The Scorner

That mode of irreligion which the wisest of kings so often stigmatizes mider the name of scorning, makes itself known in every age. It is the derision of that which is good, and has its origia in ignorance, folly, and sin. The contempt, sometimes producing ridicule, which scoffs at wisdom and holiness, is begotten of that pride which “was not made for man,” and which is hateful to God. To despise that which is heavenly is not a lower degree of wickedness, but passes the borders of the flagitious. Hence we should regard the very beginnings of such a temper with great jealousy, and should be willing to examine its signs and nature,

* New York, Febraary 21, 1858. in order to secure ourselves against its contagion. In treating the subject, we shall find it profitable to begin with lower degrees of the evil, and thence to trace its progress. To laugh or jeer in regard to that which displeases us is from a disposition which needs no artificial fostering. The opinion of Lord Shaftesbury, that “Ridicule is the test of falsehood,” will find few serious defenders in our day. The laugher’s side is not always the side of reason; as we might show by referring to the ridicule heaped upon many a great enterprise and improvement in science and art; the satire lasting in almost every case until it was put to shame by manifest success. That form of impotent contempt which we caU sneer, belongs by pre-eminence to those who are to some extent conscious of being least armed with reason. Many a mischievous hand can fiing the fire-cracker or the squib, which could neither wield the sword nor aim the rifle. Those were not all heroes who “called for Samson out of the prison-house,” that he might make sport for them. All the world over, the derisive portion will be found the weakest; and this upon solid principles. The love of truth and practice of goodness, always allied, have a certain pure simphcity and candid uprightness which disincline the mind to take pleasure in the inferiority of others. Whatever in us is unselfish and benignant revolts against making spoil of a neighbour’s dehnquency. And, with reverence be it said, the trait is divine, for “God is mighty and despiseth not any.” Job. xxxvi. 5. But ridicule cast on our fellows proceeds from contempt, and contempt is a mode of pride. Hence the lower down we go in the scale of jnorals and civiHzation, the greater fondness do we find for the language of scornful raillery. Little minds, incompetent to forge or handle massive links of argument, find a petty satisfaction in teazing, cavil, and sarcastic irony. The number of such minds is greater than that of powerful reasoners and men of insight, and we must be content to leave them in the enjoyment of their characteristic warfare. Their buzzing assaults on religion are perpetually reminding one of the lesser but annoying plagues of Egypt. And such characters, fond of vexatious sayings, and growing in piquancy as they fall into the “sere and yellow leaf,” need much grace to keep them from becoming scoffers.

The evil of ungenerous contempt and acrid censure becomes more imminent where there is some pretension to wit or humour. Very few of a thousand possess wit; scarcely one of the thousand does not sometimes attempt it. Perhaps there has never been an age which so overvalued the ludicrous, in speech and literature, as this of ours. The populace cries out for what is comic on the stage, and on the platform; and the periodical journal is incomplete, unless, like noble houses in the olden time, it maintains its clown. The wise man had this in his eye, when he said: “As the crackHng of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.” Ecc. vii. 6. We would contentedly leave the jester to wear his motley, if he confined his witticism to his own ring; but when he brings his gibes and grimaces into the sanctuary of God, and seeks to provoke mirth with holy things, we must silence and debar him. And yet how common is it to connect divine subjects with the ludicrous, and even the burlesque. As true wit involves some surprise, some unexpected turn, some sudden apposition of opposites, that which is false finds a certain spurious zest in low, trivial, even vile suggestions, forced into contrast with ideas of Eternity and God. Therefore, as a har will swear in his common talk to add credence to his doubtful word, and a fool will throw imprecations into the scale to give weight to his feeble reasoning, so your vulgar jester resorts to profane abuse of religious objects, that he may startle the scrupulous, or extort laughter from the stupid. A verse of Scripture, a psalm or hymn, the text of a discourse, or some chance expression in a sermon, serves such a one, even with repetition, as a counterfeit coin serves a sharper. The mental poverty, the irreverence, and even the lewdness, of such pretenders, render them, sooner or later, disgusting to all whose judgment is worth asking. But their folly and degradation are less to be regarded by us than their sin; for we violate the Third Commandment when we trifle with God’s name, titles, and worship, or when we profane his Word by associations which are ludicrous. So that I would solemnly charge it upon those who do not wish to destroy souls, that they shun with pious fear all tales, anecdotes, and jests, which defile by their touch any Scriptural passage, and that they avoid the intercourse of those debased minds who descend to such resources.

