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PLAIN 
 
 ARGUMENTATIVE SERMON, 
 
 OK 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OP 
 
 THE HOLT TRINITY. 
 
 ^ By GEORGE BURDER. 
 
 MILTON, N. C. 
 
 PRINTEn BX BENJTAMIN GORY. 
 1SS3. 
 
PREFACE! 
 
 As ideas subversive of the doctrine of the 
 Trinity are not unfreqiiently advanced in the 
 pulpit; and as this doctrine constitutes a promi- 
 nent article in " the faith once delivered to the 
 saints," for which we aie exhorted "earnestly 
 to contend;" it has appeared to me, that I may 
 do a service to the Church of Christ, by pub- 
 lishing and disseminating the following very 
 plain and instructive discourse on that doctrine. 
 
 Many plain Christians, who have scarcely 
 any book but their Bibles, are much bewildered 
 'and distressed by the objections which they, 
 sometimes hear raised against this " Great mys- 
 tery of Godliness." 'I'o such this Sermon will 
 supply an easy and effectual solution of their 
 difficulties. Under the hope, therefore, that it 
 may meet the smiles of the Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost, it is humbly dedicated to the Church. 
 
 A. W. CLOFTON. 
 
A SERMON 
 
 ON THE DOCTRINE OF 
 
 THE HOLT TRINITY. 
 
 1 John V. 7. For there are Three that bear record in Heaven; the Father, 
 the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and tiiese three are One. 
 
 ALL religion supposes the worship of a G' <); an<l theie- 
 fore, in all worship, the first thing to be considered is, xvho 
 that God is; or what sort of a beiog is to be worshipped. 
 The Heathens worshipped a great many gods; as tiany as 
 thirty thousand have been mentioned: But all Christians 
 admit that there is but One only, the living and true G id. 
 Now all the knowledge we have of Gnd is from the Scriptures. 
 If God had not been pleased to give us the Bible, we should 
 to this day have been worshipping idols, as the former inhab- 
 itants of this country did, and as many millions of Pagans 
 now do. Reason, alone, never yet led any people to the 
 right knowledge of God, nor ever will. The learned Greeks 
 and wis»e Romans knew no more of God than the savage In- 
 dians. The knowledge of God which Noah and his sons had 
 was gradually lost and corrupted. But God made himself 
 known in a particular manner to Abraham, and to his pos- 
 terity the Jews: among whom the knowledge of the true 
 God was preserved till the time of Christ, and now, by his 
 Gospel, this knowledge is given to us, and to all who re- 
 ceive the Scriptures as the word of God, 
 
 Now, the same Scriptures which assure us there is but 
 one God, speak of him under three names of Father^ Son, 
 and Holy Ghost; and our text pi? inly duclares that these three 
 are one. This doctrine is generally called the doctrine of the 
 Triiiity, which signifies Tri Unity, or three in one. This 
 doctrine has been thought, by most Christians, to be very 
 plainly revealed in the word of God; neveriheiesjs, there were 
 
[4] 
 
 some persons of old, and there are some now, who dispute, 
 or deny it; and these people are called ArianSf or Sncinians; 
 and some of them now call themselves Unitarians. We ought 
 to be much on our guard against tliosc who would rob us of 
 '* the faith once delivered to the saints," and of which this u 
 an eminent part. For you will please to observe, that those 
 who deny the doctrine of the Trinity seldom stop there; they 
 generally deny also the atonement of Jesus Christ, and tha 
 work of the Holy Spirit on the heart, so leave us very littla 
 of the Gospel to believe. Indeed, many who begin their 
 upostacy in the denial of the Trinity, complete it in becom- 
 ing downright Inddels and Atheists. As a right notion of 
 God is connected with all true faith and holy practice, it is of 
 great consequence for us to be well established in this doc- 
 trine. It shall, theieSore, be our present business to prove, 
 that, 
 
 In the Unity of the Godhead there are three divine Persons. 
 
 It may be proper to remark, that, with respect to this doc- 
 trine, it is not necessary that we should be able fully to eX" 
 plain it, or show how the throe divine persons subsist. This 
 is, and must be, a mystery. There are many people, in this 
 age of reason, as ihey call it, who dislike and reject every 
 tiling mysterious; but this arises entirely from their pride, 
 Ihere are many mysteries in nature: we are mysteries to 
 ourselves. We know little of the nature of our own bodies, 
 n»id still less of our souls. Is it any wonder then that we 
 should know little of God, or that the divine nature should b» 
 mysterious to us? Let us beware of pride, especially the pride 
 of Miir unilfistandiiigH. This pride ruined the angels who 
 Itil!. It iuined our finst parents; and it will ruin us eternal* 
 Iv, if it btt (HtiiTered to prmail. As we should never have 
 known any thing of God but by the Bible, lot us be content 
 to take the Bible account of God, which is, indeed, his own 
 account of himself. And let us remember what our Saviour 
 said to his disciples, when he discovered the workings of 
 pride atunng them, Matt, xviij.3. Having set a child in the 
 inidsi of Ihfin, he said, " Verily 1 say unto you, except ye be 
 converted and become as little children, ye ahall not enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven.'' A little child is obliged to 
 take upon trust what his infant capacity cannot yet compre- 
 hend; and it is the oflice of Christian faith to take God at his 
 word. 
 
 
 *- 
 
 ^ 
 
[5] 
 
 I would also remark, that in our reception of this Scrip- 
 ture doctrine, we are nut bound to ad »pl, the mode of ei:j)res- 
 sion used or enforced by any pnriicular divines or churches. 
 Some good men, in their attempts to explain the dooriinp, 
 have rather perplexed it. Some good men have said, that 
 *' the Fa!her is the fountain oC Deity," — that" he communi- 
 cated his whole essen^'e to the Son," — that *' the Son is en 
 tirely begotten of the Father," and that he is ** very God of 
 very God." As these expressions are only private interpre- 
 tations of a Bible truth, we are at liberty to admit or reject 
 them, as they appear to be scriptural or nor. 
 
 Now let us proceed to a brief proof of the doctrine advanc- 
 ed, viz. In the Unity of the Godhead there are three divine 
 persons. By Godhead we mean the dixine nature. We main- 
 tain the Uiiity ot tl>e Godhead; that there is but one Go'J; 
 yet we assert, as our text d\)es, that thi^re are three in the 
 God!»ead» Father, Son, and Huly Ghost, ai>d that these three 
 are one,* There is but one God. It is impossible there 
 should be more. Reason itself shews that ther^ cannot be 
 more than one being, who 'i8 first. God is the Jirst cause of 
 all being, and we cannot conceive of two or more Jirst 
 causes. God is alno a self-sufficient being; he existed alone; 
 he can do every thing of himself; he needs not the help of 
 other beingSi '*^Now, if there were two such brings, they 
 cou'd do no more thaa one could do; if they could, then one 
 could not be selj-siifficient and alUsiifficient; each of them 
 could not be G.id, if they could want or receive any help 
 from one anotSier. There cannot, therefor'^, be two Gods; 
 for if oije is aU-siifficientf the other would bt*. rie^'diess and 
 useif'sp." it is the great doctrine of Scripture, that there is 
 one God, Isa. xlv. 5, *' I am the Lord, a»d there is none 
 else; theie is no God beside me," Deuf. vi. 4. «' Hear, O 
 Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord." Mark xii. ^i'!; 
 ** There is one God; and there is non^ other but he." J;>?r. 
 xxiii. 24. "Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith tlie Lord.'* 
 1 Rings viii. 39. " For thou, even thou only, knovvest the 
 hearts of all the children of Men." This is the God alomgi 
 
 • Perliaps you will be told that this verse is not found in some ancieai 
 isjanusci-ipts of tlie New Testament, but has been added by the Ti"initai-iaH&. 
 But we are assured b\- men of tije fii-st learning and credibility, that it w^ 
 found in the most ancient copies: and whoever examines^ will fiiid that \h^ 
 sense of the chapter isaat s .'mplete witliout it^ But the truth of iJje ipGr- 
 triae 4ofi» not depewi on a^ sens.e». ss we ehaU giainl]^ grove., 
 I* 
 
[63 
 
 who oaght to be worshipped. " Thou shalt worship the Lord 
 thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.'* 
 
 The adversaries of this doctrine call themselves Unitari- 
 anSf by which they mean to intimate their belief of only one 
 God, and insinuate ihnt we, who believe the Trinity, admit 
 of more than ono God. But we d^eny the charge. We main- 
 tain, as strongly as they, that there is only one God; and 
 we think it perfectly consistent with this belief to acknowl- 
 edge three Persons in the Godhead. We allow ihat the word 
 persons is not found in Scripfure, and may convey an idea 
 somewhat too gross. But this is owing to the poverty of our 
 language, which does not furnish us with a better term. And 
 we think it justifiable, because personal properties and per- 
 sonnl acts arc ascribed to each of the divine tliree. But we 
 contend not for the word, but the thing. It is enough for us 
 to say, w ith the text, *' there are Three that bear record 
 in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holt Ghost." 
 
 That there is a phirality in the Deity i» evident from the 
 Old Testament. This, you know, was written in Hebrew; 
 and, the name which is generally translated by the English 
 word God, is in the Hebrew plural, and signifies more than 
 one. It is Elchim^ which is in the plural number, as Gods 
 would be in English: and this word is often joined with the 
 Hebrew word Jehovah, which is translated Lord; and 
 wbenevcryou find the word Lord in capital letiersthus (Lord) 
 it means Jehovahf a name which tiignifies the essence uf God, 
 *^ He who was, and is, and is to «ome," Now there is a pas- 
 sage in Dent. vi. 4, where you have both these names, and 
 which fully proves the doctrine of the Trinity. "Hear, O 
 Israel: the Lord oar God \» one Lord." If the word Lord 
 and the word God signified just the same, the passage would 
 be nensense,* it would be only saying, the Lord is Lord, or 
 one is one: But the meaning is, Jehovah, our Elohim, our 
 covenant God, Father, Son, and Spirit, is one Jehovah. He 
 is one in Essence, though three in person. T!ie Jews are 
 unwilling to own that this is the meaning of the names of God 
 in Hebrew, but it is eiitircly owing to their hatred to Jesus 
 Christ. If any are converted to Christianity, as some have 
 been, they own it immediately.* Thus John XereSt a con- 
 
 •See an excellent treatise, entitled the Catholic Dootrtne of a Trinity, 
 proved by above an liundred short :m<\ clear \rprumcnts in the Words of 
 Scripture, by Mr. Jorm, Uector of Pluckly, &c. priHted for Uirington. 
 
en 
 
 verted Jew, about 70 years ago, when he published his rea* 
 sons for becoming a Cbristian, says, " The Ci.ri&tians con. 
 fess Jesu'j to be God; and it is this that makes us louk Uj)on 
 the Gospels as books that overturn the very principles oF i eis- 
 gion, the truth of which is built upon this article, tho Uhity 
 of God, In this argument lies the strength of what you ob- 
 ject against in the Christian religion." There he under akes 
 to prove, that the uni'y of God is not such as he once under- 
 stood it to be, in unity of Ferson, but of Essence, under whirli 
 more persons than one are comprehended; and the first proof 
 he offers, is tliat of the name of Eiohim. Why else, says he, 
 is that frequent mention of God by means of the pluriil num- 
 ber; as m Gen. i. 1, where the word Elohim, which is render- 
 ed Godf is of the plural number, though annexed to a verb of 
 the singular number; which demonstrates that there are sev- 
 eral persons partaking of the same divine nature and es- 
 sence." 
 
 Thla plurality is restricted to a Trinity of persons, namely 
 three, whose names we have in the text. And here observe, 
 that the names, Father , Word, or Son, and Spirit, are not in- 
 tended to describe the manner in which the three divine per- 
 sons subsist, but the manner in which they acf; but what they 
 are in themselves (that is not revealed) not what they are to 
 us, according to the respective offices which they have been 
 pleased to assume in the redemption of man. And therefore, 
 though one of the names of offices may seem greater than the 
 rest; yet this daes not denote that the person who bears the 
 name is greater than the other. The name of the Father 
 may seem greater than that of the Son, or of the Spirit: and 
 Christ speaks of the Father as greater than he; and the Spi- 
 rit as well as the Son is " sent;" but as these are names of 
 office, and not of essence, they only describe the nature of the 
 office assumed, which may be greater or less; but as to the 
 essence there is no difference nor inequality; but as it is ex- 
 pressed in the Athanasian Creed — *' In this Trinity, none is 
 before nor after other; none is greater or less than another; 
 but the whole three persons are co-eternal together, and co- 
 equal. The Godiiead of the Father, of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost, is all one: the glory equal, the majesty co-eter- 
 nah" 
 
 Our further proof of the Trinity shall be from the history 
 •f man's creation — the application of the name of the Deity 
 
[8] 
 
 to each Divine Person distiuctljr— the institutioa of baplismj 
 and the ap st >I'cal blessing:. 
 
 In the history of man's creation we find these words, Gerr. 
 i. 20, •« And God s^tid, lot ns make man in our ima.-iji , alter 
 OFR lik-nesH." Surely this exj rcssinn dvnotf'S tiiai tiitie is 
 a pluriilify of persons in the divine nature, or why .shoul<l it 
 be us< d: Some tt II us it is only an arrt)mniodatii.n to the 
 mode of speaking us:d by kin^s, who in their puhlir acts say 
 tve and «s. But this is ridiculous; for kings had no exist- 
 ence before the creation of man. Besides, kings use this 
 phrase out of modesty, or to signify the C(»ncurreiice of their 
 Council; but who hath known the mind of the Loid, or N*ho 
 hath been bis counsellor?" Rom. xi. 34. In like manner we 
 find the Lord God saying, after man had fallen^ G m!, iii. 22, 
 *•* Behold the man «» become like one or us." Sonie thi ik 
 this was spoken ironically, in allusion to Satan's jTomisc, 
 when he tempted our first parents to eat of the forbidden tree. 
 ** Ye shall be as g(»ds," &r. Others think it refers t«> ihe co« 
 venant, in which ojjc of the divi-ie persons bad engaged ti 
 become man, 'v\ order to redeem m«n. Be liiis as it roay, 
 the expression plainly proves a |){urality, such as i« more 
 plainly expressed, John i. 1. *^ In Ihe beginnin-]; was the 
 Word," (the verv nAine used f v Christ in^ the t<'Xt) »« and the 
 Word was ivUh God, and the Wokd was God.'' But again> 
 
 The name of God is applied to each of the divine persons 
 distinctly. Tliat the Father is calKd God n^ed not be prov- 
 ed. Jesiis Christ is also calk-d God in many places of Scrip- 
 ture. Tlic»mas said to him. John xx. 2S, ♦* My Lord, and 
 my GoD.'* St. Paul says, Rom. ix. 5, *♦ He is God over all, 
 blessed for ever.** St. John saj s„ i Johti v. 20, ** Jesus 
 Christ is the True Gmd, and eternal lifr.'* The Psalmist 
 says, that the Israelites in the. wilderness '^^ tempted and pro. 
 voked TJiE MOST HIGH God^;" and St. P;ui!, spenking of tlie 
 same thing, says, "they tempted Clirist;" consequently, he 
 is " the most high God,"^ Psalm Ixxviii. 56, and I Vur. x. 9, 
 Isaiah had a v sion^ concernii-g wliich,. he says, <» M Re eyes- 
 have seen the King, tlje Lord of Hosis," l>aiah vi. 6. St, 
 John, speaking of (hat vision, siiys, «* ti»ese things said Esa-- 
 iafe, when lie saw his (Chkist's.) glory, and spake of him,'* 
 John xii. 41; from whence it follows, that Jesus is the Lobd- 
 of Hosts. And let it be caref(dly observed, that the HHuie 
 Iaob])^, or Jeuovau* wiiicb signidcs tUe-sseciice o£ G<od^ ia 
 
never, upon any occasion given to a creature. Yet this name 
 is given to Jesus Christy as in the text last mentioned, and 
 also in the following, Jer. xxiii. 6. " This is the name where- 
 by he shall be called, the lAmHf (that is Jehovah) our right- 
 eousness." Now, wlio is the righteousness of believers? 
 Every Christian knows, that " Christ is made unto us— 
 righteousness." And in Isaiah xhii. ** I, even 1, am the 
 Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour." But we know 
 who alone is the Saviour of the world, even " our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesas Chiist. But unless he were God as well as 
 man he could be i^o Saviour; for Jehovah says there is no 
 Saviour besides himself.* Passing by many more texts for 
 want of room, we shall mention but one more in proof of 
 our Lord's diviuity. Our Saviour has graciously promised 
 his presence with' all his people whenever they assemble to- 
 gether. See Matt, xviii. 20. " Where two or three are ga-* 
 ?hercd together in ray name there am I in the midst of them." 
 Now how is it possible for Christ to be present in all the 
 thousatsds of places where Christians are assembled, unless 
 he be the true God? 
 
 In like manner we might shew, that the peculiar names of 
 the Deity are given to the Holy Spirit, and that, therefore, 
 he also is a Person, and a divine person. One, out of many, 
 may be sufficient. St. Peter, reproving Annanias for the lie 
 he had told respecting his substance, saith, Acts. v. 3, ''Why 
 halh Satan JiUed thine heart to be unto the Holt Ghost?" and 
 in the next verse, he adds, — *' Thou hast not lied unto men hut 
 unto God.'* This is a most plain and undeniable proof that 
 the Holy Ghost is God.j 
 
 The ordinance of Christian baptism affords another proof 
 of the Trinity. In the baptism of our Lord himself, a voice 
 from heaven said — "This is my beloved Sonj" also " The 
 Holy Spirit descended visibly" in the manner and form of 
 
 * If the reader wishes to see more prooft of this kind, let him consult 
 the following places, Isaiah viii. 13, 14, with 1 Peter ii. 7, 8. Is. xliv. 6. 
 with Rev. xxii. 13. Luke i. 76, with Matt, xi, 10. 2 Cor. v, 19. John 14. 
 11. Isaiah ix. 6. Rev, i. 8. 1 Kings viii. 39. with Rev. ii. 23. And as to 
 those places in which Christ saith, The Father is greater than I, &c, they 
 are understood as his human nature and office, or, as the creed expresses 
 it, "inferior to the Father as touching his manhood." 
 
 f Other proofs may be found in Acts siii, 2, 4, 2 Tim iii, 16 compared 
 with 2 Pet. i. 21. 1 Cor. iii, 16, with 1 Cor. vi, 19, 1 Cor. ii. 11, 14. Psalms 
 CKxxiz. 7, 
 
[10] ^ 
 
 a dove, " li^litinj* upon him," Matt. ili. 16. Here was the 
 Trinity. The Father testifieth to ihe S( n, and the Spirit 
 descended upon him. Hence, the primitive Christians used 
 the sayiiij?, to any \^ho doubted the truth of this d«)ctrine, 
 *' Go to Jordan, and you will see the Trinity." Plainer still 
 is this truth from the form of words appointed to be used in 
 Christian baptism —Baptise them in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Gh 'st. This is an ordi- 
 nance of initiation; it stands as it were at the threshold of 
 Christianity; so that in taking upon us this distinguished 
 badge of the Christian profession, we avow this great doc- 
 trine. We are baptized into the name of each divine Per- 
 son, that is, by the authority of each, and into the faithfiv or > 
 ship, and profession of each equally and alike, as the One God 
 of the Christian religion. Hereby we profess the Trinity, 
 that is, one God in three Persons, in opposition to all false 
 gods and false worship, and thereby dedicate ourselves to 
 them, according to their personal relations; to the Father, as 
 our Creator, and as reco<iciled in Christ; to Chnst as our re- 
 deemer, to deliver us from the guilt and power of sinj and to 
 the Holy Spiritf to teach, comfort, and sanctity us. This is 
 a kind of proof of the doctrine suited to the weakest capacity. 
 Kach of the sacred Three is mentioned distinctly, and by 
 name, which certainly implies a distinction of persons; yet 
 they are all united in the same ordinance of baptism, which 
 shews their equality and unity. So that all who would not 
 renounce that sacred ordinance, may see ib it a full, clear 
 and satisfactory proof of the Trinity. 
 
 Much the same may be said of the Apostolical benedic- 
 tion, 2 Cor. xiii. 14. " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, 
 be with you all. Amen." In these words St. Paul prayed 
 for the Corinthians, and in the same words almost all Chris- 
 tian ministers pray for their people at the close of every pub- 
 lic service. It is a kind of prayer to each divine person 
 singly, expressing a desire that the people may partake of 
 the grace of Christ, who is "full of grace," tlirtugh whose 
 mediation we are reconciled tn God — that they may also 
 enjoy the love of God, namely, of God the Father, which is 
 the source of «)ur whole salvation, manifested in the gift of 
 his Son, his Spirit, and his Word — and, finally, that they 
 may pattake of the Holy Ghost| as all real Christians do in 
 
nil] 
 
 his application to their souls of all the blessings of salvation, 
 proteedm.a: from the Father, and flowing to us through the 
 Son, And thus are we continually reminded of this great 
 truth, and led also to make a practical us'; of it, in seeking 
 from eac h of the divine persons the peculiar blessings that 
 each, in the economy of the covenant, has undertaken to be- 
 stow. 
 
 Application. — From what has been said, however brief- 
 ly, it IS sufficiently evident, that the Doctrine of the Trinity 
 is a scriptural doctrine; and as such we are bound to receive 
 it, unless we renounce our Bibles. It is true, that it is a sub- 
 lime and mysterious doitiirit-; yet tiiere is nothing at all in 
 it contrary to reason. Some men make a great outcry against 
 it. They tell us it is absolutely impossible that there should 
 le but one, and that the Trinitarians must believe there are 
 three Gods. In answer to this we say, we do act attirm that 
 the three are one, in the same sense that they are three. They 
 are three in one reepect, one in another. We say they are 
 three in person; one in essence. We affirm that the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Gliost, are not three Gods, but one God. We 
 have abundanMy proved from Scripture, that there are Three 
 to whom divine names are given, divine attributes ascribed, 
 and divine offices assigned; and we affirm, with our text, and 
 according to the whole tenor of Scripture, and the voice of 
 reason too, that they are three in one. And what is there 
 in all this absurd or coiitradiccory? Were we to affirm that 
 they are one, in the same respect as they are three, it would, 
 no doubt, be a contradiction ui terms; we say not tliatthree 
 person^ are one person, or three Gods are one God; but we 
 say that the three pers^^ns are one God. This is revealed, 
 therefore ^e beljeve it; and though we cannot fully coippre- 
 hend it, we think it becomes such weak and fallible creatures 
 as ourselves humbly to receive it, with other truths, as the 
 word of God, and not of raaii. 
 
 But It is by no means enough mei-ely to assent to the doc- 
 trine; we ought to make a practical use of it. It is far from 
 being a matter of speculation; it is a branch of our " most ho- 
 ly faith." We should be coocerned not to hold this, or any 
 other truth, in unrighteousness: and no doctrine, however 
 true and important, will avail us, without an experience of 
 its sanctifying power on our hearts. 
 
[IS] 
 
 Let US be concerned then, as perishing sinners, to apply to 
 each of the divine persons: to the father, for the pardon of 
 our sins throngh his infinite love and free mercy; to the Son, 
 for an interest in his blood, righteousness and intercession; 
 and to the Holy Spirit, for his illuminating, sanctifying, 
 quickening, and comforting influences. 
 
 Let us adore and praise the eternal Three; the Father for 
 his electing love, and the unspeakable gift of that Iov«, the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son. Let us adore and 
 praise the dear^ Redeemer, ascribing blessing, and honour, 
 and giory, and praise, to him that loved us, and washed us 
 from our sins in his own blood. Let us adore and praise the 
 Holy Spirit for his gracious influences, accompanying the 
 w«rd of truth, whereby we knew ourselves, and felt the pow- 
 er of the Gospel to our salvation. Thus shall we reeemble 
 the blessed angels, who are incessantly praising the glorious 
 Trinity, and crying, " Holy, Holy, Holy, Loid God Almigh- 
 ty, which was, and is, and is to come." 
 
 We shall close the whole with that excellent Collect used 
 by the Church of England on Trinity Sunday. 
 
 " Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us^ 
 thy servants, grace, by the ccfjnfession of a true faith, to ac- 
 knowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the pow- 
 er f>f the divine Majesty to worship the Unity; v^lMiseech 
 thW vhat thou wouldst keep us stedfast in this faith, and 
 evermore defend us front all adversaries,* \nfl)p livest and 
 retgn/3st Oue God, world v^ithout end.; AAm^n.'^ 
 
 ^^.^ .^ 
 

 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 C/tA/ 
 
 BAPTIST CHURCH AT RAUBIGHi 
 
 DURING THE SESSION OF THE LEGISLALURE, 
 
 ON MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 30, 1829, 
 
 ..juM^ 
 
 In feiLpAanaUon oi tl\e ^^vrs, and in defence of 
 tVift Trinei^les oi IVie Associated ^ethodisis) 
 
 B? l^BE REV. TVILUAIVE W- 
 
 i^uhlishedby the. request of many who heard it, and dedicated to all thosfi 
 j^iend^ to the right of suffrage and to dvil and religious freedoijii. 
 
 ^ALEIGBfJ 
 
 PRINTED BY LAWRENCE & titMkti 
 Printers to the State, 
 
 1830 
 
■1 » 
 
 h 
 
 t,Y 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 T» the civil cdhtmuniiff in general, and tht people called Methodisla in parti cuioj;. 
 
 That which is good fears nothing from investigation, but has eveiv thing to hope 
 for from it, invitt-s i', a' d chf evfufly awaits the result; while that which is evil frarsit, 
 bec:iuse it mtist suffer thereby. 
 
 The subject proposed for investigation in the following pages, is important to human 
 happiness, as a reference to the history of onr rare, through past ag<s, will shew: 
 we iTieun i ccifsiasiical government.* Let no i'Uelliy:ej|t citizen or statesman then 
 has 11) turn auay from it, without a patjgnt reading, frmn a belief that it belongs to 
 the unimportant jargon of sectariarf»M^%noi^et^ elligent Methodists spurn it, 
 eithir from hasty resentment aganst tner.iuuior, or t'e subject of investigation. As 
 vir'.iioos intelligencies, ouratiachment to objects becomes more pernianent and phas- 
 ing n proportion as the light of truth shines, and shews the exc* lienor of iho-se ob- 
 jects The suhjefct of investigation in these pages is the genius of the Methodist Efjis- 
 copUi Church Government, (which is purely an affair of human regulation ") There is 
 no difference among us, as Methodists, on any other point If, then, our church go. 
 ver >ment will bear the test of sciutiny and the sanc'ion of truti:, it will more highly 
 merit our adlurence a'ld our love; if not, it is a duty we owe to ourselves and our pos- 
 terity, as Americans, as. Methodists and (Christians, to model it anew, and give it a ch.i* 
 racter striciiv in accordance with intelligence, brotherly equality, and the liberality of 
 our Dwn civil government. The ecclesiastical governments in the United State? must 
 ineiiiably exert an immense influence over the civil destinies of this country. It is 
 highl\ important, then, 'o the hajjpiness of these United States, that the genius and 
 character «if all ecclesias ical governments should inspire in thei*- adherents a love for 
 the liberal character of our civil government It seems difficult to imagine how an ene- 
 my to the right of suffrage in church, can consistently admire it in State, and it isrea- 
 s liable to suppii.se that he who claims the right of dictation over us as Christians, would 
 exerc se the s,t">e ri hioserus as citizens, if his power would allow it. 
 
