CHAPTER VIII. PROFESSION OF RELIGION. SECTION I. The nature and necessity of a public profession of religion. RELIGION Consists in a great measure in the secret intercourse of the soul with God; in those acts of adoration, gratitude, confidence and submission which the eye of man cannot see, and with which the stranger cannot intermeddle. These secret exercises by controlling the external conduct, and by supplying the motives for the humble demeanor and benevolent actions of the Christian, cannot indeed fail to manifest their existence; but all unnecessary parading them upon the notice of others borders on the offence which our Saviour condemned in the ancient Pharisees. Agreeably to his directions, our alms are to be given in secret; when we pray we should pray in secret, and when we fast, we should not appear unto men to fast, but unto our Father, who seeth in secret. In these 21* 245 words Christ does more than condemn hypocrisy; he not only forbids the performance of religious duties with the design of being seen of men, but he teaches that true religion is unobtrusive and retiring. It avoids the glare of day. It is holy, solemn, secret, rejoicing in being unobserved. It is directly opposed to the ostentatious display of religious feelings in which those delight, who seem to make religion consist in talking about it. Although religion is thus retiring in its character, and although it consists in a great measure in the secret intercourse of the soul with God, it nevertheless has its social and public relations, which render it impossible that a true Christian should desire to keep the fact of his being a Christian a secret from the world. This is indeed often attempted, for a time, by those whose faith is weak, and who dread the reproach with which a profession of religion is, under many circumstances, attended, The temptation to such concealment cannot well be appreciated by those who have always lived in the bosom of a religious society, where the profession of religious sentiments is a passport to confidence and respect. Such persons little know the trial to which those of their brethren are exposed whose parents or associates view all experimental religion with hatred or contempt, and who visit every manifestation of pious feeling with the chastisement of cruel mockings. To a greater or less degree, a large portion of the people of God, are called upon to endure this trial; and they are often tempted to ask whether they cannot be religious without letting it be known. If religion is a secret thing, why may it not be kept a secret? To this question the answer is simple and decisive. The confession of Christ before men is declared in Scripture to be essential to salvation. Whosoever, said our Saviour, confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my father which is in heaven; but whosoever denieth me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.* Again, whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous generation; of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father and with the holy angels.† Paul also in writing to Timothy says, Be not ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us. And still more explicitly, when teaching the condition of salvation, he says, If thou shalt confess with thy * Mark x. 32. † Mark viii. 38. 2 Tim. i. 8. mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.* The same truth is taught in all those passages which assert the necessity of baptism, because baptism involves a public profession of the gospel. Thus our Saviour in his commission to the apostles said, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.t And on the day of Pentecost, when the people were convinced of the sin of having rejected Christ, and asked what they should do, Peter answered, Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus. It was not enough that they should retire to their houses and repent before God; they must publicly acknowledge Christ and their allegiance to him. There is, therefore, no condition of discipleship more clearly laid down than this. If we do not confess Christ, he will not confess us. If we do not acknowledge him as our Saviour, he will not acknowledge us as his disciples. If we are not willing to share with him in the reproach and contradiction of sinners, we cannot share in the glory which he has received from the Father. Rom. x. 9, 10. † Mark xvi. 16. + Acts ii. 38. 'The relation in which we stand to Christ as our king renders a public acknowledgment of his authority necessary. In the kingdoms of this world, no one is admitted to the privileges of citizenship without a profession of allegiance. And in the kingdom of Christ those who do not acknowledge his authority, reject him. By refusing to confess him as Lord they declare that they are not his people. The church is also often compared in Scripture to a family. Can a child live in his father's house without acknowledging his parent? May he receive the blessings of a mother's love, and not acknowledge her to be his mother? May he pass her in the street without recognition, and then steal, under cover of the night, to be fed at her table and to be protected by her care? As every one feels that no child, with proper filial feelings, could hesitate to acknowledge his parents, so we may be assured that we are not the children of God, if we are afraid or ashamed to acknowledge him as our Father, and our obligations to honour and obey him. It is still further to be considered that Christians are the worshippers of Christ. The apostle salutes the Corinthians as those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus; and from the beginning, in Jerusalem and at Damascus, Christians were designated |