The great adversary of souls has so many snares for the feet of pilgrims, that we cannot be too wary in regard to the imperceptible passage from what seems innocent or venial, to what is really wicked. From idle words about God’s holy Scripture, youthful heedlessness is beguiled step by step, into by-paths of positive impiety. Satan’s emissaries are generally near, ready to help on the error. Seducers try their victims first by milder approaches; and he or she who listens without protest or indignation, is believed to invite further liberties. If your unclean but amusing friend finds you tolerant of his ridiculous parody on a prophet and apostle, or the Lord himself, he will make bold to vent a sneer at doctrine, at principle, at law, at the gospel, at the very Cross of the Blessed Jesus. Beware, my youthful friend, how you cross the threshold of irreverence. The conversation of wdcked persons is dangerous, their intimacy is defiling, their settled friendship is destructive. Walk not “in the counsel of the ungodly;” stand not “in the way of sinners,” lest at length you come to sit “in the seat of the scornful.”

The beginnings of all transgression are remote, and the descents gradual. The soul would fly back in horror, if those extreme turpitudes were proposed, to which it will nevertheless come at length. Hence the derision of heavenly things must be presented at first under some less appalling form. Por example, nothing is esteemed more lawful and acceptable in society, than ridicule of professing Christians. Their preciseness and supposed hypocrisy, their alleged breaches of engagement, their singularities of life or devotion, especially their real failings, backslidings and sins, become almost the stock in trade of the small dealer in church scandal. One might readily think, from the censor’s complacent chuckle over the inconsistencies and falls of Christians, that every such delinquent was a scape-goat to bear away his own sins. Every successive generation has had its several crop of disparaging or opprobrious names, by which to designate God’s children, in the dictionary of the scorner. They are the * Zealots,” Devotees,” Precisians,’ * Puritans,” Methodists,’ the ‘Saints,’ the * Godly.’ “They that sit in the gate, speak against me,” says the Psalmist, “and I was the song of the drunkards.” * The gatherings of ungodly men, in all ages, have been enlivened by the grateful strain of a derision aimed at serious and conscientious persons; and the playhouse, a synagogue of Satan, shakes with vociferous mirth, when the scruples of pure minds are held up to contempt. The prophet declares his separation from such assemblages: Jer. xv. 17: “I sat not in the assembly of mockers, nor rejoiced.” If there is any meaning in what Scripture says of God’s special regard for those who trust in him, let mockers beware how they choose them, in their religious character, as objects of indignity.

* Ps. bdx. 12.

Ministers of the Gospel, though in a sense public representatives of Christ’s cause, are individually as open to criticism as any persons on earth. Not only are they compassed about with human infirmity, they are made by their very post pecuharly conspicuous. It is not wonderful that they have sustained showers of scorning. Especially if they have upheld the majesty of law, if they have denounced vice, if they have ran counter to the fashionable, licentious, apostate Christianity of the day, if they have preached the sovereignty of God and the gratuity of salvation, they have had obloquy and contempt for their lot. Many a shaft is aimed at the heart of religion, through the person of the ministry; for he who would be afraid to reproach Christ, may attain the same end by satirizing his servants. Let the ambassadors of God lift up their voice against any prominent abuse, and straightway the journals, which reflect the baser interests and grudges of society, will beset their path with greetings like those which David received from Shimei, the son of Gera, who “came forth, and cursed still as he came, and cast stones at David.” 2 Sam. xvi. 5. And if the preachers of the Word were more fully to discharge their function in declaring that gospel which is foolishness to the unenlightened and a stumbling-block to the proud, they would be yet more “filled with the scorning 6t those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.” Ps. cxxiii. 4.