 It is not em ugh for those opp'Sed to free suffVjige to tell us, that, as priests, thej are 
 di^meiy atilhorised to h gislate and expound A priesthood was accessary to the cru- 
 CiK\ion of 'he the ^Oll of God, and it ever opposed most 'bitterly any attempt to cur,, 
 tail its power and iiifluence To reduce to proper limi's such power and influence, 
 by intrt/dii ng i!>c ugh of suffrage among the Methodist people, is the object of thi* 
 etsay, and of the reformation now attempted in the Methodist Episcopal ChuTcb. 
 
)l?ELi.ow-GiTizENS AND Gentlemen. — I hopc jou /do Hot coMs'ider me 
 so wt'dk, as to suppose that 1 cjmiil involve a coiigit'g'tioft possessing jour 
 intelligence in a sectarian controversy' if I would; and i humblj trust jou 
 do not think me soinconsitent wuh my own claims to the right of fret> un- 
 fettered investigation of all points pertaining to the civil and ecclesiasti- 
 cal pnlic}' of this country, as to imagine I wou!d involve you in su. h a 
 controversy, if I could: for the spirit of seciaiianism is alike at variance 
 Wirh good sense and good feeling But whaifvc your aversion to stn •li- 
 ani>m may be, (a'ul i am persuaded it cannot be greater than my <>wt,,) 
 nothing that is imporcant to the moral energies of this country, unci of 
 course to the civil qaiet, and permanent prosperity of these happv S aies, 
 can De uninteresting to you, as citizens asul patnois; and if, upon exarai^a- 
 tion, it shall appear tliat any principle or system clad in ecclesiastical habil- 
 iments, exists in this country, whiih is foiminabe lo ih*" moral energies of 
 the commuinity, and of course to the civil quiet, afnd permanent prosperity 
 of thesevStutes; lor that very reason such a piincip'e or system beti.ines a 
 hundred fold more frightful to every sagacious fiiend of (he common- 
 wealth; because our Constiiuii^in distllims the rignt of tnrerlerente in «II 
 ecciesiaslic.al matiers, at least in ilieir im ipn-nt stages. H' iice it is that 
 such systems must remain secure in this country, until their formidable 
 characters shall be felt by overt acts upon the quiet and prosperity of the 
 cviuniry. And atthougii the artifice of aspiring ecclesiasticks disclaims any 
 rebcmb'ance bevveen church and State governments; vet it is well known 
 to you h.tt in 'lil ages and countries ihej have exerted a povvnju! influf !!■ e 
 over ea^h other; and, wlien they h -ve contlitted, the sw<ird has often de- 
 cided the strife. We are of opinion that they are both of s.milar orig.n; 
 and their object should be, the happiness of society, whith essentiallv de- 
 pends on securing the equal rights of ail its members: we are persnaiisd 
 that the same reasoning which will prove a civii despotism wrong wi*! aUo 
 apply to an ecclesiastical despotism. If the former tends to the arrogance 
 and tyranny of men in power, so does the latter; if a civil vassalage is 
 debasing, an ecclesiastical vassalage is still more so. The slave of cuil 
 power, however debased by oppression, is still accessible; you may address 
 his understanding about his country, or the good or bad qualities of his go- 
 verqment, or its rulers; but not so with an ecdesiasncal vassal of the same 
 intelleciual grade: blindly believing in the infallibility of his own religion, 
 his judgment is closed against all investigation; his religinus teachers have 
 tauiiht him that his church is the only right one in the wond; its govern- 
 ment is of divine aUihoritjr; therefore no reasoning is admissible; and his 
 masters, under the name of ministers, however rash, arrogant or ignorant, 
 arv the infallible favorites of Heaven. Yuu may scru'lfiize the talenis and 
 character of any, or all of his civil officers; you may abuse his Governor or 
 President, even in the public prints; all this is admissible, because his civil 
 oflScers can do wr;oiig; but one whisper against his ecclesiastical masf.ers, 
 (u"derthe name of ministers,) or any scrutiny into their motives or govern- 
 ment is unpardonable sacrilege. We d(» not say that all who are in ihe 
 p:ile of churches, having a government despostic in its nature, are thus de- 
 based; for those, who nn»ve under the ilnection of their own understand- 
 ings, and make their feelings subservient to their reasons, do not easily 
 
 v^ 
 
 /?•>••> 
 
<^\rer in this way; but those who are wielded by tlieir feelings and preju-. 
 diies ai»n:e, may be thus debased by an arrogant ministry, and rendered 
 forniuhibie to every species i;f oppcisition. 
 
 If tlien we disclose tuyour view a powerful ecclesiastical government ex- 
 isting in this country, o( a highly despolical character, it is not to excite 
 your displeasure agaicist those who wield it at present, or iigainst those who 
 are within ihe scope ol its powers; but that we may obtain y<iur aid and 
 goi'd wishes in i>s modification and control in a consiitutional way, by tho 
 SOvtM-eign force of public sentiment and influence. 
 
 We do siiuerely b lieve that d-in»j.Tous powers are exercised by the ru- 
 lers of »he VIeihodist Episcopal Church, and that the -piiit of their discip* 
 line, :iiid genious of their government, have an anti republican tendency. 
 To . tfect a refor. nation oi ilieii church government and imp.irt to it liberal 
 features is the (ause of (he vast exiitenieni fio'.v pievailing among almost 
 half a million ot people in th*- United JSiates called Mrthodists. Then to 
 the Saw iind the testimony. There art among the members of (he Methodist 
 Episcopal Church three great departments. Ut, the laity or people, com- 
 prising more than (our hundred thousand peison^; Snd, the local preachers* 
 in number between live and st^ven ihousanJ; 3rd, the itinerant preachers, 
 so ci'ied, in number some more than fourteen hundied. In these last are 
 concentrated, unquestionably, all the legisla''ve powers of the whole 
 church; and we diink. upon examination, it will be found ihcy possess all 
 the judirial and executive power also. The Gentrai tlonlVrence. which 
 is a Congress of itinerent Methodist pr'^.tJicrs esi.lusively is the only 
 legislative assembly belonging to the Methodi>i Kpiscopal Church. The 
 following extract is laketl literally from their discipline for 1824, commenc- 
 Id'i v. I'h the 19ih page: 
 
 " QucsiioD 2nd. Who shall compose the General Conference, and what 
 are ihf powers and regulations beioiiging to it? 
 
 " Answer 1st. The General Conference shall be composed of one mem- 
 ber for every seven members of the 'Vnniial Conference, to be appointed by 
 senority or choice, at the discretion of each Annual Conference; yet so 
 that SU( h representatives shall have (ravelled at least four full calendar 
 years, trotn the time that they were received on trial by the Annual Con- 
 ference, and are in full connexion at Ihe time of holding the Conference. 
 
 '• Sec. 5th. The General Conference shall have full power to makt- rules 
 and regulation* for our church, under the following iiinitations and restric- 
 tions, viz. Restriction Ist. 'I'he General Conference shall not revoke, 
 alter or change our Ariticles of Religion nor establish any new standards 
 or rules of doctrine, contrary to our present existing or established stand- 
 ards of doririne 4th Restriction. They shall not revoke or change the 
 General Rules of our United Societies 5th Restriction They shall not 
 do awav the privileges ol our ministers or preachers of trial by a commit- 
 tee, and of an appeal; neither shall they do away the privileges of our 
 members of trial before the Society, or by a committee, and of .in appeal " 
 6th Up^friclion Af'er some reference to the book concern, the wln.je is 
 wou'ul up with the following: " nevertheless, that upon the joint recommen- 
 dation of all the Annual C inferences, then a majority ol tlu- General C^m- 
 ferenre su» ci'»"lin2:. «hall suffice to al''r any of ( ,i' above re.^trictinns " It 
 shall Hiiflire to ii- r it < hange our A' irli-» ol Relii^ioii, and lo esLtbli^h any 
 •iievv standardh or Joules of J>pctrine; it shall suHice to revoke or change the 
 
 >. 
 
treneral Rules of our tJnited Societies; it shall suffice to t!o away Uie riglit 
 of trial as ubove sp; cified. and the right of appeal. In a word, a oiajmity 
 of two thirds of the General Conference, although there is not one single 
 lay member or local preacher there represented, can blot out every thing 
 that constitutes the visible existence of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 Every fourth year an election to the General Conference of the fifih> 
 sixth or seventh travelling preacher, is made by traveling preachers on'.y,. 
 and instead of the delegates legislating for those who elect them only, they 
 legislate for the local ministry and lay members, not one of whom is repre- 
 sented in that Conference; and not content lo change our rules or laws, 
 which are simply of human devising, they must change our Articles ol" 
 Religion, and establish new standards of doctrine if ihey think proper. 
 Read those Articles ot religion, commencing with tlie 7'h, and i ( ludmg 
 the 18th page of the Discipline. Article the 5ih maintains the sufficiency 
 of the scriptures for the puiposes of salvation, &c. i'his they may also 
 deny without the aid of their expoundings. They may also increase or 
 diminish the number of Canonical Books, or deny them en masse Article 
 rth maintains original sin. This they may deny, and introduce the im- 
 maculate state of infants. Article the 8(h maintains the doc^rinft of IVee 
 will. Tliis they may also change, and introduce he doctrine of fate, aiid 
 totally do away man's accountability. Article the 24th maintains that 
 christian men's goods are not common They clain\ (he right to change this 
 also, and to proclaim a community of goods of course. Is not here 
 an open field for havock? Here are legislative claims indeed! Who 
 in his senses can read them, and know thai hundreds of itinerant 
 Methodist preachers are now emphiyed in every influential way within their 
 pov/er, to reconcile many millions of Americans to these dogmas and. 
 have actually succeeded in reconciling so many hundri'ds of ihousands to 
 those high claims, that many men ol the first standing in society have suf- 
 fered all the ecclesiastical pains and penalties that the civil law would al- 
 low, merely for questioning these claims? Who that knows any thing of 
 human nature can know this, and recollect the bloody tragedies which have 
 originated from the same causes in past ages, without soul shivering ap- 
 prehensions? Should any one deny the accuracy of these comments, let 
 him read the third section of the Discipline, commencing on the 19th page; 
 he will there see that the Genera! Conference is composed exclusively of 
 travelling preachers; and although they seem to limit themselves (which ia 
 its own nature is abi^urd) by six articles, they became wtary of those lim- 
 itations before they were done ivriting them, and wound uj) with a sweeping 
 jieverthelesa • 
 
 The next point that comes in review, is the judicial power, which is also 
 claimed and exercised by the travelling preachers, as \v\[\ appear by re- 
 ference to the original paragraph contained in (he report of the last General 
 Conference in answer to the petition st?nt up from the first Baltimore Con- 
 vention, praying a redress of grievances and a modificatior. of their govern- 
 ment, which will be found at large, if my memory serves me, in the Christian 
 Advocate of June 20th. 1828, and is as tollows: After denying the right of 
 the local ministry and lay membership to representation in the law making 
 department of the Church, they add: " of these also, to wit: of Gospel doc- 
 trines, ordinances and moral discipline, we do t«elieve tliit the divmely 
 instituted miaistry are tlje divinely .inthoriscd expounders; and that the 
 
duty of maintaining in its purrty, and (if not perraiting our ministra*ions 
 in the-e respei'ts to be "lU'i) II it.uivcly i<»ii.ioilt>'l u> «»t!ir.s, »!oes n^m. ujM»a 
 Us with the power of a moral obligation, in 'he due disJiaige ol vvintii -ur 
 eonsriences are involved " 
 
 Here, in answer to the prayer of the Conveniidn for a red!P>.v t>f «iiev- 
 ances, and a modification of their government, ih^}', as the ' fiivu.ely insti- 
 tuted ministry," profess to be " the divinely imlliorised expound-rs, *>i tios- 
 pel doctrines," &c. and say in behalf ol iiifinselves, 'iien in I i 't't-nce, 
 that it " rests upon them, wiih the pnwer nf moral obligmioii," • ».', .o .-uder 
 their " ministrations to-be authoritatively rootrolled" — by whoii.? hy _)i>u 
 petitioners, you local preachers arid laymen. If we are to Inlieve »hi-iii. thej 
 nave a right to judge, not only of laws, but ot doctrines, and tha! by divine 
 authorify. Do these claims befi' the 19h cen urv? Are thev in accord- 
 ance with any thing like governnien:, civil or ecclesiastical, on tJus conii- 
 nent? I mast have ad^iitioual faith before I ci>n believe that an ap|;oiii;ment 
 from a Methodist bishop, and a cicuit asjigneil, atul thf tiile li.neiant 
 Preacher, make a man a divine expounder of Gospel doctrines, whether he 
 §an read a chapter grarefuMy, or parse a seii'ence grammatically or not; 
 and what heaps mountains on my faiih is, that he should lose those ex- 
 pounding powers so soon as he finds a fair partner arid takes a location; but, 
 should he forsooth b*' left al«»ne, he has only to get another appointment 
 from a Methodist hi»hop, anci his expounding powers return .again. Oii! 
 what a magic working, convenient, pleasant, paiidul ihiiig this Methodist 
 Episcopal itineracy l^! But, after all, like the incredulous attorney, who 
 underiouk to procure an exemption from service on a jury for a sort of vo- 
 lunteer irregul'sr fort st preacher, the court demanded his credentials He 
 replied he did not know wiat credentials were. The attorney, a little 
 piqued, 8aid, Sir, poh! poh! yout license: who gave you authority to preach? 
 He answered, Jesus Chii»t. Ahl well, well, you couid not have better au- 
 thority. Shew his hand writing, and the court wi|l exempt ^ou. 1 would 
 gay, in like manner, to thise expounders, something more than their ipse 
 dixit must challenge my faiih before I can believe. After so manj proofs 
 from their own documents, who will pretend t(» deny that ihey claim and ex- 
 ercise the legislative and judicial powers of the Methodist Epi>copal Church? 
 and by the following references it is equally clear they wield the executive 
 also: See section the 7th, pige 89: Question. How shall .m accused mem- 
 ber be brought to trial.'' Answer. Before tlie society of which he is a mem- 
 ber, or a select number of them, in the presence of a bishop, elder, deacoa 
 or preacher. Here you at once perceive discrt tionary powers. He is 
 brought before all the society (»r a sele( I number. The travelling preachers, 
 as w • have seen, claim the righr of expounding, and in this case, I have ne- 
 ver y.'t known them fail to exercise it; and thev so explain this law as to 
 give themselves the right to pack a jury if ihey prefer it. But this power 
 does not stop here. If the whole society or the packed jury of the preach- 
 er in charge, acquit the accused, and pronounie him innocent, a reference 
 to the 4tli note, section the 7th, page 91. allows said preacher a power not 
 possessed by any judge in this country against a pick pocket. The preach- 
 er in ch!)rge, perhaps an entire stranger to all, can take an appeal against 
 the decision of the society, or his packed jury and order the accused to ap- 
 
 £ ear before his next Quarterly Meeting (!oiiference; and in a large circuit 
 e may place that one hundred miles frotn the residence of the accused.^— 
 
vSiippose the accused be a poor man, or a woman in delicate health: they eaA* 
 D<r -.lend. The QuartiN-ly CoiitVrence is loinjiO'ed mostly of the creatures 
 ot 1 •'• pre u ivr iti > 'i ar^e, or hi> associ.ilcs in oppression. See s«'Ctir>n 5lh, 
 note ttie .)ih p.ise 28lh. The Quarterly C. inference consists of the travel- 
 ,\\i\X. and lo< al preachers, exiiorter., s<ew>iidsand leaders of the ChurcK.— 
 S" iion I9tii, note the 4th, page 58. I'he same preacher who has taken the. 
 an >eil. appoints all the leaders and changes them when he thinks proper.— 
 Hi5 ieideisaod himsolf accordiiii; lo note ISlh, sanie section, page 43, make 
 the f'xi^ti f ers. Here, then, is the Quarterly Conference Court, composed 
 mn>iiy ofhj.s own ireature> belore whom he may thaw a victim from thebo" 
 som of a.iy st>( ieiv to almost cei lain ex))ulj*ion But it may be said there is 
 a right of appeal from ilii** inbunal. Where nexi? To the Annual Confer- 
 ence, (he make'S id' the law, mow in the last resort the expounders and exe-. 
 cuti'S of it. \V..ai remaio'c buf s rengih to make this the most finished des- 
 potic n ever kn .wn? And it gi<iws fearfully fast. It may be said thin right 
 of ippeai wdl no: Iji- against a local preacher. This is doubtful. Unamena- 
 ble' p, wer will never lack schemes nor instruments Take the following 
 cas?:* When it was determined to arrest D'- Jennings and some ten or a 
 dozen of his breihien for puhlis'iing a religious periodical, called the Mutu- 
 al lliGHTS, they w^^re brought before a committee of their political oppo- 
 nen:>. and suspended until the en<5uing District Conference. On the 
 fir'<^t day of the Ui^trici Conference, a debate ensued respecting the right 
 of the suspended preachers to vote on the business of the Conference, 
 it vva.<« determined in the affirmative The presiding elder, nouvithstanding. 
 the decision, determined on the next morning that they should not vote. I'he 
 order of the day being called tor, an ally of the elder moved a dissolution of 
 the Cotiference, evidently for the purpose of throwing the suspendeil meu. 
 back upon the Quarterly Conference of the City of Baltimore; for such are- 
 the directions of the Discipline in the event of the District Conference not 
 doing the business assigned them. The motion was opposed, I think, by Id- 
 friendly to the suspended, wh'» had reached the house. The nineteen op- 
 posed to (hem were punctually on the floor. Before they left the room, the 
 absentees arrived, m-iking 21 white men against 19. The forlorn hope, or 
 reserve, consisting of eight or ten colored men, was brought forward; their 
 votes were opposed of course. It was alleged that Maryland was a slave 
 holding State; that the precedent was dangerous, and should not be suffer- 
 ed. All was overruled; the Conference was dissolved; the colored mens* 
 voies were counted Those for the dissolution contend that it was dissolv- 
 ed without the votes of tlie colored men; those against it. that it was not. 
 By the following literal quotation from the Narrative and Defence, a pamph- 
 let published by the committee who suspended or expelled Doctor Jennings 
 and others, the further facts are to be learned, and for the literal correctness 
 of which I stand pledged: (Pige 113.) 
 
 " With referrence to the right of colored men to vote, there is nothing ia 
 the rules constituting and regulating the District Conference, which prohi- 
 bits the colored memtiers of the Conference, from a common right of voting 
 in all cases. It is true that though well aware of their privileges, they have, 
 fro!n prudential motives, refrained from voting in the Conference generally 
 incases in which the characters of white members were directly concerned.. 
 S.ome of us recollect, however, that on the trial of a white member of a,. 
 
 J* On the authority of Mr. M'Kane, one of the suspended. 
 
former session, (which member Is now one of the suspended,) a coloreil' 
 prpjiher clauned odd vv;is allowed his vote io favor ot tlieaciu^ed. In all 
 other 'ases. the^ have exercised theil ri<i;hl of voiiug, u!,eij tiu-y thought 
 proper. On a niotion to dissolve the Confeience, there was an evident pro- 
 prit^y in their claiming a right to vote; because it involved a question of 
 privilege, in which tliey had a common interest, and felt a common con- 
 cern " With these there were twenty-nine in favor of the motion for dis- 
 solvitig the Conference. 
 
 '• With respect to the ability of our coloied preachers to vole intelligent-- 
 Ty, we may ri:fer to 'he opinion given of then) by iht Conference in the Mi- 
 Tiu'esof 1820. The Conference was much g'aufied in the examinatir.n o.f" 
 the colored preachei>; they were found lo be men of good report, geouine 
 piety, anil several of them possessed of respectable talents." 
 
 Here the "ight of colored men to vote in mutters highly important to the. 
 characters of white men, is bioadly asserted; and by this document it is 
 clear that this .dleg. d right they Itaveexercist'd. The white men were thrown 
 ba< li on the Quarterly Cotifererice, and all expelled. 
 
 VV • repeat tbat unamenable power never wants for means or instruments, 
 W'' ;iie of opinion Uiat it is what wo denominated it in the commencetiient^ 
 an ecclesiastical despotism of the most absolute kind. We are natuiallj 
 led to seek for its ori2;in. Was it ever derived from the people through tiieir 
 de!> "rates? Not .■>(». It. was in our esrimatioo, assumed in the infaocy and 
 inexperience of tlie American Methodisis; and many still strive ftir its pre- 
 set vation and exercise. Secessions and divisions commenced with its ori- 
 gin in this country and they must continue with the oppression. Many dif- 
 ferent orders of Vleti-odists novv exist iti this country and io Europe; and we 
 are of opinion that the numerous secessions which have occcurred. are the 
 result of thi<! unnatural and oppressive governineiit. The reasims (if rea- 
 so' « they may be railed) assigned in juMification of themselves, by those- 
 wh(t clinj; <o this power with pertinacious giasp, are, that the recommenda- 
 tion frorti the society to the Qurterly Conference, given to young men fur li- 
 cense to pieach, an<l the recoiumendation from the Quarterly to the Annual 
 Coo'erences, make those young men representatives for life; notwithstand- 
 ing the Afinual Conferences, in the exercise of sovereign power, reject sucl\ 
 recommendation \\ they think proper, and send these new preachers or ra- 
 ther, representatives t>l the people, home. Surely this pretext is sufficiently 
 farrital withoui farther comment. The next reason or pretext is founded 
 on society obligation. This obligation is learned by a refeience to the Sd 
 note Discipline, pagf 77, which is as follows: ' There is only one condi- 
 tiofi previeusly lequirtd of those who tlesiie admission into those societies^ 
 viz a desire to fleo from the wrath to come, and to l>e saved from their 
 siofc," The usual form of admission is as follows: " Do you desire t») fleer 
 from the wrath to come, and to be saved bv grarer" *' I do.*' " Will you 
 evince this desire, by a holy and blameless life, God being your helper?'* 
 "1 will " Here, then, is the contract between the candidate for memben' 
 ship and the officinting minister. Is there a mind, unwarped by party pre* 
 dilerrion, that can find any thing here to justify, on the part of the minis* 
 ters, the right of ur)r]ualifie«l dilation, and. on the part of the members, the 
 dui; of iinriualifi d «'ilin>i*sion? yet if these relations are to be sUNianned* 
 it mu>' be b} tnis anc... li ;- rontende*! their systcnri n.nsf br riglii bCr 
 cause of tueir Muccess on the ratio of numbers. This argument is surely 
 
(ijcceptionable in niurajl matters; because by this rule the Shristiau religic^i 
 must be !)Ui>;iitory, and paf^anisin must betriumphaut If success in the mo- 
 ral rrfmcuation of men has arteiideil the labors of Methodist preachers, and. 
 wt> admit it has, have not local ministers and lay members had an ample 
 share in the lat>ors th;tt have been thus blesi? Does that success prove ihat 
 the local preachers and laymen are less capable of legislating for themselves 
 than the travelling preachers are for them? We presume not Suppose in- 
 stead (if preaching Christ, the divine right of the itinerant preachers to le- 
 gislate ha<l been urged, vi-hat would have been the success? We presume 
 very inconsiderable in a country like ours, accustomed to the right of suf- 
 frage Why should not the Me<hodist, as well as other churches, prove to 
 the world that religious freedom is the handmaid of mural improvement!* 
 The fact is, our success, such as it is, isl)efore the world, and all must see 
 it; and our doctrines, about which we all agree, are generally understood, 
 even by those of the most ordinary capacity; but how few of our four hun- 
 dred thousand even clream of the real character of the Metbwlist Epismpal 
 Oovernment! If our people were generally as well versed in our govern- 
 ment as they are in our doctrines and successes, those aristocratical barriers 
 that sever us now. would soon be swallowed in a sea of love. Their claim 
 to divine right was briefly canvassed in a former part of these reflections. 
 ^iie deem it therefore unnecessary to say any thing more on that head. 
 Proscription, we are sorry to say it, is oft times hurled against us. Our 
 characters are assailed; we are generally denominated backsliders. Sup- 
 pose we are; how does this affect the right of suffrage? If every man in the 
 United States was to turn horse thief, the right of suffrage would still be 
 right; and if every Methodist io the United States was to backslide, the 
 right of suffrage would still be right in church as well as State. But i( by 
 back and forward sliding is meant retrpgading to Hell, or travelling to Hea- 
 ven and the pcoofs of these are to be determined by the sober sense of those 
 who have observed us for many years, tested by the various ordeals of useful 
 life, and not merely by a flying- passport, called a license, upon such evi- 
 dence we invite a comparison with our assailants, of weight of character 
 and moral worth, before any impartial tribunal on iearth. We have no dis- 
 position to return railing for railing; but we must buffer until society shall 
 learn our claims, (and then they will love them,) or sympathise with us un- 
 der our wnings. 
 
 Our opposLtior) to the system we have delineated, flows from pur religion 
 and our patriotism The religion of Christ is a bond of love, uniting men 
 to each other, and all to God. It is a brotherhood, in its very nature op- 
 posed to invidious grades. The princes oif the Gentiles exercise dominion 
 over them, and they that would be mighty, exercise power upon thom; but 
 it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be great, let him be yoiii* 
 niinistei; and whosoever would be mighty, let him be your slave. We are 
 (bid, however, that this is not oppression, because all who are so disposed> 
 may withdraw from the church. Is there any thing in our civil govern- 
 ment vvliich takes away the right of expatriation? Should a raan volunrari- 
 Jy abandon his residence, and remove to some other State, or take up his 
 abode in the'westerrt wilderness, he has no one to blame; but should some 
 volunteer law makers pass through this State, and summon the good citizens 
 to abide by their dicta it would bf a poo^ palliation to pioclaim that they 
 might evade sabmissi9i^.by abandoning their homes; but, iii the event 6f 
 
 3 
 
10 •*- . . 
 
 their refusing to do cither, iliey must- be turned out of doors. Tn like man- 
 ner, we cannot perceive any rational relief in the remedy >u;;ge=itiMl by our 
 law making brethren. Th<;y tell many of us, who were felling the for'^sts, 
 af.d planting the vines of Methodism before they vvere heird of, that we 
 must either submit to their laws or abandon our church; should we refuse to 
 do either, we must be spurned from society, or thrust out of doors. We 
 cannot perceive either reason, mercy, or justi' e in this 
 
 Our opposition flows from our patriotism The system we oppose we be- 
 lieve inimical to the peace and prosperity of this country. This msy extile 
 a smile from the incredulous and unthinkinj;;; but those who are profound in 
 the science of nature, government and history, will act dift'erently. (Jur re- 
 ligious prejudices are invincible. Generals, statesmen and sages have ever 
 studied this peculiarity in human nature, and profied by it. The history 
 of France, England and Germany is awfully eloquent on this subject. Kini>9 
 have been beheaded and sovereigns dethroned by the influence of the priest- 
 hood. Within a few reigns, a million of brave men fc]\ in the religious vvars 
 of France; in the course of ages past, England and Germany paid their full 
 tribute of religious blood. Indeed, the four quarters of the globe have been 
 glutted with sectarian victims. The framers of our Constitution hoped to 
 thwart similar tragedies in this country by the counteracting influence of 
 the different septs. Shituld they succeed, they will merit, the grati'ude of 
 generations unborn. The United States, in that respect, are still in the in- 
 fancy of expf-riment, having much to hope and fear. Tho other churches 
 wiihin the North American Republic generally allow of lay de'egation. 
 Within the Charleston Diocese, lay delegates from the Roman Catholic 
 Church were lately invited to a participation of privileges by Bishop Rng- 
 lard. Ttiis right is also enjoyed by the Protestant Episcopalian laity. It is 
 unnecessary to advert to the Baptist and Pre-byterian congregations; their 
 policy has ever been liberal. " Episcopal Methodism" professes to know no 
 such rights, and to comprehend no such privileges on the part of her laity 
 and local ministry, H?r other schemes are in accordance. Her Discipline 
 acknowledges no congregation as a churni, nor do they admit that the con- 
 gregations of any one State make a church. But all the Methodist Episcopal 
 congregations in the United States, in the language of their Discipline, make 
 one church. Over this whole they have some half dozen bishops, forming 
 one head, each having equal powers in any and every place of this United 
 States' Diocese, without any reelection <luring life. These bishops make 
 the presiding elders; the presiding elders have superintendence of all the 
 preachers in their district, and can change those on the circuits at pleasure 
 The preacher said to be in charge on the circuit, makes or changes class 
 leaders, and with his class leaders makes exhorters; these, with the local 
 and travelling preachers, make the Quarterly Conference; and. as we have 
 seen, the preacher in charge can take an appeal from the decision of ^ny 
 society or committee, against any member, to said Quarterly Conference, 
 almist of his own making. 
 
