INCREASE OF MORAL POWER. CHAPTER I. SIMPLICITY OF THE GOSPEL IN ITS END, AND IN ITS MEASURES OF REFORM. THERE is no desire in the human heart which so much assimilates to God, as that of increasing the happiness by improving the virtue of mankind. Unlike those animal sympathies possessed in common by the good and the bad, which impel to the relief of suffering without regard to amending the character of the sufferer, this desire unites with a benevolent interest in the diffusion of happiness, the severe justice of denying the right of it to any, except those who are willing to conform themselves to the requisitions of holiness and truth. Hence, it is an emanation of heaven itself, where love, instead of being a blind impulse, is so blended with equity and law, as to constitute that quality which is singled out before all others, in those exalted ascriptions of praise, which consist in crying holy, holy, holy. Whence therefore, could the heart of man, so much the victim of lawless impulses and so little schooled in the principles of immutable right, have acquired the mysterious impulse which has given being to those organized plans of persuasion, for turning men from sin to holiness, upon which there has been so vast an expenditure of treasure and talent, of labor and life. Nothing of the kind is to be found among the proudest and most benign projects of unevangelized mind. The brightest names of Grecian and Roman history, give no evidence of an attempt to direct their philanthropy into channels so extraordinary. Which of the philosophers had his disciples perambulating the states of Greece or the provinces of Rome, to expend upon the mass of the people the arts of a bland and persuasive eloquence, to induce in them the choice of love for hatred, of humility for pride, and of holiness for sin, as the sole means of unburdening them of their woes and raising them to the summit of temporal prosperity and to eternal life? Was it Plato? Seneca? Socrates? Let the gladiatorial shows, the wars of innocent captives with the beasts of the amphitheatre, and all the deeds of cruelty and blood, which were enacted for the entertainment of these sages and the polite circles in which they moved, utter their facts on this subject, that it may be seen how remote from the purest and brightest visions of the human mind, apart from heavenly light, are those plans of reformation which contemplate relieving the mass of mankind of their woes, by dispossessing them of the demons of pride, of lust, of fraud and of every abomination. Ay, these are plans at which infidels may find it convenient to sneer, since they have no arguments with which to disprove the impress of a Divine original, which they carry on their bold front. Even had failure attended the enterprise, and the voice of persuasive love had won no convert to such a mode of being happy, yet the bare attempt evinces a heavenly origin, since it is so much above any thing the greatest and best of this world had ever conceived. It was the object upon which Jesus and his apostles had fixed, that determined their choice of measures. Embattled legions were unavailable to the work of bringing men to the unconstrained choice of virtue for vice, of truth for falsehood, of God for the world. Is physical force, under any of its possible forms, a fitting instrument to control the human will? Moreover the peculiar nature of the control which they undertook to exercise over the will, still further restricted them in their choice of ex pedients. Could sinners be won to humility by feeding their pride; or to benevolence by an appeal to their selfishness? Did not those who were attracted by the loaves and fishes, soon go away to walk no more with Christ? Had worldly titles, pecuniary rewards, glittering insignia, posthumous distinctions and all the pomp and circumstance of earthly greatness, been held up in the gospel to invite the hopes of mankind, they would have defeated the ends of its reformation. In aspect, its author must be the poorest of the poor, his associates the offscouring of all things, his service a self-denying and cross-bearing one, and the way to which he invited men, must be the way every where spoken against. The young nobleman's incipient tendencies to discipleship, must be repressed by restrictions which his otherwise amiable but avaricious feelings could not brook; and the royal Herod's curiosity to see the great miracle-worker must be turned into contempt and ridicule, by silence and inaction. Such is the nature of the reformation at which the gospel aims, as to require an excision of carnal feelings reached forth to take hold of it, as the sailor would chop off the hand which is grappling his ship with a view of boarding it. Evangelical reform, therefore, is as excellent in its object, as it is peculiar in its means. Had it proposed an increase of our resources of wealth, |