SERMON XI.

ON THE CRIMINALITY OF CORRUPTING OTHERS BY BAD EXAMPLE.

ROм. xiv. 13.

Let us not, therefore, judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

It is the more ordinary method of the sacred writers to recommend religion on account of its operation on the present and future interest of the individual himself to whom it is propounded, who is to perform its duties and obey its precepts. "The

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soul that sinneth, it shall die." The heart is corrupted and the conscience wounded by the practice of vice; as, on the contrary, habits of virtue, and the faithful discharge of religious obligations, exclusive of the reward which is assured to them hereafter,

naturally produce health of body and cheerfulness of mind, a fair fame among men, and a confident reliance upon God's protection in the present life. The words of the text take a different course, and we are commanded to observe a cautious system of action for the sake of others. The propriety of placing our duty upon this foundation also will appear from the following considerations.

I. Man was not framed to live in solitude, or even to confine his engagements and concerns wholly within the circumference of his own family. Mutual wants and common desires, the obvious utility first of minute combinations for purposes of local or temporary good, and next of more extensive unions for objects of proportionate importance both as to space and duration, compelled the human race into societies. The

"Instruit par l'expérience (l'homme) que l'amour du "bien-être est le seul mobile des actions humaines, il se "trouva en état de distinguer les occasions rares où l'in"térêt commun devait le faire compter sur l'assistance de "ses semblables, &c. *."

* Rousseau, Discours sur l'Origine, &c. partie 2nde, p. 119,

history of mankind, whether sacred or profane, shows us little more than how families

It is, of course, not intended here to carry back human society to that savage state in which this visionary writer supposes it to have commenced, a state the existence of which is alike disproved by reason and revelation : " Con"cluons qu'errant dans les forêts, sans industrie, sans

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parole, sans domicile, sans guerre, et sans liaison, sans "nul besoin de ses semblables comme sans nul désir de "leur nuire, peut-être même sans jamais en reconnaître "aucun individuellement, l'homme sauvage, sujet à peu de passions, et se suffisant à lui-même, n'avait que les sentimens et les lumières propres à cet état, qu'il ne sentait que ses vrais besoins, ne regardait que ce qu'il croyait "avoir intérêt de voir, et que son intelligence ne faisait pas plus de progrès que sa vanité. Si par hazard il faisait quelque découverte, il pouvait d'autant moins la commu"niquer qu'il ne reconnaissait pas même ses enfans. L'art périssait avec l'inventeur. Il n'y avait ni éducation ni 'progrès; les générations se multipliaient inutilement; et "chacun partant toujours du même point, les siècles s'écou"laient dans toute la grossiéreté des premiers âges, l'espèce “ était déjà vieille, et l'homme restait toujours enfant *."

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It is as little likely that man by his proper force, or by any casualty, could extract himself from this intellectual chaos, as that the universe could form itself, or spring into order by chance. It is, indeed, amusing to observe, how this ingenious theorist shows, in the first part of his Discours sur l'Origine, &c. how it was impossible that man

• Discours sur L'Origine, &c. partie Ire, p. 108.

have swelled into tribes, tribes united into large communities, and these communities

ever could emerge from the state of barbarism in which he supposes him to have been once placed, and which he eloquently describes, and yet in the second part details minutely the means by which he did emerge. To confine ourselves to one point, he proves distinctly that man never could teach himself language: "Car de dire que la mère dicte à "l'enfant les mots dont il devra se servir pour lui demander "telle ou telle chose, cela montre bien comment on enseigne "les langues déjà formées, mais cela n'apprend point com"ment elles se forment *."

"Les hommes n'ayant nulle correspondance entr'eux, "ni aucun besoin d'en avoir, on ne conçoit ni la néces"sité de cette invention (la parole), ni sa possibilité si "elle ne fut pas indispensable †.”

He afterwards comes to this just conclusion: "Quant à "moi, effrayé des difficultés qui se multiplient, et convaincu "de l'impossibilité presque démontrée, que les langues "aient pu naître, et s'établir par des moyens purement "humains, je laisse à qui voudra l'entreprendre la discus"sion de ce difficile problème, lequel a été le plus néces"saire de la société déjà liée à l'institution des langues, "ou des langues déjà inventées à l'établissement de la "société." The whole of this part is extremely curious, and leads to one or other of these conclusions: that mankind never could have been in that barbarous state which this writer and others of his cast, though with infinitely

* Discours sur L'Origine, partie 1re, p. 83.

+ Ibid. p. 81.

Ibid. p. 91.

grown into kingdoms. Jacob, in blessing the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, prays that the angel which re"deemed him from all evil, may bless the lads," and that they may 66 grow into a "multitude in the midst of the earth," and that "his name, and that of his fathers Abra

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ham and Isaac, may be named on them "." And as under this invariable process of nature or Providence it has always been by virtue, energy, and talent that great and flourish

less genius, suppose; but that man must have either been formed a social creature, and that language might emanate from society; or that a primitive revelation of language must have been made by some superior being which would bind men together in society; or that both these hypotheses are true, and that man was at once formed of a social nature, and gifted with language for the purposes of society. The last conclusion accords best with our ideas of an infinitely benevolent Being. But amidst these hypotheses, the truth of one or all of which is absolutely and indispensably necessary to account for our present state, Scripture simply informs us what the fact was. What pretence then can exist for refusing to listen to its evidence? Because it accounts for that which cannot otherwise be accounted for it explains phenomena which cannot be otherwise explained.

b Gen. xlviii. 16.