 Here, then, is an immense national power, wielded by a few bishops, wh© 
 are so for life, and who have almost an absolute c<mtrol of the prejutlices 
 and ecclesiastical destinies of almost half a million of people in the United 
 States. This power wields a printing establishment of trementlous magni- 
 tude; it issues something |,ike thirty thousand copies weekly of one paper, 
 and that paper, for catch-penny projects, surely is a master-piece. A Com- 
 T»ioner, now on your floor, if 1 understood him correctly, informed roe ^at 
 
11 
 
 a Mr. Capers, a travelling pfcaclier, inFormed him that l!ie exis,{ing furvil of th^ 
 Metbudist Episcopal churcii was between five and seven hundred thousand 
 4ollars. Tak.'? this in connexion with the church property of our ci?ie«; the 
 whole amount is imraen:se. The ecclesiastical power has been in existence 
 about fortyodd years; shtmid it increase in the same ral"o for the next tifty, 
 what could be its counlerpoise? 
 
 Other ecclesiastical powers are divided among numerous churches, hav- 
 ing certain independent ri^^hts; but this is a moving mammoth, which can 
 tread all over this Union at a few strides. • Will it not be courjed by politi- 
 cal demagogues? Mas it not already been' caressed? Should that bcfal us 
 which we have lately so much feared, some great sectional division, what a 
 mountain could this power heave in either scale! Look at page 189 & 190 
 of Discipline for 1824, and see with what careless hands they finirer a politi- 
 cal m;igazine, which, in the event of an explosion, woujd burst the members 
 of our political body, hither and ihither, in bloody confusion, perhaps jjever 
 again to unite and live. Under the question, " What shall be done for the 
 extirpation of the evil of slavery?" ihe following things are attempted:™- 
 " The preachers are to enforce prudently upon <»ur members the necessity 
 of learning their slaves to read, and to allow them time to attend public vyor- 
 ship on all our reguhir days of divine worship " "Coloured preachers and 
 official members are to have all the rights and privileges which are usual to 
 others, (that is white men,) in the District and Quarterly Conferences, 
 where the usages of the country do not forbid it; and the presiding ei<ler 
 may hold for them a separate District Conference." " The Annual Confer- 
 ence may employ coloured preachers to travel and preach where their ser- 
 vices are necessary," &c, &c^ The preachers are prudently to enforce.—!" 
 Do they enforce any thing, in any other \yay than prudently? They will 
 say not. Why not turn their members out, then, for not learning their 
 slaves to read, and for not carrying them up to all V)ur meetings? They 
 think it prudent to turn thena out for c^^er things. Beca^use the civil autho- 
 rity is yet too strong VVh^ da^^yjceep ih^laj^'ln* th^ir Discipline, and 
 not enforce it? To feel the pujj^^ilje |pi(|^miMnze the public mind to 
 it, and to gain strength and ii'inupnce all the whv*. '* ViShere the usages 
 of the country do not forbid it." What was their own exposition of this 
 law, (for they have their divine righr to expound,) in the case of Dr. Jen- 
 nings and others? Why. that the black men had sense enough to vote: they 
 had a right to vote, and they so over-ruled the Conference, that some eight 
 or ten did vote, one being a slave, in a case highly important to white men. 
 See their own narrative and defence, published in their own vindication. — 
 How long will it be before they will have slaves sitting in Conference on the 
 character of their masters? how long before we shall have coloured preach- 
 ers on Circuits? and how much longer before they will presume to gallant 
 our daughters? Why do they keep these laws in their Discipline, acd not 
 enforce them? I must reply again, for I cannot conjecture otherwise, but 
 to familiarize their people to them, to feel the public pulse, and gather 
 strength. Thus, friends and fellow citizens, you have the subject before 
 you. Should some sagacious hearer inquire whether we would, under simi- 
 lar circumstances, demean ourselves more properly? we answer no. Wc 
 tru^t that "is yet we are not so intoxicated with the notions of infallibilitv as 
 to think that nJture in us, "under the same circumscances, would act differ- 
 ently ffom the saitte natiO:eW oiiir oppooentd: 1%Ien who feel power are too 
 
•ajxtto ioiget riji;lit.^' Wo claim the right of suffrage iu beiialf of the w£t)i/' 
 Chiiirh, that we may wipe away those obnox'ous features, and balance a 
 system of relii^ious union for tlie people called Methodius, upon the plan of 
 our civil guvcrnment, which shall preserve permanent harmony among all 
 thi^ members of our association. We claim a representative government.— 
 For this, offence, and this alone, our names are cast out as evil. For this we 
 have suffcredj atid expect to suHVr; but while God shall lend us breath, we 
 nether iritctid lodesisf until cur l^hurch, like our country, shall be free. And 
 should our object not bt> accomplished until our lives ebb away, we will 
 f?wee(ly expire in cheerful devotedness to our God, our Church, and our 
 country. Though persecuted, we are not lorsalcen; though cast d.-wn, we 
 .ire nut destroyed, i hough the ground which we recover is disputed by 
 inches, and every door, 'vhethcr public or private, which can beshutvgainst 
 us by the opposition is closed; thouglf, to terrify the vveak.they have barred 
 us fiom the hospitalities of charity itself, actuilly excluding us from the ta- 
 ble <'f t!>e Lni'l; yet since the epoch of ou? union, which is no\v about twelve 
 raonvhs, our cause h:)!- extended frtVra file great lakes to Florida, and from 
 the -Vtlantic to the Mississippi. In this State we have about forty ministers 
 and some iuuulreds of members. Muny, in the course of the year, have pro- 
 fessed religion among us Our cause is strictly American, and it ougiit— 
 it niu-«i prt'vail auiong Americans; and alihou^h we may suffer for a time- 
 perhaps for lite; yet ii ujust be dear to generations to come, and po3teri».v 
 will appreciate our toils, and do justice to our memories. 
 
 /^ 
 
 .0Vo^xte*i 
 
 mjnd 
 
 msi 
 
 yf\ 
 
THE FORCE OF HABIT: 
 
 ar-^' 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE STUDENTS 
 
 OF THF 
 
 IliiiDmitt} d! linrtj} Cnritlina, 
 
 AT CHAPEL HILL, MARCH 31ST, 1833. 
 
 BY WILLIAM HOOPER, 
 
 THEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSIEf . 
 
 Nemo repente turpissiraus fuit. — Juv. 
 
 No man e'er reached tlie heights of vice at first— 
 
 By just degrees we mount from crime to crime, 
 
 And perfect villain is the work of time : 
 
 Never let man be bold enough to say: 
 
 " Thus and no farther shall my passion stray ;" 
 
 The first crime past, compels us on to more, 
 
 And guilt proves fate, which was but choice before. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 RALEIGH : 
 
 A. M. GORMAN, PRINTER. SPIRIT OF THE AGE OFFICB. 
 
 1851. 
 
IPmHIFii©-!! 
 
 o 
 
 Young Gentlemen of the University : 
 
 I dedicate this Discourse to your service. At your request I have 
 submitted it to the press. As a literary effort I am sensible it presents 
 no claims to such partiality ; but as containing important trutlis, worthy 
 of being often held up before your minds and reflected upon again and 
 again, I have thought it might not be entirely undeserving to pass into a 
 form that should give it a chance of more durable utility than mere evan- 
 escent utterance can ever effect. God grant that the considerations here 
 urged upon you, may frequently recur to you in the hour of need. I 
 have labored many years in endeavoring to communicate classical learn- 
 ing to the youth of North Carolina ; but all that Ihave done in that way 
 affords me less comfort in the retrospect, than the possibility that sorae- 
 thuig I may have said in the sacred desk, has had a share in forming a 
 youthful heart to \ irtue, and leading it to seek acquaintance with God. — 
 If in the course of my connexion with the young men of this State, I 
 have met with any success of this kind, 1 must esteem it as my most pre- 
 cious earthly reward, and the most valuable fame I could inherit, 
 
 April, 1833. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 It is with gratitude to God and to the distinguished head of our Uni- 
 versity that I hear, that this Discourse has been read annually, for a num- 
 ber of years, to the Senior Class, in that important Institution ; and that 
 a second Edition has been now ordered. To be thus encouraged to cher- 
 ish the hope that one's w^ritten words are wielding even a small secret con- 
 trol over the conduct of a large body of influential youth, and helping to 
 fashion their moral characters for good rather than for evil, may well 
 warrant an inward joy that falls not to the lot of those splendid but vi- 
 cious minds whose baleful fires dazzle but to betray, and blast the rosea 
 of youthful genius which they have developed and expanded. Far from 
 me and from my youthful readers be the accursed ambition of Phseton, 
 
IV 
 
 which would bum up the world for the sake of one glorious day in the 
 chariot of the sun. Rather let ours be the prayer of the poet : 
 
 " Oh give me lionesi fame, or give me none." 
 
 yince this address was delivered to the Students, the University, under 
 wise and steady regulation and sound instruction, has so increased its num- 
 bers and its attractions, as to make the writer realize still more deeply 
 the honor and the responsibility of being admitted to share in the moral 
 influences that are brought to bear upon it. It must stir the pride of an 
 old Alumnus to revisit Chapel Hill after an absence of many years. lie 
 will find that the Genius of improvement which has .been bestriding the 
 world with giant steps, has left a foot-print there; that the hand of time 
 wliich has blanched his temples and wrinkled his cheeks has only brought 
 out into fuller luxuriance the besutios of his Alma Matei' : that her grav- 
 eled walks, her gi-assy terraces, her architectural improvements, her am- 
 pler halls, her expanded libraries, her increased academic:;! coi-ps, and her 
 ■ •nltivated society, make it a higher privilege now than it was in his days, 
 to tread these classic shades, and perhaps, he will find a sigh escapincr 
 him that he was born thirty years too soon. 
 
 Raleigh, Nov. 6th, 1851. 
 
A DISCOURSE, &c. 
 
 Jer. xiii. 23. " Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? 
 Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." 
 
 I shall take occasion from these striking words of Scripture to ad- 
 dress you, my hearers, on The force of Habit. You all know that a 
 habit is formed by the i-epetition of any act, until, by frequency and 
 long familiarity, it becomes easy and natural. Hence it has growu 
 into a proverb that " habit is a second nature." Of how much moment 
 then must it be, to mark with especial vigilance, and to guard with 
 especial care, that season of life, when the habits begin to be formed, 
 and the character is beginning to assume that shape which it will carry 
 throno-h the whole of our earthly sojom-n, and which will affect our 
 destiny for eternity ! It is because most of my audience are at this 
 critical period of their lives, that I think no subject on which I could 
 possibly address them, is more appropriate to their condition ; no one, 
 which could more jastly claim their deep and serious reflection. It is 
 not merely to fulfil a customary round of duty ; it is not merely to 
 occupy you the usual time with the expected pulpit performance, and 
 then to let you go away, our minds being well satisfied if the end be 
 gained of having kept up for another Sabbath the decent obsei'vance 
 «f our religion, and of having thrown out some thoughts acceptable to 
 your present hearing. No, my friends. We aim at something more 
 than this barren discharge of a periodical duty, or this half-hour's oc- 
 cupation of your minds. It is with the cherished hope and the fervent 
 prayer that something may be dropped at this time, which may occur 
 to your meditations at many a future day, and have some operation 
 in regulating those habits which are now fixing themselves upon you, 
 that I have chosen the words of the text, as the subject of my present 
 address. " Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his 
 spots ?" exclaims God by the mouth of the prophet to his people, now 
 become obstinate and inveterate in their wickedness : " Can the 
 
Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? Then may ye 
 also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." Here the doctrine is 
 taught, that when habits of evil are formed, they cleave to us with as 
 close and inseparable a tenacity as the complexion of our skin ; and 
 that you might as well expect the African, by an act of his will, to 
 become white, or the leopard to change his spotty hide, as to expect 
 those addicted to sinful courses to renounce them, and become good. 
 The comparison is certainly a most striking and forcible one, and conveys 
 little less than the absolute impossibility and hopelessness of a recovery 
 from vicious habits. I will not go so far as to say, that by likening 
 moral reformation to two natural impossibilities, the divine word means 
 to pronounce moral reformation to be utterly impossible. But this I 
 may safely say, that by the compaiison, God evidently intends to teach 
 us that a return from evil habits is extremely difficult and improbable, 
 and would be almost as miraculous a departure from the usual laws of 
 the moral world, as the voluntary assumption of a new skin by the 
 Ethiopian or the leopard, would be from the laws of the physical 
 world. So our Saviour declared the salvation of a rich man to be 
 }Uore difficult than the passage of a camel through a needle's eye — a 
 natural impossibility ; but at the same time brought the case within 
 the reach of divine omnipotence and mercy, saying that "with men 
 such a thing was impossible, but not with God." Most certain is it, 
 then, that the Maker of our frame here calls upon us to mark and 
 take notice of an important and most inflexible law of our moral con- 
 stitution, to wit, that WHAT WK ARE iMADE BY LOiNG HABIT, THAT WE 
 
 SHALL CONTINUE TO BE THROUGH LIFE. I Say furtlicr, tliat our ob- 
 servation of human nature abundantly confirms the doctrine, and 
 proves that men are carried onward by old habits with a certainty 
 and fatality almost as rigid as that which propels the rivers onward to 
 the ocean. Let none complain of this law of our nature. Let none 
 say, why was man made so much the creature and slave of habit, that 
 when once entangled, he loses all power to extriciite himself. We 
 might as well quarrel with the law of gra\ itation which destroys tlio 
 life of a man who flings himself from the top of a precipice. The 
 same law of physical uatuie which makes the fall from a precipice 
 fatal, and which brings down heavy bodies with destructive force upon 
 tlioudimds of human beings, that same law holds the earth in its orbit, 
 binds all its millions of inhabitants to their homes upon its surface, 
 makes the showers descend to gladden the fields, and rolls the watera 
 
that would otherwise stagnate and poison us, with healthful currents 
 to their mighty reservoir. 
 
 Nor is this moral law, whose stubborn strength is so much com- 
 plained of, less a proof of the wisdom of the author of nature than the 
 other, nor is it less remarkable for its salutary effects when legitimately 
 used than for its pernicious effects when abused. It is by habit that 
 all the most necessary acts of life are rendered easy and pleasant. By 
 habit we learn to walk, to speak, to read and write, to perform all manual 
 operations with facility and despatch. By the power of habit are all 
 those acts carried on which minister to the wants and conveniences of 
 life. By the power of habit is the printer enabled to combine his 
 types into words, with a rapidity astonishing to the eye and surpassing 
 all jjrevious belief, and to prepare for us those thousands of volumes 
 which are continually filling the world with intelligence and delight. 
 
 This same principle of our constitution, is no less subservient to the 
 passive, than to the active powers of man. It enables us to endure 
 with ease, hardships that were at first intolerable. It enables man to 
 breathe with impunity the pestiferous atmosphere of crowded manu- 
 factories, to reside in every climate, and after spending half his life 
 among northern snows, to go and spend the remainder in the torrid 
 zone. 
 
 Now let us mark the influence of this .powerful law of nature upon 
 our moral conduct. We find fi'om personal experience, and we 
 know from observations on our fellow-men, that Our natural appetites 
 acquire strength from every indulgence ; that at first it is compara- 
 tively easy to restrain them within lawful barriers; bat that habits of 
 excess render them imperious and uncontrollable, so that we are 
 dragged on after them, as by an invisible chain, whose strength bids 
 defiance to all our resistance. This is the case with respect to our 
 natural appetites. And it holds equally in relation to our artificial 
 appetites. A man may contract such an appetite for tobacco, opium, 
 or ardent spii-its, as to crave these naturally distasteful articles with 
 a rage of desire, equal to natural hunger and thirst. It is mercifully 
 provided, however, by the constitution of our nature, that habit may 
 be made as powerful an auxihary to virtue as to vice. By means of 
 it not only sensual appetites and evil passions become dominant and 
 irresistible, but the numerous train of virtues, to which our nature is 
 less inclined, and the incipient practice of which requires so much heroic 
 resolution and self-denial, all these feel the benign force of habitj. and 
 become in timo, not only easier of performance, but as fixed and cer- 
 
8 
 
 tain in their operation on our conduct,* as are any of our natural in- 
 stincts. We are, then, creatures of habit. Whatever becomes ha- 
 bitual becomes easy, whether it be virtue or vice. T\Tienever we have 
 formed a habit, we seem to act almost mechanically in obedience to 
 the habit without an effort of the will. Indeed, so prone are we to repeat 
 habitual actions, and so little reflection and virtuous resolution are we 
 conscious of in obeying good habits, that it seems as if they were 
 
 *The reader will thank me for enriching my page with the following 
 profound observations. "Experience," says Mr. Stewart, "diminishes the 
 iutiuence of passive impressions on the mind, but strengthens our actiye 
 principles. A course of debauchery deadens the sense of pleasure, but in- 
 creases the desire of gratification. An immoderate use of strong liquors 
 destroys the sensibility of the palate, but strengthens the habit of intemper- 
 ance. The enjoyments we derive from any favorite pursuit, gradually decay 
 as we advance in years ; and yet we continue to prosecute our favorite 
 pursuits with increasing steadiness and vigor. On these two laws of nature, 
 is founded our capacity of moral improvement. In proportion as we are ac- 
 customed to obey our sense of duty, the influence ol' the temptations to vice 
 is diminished, while at the same time our habit of virtuous conduct is con- 
 firmed. It is thus that the character of the beneficent man is formed. Tlie 
 passive impressions which he felt originally and which counteracted his 
 sense of duty, have lost their influence, and a habit of beneficence is become 
 a part of his nature. "\Ve might naturally be led to suspect that the young 
 and unpracticed would be more disposed to perform beneficent actions, than 
 those who are advanced in life, and who have been familiar with scenes of 
 misery. And, in truth, the fact would be so, were it n:>t that the eflTect of 
 custom on this passive impression is counteracted by its effects on others ; and 
 above all by its influence in strengthening the active habits of beneficence. 
 An old and experienced physician ia less affected by the sight of bodily pain 
 than a younger practitioner ; but he has acquired a more confirmed habit of 
 assisting the sick and helpless, and would offer greater violence to his nature, 
 if he should withhold from them any relief that he has in his power to 
 bestow. In this case we see a beautiful provision made for our moral im- 
 provement, as the effects of experience on one part of our nature are made 
 to counteract its effects on another." — Philos. of the Mind, vol. \, p. 386. 
 
 These remarks of Stewart were suggested by the following passage in But- 
 er's Analogy. " From these two observations together, that practical habits 
 are formed and strengthened by repeated acts, and that jiassive imjn-essious 
 grow weaker by being repeated upon us, it must follow that active habit* 
 may be gradually forming and strengthening, by a course of acting upon 
 such and such motives and excitements, whilst these motives and excitements 
 theoiBelvcs are, by proportionable degrees, growing less sensible, i. e. are 
 contiuualljr less and less sensibly felt, even ns the active habits strengthen. 
 And experience confirms this: for active principles at the very time they 
 are less lively in perception than they were, are found to be, somehow-, 
 wrought more thorouglily into the temper and character, and become more 
 effectual in influencing our practice. Let a man set liimself to attend to, 
 inquire out, and relieve distressed persons, and he cannot but grow less and 
 less sensibly affected with the various migeries of life, with which he must 
 become acquainted ; when yet, at the same time, benevolcuee, considered 
 not as a passion, but aa a practical jMinciple of action, will slrengthcr, and 
 whilst he passively compassionates tlie distressed less, ho will acquire a 
 greater aptitude actively to assist and befriend them," ttc. 
 
 These remarks of botli these profound and sagacious writers, I have been 
 very willing to transfer to tiii« place, at once to give a more durable value U> 
 this pamphlet than it would otherwise possess, and to tempt my young 
 friends to dive for other pearla in the same deeps. 
 
 1 
 
9 
 
 hardly entitled to a moral character ; so nearly do they approach to 
 being involuntary, like the play of our lungs and the heating of our 
 heart. The time and sphere, then, for virtuous choice and virtuous 
 determination, is in the outset of life. It consists in oft repeating 
 those acts which lead to good and valuable habits, and in denying 
 again and again, as often as they solicit us, those acts which lead to 
 vicious habits. Here then my young friends take your stand. Re- 
 sist the beginnings of evil ; yes, the beginnings : that is the impor- 
 tant juncture. Yield to the beginnings of evil, and you are undone.* 
 Your ruin can be , predicted with almost as much certainty, as that of 
 the bark which is floating towards the cataract of Niagara. Are you 
 now free, unfettered by the toils of vice ? Give not up I beseech you, 
 that glorious, that blessed freedom. Let not the persuasion of the 
 miserable victims of vice involve you in their degradation. What ! 
 Would you let a slave persuade you for the sake of companionship, 
 to share his chains and his stripes V Would you let a man, who was 
 fool and madman enough to set fire to his own house, persuade you 
 to set fire to yours also, that you might both be in the same condition ? 
 How would you feel towards the man, who should seize your hand, 
 run with you to the verge of a precipice, and then throwing himself 
 over endeavor to pull you along with him ? Would you not wrench 
 your hand from his detested grasp, and recoil from him with 
 horror and indignation ? Yet you can smile with complacency upon 
 the companion, who, himself the slave of vice, would have you to for- 
 sake the paths of innocence, and join him in his wicked courses, 
 merely that he may have countenance and society in vice ! You can 
 put yourself under the guidance and conduct of such a veteran in 
 profligacy, if he will but take hold of your arm, gay " come along," 
 and laugh at your timorous scruples ! Oh ! there are no words ade- 
 quate to express the abhorrence due to those, who, not satisfied with 
 beino- ruined themselves, practice their accursed arts in seducing 
 young and thoughtless minds from the paths of rectitude, and glory 
 in the propagation of vice. If those who turn many to righteousness 
 shall receive an extraordinary reward, surely 
 
 -There is some chosen curse, 
 
 Some hidden thunder in the stores of heav'n, 
 Eed with uncommon wrath, to blast the man — 
 
 that finds an alleviation to his own misery in undoing others, or can 
 
 * Prineipiis obsta ; sero medicina paratur, 
 Cum mala per longas invaluere moras. — OviD. 
 
10 
 
 look around with a devilish joy at the desolation he has spread. Yet 
 
 it is to be feared that this enormity is often committed within Col- 
 legiate walls, erected for the nursery and culture of all noble and 
 
 generous sentiments. Yes; we are obliged to believe that here, even 
 in this very place, are simple-hearted, unsuspecting, moral young 
 men, year after year, gradually contaminated by those who are older 
 than themselves, and who instead of being their guides to virtue, use 
 the influence of superior age to decoy them into sin. Ye unfeeling 
 seducers of youthful innocence ! Is it not enough that you feel, your- 
 selves, the miseries of remorse ? Have you so much malignity within 
 you, as to find a solace to your pains in making others as wretched as 
 yourselves ? Is it not suflScient to stab the peace and wreck the hopes 
 of your own parents, must you also stab the peace and wreck the 
 hopes of other parents? Ah, if you have any pity or generosity left 
 in your souls, if you would not, like Satan, enter paradise, and blast, 
 out of sheer envy, the purity and happiness you cannot partake, leave 
 uncorrupted those who yet walk in their uprightness ; who promise to 
 be the joy of their friends, and the hope of their country. If you 
 must have companions of your guilty pleasures, take those who are 
 already corrupted. Let those who take hands, and rush together in- 
 to the vortex, and find a mad delight in ridin"; round and round in 
 the inebriate whirl of waters, which are just yawning to engulf them, 
 let these, I say, be all ecjually ruined, equall}' bereft of conscience, 
 equally lost to hope, with scowling despair written on their foreheads. 
 Surely it ought to melt with sorrow the heart of a young man, not 
 lost to all sensations of humanity, to lead astray another younger than 
 himself. Should we not suppose that honor and every kindly feel- 
 ing of the soul would rise up in his bosom in behalf of yet untarnish- 
 ed virtue, and induce him to thrust back from his company, the young 
 proselyte who was ready to yield himself up to his ruinous example ? 
 How much more worthy would it be of every generous emotion, for 
 those who have contracted any unhappy propensity, when they see 
 others beginning to go the aame way, rather to put them back, and 
 say : " as for ourselves we cannot help indulging in these things, but 
 you who are yet safcj and not fatally bent towards these destructive 
 courses, you we advise to keep yourselves far from them." This is 
 no more than that common charity which wo all show to each other, 
 . when we have unfortunately taken a disease. Wo tell how we con- 
 tracted it, and caution others against the same imprudence. 
 
 There are various evil habits to which your circumstances expose 
 
11 
 
 you, some of which I will mention, and leave it to your good sense 
 and to your consciences to apply the same reasoning and expostula- 
 tions against those which I may not mention, but which you know 
 threaten to ensnare you. With respect to them all I beg you to carry 
 along with you, ever fresh in you.r memory this admonition, that " hab- 
 it is a second nature," and that you may as soon expect any animal 
 to act in a manner contrary to its nature, the lion to eat straw like 
 the ox, and the wolf and the lamb to lie down in amity together, as 
 for those to learn to do good who have been long accustomed to evil. 
 Beware then, how you fall into the habit of what is wrong, and be- 
 ware of the first act, lest that be the foundation of a habit — lest that 
 give the soul an impulse from which it never, never shall recover.— 
 If you are enticed by your own desires or by the arts of others, 
 RESIST, as you would resist an attack upon your life, fly from the 
 temptation — fight against the insidious passion, trample it under your 
 feet and grind it to powder. When you are sailing by the rocks of 
 the Sirens, trust not your ears to the soul-subduing song ; but like 
 Ulysses and his crew, stop fast your ears and let yourself be bound 
 to the mast until you have passed the danger. Or, to quote you a 
 better example, like the young and virtuous Joseph, snatch yourself 
 forcibly away and flee far from the tempter and the temptation. Lis- 
 ten to the affectionate counsel of Solomon, the wisest of men : " My 
 son, attend to my words : incline thine ear unto my sayings : Enter 
 not into the path of the wicked and go not in the way of evil men. — 
 Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away. Hear then, my 
 son, and be wise. Be not among wine bibbers, among riotous eaters 
 of flesh : for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty. — 
 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color 
 in the cup ; at last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an ad- 
 der." Oh how exactly true have miserable thousands found this to 
 be, to their eternal cost ! 
 
