Of the Insufficiency of Natural Religion
Of the Insufficiency of Natural Religion
I. The lameness and impertinence of it
You observe, “It has been said, that during the times of our civil commotions, there was little preached up but faith in Christ, and that the duties of morality were little insisted on.” One would have expected that you would have given an answer to this charge, and it looks as if you had designed it, by your making mention of it, but you neither grant nor deny it; and, instead of doing either, as you ought to have done, you put off the objection, by saying, “that some ignorant enthusiastic preachers insisted then much on eternal union with Christ, and that sin could do a believer no harm.” Things which are not in the charge, and no way to your purpose to make mention of. Without taking upon me to be a dictator to you, you might have with truth allowed, that during those times, faith in Christ was very much preached up, though not to the exclusion of moral duties; and, with a great deal of justness, you might have observed, that the power of godliness very much prevailed; that the duties of religion were much practiced; that the Lord’s day was strictly and religiously observed; that social worship was attended on constantly; that family and closet-devotion were kept up with much strictness; and that morality, in all its branches, was in a very flourishing condition in those times, when faith in Christ was so much insisted on. This I am very sensible you are capable of observing; but you chose rather to fling at the doctrine of eternal union with Christ, and to introduce that in an awkward way, and by joining it with a disagreeable notion of sin’s doing a believer no harm, to draw an odium upon some good men in those times, whom you call “ignorant enthusiastic preachers,” and through them to strike at some who are now in being.