Upon further inquiry, we shall find, however, that all this opposition to the persons of Christians, has a deeper origin, in hostihty to the spirit, principles, and life of religion. The pride, the scorn, the contemptuous laughter, the malignant sneer, which are a sort of persecution, directed against those who uphold Christ’s cause, are immediate products of depravity, and of the carnal mind, which is enmity against God. The antagonism is one of ages; nay, it is one pointed out by prophecy: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” Cain and Abel are types of the scoffing world, and the suffering church. The first-bom man “was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” To which the loving Apostle adds the caution: “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” 1 John iii. 12, 13. A similar allusion to a typical pair of brothers, is indicated by Paul, when he says of Ishmael and Isaac: “But as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.” Gal. iv. 29. The mutual repugnance is radical, being between contraries infinitely remote, that is, holiness and sin. The modes of exhibiting this proud hostility are various. One of the most frequent, and that which we are now concerned with, is the arrogant derision of what is good, as evinced by manner, gesture, language, act, or the silence of bitter contempt.

The great standard of right is God’s perfect Law, in which all moral excellence is summed up, as light is gathered in the sun. Holy minds admire and love the law, feeling themselves sweetly and unconstrainedly in imion with it. Unholy minds are conscious of a secret opposition between their natural tastes and the intense spirituaUty of the divine law. Restraining grace, religious training, and the common or special influences of the Holy Spirit, keep this enmity in a certain abeyance, in those cases where sin has not pushed its victim towards the brink of positive impiety. But this brink is often fallen over, or at least looked over, by the thoughtless, the impure, and the abandoned. A large part of the world’s sceptical and caviUing attack on the code of Christian morals arises from personal immorality. Proud selfishness kicks against the goads. What though the enemy wears a comic mask? his sardonic laugh is that of hate. The strict requisitions of the holy commandment are so distasteful to the self-pleasing offender, conscious of a crookedness which this plummet reveals, that he tries to laugh off the restless sentiment of obligation; and, but partially succeeding in himself, he makes the attempt with others. Ridicide of God’s commandments, or of the just fears, scruples and tender doubts of our neighbour, is a sign that the soul harbours inward hatred of the law.” It was a severe retort which a young man lately made to an infidel, who was speaking against the divine legation of Moses. He had made many objections to the character of that holy man; and the young Christian said to

Mm: ‘There is something in the history of Moses that will warrant your opposition to him more than any thing you have yet said.’ What could this be? ‘He wrote the Ten Commandments,” * Read parallel proofs of the immoral soil out of which scoffing grows, in the unholy Hues of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paine.

This uneasiness of conscience, in regard to precept and prohibition, when it concurs with self-conceit, haughtiness, and a low talent for impudent reply, constitutes the genuine scoffer of Solomon’s photograph. You see his demeanour under criticism, advice, reprimand, and expostulation. Pride causes him to take his friend for an enemy; he is regardless of the truth uttered; inimical to the parent, the minister, the brother, the elder associate, the wife of his bosom; if any one of these dares to touch his sore, he resents the supposed affront with words of bitter ridicule. Behold thy likeness, O, misguided sinner! “A scorner heareth not rebuke.” “A scorner loveth not one who reproveth him.” “Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee.” “He that reproveth a scorner, getteth to himself shame.” f In all these, and in other places cited, the same Hebrew word is used. It involves the notions of vanity, mocking, treating with mimicry and illusory speeches, satire, sneer, sarcasm, irony, and reckless disregard. The counterpart of this picture is in many a household, as many a disappointed father, many a heart-

* Life of Dr. Waugh. + Prov. xiii. 1, ix. 7, 8.

THE SCORJ^R.. ]^59

sick mother knows full well. Up to a certain age, children, unless precociously vile, yield themselves in docile compliance to the parental voice. But, alas! except where Grace has early wrought, there comes a disagreeable crisis, of greater or less duration. Family training arrives at the stage first of shyness, then of forwardness, sometimes of bitterness. The foolish boy, governed more by companions of the school or the street, than by his wisest, dearest protectors, sets up to be wiser than his father. The frivolous, vain, selfish girl, corrupted by the daughters of the ungodly, from whom she takes her tone at some fashionable but heathenish school, turns upon the mother who bare her, and tosses the head, with imaginary knowledge of the world, and disgust at old-time maxims of modesty.