 I mentioned that there were some babits to which your circumstan- 
 ces render you peculiarly obnoxious, and against which therefore, 
 every one among you ought to case himself in triple armour. Here I 
 cannot do better than copy a passage from Dr. Paley's moral philos- 
 ophy, a book which, aloEg with some doctrines of dangerous tenden- 
 cy, coutains many valuable rules for the conduct of life. "Man," 
 says this celebrated author, "is a bundle of habits. There are habits 
 not only of drinking, swearing, and lying, and of some other things 
 which are commonly acknowledged to be habits, but of every modifi- 
 
12 
 
 cation of action, speech and thought. There are habits of attention, 
 vigilance, advertency, of a prompt obedience to the judgment occur- 
 ring, or of yielding to the first impulse of passion, of extending our 
 views to the future, or of resting upon the present, of indolence and 
 
 dilatoriness, of vanity, of frctfulness, suspicion, captiousnoss, of 
 
 covetousness, of overreaching, intriguing, projecting. In a word, 
 there is not a quality or function either of body or mind, which does 
 
 not feel the influence of this great law of animated A 
 
 rule of life of considerable importance is, that many things ought to 
 be done and abstained from solely for the sake of habit. We will 
 explain ourselves by an example : A man has been brought up from 
 infancy with a dread of lying. An occasion presents itself, where at 
 the expense of a little veracity, he may divert his company, set off his 
 own wit with advantage, attract the notice and engage the partiality 
 of all arouud him. This is not a small temptation. And when he 
 looks at the other side of the question he sees no mischief that can 
 ensue from this liberty, no slander of any man's reputation, no pre- 
 judice likely to arise to any man's interest. Were there nothing fur- 
 ther to be considered, it would be difficult to show why a man under 
 such- circumstances might not indulge his humor. But When he re- 
 flects that his scruples about lying have hitherto preserved him free 
 from this vice ; that occasions like the present will return, where the 
 inducement will be equally strong but the indulgence much less in- 
 nocent, that his scruples will wear away by a few transgressions and 
 leave him subject to one of the meanest and most pernicious of all 
 bad habits — a habit of lying whenever it will serve his turn : when all 
 this, I say, is considered, a wise man will forego the present, or a much 
 greater pleasure, rather than lay tlio foundation of a character so vi- 
 cious and contemptible." 
 
 I quote this passage, not with entire approbation, because I tliink, 
 whenever we are tempted to a deviation from truth, even in trifles, 
 that a regard for the sacredness of truth, an abhorrence for falsehood, 
 a reverence for conscience and a fear of God, ought at once to rebuke 
 away the plausible deceit independently of the consideration that it 
 will lay the foundation for a bad habit. But the reflections suggest- 
 ed by Dr. Paley, may well come in as powerful auxiliaries, to back 
 the instant and spontaneous refusal of an honest raind. They art; 
 reflections too, which might probably operate with considerable force 
 on many who think very lightly of occasional falsehood in trifles. — 
 Such persons should weigh well the danger of trifling with a tender 
 
13 
 
 conscious — of diminishing that awful veneration for truth which we 
 ought to cultivate — of gradually breaking down the barrier in our 
 moral feelings between right and wrong, and at length of violating truth 
 with as little scruple in the most important matters as at first we did in 
 the smallest. Let these reflections, I beseech you, have the weight 
 they ought to have in checking that levity with which an excuse is 
 fabricated for neglect of duty. It is fashionable to think and speak 
 of such fabrications as not at all criminal or dishonorable — as quite 
 pardonable. "It is only baffling the Faculty by presenting an excuse 
 which they cannot refuse — they cannot have the face to dispute *our 
 word, though we can have the face to make our word unworthy of 
 their confidence — we are not bound to observe faith with the Facul- 
 ty." What a shocking doctrine is this, that you should not be oblig- 
 ed to observe faith with any and with every one ! Is this the casuis- 
 try of Colleges ? I hope not. L hope that not many among us have 
 adopted principles so loose. For depend upon it, my young friends, 
 that the person who can consent to violate truth whenever it suits his 
 convenience to make up an excuse from collegiate duty, cannot 
 have a very delicate sense of moral obligation on the score of truth, 
 and it will not be surprising if he soon lose credit for veracity with 
 his companions. In all communities there will be some who will fall 
 in with every vicious habit that happens to be fashionable, and 
 will carry it just as far as they dare carry it, without forfeiting their 
 character. They have no fixed principles, no firm integrity of pur- 
 pose, no independent rule of action, no settled habit of doing what is 
 right at once, without waiting to see if public opinion will not coun- 
 tenance an aberration. Such pei-sons are mere moral chameleons;* 
 they take their complexion from surrounding objects. Let them 
 be at Rome, they will be like those at Rome ; or if at Botany Bay, 
 their plastic character can easily be moulded into an assimilation 
 with the manneis and morals of that famed colony of convicts. Let 
 it be the fashion to swear, to drink, to seduce, to fight duels, to spend 
 their money in gaming and have none to pay honest debts with, to 
 break, and live in the same style after their bankruptcy as before, 
 these obsequious apes oithe mode, without a moment's hesitation give 
 into follies and vices that chance to prevail and are glad when the 
 laxity of pubhc morals will prevent such practices from rendering 
 
 * A3 the chameleon which is known 
 To have no colours of his own ; 
 But borrows from his neighbor's hue, 
 His white or black, his green or blue. — Priob, 
 
14 
 
 them infamous. Now these persons are ^Yithheld from the worst 
 actions only by the fear of disgrace. They are not ashamed to com- 
 mit the acts themselves, but only ashamed ot the detection of them. 
 If a pei-son has contracted such principles in a college, wonder not if 
 in subsequent hfe you find him careless of veracity.* 
 
 I might enter upon the same course of reasoning with regard to 
 many other bad habits, such as swearing, idleness, encroachment 
 upon your neighbor's time, making a joke of taking any article of a 
 fellow student's property, &c. These things are done thoughtlessly, 
 but* must injure the delicacy of moral principle ; they must gradually 
 impair virtuous sensibility ; or, as Mr. Burke beautifully expresses 
 it, "that chastity of honor which dreads a stain hke a wound." Let 
 me advise you, whenever wrong practices prevail in college, not 
 slaATsbly to fall in with them, and say : ""Why, nothing is more 
 common among us ; nothing is thought of such things." Rather op- 
 })Ose the weight of your influence and example against such practices, 
 and if you should be singular, dare to be singular in a good cause ; 
 
 Eather stand up assured, with conscious pride 
 Alone, than err with millions on your side. 
 
 But I pass over all other habits as of minor importance, that I may 
 occupy the remainder of my time in speaking of one more dangerous 
 and fatal than all the rest. You cannot be ignorant that I allude to 
 the appetite for spirituous liquoi-s. That the most powerful argu- 
 ments and expostulations, against this propensity are much needed 
 in every college is unhappily too well known. It is wonderful that 
 when the whole countiy is covered Avith monuments of ruin produced 
 by intemperance — of intellectual and moral wortli once high in dig- 
 nity, now abject and prostrate — of famiUes once happy and prosper- 
 ous, now helpless, broken-hearted and struggling for subsistence — it 
 is wonderful that young men, seeing so many of these monitory 
 spectacles before them, will venture to taste" the liquid poison which 
 
 * During the last war, I happened to travel, in one of our public convey- 
 a)ice3, with a young officer of the army. Having occasion to stop in one 
 of the cities, 1 accompanied him into a shop where he enquired the price of 
 a sword. He dcfcliued purchasing then, but told the shop-keeper he would 
 "step in to-morrow ana look at them again," when he knew that we were 
 to depart in a few hours ! I blushed for him, thata soldier, whose glory it is 
 to scorn whatever is false and disingenuous, should value truth so little. 
 Will you say, this was a triHe ? Well, so was the temptation a trifle, and 1 
 am not sure that the same man, upon the occurrence of a great temptation 
 with the hope of concealment, would not have lied in the most important 
 matter. Yet if a person had offered to doubt this man's word on any occa- 
 sion, he would have been i-cady to run him through the body. 
 
15 
 
 has spread around them this desolation. Yet strange to tell, they 
 •will rush upon the peril without even the temptation of appetite. — 
 Yes, many a youth, it is feared, has here* begun to drink when 
 he had a positive dishke to the taste of spirits, merely for the sake 
 of appearing sociable and manly. But soon he pays dearly for hi« 
 temerity and vain-glory. Soon the insidious passion fastens itself 
 upon him — ^he contracts a liking for stimulating drink, which perhaps 
 shows its immediate effects in slackening his exertions in his class, 
 creating an aversion to labor, a distaste for his studies, and a fondness 
 for idle company. No wonder now at the oft alleged excuse of sick- 
 ness, for absence from duty. For what else can be expected after 
 such indulgences, but lassitude, and drowsiness, and nausea ? No 
 wonder if, presently, college restraints and requisitions become in- 
 tolerable, and an application is made to his parent, requesting that 
 he may be permitted to return home, in the midst of his collegiate 
 course. Then may we predict his impending ruin with mournful 
 certainty, and resign him up with despair to the despotism of a habit 
 which overleaps all the barriers that parents and trustees and pre- 
 ceptors could throw in its way ! May I not bespeaking to some now, 
 who are conscious that this habit has obtained an almost complete 
 ascendancy over them ? Do they not feel its despotism over the will ? 
 Do they not find themselves totally unable to resist the cravings of 
 appetite, although they know the danger of the habit that is growing 
 upon them ? They know it, but alas ! it is too late ; the pleasure of 
 present gratification is all they care for, and they purposely shut their 
 eyes to the probable issue of these things. But others can see it, if 
 they will not. Yes ; we can calculate upon the premature ruin and 
 early death of such a young man with almost as much confidence, as 
 if the deep, hollow cough, the hectic flush and the wasted form 
 marked him out as the victim of consumption : I say with almost as 
 much certainty ; because the very same experience that teaches us the 
 laws of the natural world, teaches us the laws of the moral world. The 
 very same observation that makes us know the cough, the hectic 
 flush, the wasted form, the hemorrhage from the lungs to be alarming 
 
 *The writer would not be understood to intimate that the habits of the 
 students whom he addressed were worse, or their temptations greater than 
 those of members of colleges generally. He feels it as due to them to say 
 on the contrary, that a Temperance Society embracing a considerable num- 
 ber of the students belongs to the college, and that he belieyes parents 
 encounter no greater risk in venturing their sons at this than at any other 
 similar institution. So far as he has had an opportunity of discovering, an 
 appetite for drink is as little indulged in this college aa in any other. 
 
16 
 
 prognostics of dissolution, enables us also to know that the morning 
 dram, the evening carousal, the secreted bottle, the tainted breath, 
 the flushed or the pale face, the ill-gotten lesson, are alarming pre- 
 sages of a habit of incurable intemperance. And we anticipate the 
 speedy and mournful issue of the one, with as little danger of mistake 
 as the issue of the other. 
 
 Will then any one who is sensible of being in the very jeopardy 
 I describe, say, " What must I do to be saved ?" I reply : even symp- 
 toms of consumption have been removed by an early resort to the 
 proper means. And it is with this very hope of your taking a timely 
 alarm, and adopting the proper means of recovery that I ring these 
 admonitions in your ears. I would depict with all my powera the 
 terrible danger of an incipient habit ; that those yet free may keep 
 free ; may come not nigh the slippery verge. And I would sound a 
 still louder alarm of the awful issue of confirmed habit, to those who 
 are just beginning to feel its force. . I would say to them : feel and act 
 as if you were sliding with smooth and pleasant motion down a moun- 
 tain's icy breast, that overhung a yawning abyss. You are beginning 
 to descend ; but the declivity is yet gradual, the way is smooth, and 
 your motion is not rapid enough to alarm you, but only sufficiently 
 so to animate your spirits, and to excite a glorying of mind at the 
 bravery of your enterprise. Your older and more experienced friends 
 stand on the neighboring heights, and watch with considerable anxiety 
 your thoughtless career. They cry out to you, and tell you of the 
 precipice ahead. Be advised ; let not their warning voice be neg- ' 
 lected ; throw youi-self from the flying vehicle that is hurrying you to 
 destruction ; grasp at every twig that will arrest your progress, and 
 strain every muscle and sinew to regain the summit from which you 
 so heedlessly set out. But if you refuse ; if you laugh at the idle 
 feai-s of your friends ; if you flatter yourself that you can stop long 
 before you reach the precipice ; all they can do is to look on with 
 silent agony at the approaching catastrophe. They could tell you if 
 you would hear them, that the declivity is every moment becoming 
 steeper ; that the velocity of a falling body is every moment accele- 
 rated ; that the twigs along your path which once might have arrested 
 you, will now snap in an instant before the violence of your motion, 
 and onward, onward, onward you must go until you reach the verge, 
 then take the awful leap and disappear forever ! And if such a fate 
 as I have described were to befall you, in the literal sense of the 
 description, it would be less mournful than that it should befall you 
 ia the allegorical sense intended. For then you might die compara- 
 
17 
 
 tively innocent and respectable. Your friends might not see your 
 mangled corpse, nor feel disgraced by your death. But who can do 
 justice to the feelings of those parents whose son, just ripening into 
 manhood, is dying before their eyes, the loathsome victim of his guilty 
 excesses ! How shall they escape from the hideous spectacle ? Their 
 own house, the only place they have to lay their head, the birth place 
 of their children, the spot where are clustered all their comforts, the 
 peaceful sanctuary of their old age, becomes the hospital of their 
 reprobate son, worn out with intemperance. He occupies one of the 
 chambers. There, while they lie on their sleepless beds in a neigh- 
 boring room, (I have witnessed something of what I describe) they 
 hear his calls for drink, bis disgusting belches, his horrid execrations 
 against himself, and ever and anon a groan, bespeaking misery too 
 big for words to tell ! And is this the return you make, degraded 
 young man, for all the loving-kindness of your parents ? Is this the 
 way you requite the father that dandled your infancy on his knee, 
 and from that time till the present has been toiling to provide for 
 your happiness 1 Is this your gratitude to the mother that brought 
 you into the world, that cherished you at her breast, that tended your 
 cradle with throbbing temples and an aching heart, that watched you 
 all along your playful boyhood with ceaseless tenderness, and that at 
 length let you go from under her eye to a place of education, only 
 from the confidence (a confidence alas too much misplaced) that the 
 principles and the gratitude with which she had imbued you, would 
 forever forbid you to distress her by a vicious life ? Surely this, if 
 anything in the world, realizes the fable of the frozen viper, that, 
 as soon as it was thawed into life, struck its evenomed fangs into 
 the bosom that warmed it. 
 
 But I would not stop at the exhibition of the temporal, the earthly 
 consequences of this worst of habits. Coulcl I do it, I would disturb 
 the slumbers of the dead — I would evoke from their tombs the myriads 
 that have gone down thither before their time, the victims of drunk- 
 enness. I would array their ghastly spectres in a long line before 
 you, sire by the side of son, and brother at the right hand of brother. 
 I would call upon them to tell you of the first steps that led to their 
 undoing; how they first trifled with their enemy — how they in 
 thoughtless boyhood mixed with idle company ; made drunkenness a 
 subject of jesting ; took a glass among their jovial friends, merely to 
 appear social and manly when the liquor was not pleasant to their 
 taste — how the appetite grew with every indulgence until it was im- 
 
18 
 
 possible to deny it — until they themselves became the very beastly 
 spectacles of intemperance they had been accustomed to look upon 
 with loathing and contempt ; how they lingered upon earth, becoming 
 more and more the sorrow and shame of their friends, and at last 
 sunk unregretted to the grave. I would extort from them "the 
 secrets of their prison house." I would make them appear before 
 you surrounded with their atmosphere of tempestuous fire — open 
 before you their tortured breasts and disclose within the never-dying 
 worm gnawing on their hearts — tell you with their burning tonguet 
 the horrors of their doom, and peal in your trembling ears the declar- 
 ation of tho Almighty, that drunkards shall lie down in the "lake 
 that burueth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever." I should 
 hope that such a vision would make you shun for life, the sight, smell 
 and taste of inebriating liquors. Oh ! in the contemplation of the 
 manifold and direful miseries that flow from this bane of the human 
 race, one might be tempted to curse the memory of the man that first 
 invented the art of distillation; of extracting death from God's good 
 creatures, intended to be the nourishers of life. One might be tempted 
 to wish that every distiller of spirits, and every vender of spirits, and 
 every drinker of spirits, could have their midnight slumbers haunted 
 by the apparitions of pale widows and orphans in their robes of 
 mourning, and by the horrible skeletons of their poisoned husbands 
 sons and brothers, until, their goaded consciences should drive them 
 with unanimous movement, to seize every vessel containing the liquid 
 poison and throw it into a funeral pile, to make one general pious 
 burnt-offerino; to Heaven, while the art of manufaeturin"; the accursed 
 pest should forever be blotted from the memory of man. But why 
 wish for terrifying visions of the dead to benefit the living? The}' 
 will never be granted. Nor are we sure that they would prove the 
 means of reformation. For what says Christ, that divine anatomist 
 of the human heart ? "If they believe not Moses and the prophets, 
 neither vi'ill they be persuaded if one rose from the dead." Bowing 
 with unquestioning credence to the divine decision, and feeling deeply 
 the utter impotcncy of man to help himself when sunk in evil habits» 
 let us rather urge the ])uor shive of sin to look with imploring eye to 
 tho Heavens, and let u.s join our supplications to his that the Al- 
 mighty's arm may be stretched down to " lift him out of the liorrible 
 pit, and out of the miry clay," and to put into his mouth the song of 
 deliverance. 
 
 Before I conclude, I must take notice of a doctrine held by many, 
 
19 
 
 sometimes even urged from tlio pulpit, which seems to lie as an ob' 
 jection to the argument we have been endeavoring to enforce. It i? 
 said that God can as easily convert a hardened profligate as the most 
 correct moralist ; nay, that the former will much more probably be 
 awakened from his security than the latter, because the very enormity 
 of his sins serves as an alarm-bell to shake his sleepy conscience, or 
 as the sting of scorpions to rack him with fierce pains of intolerable 
 remorse ; and hence we hear it sometimes incautiously asserted that 
 the man of sober, respectable character is in more danger of final 
 perdition than the abandoned, confirmed libertine. What is the di- 
 rect tendency of such a belief? Why to establish the dangerous 
 paradox, that the more a man sins the better for himself — it will 
 quicken his conscience and arm it with mighty energy to drive him 
 from his evil courses ; and thus his chance of salvation will be increased 
 the deeper and deeper he plunges into iniquity. What an awful 
 license such a belief must give to vicious propensities, what an ad- 
 ditional impulse it must lend to the already imperious rage of ap- 
 petite may easily be conceived. And yet nothing is more certain, 
 if we are to believe our text and the facts occurring to our daily ob- 
 servation, than that the more a man sins the harder he grows, that every 
 new sin stupefies and indurates the conscience, renders a man's re- 
 treat more diflicult and improbable, and his final ruin more fatally 
 certain. We may illustrate the two cases thus. Heaping sin after 
 sin upon the conscience, may be compared to heaping green wood 
 upon a few coals. The more you throw on, the more you crush the 
 coals, and the greater danger of putting out the fire altogether. If how- 
 ever, the feeble heat should not expire under this incumbent weight, 
 but should by great good fortune once ignite the wood contiguous to it, 
 then all the oppressive heap serves as so much aliment to feed the 
 flame, and to increase the greatness and heat of the fire. So a profli- 
 gate's conscience has the almost certain prospect of being seared in 
 final obduracy. But if by one of those astonishing acts of God's 
 special mercy which it pleases him sometimes to work for the display 
 of his power and goodness, that profligate's conscience is awakened, 
 it will be apt to operate more powerfully upon him — apt to produce 
 more awful agonies of fear, more convulsive struggles to eflfect an 
 escape, deeper humiliation, and if he obtains pardon, more ecstatic 
 gratitude, that such an enormous transgressor has been spared and 
 j^urified and blessed. He has had much forgiven, he will therefore 
 
20 
 
 love much.* But let every man beware how he tries the dreadful 
 experiment of sinning in order to furnish himself with materials for 
 repentance. Enough of these the most blameless will find who study 
 the holy law of God, and compare it with the evil that is in their 
 hearts. That delicacy of conscience which is the fruit and the re- 
 ward of a moral life, will by the aid of God's Spirit, enable you to 
 have a quicker and livelier feeling of what is evil, and to find as 
 copious a source of godly sorrow and humiliation in the secret sins 
 of your heart, as the gross transgressor finds in the recollection of 
 his scarlet and crimson sins. Never have I heard from the lips, 
 never have I read in the secret diary of any penitent prodigal, such 
 deep, heart-touching confessions of inward depravity and self-loathing, 
 as appears in the journals of Edwards and Brainerd and Martyn and 
 Payson, men w^ho were preserved comparatively pure and free of 
 vicious habits from their tender years. The profligate may escape ; 
 but he will have reason to remember all his life time, that he has 
 escaped as by fire. Like one of Milton's infernal potentates, he 
 bears on his marred visao-e the sisfuals of his unrighteous battle with 
 
 Heaven. 
 
 His face 
 
 Deep scars of thunder have intrenched. 
 
 — He will have cause to bemoan while he lives his career of profli- 
 gacy. He will be "made to posess the iniquities of his youth" t 
 in bodily diseases, a shattered constitution, shame for past dishonor, 
 past injuries to others — injuries alas ! irreparable ; injuries to those 
 who are dead, and therefore out of the reach of his tardy retribution 
 — injui-ies to those who are h\ing, but irremediably blasted in fortune 
 and reputation, or unconquerably fortified in vice and infidelity .J He 
 will find himself reaping the bitter fruits c>f early crimes, perhaps in 
 the rebellion or lewd lives of his children, vitiated by his bad example 
 and his cruel neglect — in a soiled and polluted imagination, and the 
 
 * For edifying examples of such wonderful transformations of character 
 by the power of religion, I would refer tiie young man to the lives of Lord 
 liociiester, Col. Gardiner, Capt. Wilson, Wm. Howard and Jno. Newtou. 
 f Job xiii, 26. 
 
 X Mr. Newton, in the narrative of his early life, which hoA all the fasoi- 
 nation of a novel, makes the mournful confession, tlmt, after his conversion 
 he tried to reclaim those whose faith he had overthrown — but in vain. — 
 They laughed him to scorn I So much ea.sior did he tind it to poison than 
 to cure — to demolish than rebuild. The extinction of the epark of virtue 
 is like the extinction of the precious spark of life : 
 
 "* * * once i)Ut out — 
 1 know not where is that Promethean heat 
 That can thy light relume." 
 
21 
 
 pestilent and contaminating recollection of past abominations. Tliese 
 may make him go mourning all his days. To cleanse this heart, thiia 
 Augean stable where foul lusts have held their abode for many years, 
 will furnish him with Herculean labor to the end of his life. Oh ! what 
 untimely, unwelcome intrusions will the visions of former riot make 
 upon his soul, perhaps in his most hallowed moments, perhaps in the 
 very attitude of devotion ! How much work will he have to do in 
 keeping out these vile thoughts ? How will they with impudent free- 
 dom rush unbidden into the breast that once harbored, but would 
 now fain exclude them, and with their harpy touch defile the sanctuary 
 of the soul, and the very offering that is there burning on the altar 
 
 of God ! 
 
 Diripiuntque dapes, contactuque omnia fcedant 
 Immundo. 
 
 Oh then will the reclaimed profligate bemoan himself that he ever 
 laid up within him such materials for shame and sorrow, and will envy 
 those whose youth unstained by vice, has never entailed upon them 
 such an inheritance of gmilty recollections. You may say that 
 these things serve to humble him. Yes they do, but they often keep 
 liim mourning and prostrate, ashamed to lift up his head or exert his 
 hands, when he ought to be up and doing, rejoicing and praising, 
 and acting for his God. 
 
 But supposing the hardened sinnei''s conscience to awake, is he 
 sure that it will awake to repentance ? Is he sure that it will not 
 awake to horror and desperation ? Is he sure that it will not, like 
 Cain's, drive him out from the presence of God ? That he will not 
 quickly draw down again over his eyes, the vail which had been for 
 a moment drawn up, but disclosed prospects too horrible for contem- 
 plation ? Is he sure that an insulted, aggrieved and outraged eon- 
 science will not like the ill-boding owl, scream in his ears the shrill 
 note of despair, of sin beyond the reach of God's mercy, sin inexpi- 
 able even by the blood of Christ, until it urges him like Judas over 
 the precipice of self-murder ! 
 
PASTORAL LETTER L^ 
 
 OF 
 
 THE MOST REVEREND, 
 
 THE 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND, 
 
 THE BISHOPS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 ASSEMBLED IN PROVINCIAL COUNCIL, IN THE CITY OF BALTIMORE, IN 
 THE MONTH OF APRIL 1837, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CLERGY AND LAITY OF THEIR CHARGE. 
 
 For which cause I also suffer these things; but 1 am not ashamed. For I know whom I have 
 believed, and I am certain that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, against 
 that day. 11. Tim. i. 12. , 
 
 For of these sort are they who creep into houses, and lead captive silly women loaden with 
 Bins, who are led away with divers desires. 
 
 ************ 
 
 But they shall proceed no farther: for their folly shall be manifest to all men. * * 
 
 But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long suffering, love, pa- 
 tience, persecutions, afflictions, * * * * and out of them all the Lord de- 
 livered me. II. Tim. iii. 6, 9, 10, 11. 
 
 BALTIMORE: 
 PUBLISHED BY FIE-LDING LUCAS JR. 
 
 138 MARKET STREET. 
 
MURPHY & SPALDING, PRINTERS. 
 
THE PRELATES 
 
 WHO COMPOSED THE COUNCIL, WERE: 
 
 The Most Rev. SAMUEL ECCLESTON, Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 
 The Right Rev. JOHN ENGLAND, Bishop of Charleston. 
 
 The Right Rev. JOSEPH ROSATI, Bishop of St. Louis. 
 
 The Right Rev. BENEDICT JOSEPH FENWICK, Bishop of Boston. 
 
 The Right Rev. FRK^Cl^ PATRICK KENRICK, Bishop of Arath, 
 in partialis, Coadjutor to the Right Rev. HENRY CONWELL, Bishop of 
 Philadelphia; and Administrator of that Diocess. 
 
 T-AeiJi^MiJeu. JOHN B. PURCELL, Bishop of Cincinnati. 
 
 The Right Rev. GUY IGNATIUS CHABRAT, Bishop of Bolina, in 
 
 ^ar^iJiis, and Coadjutor to the iJi^AiiJei;. BENEDICT JOSEPH FLAGET,' 
 
 Bishop of Bardstown. , 
 
 The Right Rev. SIMON GABRIEL BRUTE. Bishop of Vincennes. 
 
 The Right Rev. WllAAAM. CLANCY, Bishop of Orio, in partibus, and 
 
 Coadjutor to the Right Rev. JOHN ENGLAND, Bishop of Charleston. 
 
 The Right Rev. ANTHONY BLANC, Bishop of New Orleans. 
 
