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08 - Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings by John Quincy Adams · Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings

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  Speaker 1: Section seven of letters of John Quincy Adams to his
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  Speaker 1: son on the Bible and its teachings. This LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain, read by Dale Berkley, Letter seven.
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  Speaker 1: The imperfections of the mosaic institution, which it was the
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  Speaker 1: object of Christ's mission upon earth to remove, appear to
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  Speaker 1: me to have been these first the want of a
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  Speaker 1: sufficient sanction. The rewards and penalties of the levitical law
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  Speaker 1: had all a reference to the present life. There are
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  Speaker 1: many passages in the Old Testament which imply a state
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  Speaker 1: of existence after death, and some which directly assert a
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  Speaker 1: future state of retribution, but none of these were contained
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  Speaker 1: in the delivery of the law. At the time of
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  Speaker 1: Christ's advent. It was so far from being a settled
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  Speaker 1: article of the Jewish faith that it was a subject
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  Speaker 1: of bitter controversy between the two principal sects of Pharisees,
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  Speaker 1: who believed in and Sadducees, who denied it. It was
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  Speaker 1: the special purpose of Christ's appearance upon earth to bring
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  Speaker 1: immortality to light. He substituted the rewards and punishments of
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  Speaker 1: a future state of existence in the room of all others.
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  Speaker 1: The Jewish sanctions were exclusively temporal, those of Christ exclusively spiritual. Second,
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  Speaker 1: the want of universality. The Jewish dispensation was exclusively confined
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  Speaker 1: to a small and obscure nation. The purposes of the
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Creator in restricting the knowledge of himself to one
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  Speaker 1: petty herd of Egyptian slaves are as inaccessible to our
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  Speaker 1: intelligence as those of his, having concealed from them and
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  Speaker 1: from the rest of mankind, the certain knowledge of their
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  Speaker 1: own immortality. Yet the fact is unquestionable. The mission of
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  Speaker 1: Christ was intended to communicate to the whole human race
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  Speaker 1: all the permanent advantages of the Mosaic Law, superadding to
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  Speaker 1: them upon the condition of repentance, the kingdom of heaven
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  Speaker 1: the blessed of eternal life. Third, the complexity of the
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  Speaker 1: objects of legislation. I have observed in a former letter
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  Speaker 1: that the Law from Sinai comprised not only all the
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  Speaker 1: ordinary subjects of regulation for human societies, but those which
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  Speaker 1: human legislators cannot reach. It was a civil law, a
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  Speaker 1: municipal law, an ecclesiastical law, a law of police, and
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  Speaker 1: a law of morality and religion. It prohibited murder, adultery, theft,
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  Speaker 1: and perjury. It prescribed rules for the thoughts as well
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  Speaker 1: as for the actions of men. The complexity, however practicable
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  Speaker 1: and even suitable for one small national society, could not
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  Speaker 1: have attained to all the families of the earth. The
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  Speaker 1: parts of the Jewish law adapted to promote the happiness
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  Speaker 1: of mankind under every variety of situation and government in
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  Speaker 1: which they can be placed, were all recognized and adopted
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  Speaker 1: by Christ, and he expressly separated them from the rest.
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  Speaker 1: Dic claimed all interference with the ordinary objects of human legislation.
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  Speaker 1: He declared that his kingdom was not of this world.
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  Speaker 1: He acknowledged the authority of the Jewish magistrates. He paid
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  Speaker 1: for his own person the tribute to the Romans. He
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  Speaker 1: refused in more than one instance to assume the office
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  Speaker 1: of judge in matters of legal controversy. He strictly limited
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  Speaker 1: the object of his own precepts and authority to religion
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  Speaker 1: and morals. He denounced no temporal punishment, he promised no
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  Speaker 1: temporal rewards. He took up man as a governable being
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  Speaker 1: where the human magistrate is compelled to leave him, and
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  Speaker 1: supplied both precept of virtue and motive for practicing it,
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  Speaker 1: such as no other moralist or legislator ever attempted to
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  Speaker 1: introduce fourth the burdensome duties of positive rights, minute formalities,
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  Speaker 1: and expensive sacrifices. All these had a tendency not only
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  Speaker 1: to establish and maintain the separation of the Jews from
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  Speaker 1: all other nations, but in process of time had been
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  Speaker 1: mistaken by the scribes and pharisees and lawyers, and probably
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  Speaker 1: by the body of the people, for the substance of religion.