It were well if intolerance of rebuke were confined to childhood and youth; but we encounter it in every stage of life. Though one of the sincerest acts of true friendship is the bringing into the right way of one who has strayed, it is nevertheless true that, in things moral and reHgious, scarcely any one rehshes attempts to lead him back from wandering, or to prevent his flying from the track. Tell your neighbour that his house is too gaudily furnished, that his children are sadly perverse, or that he himself drinks too much wine, and is drowsy and muddled after dinner, and you run the risk of losing an acquaintance for your pains. If to this you should add serious admonition respecting his eternal state, and the need of preparation for death, you would be likely to have in return severe jesting, if not scoffs.

“Fools make a mock at sin,” The enemy of souls continually allures them towards the persuasion, that it is a small evil. Who can believe that yonder timid youth, flushing with the colours of Virtue, will one day laugh to scorn the reprovers of his profaneness or his dissipation? Yet we see such changes every day. Society is always suffering from perverse banter and coarse humour, directed against rigid morals. The thefts, defalcations, peculations, forgeries, fraudulent escapes from obligation, full living on other men’s money, and filthy purchase of votes and verdicts, which are at once the opprobrium and the rottenness of certain classes in modern society, are fostered and brought into development by what young men hear in the houses where their business hes; by jokes, which imply that a clever operation is worth some moral risk; by pleasantries about lying and stealing, under decent names; and by contemptuous pity of the tortoise-like habits of a former age. Let us in justice observe, that we have, in the highest places in the world of trade, men whose names are unsullied, and whose voice authorized by experience, would, if permitted, chastise the sharper and the villain, under whatever garb of mocking and persiflage he might lurk. Such animadversion is useful to those who look on; as indeed is the detection of every arrogant pretender. “Smite a scomer, and the simple will beware; and reprove one that hath understanding, and he will understand knowledge.’’ And again, “When the scomer is punished, the simple is made wise.” The public award is generally right and final, in respect to one who has distinguished himself by sneer, sarcasm, and arrogance; for, as Solomon says, “the scorner is an abomination to men.” Prov. xxiv. 9.

It is not easy to stop upon the downward slide of sin; and hence he who begins with trifling and badinage, upon subjects of duty and grace, will descend, unless divinely stayed, to the degree of undervaluing his own danger, and making light of God’s threatenings. This is the foolhardiness of transgression. There is a sublime, silent delay about the Divine Justice, which leaves rash sinners under the delusion, that, against a Lawgiver so longsuffering, they may offend with impunity. If every Cain were marked the very instant he shed blood, and every Ananias struck dead upon the utterance of his He, scoffing at judgments would be impossible. But the awful tread of justice is slow, and so the depraved soul grows bold. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” Conscience sleeps, and therefore the sinner thinks the sin is not on record. “He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face: he will never see it.” Ps. X. 11. In Ezekiel’s time, the idolaters who polluted the very temple-chambers by secret imagery,

said,” The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken

the earth.” The same folly and wickedness bear like fruits in later days; and when these depraved tempers find vent in words, and corresponding demeanour, we have the Scomer named in divine threatenings Unbelief and unholy daring may attain such a height, as madly to try their strength not only with menaced, but with actual wrath; and creatures have been found, who, amidst the falling bolts of judgment, have stood out against the Creator and Judge in arms. A cheat, of course, is, in such cases, put upon oneself, as if there were a chance of escape after all; or, as if these inflictions were not judgments for sin; or, which is more common, as if infinite mercy would at length remit. When scornful offenders laugh at war, famine, pestilence, and other tokens of divine displeasure against sin, whether national or mdividual, denying all providence in such events, and baring the head to receive any storm from such quarter, they only re-enact the part of ancient unbelievers, who cried, “The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.” Amos ix. 10.