 THE ABSEliT PRELATES WERE 
 
 * The Right Rev. BENEDICT JOSEPH FLAGET, Bishop of Bardstown. 
 t The Right Rev. JOHN B. M. DAVID, Bishop of Mauricastro, in par- 
 tibus. 
 
 ' X The Right Rev. HENRY CONWELL, Bishop of Philadelphia. 
 § The Right Rev. JOHN DUBOIS, Bishop of New-York. 
 II The Right Rev. MICHAEL PORTIER, Bishop of Mobile. 
 U The Right Rev. FREDERICK REZE, Bishop of Detroit. 
 
 * Absent in Rome, with permission, 
 
 t Formerly coadjutor to the Bishop of Bardstown, which coadjutorship he resigned on aecount 
 of age and infirmity. * 
 
 t'Relired from active duty, having lost his sight. 
 
 § Sent a proctor with a letter stating the cause of his absence. 
 
 II Detained on his journey by disappointment of conveyance. 
 
 •JT Arrived in Baltimore, but was obliged to leave the city on urgent business, with the permis- 
 sion of the council. ' 
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 P n^^^-p^ « 5 rAe/2igA!!i?ra.B. J. FENWICK, Bishop of Boston. 
 i-ROMOTERS. ^ ^^g y^^.y ^^^ LEWIS DELUOL, D. D. and V. G. 
 
 Secretary. TAe J?ct. EDWARD DAMPHOUX, D. D. St. Peters Balto. 
 
 Assistant do. The Rev. CHARLES WHITE, Cathedral, Baltimore. 
 
 Master op Ceremonies. The Rev. FRANCIS L'HOMME, St. Mary's 
 
 Baltimore. 
 
 r-xx rr^oc 5 TAe /?e-y. JOHN RAND ANNE, and 
 i^HANTERs. ^ rpj^^ ^g^ PETER FREDET. 
 
CONSULTORS 
 
 Invited by the prelates, to aid by their advice in the congregations, where 
 the several questions were discussed previous to their decision by the council. 
 
 * The very Reverend Felix Varela, V. G. of the Diocess of New York. 
 
 The very Reverend Lewjs Deluol, D. D. Superior of the Sulpicians, 
 Baltimore. 
 
 The very Reverend Father William M' Sherry, Provincial of the Society 
 of Jesus in Marj'land. 
 
 The very Reverend Father P. Verh;egen, Provincial of the Society of Jesus 
 in Missouri. 
 
 The Reverend John Hickey, Superior of the Sisters of Charity, 
 
 The Reverend Thomas Bdtler, Superior of the College of St. Mary near 
 
 Emmitsburg. 
 
 The Reverend John J. Chanche, President^ 
 
 of St. Mary's College, Baltimore. '.Theologians to the Archbishop 
 
 The Reverend Peter S. Schreiber of the [ of Baltimore. 
 
 Cathedral. J 
 
 t to the Bishop of Charleston. 
 
 The Reverend Regis Loisel, to the Bishop of St. Louis. 
 
 The Reverend Thomas Mulledy, S. J. Rector of Georgetown College, to the 
 Bishop of Boston. 
 
 The very Reverend Lewis Debarth, St. John's, Baltimore, to the Bishop of 
 Arath. 
 
 The Reverend Stephen Theodore Badin, to the Bishop of Cincinnati. 
 
 The Reverend Ignatius A. Reynolds, of Lousville, to the Bishop of Bolina. 
 
 The very Reverend Pet^ R. Kenrick, St. Marj^'s, Philadelphia, to the 
 Bishop of Vincennes. 
 
 The very Reverend John Hoches, St. John's Philadelphia, to the Bishop cf 
 Orio. 
 
 The Reverend Augustin Varot, to the Bishop of New Orleans. 
 
 * Sent as his Prorlor by the Bishop of New York, with such powers as the Council might see 
 proper to ;icci>rd to him; admitted, as proctor with a consultive voice. 
 
 + The Bisliop of Charleston not meetine upon his arrival in Baltimore, from Hayti, where he 
 had been on special duty, the /fercrend kichard S. Baker of Charleston whom he had desig- 
 nated as his Thenlogian,' invited the very Reverend John Power, D. D. and V. G. of New York, 
 who was unable to accept the invitation. 
 
 The lierereml John Bakuy, Pastor of the church of the Holy Trinity in Aut^ista, Geo. was 
 designated by the Bishop of Mobile as his Theoloeian. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 Reverend brethren of the Clergy, 
 
 AND BELOVED OF THE LaITY: 
 
 Peace be to you, and faith with charity from God the 
 Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, with the conso- 
 lations of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Assembled to consult for the welfare of that portion 
 of the church entrusted to our care, we cannot sepa- 
 rate for the purpose of renewing our labours amongst 
 you, without yielding to an impulse that we feel of 
 addressing to jou our joint exhortation, — We are daily 
 more and more consoled in witnessing the progress 
 of religion amongst you, though this joy is mingled 
 with affliction at finding how much remains to be done, 
 more than we are yet able to perform; as also at be- 
 holding the various obstacles which the enemy of souls 
 creates, for the purpose of retarding the work of the • 
 Lord, amongst us. 
 
 Amongst these obstacles we are painfully constrained 
 to notice the misrepresentation and persecution to 
 which you and we have been exposed since our last 
 council. We advert to this topic with deep regret: 
 but any effort on our part to conceal from the world 
 this melancholy fact, to which its perpetrators have 
 given such blazing notoriety would be equally useless, 
 as the attempt to disguise those feelings with which 
 we are affected, and which we may, by God's aid, in a 
 great degree restrain, but which it is not in our power 
 utterly to destroy. 
 
 We are filled with regret because no sacrifices or 
 exertions that we could make woiild be sufficient to 
 prevent the baleful consequences which must neces- 
 sarily flow from the conduct of our gainsayers, and 
 which we see it has already extensively and unhappily 
 produced in our republics. The affection of fellow- 
 citizens is destroyed, the offices of charity are neglected 
 the kindly intercourse of neighbours has been inter- 
 rupted, suspicion, jealousy and hatred have succeeded 
 
6 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 to confidence, mutual respect and affection; the de- 
 mon of discord has usurped that station where the an- 
 gel of peace abode: and that day has gone by, when 
 every American citizen could truly say, that whatever 
 may be the religious opinion which he entertained, or 
 whatever the form of worship which he followed, he en- 
 joyed in full freedom the opportunity of securing for 
 himself what he vindicated for others, the communion 
 with his God in that way which his conviction or his 
 taste might prefer. It has even been loudly proclaimed 
 that our religion should not enjoy toleration in fact, 
 whilst, in theory, the constitution of our several states, 
 proclaim to the world, that as catholics, we have the 
 same rights respecting religion that are fully and peace- 
 ably enjoyed by our fellow-citizens of every other de- 
 nomination, by whatever style they may be described 
 whether Christian, Hebrew, or Unbeliever; and whilst 
 the constitution of our federal Government in addition 
 declares, that "Congress shall make no law respecting 
 the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 
 exercise thereof" Yes, beloved brethren: our religious 
 rights are secured to us by those same instruments 
 which secure to our fellow-citizens and to ourselves, 
 all those other valuable possessions which have been 
 acquired for them and for us, by the lives, by the for- 
 tunes, and the sacred honour of that devoted assembly 
 who though widely differing in religion, yet were in 
 love of country, a band of brothers. And he who would 
 rashly pluck our franchise from the frame of the con- 
 stitution would loosen the entire mass and facilitate 
 the confusion and abstraction of the remainder. What- 
 ever may be the dispositions or efforts of those whose 
 misconduct we bewail they cannot despoil us without 
 insuring the general ruin. Our regret does not how- 
 ever arise from any apprehension of civil disfranchise- 
 ment of ourselves,' but we lament that a bad spirit has 
 been evoked, and that its pestilential blasts have con- 
 taminated our atmosphere, that the peace of society is 
 endangered, the domestic circle is disturbed, and that 
 charity has departed from amongst us. 
 
 But when we look abroad and observe the nations 
 in which the name of America was symbolic of brother- 
 hood, and whore the contemplation of our peace and 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. T 
 
 of our prosperity induced statesmen to seek their cause, 
 and when the conviction had been nearly produced, 
 that these blessings were the result of our wise absti- 
 nence from persecution for the sake of creed; when the 
 admiration and the respect which had taken possession 
 of men's minds, were leading them to imitate our 
 policy ! How are matters changed ? — Gratified at the 
 exhibition of our weakness they exult in our shame 
 and they predict our confusion and our fall. They 
 avow indeed that, blinded by prejudice and infuriated 
 by the spirit of party which was miscalled religious 
 zeal, other men in other days, made upon our prede- 
 cessors in the faith, assaults similar to those now made 
 upon us; and that, when under its influence having with 
 the gall of bitterness indited upon their statute books 
 laws of acrimony, of plunder and of affliction, they 
 strove by new misrepresentations to palliate their un- 
 justifiable proceedings, and by the aid of falsehood they 
 sought to give to persecution the appearance of self 
 protection. Time, investigation and reflection have 
 however proved to the children the injustice of their , 
 fathers and caused them to purge away from their re- 
 cords, not only in this countrj^but in England, the foul 
 enactments and to bear honourable testimony to the 
 innocence of those who had been oppressed: yet it is at 
 such a moment as this, -when Britain, blushing at her 
 former folly and injustice and imitating what America, 
 had done fifty years before, abandons her false position 
 and takes an honourable rank amongst the nations,, 
 that it is sought to drive our states from the lofty station 
 which they have hitherto held, to that place of degra- 
 dation from which she has just removed : and we are 
 filled with regret at the humiliation to which a land 
 that we love is exposed, when they who once admired 
 it, point thereto, asking with amazement; how it can 
 be possible for men of reading and of sagacity to be 
 duped at this side of the Atlantic by charges refuted 
 in Europe more than a century since ; abandoned even 
 by the party which originally invented them, disbelieved 
 by every one who has the most moderate pretensions 
 to information ; charges to advance which even in an 
 exceedingly modified shape, requires at present, the 
 most desperate effort of the boldest and most interested 
 
8 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 partizans of a body now making its mightiest struggle 
 for existence. The people of other nations are aston- 
 ished at beholding those charges renewed here, in lan- 
 guage far more vulgar and obscene than ever disgraced 
 their worst exhibition in Europe. We avow that we 
 witness this with shame and with regret, and the pain 
 which we feel is caused not by any apprehension that 
 the falsehood could be ultimately received as truth, 
 amongst a people, who however they may be led astray 
 for a moment, will always return to examine maturely 
 that in which they are interested, but we are mortified, 
 that because of this unseemly effort, the American name 
 may be exposed to reproach when it had been hitherto 
 respected. 
 
 We regret this spirit of misrepresentation upon other 
 accounts ; though we foresee that it will ultimately pro- 
 duce effects beneficial to ourselves. The love of truth 
 exists amongst our fellow-citizens, and it becomes a 
 more fervid attachment when the effect of misrepre- 
 sentation has been discovered : yet until that discovery 
 is made, many who are disposed to enter upon enquiry 
 hesitate, and even those who are convinced have some 
 reluctance and vacillation. Misrepresentation spreads 
 a thick mist around the vestibule of truth; it there ex- 
 hibits appalling though shadowy forms to terrify those 
 who would approach. And we regret to add from our 
 positive knowledge that it is not by phantoms only that 
 the approach is guarded; for though the laws of the 
 land do not arm the persecutor with the sword, yet have 
 the contrivances and exertions of individuals and of 
 associations, in many instances, supplied this deficiency 
 by their ownacts of persecution. 
 
 Yet brethren in the midst of those trials we have 
 received much comfort from the God of all consola- 
 tion. This very misrepresentation of our tenets of 
 our principles and of our practices exhibits the best 
 proof that the doctrine which we believe and teach 
 cannot be successfully assailed by fair argument nor 
 our principles rendered odious by honest exposition. 
 It is therefore that forms of belief which we reject 
 as absurd are imputed to us, so that our assailants by 
 refuting them may obtain the semblance of a victory 
 over us : it is for that reason that practices which we 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 9 
 
 abhor are charged upon us, so that covered with a 
 mantle of iniquity which we detest, we may be held 
 up to the execration of a people desirous of paying its 
 just tribute to virtue: and since our own conduct as 
 citizens was not liable to reproach, it was deemed re- 
 quisite to libel the governments of Europe which pro- 
 fess our faith, and. to feign imaginary conspiracies in 
 order to excite amongst our fellow-citizens the preju- 
 dice of the thoughtless and the fears of the patriotic. 
 Even men who assumed the garb of religion and who 
 affected extraordinary zeal and extravagant piety sent 
 forth to the public as solemn truths, statements whose 
 falsehood they could have easily detected, and of which 
 it is scarcely possible to imagine them ignorant. If 
 they who, through prejudice, persuaded themselves that 
 they would do a service to God and to society by our 
 extermination, and who most laboriously sought to 
 accomplish this purpose, had convincing proof of our 
 being involved in error or engaged in crime, they 
 would have unhesitatingly produced it; and this proof, 
 when manifested, would have made its due impression 
 upon the public mind. Our assailants wanted neither 
 the will nor the ability, and we are consoled at the 
 evidence which their failure must ultimately give to 
 the world, of the truth of our doctrines and the cor- 
 rectness of our principles. 
 
 We are indeed comparatively few amongst the mil- 
 lions of our fellow-citizens; the greater portion of our 
 flocks are in the humble, laborious, but useful occu- 
 pations of life: we do not aspire to power, we do not 
 calculate by what process we should be able^ at some 
 future day, to control the councils of the republic, 
 neither do we combine, to raise the members of our 
 society to places of trust, of honor, or of profit: we 
 seek not to make friends for our church by exhibiting 
 the ability of our party to reward and to sustain its 
 benefactors; but, relying upon the protection of our 
 God, we endeavour to live in peace with our brethren 
 whilst we are occupied in our several appropriate 
 duties. And we have been consoled by the manifes- 
 tation of his fatherly care; especially when our assail- 
 ants opened their mouth and would seem ready to de- 
 stroy us : the number of our friends has increased, 
 2 
 
10 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 the good and the wise and the reflecting crowded 
 around us for our defence: though they dissented from 
 our creed, in many instances they have generously 
 vindicated our rights: and the advantages that we have 
 gained from the sympathy and the affection of one 
 portion of our fellow-citizens, has more than compen- 
 sated for what we have endured from the hatred of the 
 other. Nor will this be the term of those beneficial re- 
 sults. Such events cannot occur in the midstof a people 
 free, educated and desirous of information, without 
 creating enquiry. Calm and unprejudiced investiga- 
 tion is all that we believe to be necessary, with that 
 grace which Heaven is always ready to bestow, for 
 attaining the discovery of truth. Many have already 
 been roused to enquiry; several misconceptions have 
 been destroyed,, various early and long standing pre- 
 judices have been laid aside, numberless mistakes have 
 been corrected, a spirit of examination is abroad ; we 
 have rejoiced at its excitement, because we have felt 
 its beneficial effects, and we anticipate still happier 
 consequences from its continuation, its activity and its 
 increase. Thus, always, beloved brethren, our kind 
 and providential father, blends some consolations with 
 his chastisements. 
 
 And this view leads us to the consideration of our 
 duty under the circumstances in which we are placed. 
 
 "Take up your yoke," said our blessed Lord, ''and 
 learn of me because 1 am meek and humble of heart, 
 and you shall find rest to your souls."* "Shall not 
 my soul be subject to God ? for from him is my salva- 
 tion:"! Asks the royal prophet, and he answers, "Be 
 thou my soul subject to God, for from him is my 
 patience. "J And when in another place he prays 
 "Deliver me, O my God out of the hand of the sinner 
 and of the unjust," § he exiiibits his own duty; "for 
 thou art my patience, Lord : my hope, O Lord, from 
 my youth. "II It is by the injustice of others, that the 
 Lord proves and makes perfect those whom lie brings 
 to his service ; and therefore the wise man exhorts us : 
 "Incline thine ear and receive the words of understand- 
 ing, and make not haste in the time of clouds. Wait on 
 God with patience : join thyself to God and endure, 
 
 ♦ Mall. xi. 21). iPs.lxi. 1. tPs. Ixi. C. STs. l.\x. 4. liPs. Ixx. 5. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 11 
 
 that, thy life may be increased in the latter end. Take 
 all that shall be brought upon thee : and in thy sorrow 
 endure, and in thy humiliation, keep patience. For 
 gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable 
 men in the furnace of humiliation."*- The merciful 
 father whom we serve, requires from us this proof 
 of our attachment, and he so orders every thing in his 
 providence as to produce lasting benefit for those who, 
 resigned to his dispensation, observe his injunction. 
 Hence, the apostle Peter tells us to be "merciful, modest, 
 humble, not rendering evil for evil, nor railing for rail- 
 ing, but contrariwise, blessing, for unto this we are called 
 that we may inherit a blessing."f And in answer to an 
 objection natural to most men, he adds, "And who is he 
 that can hurt you if you be zealous of good.'' But if also 
 you suffer any thing for justice sake; blessed are you, 
 and be not afraid of their fear, and be not troubled, but 
 sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, * * * that 
 whereas they speak evil of you, they may be ashamed 
 who falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. 
 For it is better, doing well (if such be the will of God,) 
 to suffer, than doing ill, because Christ also died once for 
 our sins, the just for the unjust.''^ Upon the same prin- 
 ciple St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "See that 
 none render evil for evil to any man: but ever follow that 
 wdiich is good towards each other, and towards all men."^ 
 These injunctions are in conformity with that of our bles- 
 sed Lord, "Love your enemies, do good to them that 
 hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calum- 
 niate you, that you may be children of your Father who 
 is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good 
 and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust."|| 
 The best refutation which we can oppose to the slanders 
 with which we are assailed will be the exhibition of the 
 christian virtues in our conduct. Let your lives be the 
 answer to those who vituperate us. "Be you then per- 
 fect as your heavenly Father is perfect;"*^ and "Let your 
 light shine before men, that they may see your good 
 works, and glorify your father who is in heaven."** 
 Thus will you insure blessings for yourselves, and, per- 
 haps, convert your opponents. — This, beloved brethren, 
 is the vengeance of Christianity. 
 
 * Eccli. ii. 2, 3, 4, 5. 1 1. Pet. iii. 8, 9. 1 1. Pet. iii- 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. 
 § I. Thess. V. 15. II Matt, v, 44, 45. IT Matt, v, 4. ** Matt. v. 16. 
 
12 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 It may not however be aiTiiss for us here to record 
 some instances of the misrepresentation and persecution 
 which have called forth these remarks. — We shall select 
 but two out of many — The first is the destruction of the 
 Ursuline Convent on Mount Benedict, near Boston, on 
 the night of the 11th of August, 1834. The ruins of this 
 establishment yet blacken the vicinity of Bunkers's Hill, 
 and cast a dark shade upon the soil of Massachusetts. 
 You need not our recital of the dastardly assault, the ex- 
 tensive robbery, the deliberate arson, the wanton inso- 
 lence, the cold cruelty and the horrid sacrilege of that 
 awful niffht. 
 
 We shall quote the words of one of the few members 
 of the legislature of that State, who exhibited them- 
 selves an honorable exception to the body in which 
 they were found. This gentleman told them upon 
 their floor. "You may go from Maine to the Gulph of 
 Mexico, and you cannot find an act similar to this —the 
 destruction of an institution for instruction, inhabited 
 by females, mostly children; religion was trampled 
 upon; the Bible was destroyed; the tomb was broken 
 open; the ashes of the dead were insulted; the females 
 were driven from their beds at midnight, half naked; 
 whilst the mob was exulting, shouting, dancing and 
 triumphing amongst the warm ashes of the ruin which 
 they had made, amidst a community, the most enlight- 
 ened in the United States; ten thousand persons were 
 looking on, and not one arm was raised to protect these 
 females and their property. If, sir, the stain of blood 
 is not upon the land, the stain of cruelty is there." 
 
 It was planned in the vicinity, and executed within 
 view of the capital of the New England States; a city 
 which aspired to the character of liberality, and had 
 an ambition to be ranked amongst the seats of literature, 
 of science, and of taste. The most unfounded calum- 
 nies had been previously circulated, in order to furnish 
 a pretext to achieve what had been plotted, but even 
 this pretext had been removed, for the local magistracy 
 had examined into the alleged grounds, and declared 
 themselves fully convinced of their falsehood. 
 
 In this case therefore there was a blending of mis- 
 representation and of persecution of the worst descrip- 
 tion. — Would to God that we could rest here! But 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 13 
 
 of what use would it be for us to endeavour to hide 
 that which has astonished distant nations, and which 
 a thousand pubUc journals have spread in such a 
 variety of languages, before the eyes of the civilized 
 world? — 
 
 The declaration of a most respectable committee ap- 
 pointed at a public meeting of the citizens of Boston, to 
 investigate the case, after the destruction had been per- 
 petrated; having refuted the calumnies and described the 
 outrage, add the following expression of their sentiments: 
 
 " The fact that the dwelhng of inoffensive females and 
 children, guiltless of wrong to the persons, property or 
 reputation of others, and reposing in fancied security, 
 under the protection of the law, has been thus assaulted 
 by a riotous mob, and ransacked, plundered and burnt 
 to the ground, and its terrified inmates, in the dead hour 
 of the night driven from their beds into the fields; and 
 that this should be done within the limits of one of the 
 most populous towns in the commonwealth, and in the 
 midst of an assembled multitude of spectators; that the 
 perpetrators should have been engaged for seven hours 
 or more in the work of destruction, with hardly an effort 
 to prevent or arrest them; that many of them should af- 
 terwards be so far sheltered by public sympathy or 
 opinion, as to render the ordinary means of detection 
 ineffectual; and that the sufferers are entitled to no legal 
 redress from the pubhc, for this outrage against their 
 persons and destruction of their property, is an event of 
 fearful import, as well as of the profoundest shame and 
 humiliation." 
 
 And this declaration was followed by solemn and re- 
 peated judicial enquiries and trials, in the process of 
 which, however, full license was afforded to insult the 
 feelings and the religion of that community whose pro- 
 perty was destroyed and some of whose members died 
 soon after the hardships which they suffered on the oc- 
 casion; whilst miscreants who boasted of their activity 
 and who were identified by most respectable witnesses, 
 as being leaders in the transaction, were not only judici- 
 ally absolved, but were rewarded by the spontaneous 
 contributions of that public which thronged round .the 
 court of justice, to rejoice with them upon their deliver- 
 ance. For our own part, we had no desire for their 
 
14 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 punishment; but we feel the justice of an opinion, that 
 has been frequently expressed, that it would have been 
 infinitely more creditable to the State of Massachusetts, 
 if they had never been brought to trial. 
 
 It is equally notorious that notwithstanding every effort 
 to obstruct the expression of what it could not deny, viz. 
 the innocence of our religion and guilt of the aggressors, 
 the legislature of that State was fully convinced of the 
 falsehood of the pretences and the atrocity of the outrage, 
 and it declared that the convent was destroyed by a law- 
 less and ferocious mob; and declared that it "felt itself 
 bound in support of the constitution, and in vindication 
 of the honor of the commonwealth to declare its deliberate 
 and indignant condemnation of such an atrocious infrac- 
 tion of the laws." And yet we must avow that upon read- 
 ing the list of the enormous majority which decided 
 against affording any redress or compensation, ^ve lament 
 to find that it contains names which we did not expect 
 to see upon it. And if the continuation of the same con- 
 duct be evidence of the existence of the same disposition, 
 our opinion respecting that State and its legislature must 
 continue unchanged. 
 
 In a committee of the legislature, appointed to consider 
 the petition, for compensation, presented by the sufferers, 
 a majority reported that though the injured persons could 
 not claim indemnity for their losses from the government 
 as a matter of right, yet, to enforce respect for religious 
 freedom, and the security of life, liberty, property, "as 
 also to do what yet may be done, to soften the reproach 
 which rests upon the character of the state, by reason of 
 the aforesaid outrage," a gratuity should be given. — A 
 minority of the committee reported against granting this 
 relief; sustaining its recommendation, amongst other 
 grounds, upon the following: — viz. ^'•That Catholics ac- 
 knowledging ^as they do^ the supremacy of a foreign poten- 
 tate or power ^ could not claim nnder our government the 
 protection as citizens of the commonwealth^ hut were enti- 
 tled only to our countenance and aid so far as the rites of 
 natiojial hospitality might serve to dictate.'^ 
 
 We scarcely need observe to you, that this passage 
 opens witii wiiat is notoriously untrue, viz. ''-That we 
 acknowledge the supremacy of a foreign potentate or 
 porver^'' in that sense A\hich can interfere with our duty 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 15 
 
 as citizens. We owe no religious allegiance to any State 
 in this Union, nor to its general government. No one 
 of them claims any supremacy or dominion over us in 
 our spiritual or ecclesiastical concerns: nor does it claim 
 any such right or power over any of our fellow citizens, 
 of what soever religion they may be: and if such a claim 
 was made, neither would our fellow citizens, nor would we 
 submit thereto. They and we, by our constitutional 
 principles, are free to give this ecclesiastical supremacy - 
 to whom we please, or to refuse it to every one, if we 
 so think proper: but, they and we owe civil and political 
 allegiance to the several States in which we reside, and 
 also, to our general government. When, therefore, 
 using our undoubted right, we acknowledge the spiritual 
 and ecclesiastical supremacy of the chief bishop of our 
 universal church, the Pope or bishop of Rome, we do not 
 thereby forfeit our claim to the civil and political protec- 
 tion of th€ commonwealth; for, we do not detract from 
 the allegiance to which the temporal governments are 
 plainly entitled, and which we cheerfully give; nor do we 
 acknowledge any civil or pohtical supremacy, or power 
 over us in any foreign potentate or power, though that 
 potentate might be the chief pastor of our church. 
 
 Moreover, it is a notorious fact, that upon preparing 
 to be admitted to citizenship, every Catholic emigrant 
 distinctly renounces upon oath, all allegiance in civil and 
 political concerns to any foreign prince, power, state, or 
 potentate. 
 
 The passage also contains another manifest falsehood 
 and absurdity, viz., that Catholics cannot claim protec- 
 tion under our government as citizens. — Now, it is no- 
 torious that they who are born in the country are citizens 
 by the fact of their birth, and respecting Catholic emi- 
 grants, the government fully aware of their spiritual 
 and ecclesiastical relations to the head of their church, 
 has deliberately admitted them to become citizens; and 
 therefore it is manifestly absurd to assert, that citizens 
 can not, under our government, claim protection in that 
 character in which they have been admitted by the gov- 
 ernment itself 
 
 This attempt to proclaim the members of our church 
 actually deprived of their rights of citizenship, was adding 
 new and more extensive and more odious persecution to 
 
16 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 the atrocity of the cruel sacrilege for which they refused 
 redress, and although the majority of the legislature re- 
 pudiated this outrageous and absurd passage; yet, by an 
 overwhelming vote, they acceded to the sentiments of 
 its compilers, in withholding compensation and to the 
 present day, the Catholics of the diocess of Boston are 
 left without redress, notwithstanding the valueless decla- 
 ration of the legislature, " in vindication of the common- 
 wealth, of its deliberate and indignant condemnation of 
 such an atrocious violation of the laws." 
 
