l. "Why are the threatenings of the word of God given, if it is selfishness to be influenced by a fear of the wrath to come?"
Many answers may be given to this objection.
Answer. Man is so constituted that by the laws of his being he dreads pain. The Scripture threatenings, therefore, answer many purposes. One is, to arrest the attention of the selfish mind, and lead it to examine the reason there are for loving and obeying God. When the Holy Spirit thus gets the attention, then he rouses the sinner's conscience, and engages that to consider and decide on the reasonableness and duty of submitting to God.
Objection 2. "Since God has given us these susceptibilities to pleasure and pain, is it wrong to be influence by them?"
Answer. It is neither right nor wrong. These susceptibilities have no moral character.
If I had time tonight, I might make all plain to you. In morals, there is a class of actions that come under the denomination of prudential considerations.
For instance: Suppose you stand on a precipice, where, if you throw yourself down, you will infallibly break your neck. You are warned against it. Now, if you do not regard the warning, but throw yourself down, and destroy your life, that will be sin. But regarding it is no virtue. It is simply a prudential act. There is no virtue in avoiding danger, although it may often be sinful not to avoid it. It is sinful for men to brave the wrath of God. But to be afraid of hell is not holy, no more than the fear of breaking your neck down a precipice is holy. It is simply a dictate of the constitution.
Objection 3. "Does not the Bible make it our immediate duty to seek our own happiness?"
Answer. It is not sinful to seek our own happiness, according to its real value. On the contrary, it is a real duty to do so. And he that neglects to do this, commits sin. Another answer is, that although it is right to seek our own happiness, and the constitutional laws of the mind require us to regard our own happiness, still our constitution does not indicate that to pursue our own happiness as the chief good, is right. Suppose any one should argue, that because our constitution requires food, therefore it is right to seek food as the supreme good would that be sound? Certainly not; for the Bible expressly forbids any such thing, and says "Whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of God."
Objection 4. "Each one's happiness is put particularly in his own power; and if every one should seek his own happiness, the happiness of the whole will be secured, to the greatest amount that is possible."