PART IV.

OBJECTIONS TO THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE, OR PLEAS AND EXCUSES FOR NEGLECTING IT.

So obvious are the obligations of the Missionary Enterprise, and the encouragements to discharge them so numerous and strong, that, if facts did not loudly proclaim the contrary, we might well believe it impossible for a single objection to be raised against it. We know, however, that no degree of excellence, even when accredited from Heaven, has ever proved sufficient to exempt a cause entirely from opposition; and that its success, whether great or little, has never been owing to any lack of difficulties feared by its professed friends, or created by its avowed foes. Indeed, the loftier its aims, and the greater the spirituality of its character and claims, the more numerous the obstacles likely to be cast in the way of its progress. The Missionary cause, then, by aiming at the most unworldly ends, and by taking the whole earth for the sphere of its activity, may be expected to exasperate every form of irreligious hostility, and to be encountered by every kind of objection. And when it is remembered that the ignorant are always ready to accept such objections, however futile, as so many unanswerable arguments against it; that the indolent are glad to construe them into a full discharge

from all activity in its behalf; that the timid are for waiting until they are all silenced, and the ground completely cleared of difficulties; and that, however often they have been met already, error is likely to revive and repeat them again with the lips of each succeeding generation, it is by no means supererogatory or unimportant that such objections should be obviated again; especially, too, when nearly all of them may be so easily converted into arguments for serving the very object they were intended to weaken or destroy.

I. Now, if we propose to notice these objections* in order, the first, perhaps, which demands our attention is that which would represent the Missionary Enterprise as unnecessary. According to the objector,-The heathen are compartively safe already; their ignorance of the Gospel is involuntary; they are a law unto themselves; they will not be judged by the high requirements of the Bible, but by the light of nature; their eternal destiny, therefore, is far from hopeless; and to pronounce it otherwise is uncharitable and cruel.

To this representation we should object, 1. That it overlooks the true condition of mankind in relation to the moral government of God. It forgets the momentous truth that "all have sinned," and are condemned already. 2. It makes the salvation of the heathen a question of right and justice. It supposes that by saving those who believe the Gospel, the Almighty has brought himself under a kind of obligation to throw open the gates of heaven to the whole mass of the heathen world. 3. And it virtually constitutes idolatrous ignorance a better security for the future happiness of mankind, than is afforded by the means of grace enjoyed under the Gospel.

The question is not, be it remarked, whether or not

* Some of these objections are very ably met in a work entitled, "The Missionary Convention at Jerusalem; or, an Exhibition of the Claims of the World to the Gospel. By the Rev. David Abeel, Missionary to China."

any

in consequence of the mediation of Christ the heathen are in a salvable state? This we not only joyfully admit, but are prepared, if necessary, earnestly to contend for. But this fact only proves their present condition to be more fearful than if no such salvability existed; for it shows they are the subjects of moral government, and as such exposed to punishment for disobedience. Nor is the question whether many, but whether of the heathen are saved. For we presume that the objector himself does not suppose that any large proportion among them are rescued from destruction; that he is not even prepared to prove that any of them will certainly be saved. And where, we ask, is the charity of abandoning them all to a vague hope of deliverance? or what is gained by the admission that one here and there is possibly saved? This single ray leaves the nations sitting in the darkness of destruction still. The true question is, are the heathens as a whole, idolatrous and immoral as they are, spiritually safe? Every part of the word of God-the only authority competent to reply-affirms that they are

not.

The

For, first, they are condemned by the light of nature. They will not be condemned for the infraction of a law of which they never heard; nor for the rejection of a Saviour who was never proclaimed to them. ground of their condemnation will be, that they loved darkness rather than the dim light of reason, conscience, and tradition, which they enjoyed; that bad as their creed was, their character was worse; that single as their talent was, and on that account all the more precious, they hid even that in the earth, "so that they are without excuse."

Secondly, The word of God confirms the sentence of their condemnation. Although the heathen of the present day are involuntarily ignorant of the sacred Scriptures, never having heard of their existence, yet as the first act of idolatrous worship in every nation must have been perpetrated in defiance of every thing

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sacred; and as the descendants of those idolaters evince as strong a dislike to recover the knowledge of God as they themselves did to retain it, not only neglecting to avail themselves of "that which may be known of God," but entailing their idolatry from generation to generation with accumulated abominations; they are divinely pronounced to be inexcusable. The opening of the Epistle to the Romans is devoted directly to the establishment of this solemn fact. Having affirmed that "the Gentiles who have not the [revealed] law, are a law unto themselves," the apostle convicts them of the grossest violations of that unwritten law; and draws the solemn conclusion that they who have thus "sinned without [the revealed] law, shall also perish without law."

Nor, thirdly, does the Gospel afford us any ground to hope that the sentence of their condemnation will be reversed through the mediation of Christ. That faith in the mediation of Christ is indispensable to the personal salvation of those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed, will be generally admitted. But when the apostle inquires concerning the heathen, "how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher ?" if there be meaning in language, he obviously intends that it is as impossible for a heathen to be saved by Christ without believing in him, as it is for him to hear of Christ without a preacher.

But salvation includes the renewal of the heart by the agency of the Holy Spirit, as well as the remission of sins through faith in Christ. Now that this spiritual change is indispensable to the salvation of all to whom the Gospel comes, and that the truth is the instrument by which it is effected, will also be generally admitted. But when we hear it divinely declared to the great apostle of the Gentiles, that the object of his Mission was "to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God;" what can we infer but that a spiritual renovation is

essential to their recovery, and that the instrumentality of the Gospel is essential to that renovation? To such as would argue against these conclusions, from the probable salvation of the offspring of heathen dying in infancy, we need only say, you are arguing from the case of those who have no actual sin, to those who are covered with the guilt of personal transgressions; from those who can neither sin nor believe, to those who have the capability of both; by a very slight extension of your argument, therefore, you may proceed to infer that as those dying in infancy are probably saved through Christ without exercising faith in him, all are probably saved by him, though in the same destitution of faith.

But, fourthly, we cannot be adequately impressed with the danger of the heathen, unless we remember that their idolatrous condition is never represented in Scripture as a palliation of their guilt, but as constituting its vilest element. In speaking of its origin, it is there traced to two sources : "because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to vile affections." Here, a hatred for the truth combines with an act of judicial dereliction, to seal their doom; for if the former adds the last shade to their guilt, the latter entirely extinguishes the hope of their deliverance.

And hence, fifthly, the Divine punishment of idolatry has frequently commenced in the present life. The Jewish dispensation was one perpetual protest against it. Whole nations of idolaters were exterminated to make way for the worshippers of the one living and true God. Almost the only thing against which the wrath of God was revealed from heaven" for ages was idolatry, and its immediate fruits. In the punishment of these, the great cities, thrones, and nations of antiquity, were involved in a common ruin.

But, sixthly, if we have recourse to the word of God for direct statements on the subject, the answer of the living oracle is strictly corroborative of our worst