 The other instance which we would specify is one 
 which though exceedingly to be lamented, is not of 
 a novel character. It is the developement in this 
 country of a spirit which has during ages frequently 
 manifested itself in other regions. It has been exhib- 
 ited in New-York, principally in the patronage af- 
 forded by the religious teachers of highly respectable 
 bodies of our fellow citizens, to degraded beings of the 
 most profligate class, who calumniated the most pure 
 and useful institutions. Did not the history of other 
 places exhibit to us similar revolting instances, we 
 should indeed question the posibility of what we have 
 there witnessed. Men reputed to have understanding 
 and considered to be of good character, vouching to 
 the world for the correctness of charges of the most 
 atrocious nature, made against the most respectable 
 clergymen and religious communities, whose members 
 have during more than a century, by their personal 
 virtue, by their public charities and by their self devo- 
 tion, won the esteem and applause not only of the mem- 
 bers of their own church but of those who were opposed 
 thereto; charges which, if true, involved the condemna- 
 tion of the city which tolerated the existence of the 
 criminals against whom those charges were made; 
 charges, which necessarily implicated the public au- 
 thorities of Canada and the whole British government, 
 as abettors of the grossest crimes; charges whose false- 
 hood was exposed by American Protestants, the im- 
 possibility of whose truth was attested b)'- Canadian 
 Protestants, and whose imputation was indignantly re- 
 jected by both. Yet has the world witnessed those 
 charges again brought forward with unblushing front, 
 by obscure impostors of the most vile description, 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. IT 
 
 whose notorious profligacy has been testified by the 
 voice of the city which they polluted and slandered; 
 beings in whom it was hard to sa)- whether vice, or 
 recklessness, or insanity predominated; and those 
 charges sustained, perhaps suggested, and pertinacious- 
 ly adhered to after the demonstration of their absurdity, 
 by men whose station supposes intelligence and in 
 tegrity. 
 
 In making the effort to persuade ourselves that men 
 of this class were imposed upon and continued to be 
 the dupes of such wretched beings, what a picture 
 of human weakness do we contemplate? Yet assent- 
 ing to this supposition, we may, perhaps, be able to 
 account for the general exertions made by the pulpit 
 and the press, to exhibit us as what we are not, and to ex- 
 cite against us unmerited hostility and persecution. 
 We should, moreover, in this extraordinary supposi- 
 tion, cease to be astonished at the credulity and delu- 
 sion of many of our fellow citizens, and we could 
 imagine some cause for that want of charity in our 
 regard, whose prevalence we witness and deplore. 
 
 Yet, whatever allowances we may feel disposed to 
 make in favor of those who persecute and calumni- 
 ate us and who speak all manner of evil falsely con- 
 cerning us, we must point out two exceedingly bad 
 consequences of this misrepresentation. The first is 
 the extensive corruption of morality ; the other is the 
 encouragement of unbelief. 
 
 Nothing is more surely calculated for the destruc- 
 tion of that purity which is the soul of virtue, than the 
 perusal of lascivious tales; and never did the most un- 
 principled author compile any work more foul in this 
 respect, than the productions of our assailants, and 
 never was there exhibited a more voracious appetite 
 for mischievous aliment than that which they have 
 unfortunately excited. With what avidity have not 
 the numerous and heavy editions of those immodest 
 fictions been taken up, disseminated through the coun- 
 try, purchased and introduced in the name of religion 
 amongst the aged and the young of both sexes, in every 
 state and territory of our Union? "The father waketh 
 for the daughter when no man knoweth, 'says the 
 wise man, in the book of inspiration,' and the care for 
 3 
 
18 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 her taketh away his sleep * * in her virginity, lest 
 she should be corrupted, and having a husband, lest 
 she should misbehave herself."* And yet he places 
 these obscene libels in her hands as books of religious 
 instruction! "Hedge in thine ears with thorns; hear 
 not a wicked tongue,"t was one of his admonitions. 
 "On a daughter that turneth not away herself, set a 
 strict watch: lest finding an opportunity she abuse 
 herself: take heed of the impudence of her eyes and 
 wonder not if she slight thee." J Here we perceive the 
 consequence of allowing the imagination to be con- 
 taminated by familiarity with dangerous reading. 
 And we are persuaded that the cause of pure morality 
 and the security of domestic happiness have seldom 
 been more grievously injured, than by the contrivers 
 and the abettors of those indecent falsehoods, which in 
 the name of religion are promulgated against our in- 
 stitutions. Affecting the guardianship of virtue, they 
 undermine its foundations. 
 
 The effort for our destruction is a charge against 
 five-sixths of the christian world. It is not a charge 
 made exclusively upon those of our church, who in the 
 various parts of the globe form a body of fully two- 
 thirds of the whole number that profess the religion of 
 the Saviour; but it is an accusation against all those 
 who, though separated from our communion, believe in 
 those doctrines and adhere to those practices which 
 the compilers of those libels proclaim to be antichris- 
 tian ; and when their numbers are added to ours, the 
 aggregate is at least the amount that we have stated. 
 What an encouragement is it then, to the opponents of 
 Christianity when our revilers proclaim that five-sixths 
 of the christian world are immoral hypocrites or the 
 dupes of such monsters of iniquity ? Yet such is the 
 accusation seriously made! We have then, since the 
 production of those charges, and we believe, encour- 
 aged by their promulgation, beheld organized bands of 
 unbelievers, systematically arrayed, occupying the 
 ground thus yielded to them by those who affect such 
 zeal for Christianity ; we have seen them celebrating 
 with anticipated but indeed premature triumph the 
 destruction of the christian name. How will our ac- 
 
 • Eccli. xlii. 9, 10. + Eccli. xxviii. 2, 8. t Eccli. .xxvi. 13, 14. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 19 
 
 cusers dislodge them from their position, when they 
 exultingly proclaim that the principles and practice of 
 five-sixths of the christian world during three centu- 
 ries; and of entire Christendom, during the preced- 
 ing ages, have been grossly corrupt, necessarily de- 
 moralizing, and in direct opposition to what they call 
 the spirit of Christianity ? 
 
 We shall dwell no longer upon this painful subject. 
 We have before us the admonition of the Saviour, '• if 
 the world hate you, know ye that it hated me before 
 you. If you had been of the world, the world would 
 love its own : but because you are not of the world, but 
 I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world 
 hateth you. Remember my word that I said to you : 
 the servant is not greater than his master, if they 
 have persecuted me they will also persecute you; 
 if they have kept my word they will keep yours also. 
 But these things will they do to you for my name's 
 sake, because they know not him who sent me."* 
 " These things I have spoken to you that in me you 
 may have peace. In the world you shall have distress : 
 buthave confidence, I have overcome the world."! We 
 claim protection from the laws of our country ; we have 
 the sympathy of a large portion of our fellow-citizens ; 
 our trials will have an end, and like our divine Saviour 
 we too shall overcome the world ; but our victory is to 
 be achieved not by the arm of the flesh but by the 
 sword of the spirit and the might of the Lord of Hosts. 
 "In our patience we must possess our souls." J Our 
 forefathers in the faith, the immediate disciples of the 
 Saviour, the apostles themselves, were vilified, mis- 
 represented and suffered patiently for sake of him who 
 for their sake was made willingly a victim upon the 
 cross. The apostle of nations says " we are fools for 
 Christ's sake, * * even unto this hour we both hun- 
 ger and thirst, and are naked, and we are buffetted, and 
 have no fixed abode, and we labour working with 
 our own hands : we are reviled and we bless, we are 
 persecuted and we suffer it, v^^e are blasphemed and 
 we entreat; we are made as the refuse of this world, 
 the offscouring of all even until now."§ In his second 
 epistle to his beloved Timothy he assures him that 
 
 ♦John XV. 18, 19,20, 21. tJohn xvii. 33. tLuke xxi. 19. §1. Cor. iv. 10, 
 II, 12, 13. 
 
20 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 " all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suifer 
 persecution"* Whence the prince of the apostles, 
 Peter, admonishes his flock. " Let none of you suffer 
 as a murderer, or a thief, or a railer, or a coveter of 
 other men's things : but if as a christian, let him not 
 be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name,"t 
 and therefore we read of this apostle and his associate, 
 in the Acts: that when they w^ere scourged " they in- 
 deed went from the presence of the council rejoicing 
 that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for 
 the name of Jesus."| Thus in every age, from that pe- 
 riod to the present, we find that in some region or other 
 does the Lord call upon some of his followers to endure 
 mockery and reproof and even death for his sake, but 
 every where we find that not only is the blood of the 
 martyr the enrichment of the soil of Christianity, but 
 the imitation of the meekness of the Saviour by the 
 professor of his law, is the edification of the world and 
 the triumph of religion. Let the models here proposed 
 be then examples for our imitation. Let the maxims 
 here inculcated be the rules of our conduct, and we 
 shall walk worthy of the vocation in which we are call- 
 ed, and of the saints with whom we are, by our d c- 
 trine, associated. 
 
 Far be it from us, beloved brethren, even were it in 
 our power, to seek the injury of those persons by whom 
 we are assailed. They who belong not to the house- 
 hold of the faith are daily called from the east and 
 from the west, to be seated at the tables from which not 
 only were they estranged but to which they had de- 
 clared hostility. How many such glorious conversions 
 have we not witnessed? And has it not been so from 
 the beginning? '• Saul as yet breathing out threaten- 
 ings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, 
 went to the high priest, and asked of him letters to 
 Damascus to the synagogues that if he found any men 
 or women of this way he might bring them to Jerusa- 
 lem.''^ Yet the Lord declared to Ananias "this man 
 is to me a vessel of election to carry my name before 
 kings and gentiles and the children of Israel, for I will 
 shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's 
 sake."^[ And how nobly did he fulfil his glorious commis- 
 sion? Yet when "the witnesses laid down their gar- 
 
 *I. Tim. iii. 13. 1 1. Peler iv. 15, 16. t Acts v. 41. § Acts ix. I, 2. ITActs 
 ii. 15' 16. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 21 
 
 ments at the feet of a young man whose name was Saul 
 and who was consenting to the death of Stephen"* whilst 
 they stoned him ; did not this Saul stand forth as the pro- 
 minent persecutor oi" our holy religion ? How was God 
 glorified and the church aided by his conversion? How 
 noble, how becoming was the demeanor of the first 
 martyr of the church, when imitating the example of his 
 master, whilst he was overwhelmed by the missiles of his 
 foes, he besought his Saviour, saying, " Lord lay not ' 
 this sin to their charge ?"t And the prayer of Stephen 
 gave a Paul to Christianity. Beloved brethren, his con- 
 duct is the exhibition of our duty. 
 
 We now, brethren, address you with affectionate interest 
 upon another topic. We are gratified by the spiritual pro- 
 gress of numbers, but deeply affected by the neghgence 
 of too many who, however sound may be their faith, yet 
 do not reduce their principles to practice. We are 
 aware of the many difficulties which exist, because of 
 the fewness of the clergy, the remoteness of churches^ 
 the sparseness of the flocks, and a variety of other causes. 
 Yet, brethren, we are constrained to say, that there exists 
 much room for some reproof because of negligence even 
 where those obstacles are not found. Attend, we en- 
 treat you, to the admonition of St. James: "Be ye doers 
 of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own 
 selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word and not 
 a doer he shall be compared to a man beholding his own 
 countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself and went 
 his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. 
 But he that hath looked into the perfect law of Hberty, 
 and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful 
 hearerbuta doerof thework; this man shall be blessed in- 
 deed.'"! And again, " For even as the body without the 
 spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead."^ We 
 have noticed with regret that even where the belief of 
 doctrine was in full vigour, the duties of religion were 
 not always regularly fulfilled, but yielding to the 
 tempter or corrupted by evil communication; even 
 they who professed the word of truth rejected wis- 
 dom and discipline, and wearied themselves in the 
 way of iniquity and destruction. And whilst we are 
 consoled and edified by the visible increase of piety 
 with which our regions have been blessed, we would 
 
 * Acts vii, 57. t Acts vii. 59, . JJames i. 22, 23, 24, 25. §James ii. 26. 
 
2ft PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 call earnestly upon those who as yet seem insensible. 
 We would lay before them the assurance of the Lord 
 by this prophet: "But if the wicked do penance for 
 all his sins which he hath committed, and keep all my 
 commandments, and do judgment and justice living, 
 he shall live and he shall not die. I will not remem- 
 ber all his iniquities that he hath done : in his justice 
 which he hath wrought he shall live. It is not my will 
 that a sinner shall die, saith the Lord God, and not 
 that he should be converted from his ways and live ?"* 
 Well may we address such of you as have been un- 
 wise, in this tender strain of invitation used by the 
 Lord himself: "Be converted and do penance for all 
 your iniquities and iniquity shall not be your ruin. 
 Cast away from you all your transgressions, bj'' which 
 you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new 
 heart and a new spirit, and why will you die, O house 
 of Israel ? For I desire not the death of him that 
 dieth, saith the Lord God ; return ye and live."t To 
 those who feel that they have " wearied themselves in 
 the way of iniquity and destruction and have walked 
 through hard ways, but the way of the Lord they have 
 not known." J The Saviour specially addresses those 
 affectionate words : ''Come to me all you that labour 
 and are heavy burdened, and I will refresh you."§. 
 
 We should all exert ourselves to establish the do- 
 minion of religion in our soals. The end thereof is, by 
 serving God in the manner that he desires, to eradi- 
 cate vice and purify ourselves from sin. Born children 
 of wrath, dead in our offences and sins, we can be 
 raised up and quickened only through the exceeding 
 charity wherewith he loves us and gives us the abun- 
 dant riches of his grace in his bounty towards us in 
 Christ Jesus. 
 
 Religion is not satisfied with the mere rooting out 
 of vice, there must be efforts to do positive good. It 
 is therefore that the Lord says, by the prophet Isaias, 
 "Wash yourselves, be clear, take away the evil of your 
 devices from my eyes: cease to do perversely: learn to 
 do well,''^ and to the same effect the apostle St. 
 Peter tells him that will love life and see good days, 
 '•Let him decline from evil, and do good, let him seek 
 
 ♦Ezec.xviii. 21, 2-2,23. tEzec. xviii. 30, 31,32. t Wisd. v. 7. § Mat. xi. 28. 
 IT Isaias, i. 16, 17. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. m 
 
 after peace and pursue it. Because the eyes of the 
 Lord are upon the just, and his ears unto their prayers: 
 but the countenance of" the Lord is upon them that do 
 evil things."* Upon tiie same principle it is declared 
 by Ezekiel,! that besides doing penance for all 
 his sins which he hath committed, the wicked man 
 should "Keep all good commandments and do judg- 
 ment and justice," if he would obtain life, and again,J 
 and when the wicked turneth himself from his 
 wickedness which he hath wrought, and doeth judg- 
 ment and justice: he shall save his soul alive." The 
 beloved disciple St. John, assures us,§. that "he 
 that doth the will of God abideth for ever;" and 
 again, || "Know yc that every one also, who doth 
 justice is born of God;"^ "Little children, let no 
 man deceive you. He that doth justice is just, even 
 as God is just:" farther,** "And whatsoever we 
 shall ask we shall receive of him: because we keep his 
 commandments, and do those things which are pleas- 
 ing in his sight. "t+ "For this is tlie charity of God, 
 that we keep his commandments. 
 
 The religious man then not only refrains from evil 
 but he does good; he not only oifends no man, but en- 
 deavours, as far as he is able, to do service to every 
 one: he not only purifies himself and his dwelling from 
 the filth of iniquity, but he enriches his abode and de- 
 corates his soul with ornaments of virtue. In his re- 
 lation to society^ he endeavours to do unto others as 
 he would be done by^ not only is he strictly just, but 
 he is kind, merciful, compassionate, and charitable. 
 To the state he is loyal, faithful, obedient and attached, 
 using those rights which he possesses, not for the pur- 
 pose of party, nor for the private emolument of himself 
 or of his friends, but for the general welfare and advan- 
 tage; discharging the duties of any office in which he 
 may be placed, not capriciously, nor negligently, nor 
 influenced by prejudice, or by partiality; but honestly 
 Mdthout fear or favour, or affection, for the welfare of 
 the people, the credit of the state and the approbation 
 of his God. To his neighbours he is attentive, concil- 
 iating, respectful and useful: for his family industrious, 
 affectionate and devoted, he feels the responsibility 
 
 * I. Pet. iii. 11, 12. txviii. 21. txviii. 28. § I. John, ii. 16. II I. John, ii. 
 29. IF I. John, iii. 7. ** I. John, iii. 22. +t I. John, v. 3. 
 
24 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 under which he is placed of guarding their health, of 
 providing for their wants, of promoting their interest, 
 of securing their prosperity, of watching over their 
 education of superintending their discipUne, of culti- 
 vating their minds, of regulating their morals, of win- 
 ning their hearts to the love of virtue, and of leading 
 them by his example in the path to heaven. These, 
 beloved brethren are the important objects to which 
 your earliest and most assiduous care should be de- 
 voted. And doing these things, you shall through the 
 merits of your blessed Saviour obtain that glorious in- 
 heritance which he has purchased for you at the price 
 of his blood, and the attainment of which is the chief 
 object of religion. 
 
 But to secure this desirable end, ^ve must use the pro- 
 per means: and first, beloved brethren, we would remind 
 you, that "our confidence must be through Christ towards 
 God,"* for "we are not sufficient to think any thing of our- 
 selves, as of ourselves; but, our sufficiency is from God."t 
 Who hath delivered us from the powers of darkness and 
 hath translated us into the kingdom of the son of his love; 
 in whom we have redemption through his blood for the 
 remission of sins. * * * J "and through him to recon- 
 cile all things unto himself, making peace through the 
 blood of his cross, both as to things in earth, and things 
 in heaven." It is therefore that we can have "peace 
 with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." § "For 
 if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God 
 by the death of his son: much more being reconciled, 
 shall we be saved by his life and not only so, but we 
 also glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by 
 whom we have received reconciliation." || For it 
 is impossible, that with the blood of oxen and goats, 
 sins should be taken away, wherefore, when he cometh 
 into the world he saith, "sacrifice and oblation thou 
 wouldest not: but, a body thou hast fitted to me: holo- 
 causts for sindid not please thee: then, said I, be- 
 hold I come, in the head of the book it is written of me, 
 that I should do thy will God * * * * In the 
 which will we are sanctified by the oblation of the body 
 of Jesus Christ once."Tl But how once at the end of 
 
 *II. Cor. iii. 5. + Coloss. i. 13, 14. ti. 20. § Rom. v. 10, 11. llHeb.x. 
 4, 5, 6, 7, 10. U Heb. ix. 26. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 25 
 
 ages he hath appeared for the destruction of sin by the 
 sacrifice of himself. Therefore did the apostle St. Peter 
 testify.* "This is the stone which was rejected by you 
 the builders: which is become the head of the corner: 
 neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no 
 other name under heaven given to man whereby w^e must 
 be saved." Thus it is through the redemption by our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, that we must have access to God for 
 the remission of sins, and the grace to advance in virtue. 
 And this must be done by the belief of those doctrines 
 which he has revealed, for the apostle assures us that 
 "without faith it is impossible to please God: for he that 
 Cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is 
 a rewarder to them that seek him."f This was but pub- 
 lishing what the Saviour himself had declared, in that 
 beautiful prayer which he addressed to his father at the 
 termination of the discourse which he made to his disci- 
 ples when, about to be taken from them, his affection was 
 exhibited in extraordinary tenderness of expressions.| 
 "Now this is eternal life, that they may know thee the 
 only and true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
 sent." And to this end he besought,§. "Sanctify them in 
 truth: thy word is truth." ||"And not for them only do 
 I pray, but for them also who through their word shall 
 believe in me:*n that they may all be one as thoii, father 
 in me, and I in thee: that they may also be one in us." , 
 St. Paul exhibits to us the manner in which this apostolic 
 testimony is given, as the foundation of faith, so that per- 
 sons may be brought through the word of those apostles to 
 believe in Christ.** "For whosoever shall call upon the 
 name, of the Lord shall be saved. How then thall they 
 call upon him in whom they have not believed.'' Or how 
 shall they beheve him of whom they have not heard, and 
 how shall they hear without a preacher ? And how shall 
 they preach unless they be sent ? As it is written. How 
 beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of 
 peace, of them that bring the tidings of good things ! 
 But all donotobey the gospel. For Isaias saith: "Lord 
 who hath believed our report? Faith then cometh by 
 hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." And we 
 find it recorded in the Acts, ft that Christ declared 
 
 * Acts, iv. U, 12. t Heb. xi. 6. t John, xvii. 3. § v. 17. II 30. IT 21. 
 «* Rom. X. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. tt Acts, i. 8. 
 
 4 - . 
 
26 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 to those apostles, "You shall receive the power of the 
 Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be wit- 
 nesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and 
 Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth." 
 St. Matthew informs us of what things they whereto 
 testify* "And Jesus coming, spoke to them, say- 
 ing, all power is given to me in heaven and in earth. 
 Going therefore teach ye all nations, baptizing them 
 in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things what- 
 soever I commanded you: and behold, I am with you 
 all days to the end of the world." But as they were 
 a very limited number, they could not teach all nations, 
 by their mere personal exertions; and since they were 
 mortal, they could not continue teaching all days to the 
 endof the world. To effect what he directed, therefore, he 
 communicated to them the power of extending to others 
 that authority which was contained in their own com- 
 mission; as he came forth, sent by his father, not mere- 
 ly to instruct by his personal teaching, but to consti- 
 tute other witnesses, with authority to testify by their 
 teaching what he had said and done; wherefore St. 
 John informs us,f "The disciples therefore were glad 
 when they saw the Lord, He therefore said to them 
 again, peace be to you, as the father sent me, so I also 
 send you." In the same gospel we are instructed by 
 himself of the manner in which the father sent him. 
 f'For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father 
 who sent me, he gave me commandment what 1 should 
 say, and what I should speak, and I know that his 
 commandment is life everlasting. The thingrs there- 
 fore that I speak, even as the father said unto me do 
 I speak." Thus we find the apostles fulfilling his 
 views by immediatel}'' associating several well instruct- 
 ed members of the faithful into their commission, or- 
 daining them to be their co-operators for the purpose 
 of spreading abroad the good tidings into every nation, 
 and of perpetuatint^ tlie testimony to the end of the 
 world. Thus St. Paul directs Timothy,^ '-The things 
 which thou hast heard of me by many witnesses, the 
 same command to faithful men who may be fit to teach 
 others also." And to Titus he writes, || "For this cause 
 I left thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in ordei: 
 
 • xxviii. 18, 19, 20. txx.iJ0 21. t xii. 49, 50, § II. Tim. ii.2.- II i. 5. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 2f 
 
 the things that are wanting and shouldest ordain priests 
 in every city." And this had been so extensively ac- 
 complished in the days of the apostles, that St. Paul 
 proclaims,* ''But I say, have they not heard ? Yes verily, 
 their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their 
 words unto the ends of the whole world." And there- 
 fore it was only required to continue in the same man- 
 ner, and upon the same principle to perpetuate the 
 teaching body, by securing in the same manner tlie 
 continuation of its members; and this has been evident- 
 ly done, even to this day, by preserving the succession 
 of the bishops of the church in communion with the 
 successor of that apostle, to whom the Saviour declar- 
 'ed,t "behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he 
 may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that 
 thy faith fail not: and thou being once converted, con- 
 firm thy brethren." Their commission is not of human 
 origin, nor by men's authority, but derived from hea- 
 ven by virtue of the institution of Christ, sustained by 
 the power of that Holy Ghost, which descended visibly 
 upon the first prelates of the church, on the day of Pente- 
 cost,J wherefore St. Paul addresses their associates, in 
 the folio vring words,§ "Take heed to yourselves, and to 
 the Avhole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed 
 you bishops to rule the church of God, which he hath 
 purchased with his own blood." Thus were they to be 
 "accounted as the ministers of Christ;" || testifying his 
 doctrines, not speaking of themselves, but as He who sent 
 them gave them commandment, what they should say, 
 and what they should speak, whilst according to his own 
 promise, he would continue with them all days to the 
 end of the world, so that his church should be what the 
 apostles describes it,1[ "The house of God, the church 
 of the living God, the pillar and the ground of truth." 
 To this fold "Was he to bring all his sheep,** so that they 
 should by its testimony, "Hear his voice and there should 
 be one fold and one shepherd;" as was foretold by many 
 of the prophets, but especially by Ezechiehff "And iny 
 servant David shall be king over them, and they shall 
 have one shepherd: they shall walk in my judgments and 
 shall keep my commandments. * * * And I will 
 
 * Rom. X. 18. t Luke, xxii. 31, 32. t Acts, ii. 4. § Acts, xx. 28. II I. Cor. 
 iv. 1. IT I. Tim. iii. 15. ♦* John, x. 16. tt Ezech. xxiviii. 24, &c. 
 
38 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 make a covenant of peace with them, it shall be an ever- 
 lastins; covenant with them: and I will establish them and 
 will multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst 
 of them for ever, and my tabernacle shall be with them: 
 and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."* 
 "And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall 
 feed them, even my servant David, he shall feed them, 
 and he shall be their shepherd and I the Lord will be 
 their God, and my servant David the prince in the midst 
 of them: I the Lord have spoken it." 
 
 Thus beloved brethren, do we receive by the testi- 
 mony of this " cloud of witnesses," an indication of the 
 path in which we should follow after the ark of our 
 safety, " it is a holy way,"t " it shall be unto you a 
 straight way, so that fools shall not err therein," for by 
 this testimony we are assured of what God has revealed; 
 his word is to us the foundation and the measure of our 
 faith, as it is the code which also regulates our morality ; 
 we believe what he declares, we should also obey his 
 commands. He has established the society of his church 
 upon the principles of a well ordered community, making 
 it the witness of his revelation, so that secured in " the 
 unity of faith"! and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
 * * * we be no more children tossed to and fro and car- 
 ried about with every wind of doctrine, by the wicked- 
 ness of men, by cunning craftiness by which they lie in 
 wait to deceive." Entreating then, we exhort you to 
 continue steadily attached to this firm anchor of our 
 hope, and submit your necks to the sweet yoke of Christ 
 by regulating your conduct unrestrictedly by the great 
 maxims of the gospel, as your code of morality. 
 
 But, beloved brethren, you are aware that it is by the 
 institutions of the Saviour you must be made partakers of 
 the fruits of his redemption. Your obedience to his law 
 must be perfect. You cannot expect salvation upon any 
 other terms than those which he has established. You 
 must be enriched to growth and beauty in the heavenly 
 garden, not by your natural powers, but by being[engrafted 
 upon Christ and drawing the sustenance of heavenly aid, 
 in his grace, from his institutions. IN either by your own 
 natural power are you able without the influence of that 
 grace, to believe, or to hope, or to have useful sorrow for 
 
 * Ezech. xxxiv. 23, 24. t Isaias xxxv. 8. X Ephes. iv. 13, 14. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 29 
 
 sin, or to love or to serve God as you ought, so as to obtain 
 heaven. You are, as the apostle St. Paul expresses it, 
 "Cut out of the wild olive tree, which is natural to thee; 
 and, contrary to nature, wert grafted into the good olive 
 tree,"* so that drawing from Christ, the root of holiness, 
 you may be purified from sin and bloom in virtue and 
 bring forth fruit to eternal life. This the Saviour himself 
 explains to us, when he informs us that he is the door 
 by which the sheep enter into the fold ;t and more at 
 length when he says, " I am the true vine ; and my 
 father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that 
 beareth not fruit he will take away: and every one that 
 beareth fruit he will purge it that it may bring forth 
 more fruit. * * * Abide in me, and I in you. As the 
 branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the 
 vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am 
 the vine, you the branches, he that abideth in me and I 
 in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you 
 can do nothing. If any one abide not in me, he shall be 
 cast forth as a branch and shall wither and they shall 
 gather him up, and cast him into the fire and heburneth.'"'J 
 Now it is by the means of his sacraments that he has 
 provided in the ordinary communication of this grace 
 for the various modes of our regeneration and sanctifica- 
 tion. " Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be 
 born again of water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter 
 the kingdom of God."§ "Now when the apostles who 
 were in Jerusalem, had heard that Samaria had received 
 the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: 
 who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they 
 might receive the Holy Ghost. For he was not as yet 
 come upon any of them : but they were only baptised in 
 the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands 
 upon them and they received the Holy Ghost."|| In the 
 gospel of St. John we read, "Then Jesus said to them: 
 Amen, amen, I say unto you, except you eat of the flesh 
 of the son of man, and drink his blood you shall not have 
 life in you."^ As also his other statement, "When he had 
 said this he breathed on them and he said to them : Re- 
 ceive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins ye shall forgive they 
 are forgiven to them : and whose sins you shall retain 
 they are retained.'*** The apostle St, James also exhi- 
 
 • Rom, xi. 24. tJohii x. t Joha xv. § John iii. v. II Acts 14, 15, 16, 17. 
 •ir John vi. 54. *♦ John xx. 22, 23. 
 
