The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1870-05-18
For THE CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN.
IS THE WORLD GROWING BETTER9


The 18th Century is marked by reaction,
and is apparently retrOgrade as compared
with the century that preceded it. The Pu-
ritan divines do not seem to have had sue
eessors, ike themselves. Bunyan, and Owen,
and Baxter, and Flavel, or men of that stamp
do not appear and write books, like theirs,
in the 18th century. Puritanism has fallen
back out of view comparatively, when re-
heved of its enemy the house of Stuart.
On the contrary scepticism is in the fore
ground, in the persons of Bishop Berkley,
and Hume, and Gibbon, and Thomas Payne,
and Volney, and the French Encyclopedias.
This is the century of Deism, and the Deis-
teal controversy; the orthodox champions
in which are such as Lardner, and Paley,
and Watson, and others. Many diyines
much known in the world were advocates of
natural religion only. DIR. Thomas Scott
was such an one in the first years of his
ministry. His little book, the "Force Of
Truth" tells of it beautifully, and of how
his eyes were opened thereto by the spirit
ual wisdom of his adversary at first, his
friend at last, John Newton. The eighteenth
was dead century to a lamentable extent
in England and elsewhere. Burns in these
times evidently saw Presbyterianism in Scot
land, in some bad light. God did not how
ever leave himself without witness in this dry,
doubling 18th century. The Church of
England was paralyzed with spirit of De-
ism. This fact serves as a dark back ground
to the beautiful portrait of John Newton,
whose light shone so in SCOTS Force Of
Truth" of James Hervey also, whose
"Theron and AspasiO" way marks the sub
ject and the century.
There arose other great lights in the dark
ness Of this century. The Wesleys' rose up
out of the cold bosom of the English Church;
and Methodism was born. MethOdism did
much, very much, in England and in Amer
lea, and in all lands; Methodism is light
in the world now; only little more than a
hundred years old. Whitefeld, in the time
of the Wesleys, Calvinistic in his MethO
dism, found recognition in Scotland, and in
the Calyinistic churches of America. On
these shores God had raised up Edwards,
and the Tennents, and other such men. Also
appeared in this land a very wondrous revi-
val of the life and power of the gospel. 1t
gave birth to the suggestion of monthly
concert prayer meeting for the conversion Of
the world.
The Bible Society was not then born.
Good men did not do business in voluntary
societies then, as since and new. But the
same living idea was at work.
The eighteenth is ehinently the century
Of popular commentaries on the entire Scrip.
lures. Matthew Henry, and Thomas Scott
are men whose great expOsitOry works are
Of this century, as are Burkitt and Doddridge
who wrote of the New Testament only
Such great fact is indicative of popular
demand for instruction at the FIRE side, as to
the teachings AZ che word of God After all,
the scepticist of the 18th century was a
thing of learned and fashionable life, rather
than thing of the Church, though its ten
dency was to deaden the conscience of the
Church and divert its energy.
A great phenomenon of the 18th century
appears in the hymnolOgy thereof. Isaac
Watts is known, and always will be known,
wherever there is people who understand
the English language, as the author of the
Gospel Psalm and Hymn Book. He was an
able preacher and writer of sermons. As a
Theologian, he was of some note, and pro,
found Metaphysician. But not very many
know this last, while almost every body
knows him as the author of the Psalms and
Hymns. Perhaps no one man ever lived
who has fed Christ's sheep and lambs more
extensively or with more wholesome food
than Isaac Watts, and mainly, indeed al
most entirely, through the songs of the sane
tuary, and at the 6re-side, and in the nurse
~. Watts, like Matthew Henry, is a child
Of the 18th but man of the 18th century.
Next to him are Cowper, and John Newton,
and Philip DOddridge, and some others, all of
them men of the 18th century. This is much
to say of the century that proceeded the pre-
sent REPOSITORY preaching, and great cpl
demic revivals of religion, and the gospel of
the last days in forms of song: Who will
say that all this was not a grand necessity
to the millennium itself? Certain it is that
the Church of our blessed Master can never
again go back of these things. They are
points gained; vantage grounds taken for
which one may be thankful and take courage,
How much the gospel of our Redeemer
had to do with the political events of this
18th century, or they with it, one almost
fears to attempt to say. But surely society
in the 18th century was wondrously moved
on its old foundations. The American reYo-
luton was a thing that can never be undOne.
That it has been abused, one need not doubt;
yet as a thing of God, it stands as fixed a
fact as the decline and fall of the old Roman
Empire. Mankind, we may allow, do not
yet understand it. Yet without it, where
would we have been, relgiously? And where
its consequences viii yet carry us, may well