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  Speaker 1: All the rites were abolished by Christ, or, as Paul
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  Speaker 1: expresses it, were nailed to his cross. You will recollect
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  Speaker 1: that I am now speaking of Christianity not as the
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  Speaker 1: scheme of redemption to mankind from the consequences of original sin,
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  Speaker 1: but as a system of morality for regulating the conduct
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  Speaker 1: of men while on earth. And the most striking and
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary feature of its character in this respect is its
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  Speaker 1: tendency and exhortations to absolute perfection. The language of Christ
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  Speaker 1: to his disciples is explicit, be Ye therefore perfect, even
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  Speaker 1: as your Father in Heaven is perfect. And this he
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  Speaker 1: enjoins at the conclusion of that precept so expressly laid
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  Speaker 1: down and so unanswerably argued, to love their enemies, to
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  Speaker 1: bless those who cursed them and pray for those who
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  Speaker 1: despitefully used and persecuted them. He seems to consider the
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  Speaker 1: temper of benevolence in return for injury as constituting of
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  Speaker 1: itself a perfection similar to that of the divine nature.
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  Speaker 1: It is undoubtedly the greatest conquest which the spirit of
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  Speaker 1: man can achieve over its infirmities, and to him who
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  Speaker 1: can attain that elevation of virtue which it requires, all
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  Speaker 1: other victories over the evil passions must be comparatively easy.
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  Speaker 1: Nor was the absolute perfection merely preached by Christ as
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  Speaker 1: a doctrine. It was practiced by himself throughout his life,
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  Speaker 1: practiced to the last instant of his agony on the cross,
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  Speaker 1: practiced under circumstances of trial such as no other human
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  Speaker 1: being was ever exposed to. He proved by his own
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  Speaker 1: example the possibility of that virtue which he taught, And
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  Speaker 1: although possessed of miraculous powers sufficient to control all the
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  Speaker 1: laws of nature, he expressly and repeatedly declined the use
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  Speaker 1: of them to save himself from any part of the
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  Speaker 1: sufferings which he was able to endure. The sum of
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  Speaker 1: Christian morality, then consists in piety to God and benevolence
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  Speaker 1: to man, piety manifested not by formal solemn rights and
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  Speaker 1: sacrifices of burnt offerings, but by repentance, by obedience, by submission,
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  Speaker 1: by humility, by the worship of the heart, and by
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  Speaker 1: benevolence not founded upon selfish motives, but superior even to
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  Speaker 1: a sense of wrong or the resentment of injuries. Worldly
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  Speaker 1: prudence is scarcely noticed among all the instructions of Christ.
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  Speaker 1: The pursuit of honors and riches, the objects of ambition
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  Speaker 1: and avarice are strongly discountenanced in many places, and an
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  Speaker 1: undue solicitude about the ordinary cares of life is occasionally
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  Speaker 1: reproved of worldly prudence. There are rules enough in the
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  Speaker 1: proverbs of Solomon and in the compilations of the Son
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  Speaker 1: of Syric. Christ passes no censure upon them. But he
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  Speaker 1: left what I call the selfish virtues where he found them.
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  Speaker 1: It was not to proclaim commonplace morality that he came
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  Speaker 1: down from heaven. His commands were new, that his disciples
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  Speaker 1: should love one another, that they should love even strangers,
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  Speaker 1: that they should love their enemies. He prescribed barriers against
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  Speaker 1: all the maleficent passions. He gave as a law the
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  Speaker 1: utmost point of perfection, of which human powers are susceptible,
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  Speaker 1: and at the same time allowed degrees of indulgence and
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  Speaker 1: relaxation to human frailty proportioned to the power of any individual.