50 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 bits to us another source of grace when he writes, "Is 
 any man sick amongst you, let him bring in the priests of 
 tlie church, and let them pray over him anointing him 
 with oil in the name of the Lord. And tlie prayer of 
 faith shall save the sick man : and the Lord will raise 
 him up, and if he be in sins they shall be forgiven him."* 
 In the Acts of the Apostles we read, "These they set 
 before the apostles: and they praying imposed hands 
 upon them."t One of the effects of this rite is expressed 
 in another place : " Then they exhorting and praying, 
 and imposing their hands upon them, sent them away, so 
 they being sent by the Holy Ghost went to Seleucia ;"J 
 but more clearly exhibited by St. Paul, " Neglect not 
 that grace that is in thee, which was given thee by pro- 
 phecy with imposition of the hands of the priesthood ;"§ 
 and again, " For which cause I admonish thee that thou 
 stir up the grace of God which is in thee, by the imposi- 
 tion of my hands.'"|| Concerning matrimony w'e read in 
 the Gospel of St. Matthew, " What therefore God hath 
 joined together, let no man put asunder;"^ and St. Paul 
 informs us, "For this cause shall a man leave his father 
 and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall 
 be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament: but I 
 speak in Christ and in the church."** 
 
 How many sources of grace are thus opened to us 
 for the several circumstances in which we may be placed? 
 Again therefore, beloved; entreating, we exhort you not 
 to despise the mercy of our God; not to reject the boun- 
 ties of Christ, not to neglect the means of salvation thus 
 placed within your reach. Not only for your own sakes, 
 but for the sake of your children, of your families, of the 
 whole church of Christ are you, especially the heads of 
 those families, bound to have recourse to such of those 
 divine institutions as are befitting your circumstances. 
 
 Your example is powerful for good or for evil. You 
 desire to train up your children in the way in which they 
 should walk; of what value will your advice be in con- 
 tradiction to your example.'^ "He that shall scandalize 
 one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better 
 for him that a mill stone should be hanged about his 
 neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the 
 
 •James v. 11, 15. tAcis vi. 6. tAcNxiiio. §1. Tim. iv. 14. 
 II II. Tim. i. 6. V Matt. xii. 6. ♦• Ephes. v. 31, 32. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 51 
 
 sea. Wo to the world because of scandals ! For it 
 must needs that scandals come: but nevertheless, wo to 
 that man by whom the scandal cometh. And if thy 
 hand or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off and cast it 
 from thee. It is better for thee to go into life maimed or 
 lame than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into 
 everlasting fire."* And in another place, we find a cor- 
 responding declaration of the Saviour, "He therefore, 
 that shall break one of these least commandments, and 
 shall so teach men, shall be called the least in the king- 
 dom of heaven. , But he that shall do and teach, shall 
 be called great in the kingdom of heaven. "f We would 
 therefore earnestly and solemnly impress upon our bre- 
 thren, to walk worthy of the vocation in which they are call- 
 ed and by their example, to draw others to the practice of 
 those great duties which on earth give a peace of 
 which the children of the world have scarcely an idea^ 
 and which procures for us in heaven a joy and a glory, 
 the like of which no earthly eye has seen, no description 
 of which has penetrated mortal ear, nor to conceive 
 which is the mind of man capable in its present stitte, 
 and the contemplation of which bore the rapt apostle into 
 such exstatic enjoyment. "| 
 
 These things we have written to you, beloved breth- 
 ren, respecting your first and greatest obligations, but 
 there are others upon which we find it proper to express 
 to you our views. They regard your exertions to provide 
 for the external wants of religion and to establish those 
 means by which instruction will be more generally dif- 
 fused, the ministry more widely extended, the spiritual 
 wants of great numbers better attended to, and even the 
 temporal consolations of our afflicted fellovv creatures, 
 whether members of our church or estranged therefrom, 
 better secured. 
 
 We should first call your attention to the erection and 
 the decoration of churches and their proper furniture. 
 From the very origin of Christianity it was an object of 
 great interest to your predecessors in the faith: it is es- 
 sential for the decency of public worship, and nothing 
 tends more to unite and to preserve in the bonds of af- 
 fection, as well as in the purity of faith, the Catholics who 
 reside in any vicinage : it is moreover exceedingly useful 
 
 . * xVIatt. xviii. 6, 7, 8. t Matt. v. 19. til. Cor. xii. 
 
32 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 for the purpose of preserving the faith of the children 
 and affording to the well disposed enquirer an opportu- 
 nity of learning our doctrines and correcting misappre- 
 hensions. 
 
 But in the creation of those edifices we would remark, 
 that it has frequently occurred, that through a sad mistake 
 respecting the nature of our church government, and the 
 influence caused by the example of religious socities, 
 whose principles are in direct contradiction to those which 
 have come down to us from the days of the apostles, some 
 of the managers have usurped powers to which they had 
 no title, which are incompatible with our discipline and 
 in some instances even with our faith. And when we 
 were constrained in the discharge of our duty to oppose 
 theirpretensions, they complained that we interfered with 
 their rights: and they sought by the law of the land, in con- 
 tradiction to the spirit of those constitutions which guar- 
 antee our religious freedom, to subject our ecclesiastical 
 administration to their supervision, and to withhold the 
 funds created for the support of religion from their des- 
 tined object, unless their irregular demandsw ere acceded 
 to. The results in some instances have been extremely 
 disgraceful and disastrous ; but we thank God, that at 
 present the spirit of which we complain has nearly dis- 
 appeared. We think it right however to apprise you, that 
 viewing before God, and singly with an eye to the wel- 
 fare of religion, this case, we have felt it to be our 
 duty at all hazards, to preserve that faith, for whose de- 
 fence you and we are bound if required to imitate the 
 devotion of the glorious martyrs ; and also to prefer offi- 
 ciating, as many of our predecessors have done, in 
 the open air, in private houses, or in humble sheds, 
 for those who are faithful to their principles and at- 
 tached to their religion, rather than to enter the most 
 gorgeous temples and accept of the most abundant sti- 
 pends as the price of that freedom of ecclesiastical 
 administration which it is our obligation to preserve, and 
 the diminution of which would be most injurious to re- 
 ligion. Nor do we think it irrelevant in this place to 
 observe, that it has almost uniformly occmred that the 
 persons who thus affected zeal for religion and attach- 
 ment to liberty, by perpetrating those usurpations, were 
 notorious for their total neglect of religious practices 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 33 
 
 and were found most ready to abuse any power they 
 were able to obtain. We therefore admonish you of the 
 necessity of being properly informed of the due mode of 
 conforming to the principles of your own church before 
 you undertake to erect buildings for her worship. There 
 is nothing in either the spirit of the constitutions or in 
 the laws of our republics which is incompatible with the 
 perfect freedom of our ecclesiastical institutions ; no 
 country affords better means for their security and pro- 
 tection by legal provisions; but the power which our 
 states properly allow to each religious denomination to 
 manage its own ecclesiastical concerns may be easily 
 abused, as it has been in many instances, by persons who 
 were members of bodies to whose spirit they were op- 
 posed. We exhort you then, in acting for the church, 
 to consult with the recognized authorities of that church ; 
 let there be a full and perfect accordance between you 
 and them, this will produce co-operation, sucpess, charity, 
 affection and peace, and will moreover secure to you the 
 blessings of religion. We would also remark upon the 
 necessity of providing for every church that furniture for 
 the altar and the sacristy which will give to the divine 
 offices, especially to the holy sacrifice of the Mass, that ex- 
 ternal dignity which becomes the service of the Most High. 
 When God vouchsafed to prescribe special decorations 
 for his tabernacle, in the desert, the people of Israel were 
 invited to make their offerings, and their zeal and devo-' 
 tion urged their generosity ta such a point that "The 
 workmen being constrained to come, said to Moses : the 
 people offereth more than is necessary. Moses there- 
 fore commanded proclamation to be made by the crier's 
 voice : Let neither man nor woman offer any more for 
 the sanctuary."* We need not remind you of the spe- 
 cial benedictions which the Lord continues to bestow 
 upon those who, animated with the due sentiments of 
 religion, contribute with cheerful hearts to promote the 
 great work of his service upon this earth. 
 
 " Let the priests that rule well, be esteemed worthy of 
 double honour, especially they who labour in word and 
 doctrine,"! was the admonition of St Paul to his disci- 
 ple Timothy who at that period, according to the primi- 
 tive usages, had the entire apportionment and distribu- 
 
 *Exod. xxxvi. 4, 5, 6. 1 1. Tim. v. 17. 
 
 5 
 
34 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 tion of the means contributed for the purposes of religion: 
 and in his first epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle 
 asks, " Who serveth as a soldier at any time, at his own 
 charges ? who planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the 
 fruit thereof? whofeedeth a flock, and eateth not of the 
 milk of the flock ? speak I these things according to 
 man ? or doth not the law also say these things ? For it 
 is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle 
 the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth 
 God take care of oxen ? or doth he say this indeed for 
 our sakes, for these things are written for our sakes, that 
 he that plougheth should plough in hope : and he that 
 thresheth in hope to receive fruit. If we have sown to 
 you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your 
 carnal things ^* * * * tcj^ j^Q^y yg ^q^ ^[J£^|■ tj^gy y^rjj^ 
 
 work in the holy place eat the things that are of the holy 
 place ; and they that serve the altar partake with the 
 altar ? So also the Lord ordained that they who preach 
 the gospel should live by the gospel."f 
 
 We have placed this passage under your view, not so 
 much for the purpose of insinuating against you any want 
 of disposition to perform the duty whiph it inculcates, as 
 of bringing to your consideration a subject which has 
 been heretofore overlooked. We are ready to testify, 
 that in many instances you exert yourselves in a manner 
 very creditable to yourselves and beneficial to religion, 
 in contributing to the support of your pastors; and we 
 also are gratified at knowing that, as a body, our clergy 
 are well deserving of what they thus receive. Indeed, 
 we know of no other portion of the church in any region 
 of the w orld, where in one sense, the words of the Apostle 
 "who planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit 
 thereof,"' would be no properly applicable as in the United 
 States. For besides that almost all our churches have 
 been built chiefly by the laborious exertions of the clergy- 
 man; their whole income is produced by his services; 
 and if he ceases to ofliciate, the revenue would be small 
 indeed ! Nothing can then be more just than that the 
 provision for the clergy should be the principal object of 
 its application: as St. Paul declares to Timothy, "the 
 husbandman that laboureth must first partake of the 
 fruits."! [ 
 
 ♦1. Cor. ix. 7, 8, y, 10, 11. 1 1. Cor. ix. 13, 11. t U. Tim. ii. tJ. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 35 
 
 In those countries where parochial or other benefices 
 exist, the incumbent, when worn out by labour or age, 
 or incapaciateci by sickness or accident, is not cast aside; 
 he still enjoys his right to the place, and continues iri 
 possession of the income; and it is fit that it should be 
 so: for to use the expressions of the Apostle, who, when 
 he admonishes Timothy to "labour as a good soldier of 
 Jesus Christ,"* tells him also, that "no man being a sol- 
 dier to God entangleth him with secular businesses, that 
 he may please him to whom he hath engaged himself;" 
 the clergy are prohibited by the canons of the church 
 from being engaged in traffic, that they may be wholly 
 occupied in their ministerial duties. The emolument 
 which they receive is comparatively moderate, some- 
 times wretchedly small; they are liable to applications 
 from the distressed, and to demands for the purposes 
 of religion, sufficient to deprive them of the power, 
 even if they had the will, of laying up for themselves 
 a provision for age or infirmity, and the canonical reg- 
 ulations, in such contingencies, provide for their 
 support out of the funds of the benefice, and for the 
 discharge of the duty by giving an assistant, to main- 
 tain whom both the incumbent and they who are served 
 contribute. Our circumstances render the creation 
 of such benefices at the present moment extremely 
 inexpedient, even if the canonical grounds for their 
 creation existed: and instances have occurred where 
 meritorious priests, after a faithful discharge of duty, 
 have been neglected and left in great destitution; and 
 few missions are known, in which the income of a 
 clergyman is smaller than on these of the United 
 States. We would appeal to your own feelings of 
 justice to say whether this was as it ought to be. 
 Cases nmy however arise, in which the clergyman 
 would be in need of aid which he deserves, without 
 having a sufficient claim upon any special church to 
 entitle him to require that it should support him. To 
 provide for cases of this description, and others of a 
 similar character, we have recommended, that in each 
 Diocess, the clergy themselves should create a fund 
 applicable to such purposes, under the superintend- 
 ance of the Bishop; and we should hope you will also 
 feel that this object merits your aid. 
 
 . * 11. Tim. ii. 3, 4. 
 
36 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 For ourselves, we feel that we have always received, 
 as we have endeavoured to merit, your support: but 
 we would suggest that as the" duties of the bishop re- 
 gard the welfare of the whole Diocess, arid as he is 
 principally occupied in its general concerns, it would 
 be fitting that all the churches and congrefTations should 
 aid in creating a fund, not merely sufficient for his 
 individual support; but also adequate to afford him the 
 services of one or more clergymen, according to the 
 extent and duties and means of the Diocess, to aid him 
 in efficiently labouring to the advantage of the entire 
 Diocess, for the promotion of religion and the spiritual 
 welfare of his whole flock. 
 
 To provide for a succession of the clergy, is also a 
 general concern of the churches and congregations, 
 which, however well they may be served at the mo- 
 ment, cannot insure themselves against the casualties 
 which produce a vacancy: and if no measures be taken 
 to educate and to form, by proper discipline, a body 
 of clergy to supply those vacancies as they occur, 
 what must be the consequence? Many of our most 
 flourishing churches have had to underg-o lono^ desti- 
 tution, to struggle through great difficulties, to witness 
 many scandals and to suffer heavy losses, because of 
 the want of a clergy sufficiently numerous and pro- 
 perly qualified for our missions. Many catholics who 
 came hither from other nations, as well as several of 
 our own citizens who have removed to the interior, 
 were condemned to wander in spiritual desolation, 
 until becoming estranged from their religion they were 
 indiff'erent to its concerns or its practices; and they 
 and thousands of their children have been themselves 
 lost to the church, It is an obligation of pressing im- 
 portance, therefore, for every one to contribute accord- 
 ing to his means, to supply this deficiency. The ec- 
 clesiastical state, especially in our church, is not a 
 profession, to prepare his child for which a parent will 
 make an extraordinary sacrifice, in the expectation 
 that the future income will justify the present outlay; 
 and the education necessary for a priest is one not to 
 be acquired without considerable time, and no small 
 expense. The body which is to be served has been 
 accustomed to undertake that expense in many parts 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 37 
 
 of Europe, by the creation of Seminaries sustained by 
 the public funds of the nation; and when these could 
 not be obtained, the objefct was effected by the contri- 
 butions of the faithful or the donations or legacies of 
 the wealthy and the pious. In these United States, 
 our fellow-citizens of various religious denominations, 
 have numerous, large and well endowed theological 
 schools, to which their yearly contributions are very 
 considerable. Hitherto you have done Itttle or nothing 
 to aid our Seminaries. Many of us have received for 
 this purpose, moderate aid from the piety of our fellow 
 catholics in France, in Austria, and in one or two in- 
 stances froni Ireland. The Holy See has also gener- 
 ously admitted some of oiir youths into the Urban 
 College of the Propaganda at Rome, where they gra- 
 tuitously receive their education and have their wants 
 supplied. We strenuously exhort you to do your 
 duty, by contributing to raise up a national clergy; 
 exert yourselves to provide that your own sons should 
 minister at your altars. In your several Diocesses 
 you can co-operate, each of you with his proper pre- 
 late, for this most important object. 
 
 We have on former occasions addressed to you our 
 advice and exhortation respecting the use and the 
 abuse of the public press, as respects our religion. It 
 is a powerful engine for good or for evil: and in those 
 states it has been, and still is, extensively used against 
 us, both openly and covertly. We do not dwell upon 
 the gross untruths, the false charges, the notorious 
 perversions, the ribbald abuse which are continually 
 spread before the eyes of millions of our fellow-citi- 
 zens against you and us, and our religion, by what is 
 called the periodical religious press: we need not ex- 
 hibit to you the pages of several public journals to 
 show the adverse spirit of a large portion of political 
 editors to truth and justice, where we are concerned. 
 Not onl)^ are the public libraries and the literary in-« 
 stitutions formed upon the same principle, and tracts 
 and pamphlets which exhale the poison of virulent 
 misrepresentation and obloquy, widely disseminated, 
 but the very school-books for even the youngest learn- 
 ers are infected; so that from the most tender child- 
 hood to the decrepitude of age, the great portion of 
 
38 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 the reading public may be, taught to detest and to des- 
 pise what they are led to believe is our religion. 
 
 Within a few years however, some publishers have 
 put forth a number of books containing a correct ex- 
 position of our doctrines and the defence of our tenets; 
 though we regret tiiat in some instances, either acting 
 from their own views or having consulted with per- 
 sons not sufficiently qualified to advise them, they 
 have occasionally exhibited a want of judgment in 
 their selection: We find that amongst you the spirit 
 of encouraging their effi)rts has been daily becoming 
 more strong, and we trust, that they will themselves 
 feel it to be their duty, as it will be their interest hence- 
 forward to consult in the proper ^manner, with the 
 Ordinary ecclesiastical superior, before they undertake 
 such publications. 
 
 We feel disposed also to exhort you to sustain with 
 better efforts those journals, which though not official- 
 ly sanctioned by us, still are most useful to explain 
 our tenets, to defend our rights and to vindicate our 
 conduct. We regret to learn that in several instances 
 those conducted under the eye of the ordinary ecclesi- 
 astical authority are continued only at a pecuniary 
 sacrifice to their proprietors, and by the zealous and 
 gratuitous exertions of their editors. We would im- 
 press upon you the necessity of exertion on your parts, 
 to have them better sustained and their circulation ex- 
 tended as widely as possible. 
 
 We have formed ourselves into a Society for the 
 production and dissemination of books useful to the 
 cause of truth and of virtue, leaving to each prelate 
 its adaptation to the peculiar circumstances of his own 
 Diocess, but committing for the present the adminis- 
 tration of its general affairs chiefly to the Archbishop, 
 who as soon as his leisure will permit, will proceed to 
 execute what he has undertaken. Our object is, as 
 . far as practicable, to apply some remedy to those evils 
 which we lament, and we trust that your love of truth 
 and your zeal for virtue will lead you to co-operate 
 with us, to the best of your power, for this most neces- 
 sary purpose. 
 
 We would also beloved brethren, renew the entreaty 
 which we have made to you on other occasions, to 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 39 
 
 unite your efforts to ours for upholding those institu- 
 tions which we have created for the education of your 
 children. It is our most earnest wish to make them 
 as perfect as possible, in their fitness for the commu- ' 
 nication and improvement of science, as well as for the 
 cultivation of pure solid and enlightened piety. And 
 if we occasionally experience some difficulty and do 
 not advance as rapidly as the wishes of our friends, or 
 their too sanguine hopes would look for, some allow- 
 ance must be made for the difficulties by which we 
 are surrounded and the opposition which we experi- 
 ence. Yet, these notwithstanding, we are persuaded, 
 that amongst those under our superintendance, are to 
 be found, some of the most scientific and literary houses 
 of education which our nation possesses; some estab- 
 lishments for the instruction of youth, male and 
 female, in which there are successfully taught those 
 speculative and practical lessons which inform the 
 understanding, regulate the imagination, cultivate 
 the taste, ameliorate the heart, improve the disposition, 
 impress the importance and obligation of fulfiling every 
 social, civic, domestic and religious duty, and teach 
 the best mode of their performance. And we trust, 
 that by a continuation of that patronage which they 
 have received, we shall be enabled to behold them 
 fake deep root in our soil, flourish in beauty and 
 vigour, and furnish an abundant supply of useful 
 citizens and christians, fitted for conferring blessings 
 upon that country which protects them and that reli- 
 gion which they profess. 
 
 We would especially commend to your fostering 
 care those pious and meritorious sisterhoods, which in 
 addition to the culture of the youthful mind, gather 
 up the little orphan whom Heaven has deprived of its 
 mother's care, who attend the couch of sickness to 
 moisten the burning lip, to assuage the anguish of 
 pain, to whisper consolation to the raving spirit and 
 to point to the true source of the sinner's hope, when 
 in the dimn0ss of his eye he begins to be sensible of 
 the darkness of the grave. These are the women, 
 who generously devoting themselves to the whole 
 cause of godlike charity, are found in good and in 
 evil report; in the school, in the hospital, in the prison, 
 
40 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 in the hovel of poverty, in the maniac's call, in the 
 midst of pestilence, surrounded by the bodies of the 
 dying and the corpses of the dead; discharging the 
 
 . duties of their holy zeal, alike to the professor of their 
 faith and to its opponent, and tending with the same 
 assiduity the wretched calumniator of their creed, 
 their virtue and their sex, as they would their most 
 generous defender. 
 
 To you, our venerable co-operators in the ministry, 
 priests of Christ Jesus, we say in particular. "Continue 
 you in those things which you have learned, and 
 
 ■ which have been committed to you: know^ing of whom 
 you have learned. And because from your infancy, 
 you have known the holy scriptures, which can in- 
 struct you to salvation, by the faith which is in Christ 
 Jesus. All scripture inspired by God, is profitable to 
 teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct unto justice, 
 that the 'man of God may be perfect, furnished unto 
 every good work."* "Flee youthful desires, and pur- 
 sue justice, faith, charity and peace, with them that 
 call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. And avoid 
 foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they 
 beget strifes. But the servant of ..the Lord must n6t 
 wrangle, but be mild towards aW men, apt to teach, 
 patient, with modesty, admonishing them that resist 
 the truth: if peradventure God may give them re- 
 pentance to know the truth, and they may recover 
 themselves from the snares of the devil, by whom they 
 are held captive at his will."t "Hold the form of 
 sound words w^hich you have heard of us in faith, 
 and in the love which is in Christ Jesus. Keep the 
 good thing committed to your trust by the Holy Ghost 
 that dwelleth in us."| "But according to him that 
 hath called you, who is holy, be you also in all man 
 ner of conversation holy: because it is written, you 
 shall he }iolij,for I am hohjy^ "Be prudent therefore, 
 and watch in prayers. But before all tlAngs have a 
 constant, mutual charity among yourselves; for cha- 
 rity covereth a multitude of sins. Using hospitality 
 one towards another without murmuring. As every 
 man hath received grace, ministering the same to one 
 
 * II. Tim. iii. 14, 15, 16, 17. t II. Tim. Ji. 22, 23, 24, 25, 26. J II. Tim. i. 
 13, 14. § I. Peter i. 15, 16. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 41 
 
 another: as good stewards of the manifold grace of 
 God."* "And you, employing all care, minister in 
 your faith, virtue: and in virtue, knowledge: and in 
 knowledge abstinence: and in abstinence, patience: 
 and in patience, godliness: and in godliness, love of 
 brotherhood: and in love of brotherhood, charity. For 
 if these things be with you and abound, they will 
 make you to be neither empty nor unfruitful in the 
 knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he that 
 hath not these things with him, is blind and groping, 
 having forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 
 Wherefore, brethren labour the more, that by good 
 works, you may make sure your calling and election. 
 For doing these things you will not sin at any time."t 
 "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking 
 care of it, not by constraint, but willingly according to 
 God: not for filthy lucre's sake, but voluntarily: *** 
 being made a pattern of the flock from the heart. And 
 when the prince of pastors shall appear, you shall re- 
 ceive a never-fading crown of glory."J "Be you an 
 example of the faithful in word, in conversation, in 
 charity, in faith, in chastity. * * * Attend unto 
 reading, to exhortation and to doctrine. Neglect not 
 the grace that is in you, which was given to you by 
 prophecy, with the imposition of the hands of the 
 priesthood. Meditate upon these things, be wholly in 
 these things; that your profiting may be manifested to 
 all. Take heed to yourselves and to doctrine: be 
 earnest in them. For in doing this you ^hall both 
 save yourselves and them that hear you."§ "We 
 charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming 
 and his kingdom: Preach the word: be instant in 
 season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all 
 patience and doctrine. * * * Be vigilant, labour in 
 all things, do the work of evangelists, fulfil the ministry, 
 be sober." II ''Charge the rich of this world not to be 
 high-minded, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, 
 but in the living God (who giveth us abundantly all 
 things to enjoy.) To do good, to be rich in good 
 works, to give easily, to communicate to others, to lay 
 
 ♦I . Pet. iv. 7, 8, 9, 10. t II. Pet. i. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 1 1. Pet. v. 2, 3, 4. § I. Tim 
 iv. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. II II. Tim. iv. 1,2, 5. 
 
 6 
 
42 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 up in store for themselves a good foundation against 
 the time to come, that they may lay hold on the true 
 life."* "Whosoever are servants under the yoke, let 
 them count their masters worthy of all honour; lest 
 the name of the Lord and his doctrine be blasphemed. 
 But they that have believing masters, let them not 
 despise them, because they are brethren, but serve 
 them the rather, because they are faithful and be- 
 loved, who are partakers of the benefit. These things 
 teach and exhort"! "And now we commend you to 
 God and to to the word of his grace, who is able to 
 build up and to give an inheritance among all the 
 sanctified. "J 
 
 Beloved brethren of the clergy and laity. "God is 
 not unjust that he should forget your work and the 
 love which you have shewn in his name, j'^ou who 
 have ministered and do minister to the saints; and 
 we desire that every one of you shew forth the same 
 carefulness to the accomplishing of hope unto the 
 end: that you become not slothful, but followers of 
 them, who through faith and patience shall inherit the 
 promises."^ "Wherefore we pray always for you: that 
 our God would make you worthy of his vocation, and 
 fulfil all good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of 
 faith and power, that the name of our Lord Jesus 
 may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the 
 grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ."|| — 
 "But we ought to give thanks to God always for you, 
 brethren, beloved of God, for that God hath chosen 
 you first fruits unto salvation, in sanctification of the 
 spirit and faith of the truth: whereunto he hath called 
 you by our gospel unto the purchasing of the glory of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand 
 fast; and hold to the traditions which you have learned, 
 whether by word or by our epistle. Now our Lord 
 Jesus Christ himself, and God and our Father who hath 
 loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and 
 good hope in grace, exhort your hearts and confirm you 
 in every good work and word."!! 
 
