Twenty-four Discourses: On Some of the Important and Interesting Truths, Duties, and Institutions, of the Gospel, and the General Excellency of the Christian Religion; Calculated for the People of God of Every Communion, Particularly for the Benefit of Pious Families, and the Instruction of All in the Things Which Concern Their SalvationPerkins, Nathan
Religion
Twenty-four Discourses: On Some of the Important and Interesting Truths, Duties, and Institutions, of the Gospel, and the General Excellency of the Christian Religion; Calculated for the People of God of Every Communion, Particularly for the Benefit of Pious Families, and the Instruction of All in the Things Which Concern Their Salvation
Perkins, Nathan
Christian life -- Early works to 1800; Congregational churches -- Sermons -- Early works to 1800; Sermons, American -- Early works to 1800
European has disseminated any seeds of religious belief, have no idea
who made them--or who made the world--or of duty to God. In the
interior parts of Africa, a late traveller there, asserts, that
various tribes, visited by him, as far as he could learn, had no idea
at all of any God or religion, or even words to express any worship
to be paid to any power above them. But admit this to be a mistake,
still truth compels us to believe them extremely ignorant on moral
and religious subjects. They have however as bright faculties and
powers of mind as the nations who have the Gospel. The immense
difference is to be ascribed principally to that very Christianity,
which is, alas! so much neglected by us.--
If we would know what light there is in man--what light all men
have--or what help all need, we must see what nations, which never
enjoyed any divine Revelation, have known--done--and believed as to
God, Piety, and Morality. Superficial reasoners, men who indeed
pretend to reason and philosophy--and reject the Gospel, and tell us
of the sufficiency of nature's light--of reason and conscience--or
any other principle, lose, and bewilder themselves by not fairly
looking into the history of the heathen nations and their moral
writings, and seeing what their ideas, notions, and improvements have
been, and still are. Their history, in truth, is but one continued
narrative of ignorance--idolatry--vices--unnatural
lusts--wars--bloodshed--barbarity--and misery; and their moral
writings, so far as they have reached our times, contain no just or
full system of morality at all. If a man were to conform himself to
the whole of their rules of moral living, and understood them all,
his life would be a scene of inconsistence and error, vice and folly;
and his end self-murder. Our modern scepticks, it must be carefully
remembered, collect all their ideas of morality and of God, if any
just ones they have, and so far as any of their ideas be just, from
that very Religion which they reject. They are, therefore, like a
wayward and perverse Child that disowns its parent, merely because he
wishes him to be good and happy--to be and do right; and takes the
indispensably necessary measures for this purpose.--And if, among the
haters of Religion, any be found at this day who have adopted the
Atheists Creed, under the splendid name of philosophy--it is a most
striking proof of what is the subject of this discourse.--Upon the
whole, we may come to this conclusion, that all the conduct of man,
since the day he was expelled from the earthly paradise for his
Apostacy, proves clearly, even to a demonstration, that there is no
light in him, or guide to duty and happiness, which may be depended
upon--or which is safe for him to trust to--or sufficient to lead him
to GOD and GLORY. Without Christ and the Gospel, all is
darkness--confusion, and despair. There is no hope, no help, no
salvation, no true system even of morality, if we deny a Saviour and
his Gospel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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