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  Speaker 1: An eminent writer in supportive Christianity, Doctor Paley, expresses the
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  Speaker 1: opinion that the direct object of the Christian Revelation was
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  Speaker 1: to supply motives and not rules, sanctions and not precepts,
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  Speaker 1: and he strongly intimates that independent of the purpose of
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  Speaker 1: Christ's atonement and propitiation for the sins of the world,
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  Speaker 1: the only object of his mission upon Earth was to
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  Speaker 1: roove veal a future state to bring life and immortality
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  Speaker 1: to light. He does not appear to think that Christ
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  Speaker 1: promulgated any new principle of morality, and he positively asserts
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  Speaker 1: that morality, neither in the Gospel nor in any other book,
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  Speaker 1: can be a subject of discovery, because qualities of actions
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  Speaker 1: depend entirely on their effects, which effects must all along
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  Speaker 1: have been the subjects of human experience. To this, I reply,
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  Speaker 1: in the express words of Jesus a new commandment I
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  Speaker 1: give you that ye love one another. And I add
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  Speaker 1: that this command explained illustrated and dilated, as it was
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  Speaker 1: by the whole tenor of his discourses, and especially by
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  Speaker 1: the parable of the Good Samaritan, appears to me to
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  Speaker 1: be not only entirely new, but in the most rigorous
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  Speaker 1: sense of the word, a discovery in morals, and a
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  Speaker 1: discovery the importance of which to the happiness of the
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  Speaker 1: human race as far exceeds any discovery in the physical
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  Speaker 1: laws of nature, as the soul is superior to the body.
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  Speaker 1: If it be objected that the principles of benevolence toward
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  Speaker 1: enemies and the forgiveness of injuries may be found not
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  Speaker 1: only in the Old Testament, but even in some of
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  Speaker 1: the Heathen writers, particularly the discourses of Socrates, I answer
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  Speaker 1: that the same may be said of the immortality of
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  Speaker 1: the soul and of the rewards and punishments of a
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  Speaker 1: future state. The doctrine was not more a discovery than
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  Speaker 1: the precept, but their connection with each other, the authority
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  Speaker 1: with which they were taught, and the miracles by which
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  Speaker 1: they were enforced, belong exclusively to the mission of Christ.
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  Speaker 1: Attend particularly to the miracle recorded in the second chapter
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  Speaker 1: of Luke as having taken place as the birth of Jesus,
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  Speaker 1: when the Angel of the Lord said to the shepherds,
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  Speaker 1: fear not, for behold, I bring you glad tidings of
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  Speaker 1: great joy, which shall be to all people, for unto
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  Speaker 1: you is born this day in the city of David,
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  Speaker 1: the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. In these words,
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  Speaker 1: the care of Jesus as a redeemer was announced. But
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  Speaker 1: the historian adds, and suddenly there was with the Angel
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  Speaker 1: a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and singing
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  Speaker 1: glory to God in the highest and on earth peace
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  Speaker 1: good will toward men. These words, as I understand them,
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  Speaker 1: announced the moral precept of benevolence, as explicitly for the
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  Speaker 1: object of Christ's appearance, as the preceding words had declared
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  Speaker 1: the purpose of redemption. It is related in the life
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  Speaker 1: of the Roman dramatic poet Terence that when one of
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  Speaker 1: the personages of his comedy, the Self Tormentor, the first
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  Speaker 1: time uttered on the stage the line homo sum humani
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  Speaker 1: nil alienum puto I am a man, nothing human is
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  Speaker 1: uninteresting to me, a universal shout of applause burst forth
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  Speaker 1: from the whole audience, And that in so great a
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  Speaker 1: multitude of Romans and deputies from the nations, their subjects,
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  Speaker 1: and allies. There is not one individual but felt in
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  Speaker 1: his heart this noble sent Yet how feeble and defective
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  Speaker 1: it is in comparison with the Christian command of charity,
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  Speaker 1: as unfolded in the discoveries of Christ and enlarged upon
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  Speaker 1: in the writings of his apostles. The heart of man
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  Speaker 1: will always respond with rapture to this sentiment, when there
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  Speaker 1: is no selfish or unsocial passion to oppose it, but
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  Speaker 1: the command to lay it down is the great and
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  Speaker 1: fundamental rule of conduct for human life, and to subdue
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  Speaker 1: and sacrifice all the tyrannical and selfish passions to preserve it.
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  Speaker 1: This is the peculiar and unfading glory of Christianity. This
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  Speaker 1: is the conquest over ourselves, which without the aid of
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  Speaker 1: a merciful God none of us can achieve, and which
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  Speaker 1: it was worthy of his special interposition to enable us
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  Speaker 1: to accomplish. From your affectionate Father, John Quincy Adams, end
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  Speaker 1: of section seven,