AMERICAN BIBLICAL REPOSITORY, DEVOTED TO BIBLICAL AND GENERAL LITERATURE, THEOLOGICAL DISCUSSION, CONDUCTED BY JOHN HOLMES AGNEW. Second Series. VOL. IX. NOS. XVII., XVIII.-WHOLE NOS. XLIX,, L. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETOR BY E. LITTELL, ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by J. H. AGNEW, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York. University Press, JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER 33 Ann-street, NEW-YORK. AMERICAN BIBLICAL REPOSITORY. JANUARY, 1843. SECOND SERIES, NO. XVII.---WHOLE NO. XLIX. ARTICLE I. BENEVOLENCE AND SELFISHNESS. By Jeremiah Day, D. D. L. L. D. President of Yale College, Connecticut. Ir is asserted by many, by some even who appear to be exemplary Christians and able divines, that self-love is the moving principle of all voluntary action; that it is common to saints and sinners; that it is an essential element in benevolence itself. By others, it is considered as identical with selfishness as directly opposed to benevolence; as the radical principle of all iniquity. Is it not high time, that Christian brethren should come to some understanding, with respect to the essential characteristic of the religion which they profess? If the existing disagreement, on this all important point, is in appearance only; if it is nothing more than a difference in the interpretation of certain words and phrases, while there is a real harmony of belief, with respect to the nature of the distinction between virtue and vice, benevolence and selfishness; strenuous efforts ought to be made to dispel the mists which the ambiguities of language have thrown around the subject; that those who are brethren in profession should no longer be alienated from each other, on account of supposed differences of opinion, which are, in reality, only verbal; and on the other hand, that those who have adopted erroneous and heretical tenets, should not have the SECOND SERIES, VOL. IX. NO. I. 1 |