But on whatsoever side we turn, we find exposures of the fundamental evil, on which all these contempts repose, as all later formations on the primitive base. It is depravity of mind and heart in regard to Almighty God; disbehef of his being; derogation from his attributes; forgetfulness of Ms presence; disregard of his infinite purity; hardihood towards his awful justice; in a word, it is practical atheism which makes the scomer.” Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath

THE SCORNER. ^Q^

said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.” Ps. x. 13. Every form of sin involves something of the horrid evils just named; for who could sin under the thorough and constant influence of right views and feelings towards the Divine Majesty? “Thou God seest me,” so far as it sinks into the heart, is a preservative against transgression. But sin begets sin; yea, one sin begets numberless sins, and one violation of law and conscience, leads to other violations, and these to more, till the fearful progression ends in open profligacy, insult to the Eternal King, and speedy destruction. No one knows, when initiated into some lower degree of Satan’s lodge, whether he may not penetrate to the highest. This makes it dangerous to parley with temptation. Judicial blindness befalls those who voluntarily put out the light of education and conscience. One sin, in God’s awful judgment, becomes the punishment of another. The crime which the youthful sinner now looks at with shuddering, as it stands before him in his path, he may one day see behind him, among the dim, cloudy beginnings of his career, the earhest steps of his enormous transgression. It is a greater evil to scoff” at the religion of others, than to be simply irreligious ourselves. Many ties must be rent, many walls overleaped, and many guards cut down, before the race of evil attains to open derision of truth and duty. Opposition to God’s spiritual agency, and ascription of Christ’s words to the Evil One, accompanied with deliberate utterance of the same, in scoffing language.

constituted that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which hath no forgiveness, either in this world or that which is to come. And he who treads under foot the Son of God, and counts his blood unholy, “hath done” so it is written, “despite unto the Spirit of grace.” Heb. X. 29. Those, therefore, who are tempted to make merry with divine realities, with the Word of Salvation, with the work of the Holy Ghost in the revival of churches and the conversion of sinners; especially those who, from levity, folly, inconsideration, deference to bad example, or temporary gusts of pride and passion, indulge themselves in ridiculing such as begin to seek the salvation of the soul, should beware in time, lest, abandoned to themselves, they make shipwreck of all principle, and find their lot among hopeless scofiers. “Judgments are prepared for scomers, and stripes for the back of fools.” Having thus tempted Satan, they may be led by him into an incapacity of believing; having sneered at all that is pure, august and heavenly, they may, amidst the ruins of their faith, be haunted by spectres of multiform doubt; having challenged God to forsake them, they may spend their decline in ever learning, yet never coming to the knowledge of the truth; for, “a scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not.” And these are cautions peculiarly needful at times when the Spirit of God manifests his agency in the churches, humbhng and melting believers, and convincing the impenitent; and when, likewise, Satan, in his prime character, as adversary and arch-scomer, is busy, breathing into his cliildreii, at the corners of the streets, in the haunts of vice, and alas, in the editorial chair, foul blasphemies, which may tiUTi away men from the great salvation. We have no fear for the church of the living God, from the mocking laughter of surrounding foes; though “they return at evening,” “make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.” Ps. lix. The people of God will still rejoice in his power, which shall lead them on to triumph. But, for the scoffers themselves, we tremble; and are ready to address them in the words of Paul at Antioch: “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.” Acts xiii. 41. It is a dreadful fall, from haughty scorning of God’s ways, down to grovelling vice and drivelling falsehood: such contrasts have we seen. The freethinker and the heretic, after deriding the mysteries of Scripture and the inspiration of prophets, have sat down to prate of endless, unintelligible dreams, and to sit at the feet of spiritual mediums, so named in their jargon. Safer, my brethren in the Lord, is it to trust in Him, “that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; who tumeth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish.” Isaiah xhv. 25. O pray to God, beloved hearer, that he would keep your conscience tender, and your mind reverent, lest from one degree of profane scorning you proceed to another, and at length reach the point of those who crucify the Son of God afresh,

QQ THE SCORNER.

and put him to an open shame. At present, you think this acme of impiety far from you, and so I trust it still is. But consider, I pray you, who it is that holds you back from such enormities, and shrink from every form, or sentiment, or speech, which could grieve that Spirit of grace. “Quench not the Spirit,” in yourselves or in others. And that you may make all sure, turn your back upon the world, the flesh, and the devil, and, going to the Lord Jesus, take him as your Saviour, Teacher, and King.