 "For the rest, brethren, pray for us, that the word of 
 God may run and may be glorified, even as among you: 
 
 • I. Tim. vi. 17, 18, 19. t I. Tim. vi. 1, 2. tActs, xx. 32. § Heb 
 vi. 10, 11, 12. II II. Thessal. i. 11, 12. II II. Thessal. ii. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 4S 
 
 and that we may be delivered from importunate and 
 evil men: for all men have not faith. But God is faith- 
 ful, who will strengthen and keep you from evil. And 
 we have confidence concerning you in the Lord that the 
 things which we command, you both do and will do. 
 And the Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God, 
 and the patience of Christ."* 
 
 "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you 
 all, Amen. 
 
 Given in Council, at Baltimore, this 22d day of April, 
 in the year of our Lord, 1837. 
 
 +SAMUEL, Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 
 fJOHN, Bishop of Charleston. 
 
 t JOSEPH, Bishop of St. Louis. 
 
 \BY.n¥.mCT,ZO^. Bishop of Boston. 
 
 tFRANCIS, PATRICK, Bishop of Arath, Coad- 
 jutor of Philadelphia. 
 
 tJOHN, BAPTIST, Bishop of CincinnaU. 
 
 fGUY IGNATIUS, Bishop of Bolina, Coadjutor 
 of Bardstorvn. 
 
 fSIMON, GABRIEL, Bishop of Vincennes. 
 
 fWILLIAM, Bishop of Orio. Coad. of Charleston. 
 
 t ANTHON Y, Bishop of New Orleans. 
 
 * n. Thessal. iii. 1.3, 3, 4, 5, 18. 
 
,1^. 
 
 9 
 
SKETCH 
 
 or A 
 
 SEKMON, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA BIBLE SOCIETY, 
 
 AT ITS ANNIVERSARY, 
 
 IN THE CITY OF RALEIGH, 
 
 ON SUNDAY, THE 12th OP DECEMBER, 1841, 
 
 BY CHARLES M. F. DEEMS, 
 
 AGENT OF THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETT. 
 
 RALEIGH: 
 
 PRINTED BY WESTON R. GA.LE3, AT THE RALEIGH REGISTER OFFICE. 
 
 18 4 1. 
 
At a meeting of tbe North Carolina Bible Society, a motion was 
 TOade by Mr. John Psimrose, seconded and amended by the Hon. Judge 
 Cameron, tbat the thanks of the Society be returned to the Rev. Mr. Deemss, 
 for Uie Sermon delivered belore tliem on the previous Sunday, and that he be 
 •respectfully requested to furnish a copy for publication, under the direction of 
 the Board of Managers. To attend to this business, the Boa*d appointed the 
 Subscribers. 
 
 NELSON B. HUGHES, ^ 
 
 RUFFIN TUCKER, C Committee. 
 
 WESTON R. GALES, > ! . 
 
 NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 The Anniversary Discourse was delivered from very slight notes, and the 
 whole of the following Sermon was written in the interval of business, several 
 days after. Of course the language coufd not be retained, and the autlior is 
 conscious that several illustrations used on 'the occasion have passed from bis 
 mind. Some points, too, are more nearly developed in the written than they 
 were in the spoken Discourse. These remarks are thought to be due to ibeso- 
 who heard the Sermon, and who may kindly peruse this Pamphlet. 
 
sermon: 
 
 *• The word of God is quick and powerful." 
 
 Hebrews, iv, 12; 
 
 This blessed Book, which we have adopted as the rule of' 
 our faith and practice, is known among us by different names. 
 We call it the Bible, as being pre-eminently the most valu- 
 able of all books ; and we call it the Saa^ed Scriptures, 
 because it contains what vye helieve ta- be the writings of 
 Holy men of old, who were inspired from on high. In the- 
 text before us it is called the JVord of God, as coming 
 immediaLely from the mouth of ihe great Creator. And that 
 this volume is not the production of unaided human intellect, 
 but has come from the great Spirit, is a proposition which 
 we not only most heartily adopt, but it is the fundamental 
 article of Christian failh, upon which we build all our hopes 
 of happiness in the world beyond the tomb. 
 
 As believers in the genuineness and Divine authority of 
 the Bible, we cannot see that it requires any unnatural effort 
 of the mind, lo perceive and believe that it is possible and 
 probable that He who has given us bodies and spirits, and 
 established the mystic union between mind and matterj 
 should make a revelation of his nature and will to the 
 creatures whom He has otherwise so abundantly favored* 
 Few are so far gone into the mists of error as to deny that 
 there is some great First Cause ; for Scepticism herself, as 
 she stands before the magnificent temple of Nature, musi 
 silently commune with thoughts of the glorious Architect;, 
 and when she penetrates the Holiest of Holies oimteWeoX, 
 she is awed into religious silence, under an almost oppressive 
 conception of the unfathdmed resources of the Omnipotent 
 Original Mind. How, then, shall we dare to question 
 whether it is possible for that great First Cause to make any 
 impressions upon. the spirit whiebspfUng from his own? 
 
If he has created matter and modified li into a myriad of 
 combinations, and is able still to operale uoon *■, jnd even 
 to annihilate ii ; if that inlangible ageni, !he ji.'*:7i 'ms 
 obtained all its endowments from the Crea.or, who 1)» suy 
 that it may not receive any impress-oos from ii' s)* ' ? 
 
 Is it not probable, too, that God — or Ctd'. the riv.hor of 
 Life by whatever name you p'easf' — would make >^ :cvp\'-ioa 
 to his creatures ? Hush the voice of the Bible and ilie Priest, 
 and listen to the speakings of Nature. She lells us ihat on 
 all her broad bosom she bears not an irrational crea'.tire wh ch 
 is born to pains, and which has a longing unsaiisj'ed. She 
 tells us that He who gave them desires has prepared v , .1- 
 dantly for their gratification. Let us then look in upon 
 ourselves. Each one of us finds himself to be a snguh r and 
 incomprehensible union of substances we call master . nd 
 mind. The peculiar conformation of the former, we c«ll 
 body^zxidi find in the ample store-house or Natui e u provision 
 for all the wants of this body by Him who created it. The 
 mind, a more subtile production of this great First Cause, 
 has as many desires as the body upon which it operates, and 
 these desires are far more refined than the appeiile^ of the 
 body which it inhabits. Now, if the Author of all has made 
 a full preparation for the satisfaction of the body, can it be 
 thought that He would purposely or inadverienily overlook 
 the wants of the mind? Such an assertion would be a libel 
 upon Him who has made in mind, what He has not in matter, 
 a resemblance of Himself. Among other things we find that 
 the spirit within us has an anxious craving, — we cannot say 
 that it is unlawful, — to know its origin and its destiny. 
 When it has tested the extent of its powers, it feels that it 
 could never have come into existence of its own accord, and 
 that the source of its existence must be Ihan iisolf inconceiv- 
 ably far more powerful and j^lorious. When it looks into 
 the future, it can sec nothing in the dissolution which it finds 
 must take place between it and the body, to suspend or de- 
 stroy its own existence. Beyond that hour of dissolution, 
 what shall be its abode and its company, its powers and its 
 employments, arc questions which become unspeakably im- 
 
portant. In vain does it seek a reply from Nature's thousand 
 ,voices. and it turns its anxious eye to its Author to know 
 t\iese things wh-ch so relale to itself. But, who and what is 
 ihi>c Author? And the profound silliness of the Universe, 
 vviien ihe soul proposes the solemn question, settles upon it 
 with a most oppressive heaviness. Can it be possible that 
 H<^ has. >nt ead the snieodid firmament above us, and painted 
 i'- rich scenery of earth around us, lo give us indubitable 
 nroo 'that He exists, and then retire behind the veil which 
 we cannot p'erce, (o enjoy the malignant pleasure of behold- 
 ing ITis oeatures grop'iig ai'ler Him until they fall into the 
 pit of the grave ? if Jle thought it not trifling to create us, 
 Oh! wouM it be «'ondescendiiigtoo mach to reveal Himself, 
 in oart at 'east, that the awful suspense of our spiritual igno- 
 rance ni'ght be removpu ? From tiie Utile we behold of Him 
 in t'l? ofks or His hands, especially in our bodies and spir- 
 it::!, vv^ oi\o[nde \b I. thete is the st ongest probabiJiLy that 
 th Ai: lor oCLiie and of the Universe would instruct His 
 c ' i .''en. 
 
 And no /, with this probability strengthening upon it, 
 Where .shall vne human mind turn to fmc' this revelation ? 
 It is not upoii the page of Nature, for that has been studied 
 in va'n. And of the many theories which have been pre- 
 sented, each has in its turn been discarded as unsatisfactory. 
 The B'ble is now presented with its high claims to a divine 
 origin, and the human mind is called upon Lo render a ver- 
 dict in favor of this volume, as being a production of infinite 
 mind. Its defenders say that it brings more external and 
 internal evidence of its genuineness and authenticity, than 
 any other book in existence. They say that it contains all 
 that it is necessary for us vo know concerning the nature of 
 the Creative Cause, of ou'selves, our duiies and our destiny. 
 They claim for it a character of truthfulness without the 
 slightesi. mixtu"e ofer.'or ; and challenge for it an examina- 
 tion by the light of all learning and the scrutiny of the 
 sevcest tests. 
 
 That this book is " t!)e word of God," all Christians firm- 
 ly believe. To review the many powerful arguments which 
 
6 > 
 
 sanctified learning has brought to its support^ would be a task 
 which would as far exceed the ability ol" the present speaker, 
 as it would be inappropriate to i his occasion. We cannot 
 forbear, however, alluding to one of its internal arguments^ 
 which alone, we lliink, would be sufficient to commend it to 
 every heart sincerely seeking after truth. It is. that doctrines 
 necessary to the salvaiion of our irhmorlal souls, which could 
 not possibly hiive i)een discovered by Unaided humnn intellect, 
 are clearly and satisfactorily developed in ihe Bible. It is a 
 trulh not only asserted in the Holy Scriptures, bnl corrobo- 
 rated b}'' the history of mind that:" the world by wisdom 
 knew not God." Take the the'ori'es concerning the Deity 
 which aie the offspring of the most gifted m'nds in those 
 ages which had all the light that possibly could be possessed 
 without the Bible, and we find that they I'epresent God as a 
 Being who, with all the greatness wiiii which they clothe 
 Him, is only an Almighty monster. If thns the great have 
 conceived him to be, wbatcaiVWe expectMo oe the ide.'S of 
 the vulgar ? The miis.s hyve m.uie him a de.estable wrelchy 
 superior to themselres only iii his greater ability to indulge 
 more frighifiil lusts. But the Bible gives us a view of His' 
 nature, whicii is as sublime as it is consoling. A secret 
 prompting of his heart told man that iie must appease God, 
 because he was sinful, and was exposed to ))unishment. But 
 the world's wise m^n could not tell hiin where he niiglit be 
 cleansed of liis moral defi'cmpni, they could not devise any 
 manner of mediation between him and his God, they could 
 propagate no pl.tn of salvaiion which would suit all souls, 
 under all circumstances, io the eud of all time. This the 
 Bible does! It reveals a God who* .'ttrinutes of justice and 
 mercy, both infinite, kiss each oiliei- upon a platform which 
 His rigl)t arm has thrown up, in ihe presence of the Universe* 
 for the salvaiion of a worhl. The mightiest human intellect 
 may ponder upon the sublimity of this plan for ages, and 
 rise from the study with e:cpanded powers. It must be from 
 the Creator of all — the book wiiich dcvelojies such glorious 
 doctrines ! As Christians, we so receive it, and present the 
 Bible to the world, saying, " Here is the Word of God I" 
 
Of ?this hook^ the passage, of Scripture before us sqys, it is 
 living diXxA poioerfuL: ; ; , .,, 
 
 I, As our God is living, and is the, fountain of all life, and 
 the source of all existence,,We may reasonably expect that 
 the worrls,- which. proceed out of his^niouth shall .have all the 
 elements of life,; ,..Not Ji.ke the spund which is given from, 
 Aoinanimatething when a mas,ter hand touches it cunningly, 
 
 it;h9!S the tone of life upon it. 
 
 :; The Word; of: God \s living light. "The entrance of 
 Thy word.gi.veth light,." is an exclamation: of the Psalmist, 
 verified in the world by innunierable e:campl.e3. . Apart from, 
 ,the. teachings of the Bible, hpvy darkerjed is the humap mind ! 
 It is true, that in, Christiap lands many men do seem to he 
 possessed of expanded powers of mind, vyho never read the 
 J^ible, and who have never been, accustomed even in child- 
 hood to its. teachings ; but their light is only the reflection of 
 ihat which glows all around them in society. A conversation 
 with .such men would soon, discover their spiritual darkness, 
 .as. there is many a Nicodemus who is celebrated for his 
 Jearning.in the world, and yet not able to corpprehend the 
 simplest d.octrine taught in the school of Christ. An ac- 
 quaintance with general literature, a familiarity with the 
 circle of.lbe sciences, a close study of the arts, will not supply 
 the lack of a. devoted .perusal of the Sacred Scriptures. The 
 chamber of the mind may be well furnished with the rich 
 tapestry of varied learning, and the graceful statuary of polite 
 letters, but unless the living light of "the word of God" 
 .shall illuminate it, its elegant adornment will be useless. 
 The light of truth adds a charm to all beauty. 
 
 .Again : We very frequently find men in the lowest walks 
 of, life, on. whose powers the incubus of poverty has ever 
 pressed, who never had the polish which mingling with the 
 intellectual imparts, but who have been converted to God by 
 his Holy. Spirit, and have thenceforth given attention to the 
 study of his word. How perceptible is the change which is 
 produced upon their minds ! In a short time we find them 
 speaking understandingly of those things of which we thought 
 them profoundly ignorant. And why is this ? Because they 
 
have studied the word of God, and It has turned their mmds 
 in upon themselves, and they have become deeply interested 
 in the sublime doctrines of the Bible. Their minds are now 
 more ready to receive instruction in secular learning, and 
 they have become theologians and metaphysicians at the same 
 time. " It giveth understanding to the simple." 
 
 Let the Bible, " Ihe word of God," be Uiken to a heathen 
 in his own language. It finds him in the veriest darkness* 
 deceiving himself with the illusion that all around him is 
 light But the living light of the word of God plays on the 
 image before which he is bowed in his degrading worship, 
 and he beholds all its horrid deformity. He turns from his 
 Deity wilh disgust, and is driven out a godless wretch. 
 The light enters his mind, and discovers to him the filthy 
 figures which crowd his imagination ; it pierces into Ihe heart 
 and reveals its moral defilement and loailisome leprosy. 
 This living light points him to the sword of justice gleaming 
 from the dark cloud of the true God's indignation against sin, 
 and he is ready to sink into despair. But a concentration of 
 all the light of Ihis wondrous book arrests his sinking mind, 
 and with trembling he follows its brightness unlil it mantles 
 the cross of Calvary. There he " beholds Ihe Lamb of God 
 which takeih away the sins of the word." The pitying 
 glance of that eye In death's agony melLs his heart ; the blood 
 from that pierced side sprinkles him, and lo! he is more 
 spotless than infant purity ! With this '-word of God" in 
 his hand, he joyfully pursues lifers rugged way, for he beholds 
 his path growing brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. 
 
 But the " word of God" is also living seed. Deposited in 
 the heart, as It often is, by some unseen agency, it germinates 
 and brings forth righteousness and bliss. The living preacher 
 is he whom God hath appointed to sow this good seed, and 
 the field is the world. And how often does the minister go 
 to the performance of his public duty with a heart weighed 
 down with some of earth's cares or sorrows ; how often does 
 he retire from the altar to his private chamber, feeling that 
 he is an exceedingly profitless servant ! And yet that very 
 discourse which may seem to him a failure, may be blessed 
 
of the Lord to the salvation of some soul. God does not 
 always show the spiritual husbandman the first quickening 
 of the seed he sows. Let this consolation sustain those of 
 us who minister in holy things, for " in due time we shall 
 reap if we faint not." At the family altar, as well as in the 
 sanctuary, the good seed is planted. How often does the' 
 Spirit of God bless the reading of the sacred Scriptures in 
 families ! Fathers, Mothers, heads of families, fail not daily 
 to gather your little ones to the reading of God's holy word; 
 and if they seem thoughtless be not discouraged, for the liv- 
 ing seed is silently falling upon the fallow ground. Many 
 a winter's snow may come, but as surely as the God of the 
 sun and rain exists it shall survive. The voice of the moth- 
 er will be remembered, when ail else connected with child- 
 hood shall be forgotten. It is the last music which dies out 
 of a boy's heart. Passages of " the word of God" in the 
 mother's tone will often ring upon the heart of the man when' 
 wrinkles and furrows are on his time-worn visage.' Words' 
 of instruction and consolation, and powerful appeals from 
 the Holy Scriptures, breathed upon his mind in earlier days 
 at the family altar, but lost in the lapse of time, will come 
 meltingly upon the young wanderer's heart, when the thou- 
 sand mouths of the Ocean shall 5'awn to swallow him, and the 
 storm-spirit pour its unearthly shriek upon his ears. In 
 these instances, and they are numerous, we find a fulfilment 
 of the prophecy, '•' For as the rain cometh down, and the 
 snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth' 
 the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give 
 seed to the sower, and bread to the eater ; so shall my word 
 be that goeth forth out of my mouth ; it shall not return un- 
 to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and 
 it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." 
 
 " The loord of God is living /" Contrasted with it, all 
 ot-her religious theories are lifeless, all philosophy is dead. 
 Let the Natural Religionist read the page of that volume, 
 which he thinks tells all that the immortal spirit needs to 
 knowr, and If he find a reply it will tell him that there is a 
 a Mighty Spirit in the Universe. But of the character of 
 
10 
 
 that Being its teachings will be ambiguous, for wliilc it has 
 lessons of his love of beauty written with the pencils of light 
 on the graceful flower ; and speaks of his love of grandeur on 
 the rocky tablet of the immense mountain, on the glorious 
 scroll of the firmament, and on the unmeasured undulating 
 face of the ocean — it reveals his terrible misiht in the volca- 
 no, the conflagration, the tempest, and the deluge. And what 
 are the responses of the oracle of the heathen ? With 
 a heart burdened with unspeakably interesting questions, he 
 rushes into the temple and presence of his idol. Tell me, 
 oh, tell me ! he cries, — what and Vv-here the Great Spirit is? 
 And what am I ? and whither bound as carried down this 
 rushing stream of life ? Beyond the portentous clouds which 
 I see settling most heavilv before me, are there torments or 
 is there bliss ? Does an eternal sunlight play on the blessed 
 islands in that veiled state, or do thunders and lightningsand 
 a horrible tempest empty their furies on the ruined soul ? 
 Oh, when this tiresome strife of present existence shall closcy 
 shall I have seen but the beginning of sorrows ? Is not the 
 great Spirit lovely, and will he not save me ? — The God is 
 silent, the oracle is dumb! The Priest who conducts the unhal- 
 lowed service of its damning rites points the enquiring wretch to 
 the instrument of torture, to blasted hopes, to the hearts's finer 
 feelings crushed, to a dark grave and to a hopeless hereafter. 
 It is not so with the word of our God, it is quick and life- 
 giving. As when the Incarnation of that Word stood at the 
 grave of Lazarus and commanded the buried one to come 
 forth, so "the word of God" now speaks to the soul which 
 is dead in trespasses and in sins, and lo ! the tlirill of life 
 shoots through its faculties. And when the enquiring spirit 
 asks of this our oracle it finds a ready and most satisfactory 
 answer. Every objection is anticipated, every fear removed 
 every trouble soothed, every wound gently bound up. The 
 living Word speaks to the soul and bids it be happy, even 
 in this world. It tells the Spirit that God is love, that eve- 
 ry provision is made for its wants, that in this matchless 
 mercy and unfathomed wisdom. He has satisfied the de- 
 mands of Justice and cftcctcd its emancipation. It speaks to 
 
11 
 
 llie Sjiirit and its chains fall off. and in the majesty of truth,' 
 in the strength of freedom, and in the light of love, it treads 
 the temple of that God, whose living word reveals the high 
 and holy destiny which awaits it. It beholds in all things 
 of beauty around it the developement of that undying love 
 which watches all its paths, and which is preparing for it be- 
 yond the tomb a more glorious habitation. For not only 
 does this wokd impart a spiritual life here, but it reveals to 
 the soul the state of unceasing: and blissful existence in the 
 Avorld which is to come, anl informs the Christian that he is 
 now only upon the lowest step of that sublime pyramid of 
 life which he shall be everlastingly ascending, whose sum- 
 mit is lost in the inconceivably intense brightness of JEHO- 
 VAH'S peerless glory. 
 
 And this word of God, so living and life-giving must re- 
 main forever. It bears in itself the elements of indestructi- 
 ble existence. Heaven and earth may pass away, but it shall 
 not be shaken ; for the throne of the Eternal must fall and 
 the light of all life expire, before the words which he speaks 
 shall fail. And here the Christian stands, planting his feet 
 upon the Rock of Ages, while he defies the tempest to rob 
 him of his immortality, or shake his trust in God. Truly, 
 the word of God is living. 
 
 II. The second characteristic of the word of God, is that it is 
 powerful. When that word went out at creation it travers- 
 ed the ocean of chaos and startled myriads of worlds into ex- 
 istence. When that Word appeared on earth in the flesh it 
 was a power which suspended the laws of nature, working 
 astonishing miracles and destroying the power of sin. That 
 Word, as written out in a volume, is powerful, even " thfi 
 power of God unto salvation." 
 
 The effect which the perusal of the Sacred Scriptures has 
 upon a man is very different from the study of any human 
 composition. There is nothing in the writings of the learn- 
 ed, in the theories of philosophers, to change a man's entire 
 nature. Even those who have been the authors of the best 
 moral precepts have frequently been most wretched exem- 
 plars in practice!' But the Bible, having been written by the 
 
12 
 
 all-wise God, through his amanuenses, holy inspired men, is so 
 perfectly adapted to every circumstance under which every 
 man is placed, that it exercises a power over the human 
 mind and heart which nothing else possesses. An arm of 
 Omnipotence as it is, it beats down the bulwarks of pride 
 and unbelief, bursts open the doors of the heart, seizes the 
 lion in his fury and binds him with fetters of adamant. It 
 leaps from heaven, a blessed preserver, into the torrent of 
 .sin on which the soul of man is borne to destruction, rolls 
 back the tide of nature, brings him up from the fearful abyss 
 and places him on an eminence from which he can behold 
 his former danger and adore his Redeemer. 
 
 The word of God by enlightening the intellect has given 
 man the ability to see the way which leadeth to God through 
 Jesus Christ. At the foot of the mercy seat he hath been 
 .pardoned, at the foot of the Cross he hath been cleansed. 
 With his mind purified, his affections hallowed, his soul sanc- 
 tified, the man hath become a benefactor. He takes no lon- 
 ger any pleasure in living simply for himself. His mind is 
 now lifted fi'om its filth and degradation and gathers percep- 
 tion of harmony and beauty. Here we have the foundation 
 of the Arts and Sciences which adorn life and administer 
 more refined pleasures to the immortal spirit. It is be- 
 cause the Word of God is in your midst, that your houses 
 are palaces and your meals banquets. As the intellect in- 
 creases in its elevation it slathers clearer ideas of relations, 
 and the Word of God furnishes all necessary standards of 
 judgment in these cases. The husband learns to use his su- 
 periority as not abusing it, and the wife submits to the hus- 
 band, not es to a master, but as to a stronger companion; not 
 as a degradation, but as a relief and a pleasure. The parent 
 learns to value his child, not as a slave to his caprice, but as 
 a stream of intellect which he has the ability to direct for its 
 own endless happiness and the benefit of a world. The child 
 is now bound to the parent, not by a feeling of servile fear, 
 not by a tic which weakens as the parent grows helpless with 
 age, and breaks when he becomes a burden, but a love which 
 is respectful when the parent is at the fullness of his matu- 
 
1 " 
 lo 
 
 rity and becomes more tender and refined as the infirmities 
 of years press him down. Having thus given to man a code 
 of morals to govern a family, the observance of which will 
 ,be crowned with domestic bliss, and the least deviation froiUi-'^ 
 which will produce discord and misery, it leads man to look 
 upon his neighbor as his brother, and a member of the great 
 family of which God is the common Father. "Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself" (Compare that one injunction 
 with the code of morals of heathen philosophers.) Thus we 
 see the social compact strengthened by the holy influence of 
 the Bible. But man has certain rights to be guarded. 
 The Bible clearly sets them forth in a tone of authority 
 which is satisfactory, rebuking the oppressor, giving strength 
 to the oppressed to assert the truth and yet restraining him 
 from all acts of unlawful violence. We here find the pov/er 
 of the Bible to give a balance to Society and to erect a sound 
 fabric of Government. The man changed through the in- 
 strumentality of that Word which is powerful, is not satiS' 
 fied to have a proper government established, and the arts 
 and sciences flourishing; his heart, now a fountain of good- 
 ness, goes out towards his fellow men. This creates the be- 
 nevolent institutions which are the glory of Bible lands. We 
 thus sec the influence of the Word of God upon communities 
 by changing individuals and giving that direction to the 
 strength of their heads and hearts which was originally in- 
 tended by the great Creator. 
 
 The joreac/iz«^'' of "the word of God," hovv^ powerful it 
 has been ! Before it the bold face has blanched and the stout 
 heart quailed. The proud boast of the wicked has been si- 
 lenced, the mockings of the fool have been hushed. The 
 lion and the tiger have been tamed, and the heart of the - 
 lamb has been made powerful for good. ' The torrent intel- 
 lect which was devastating whole regions of mind has been 
 turned into the channels of benificence, and the powers that 
 stagnated in indolence have been sent forth to irrigate the 
 waste and weary land. It has thrown open the prison doors 
 and set the captive free. It has poured light in upon the 
 .depths of darkness. It has gone into the midst of commuui- 
 
It 
 
 tics, and under iUs influence, the ignorant have become wise, 
 the churl liberal, the spendthrift economical, the vulgar re- 
 • fined, and the sinner a saint. Like oil it has allayed the tu- 
 multuous waves of stiife. It has dashed down misrule — 
 trampled upon anarchy, and lifted up the comely form of 
 fainting order. It has extended the sceptre of mercy, and 
 arranged the scales of justice. It has reformed the laws and 
 their executor. As the word of God has been spoken out by 
 the lips of truth, Empires have been convulsed, crowns have 
 fallen, and kingdoms have passed away. Its consolations 
 have been as powerful as its reformatory energy. The wid- 
 ow and the orphan have had their hearts to leap within them, 
 and the fainting traveller over earth's desert has felt the gift 
 of new life as this Word of Power has called him to the wa- 
 ters. Its power has disrobed Death of its terrors and depriv- 
 ed the grave of its victory ; and tlie weak child and feeble 
 woman have calmly walked do\yn tO their resting place with 
 a holy smile on their countenances. Even before the dark- 
 ness of the toKib had entirely shrouded' them, they have seen 
 the first light of a glorious and eternal morning. 
 
 It has been powerful against the enemies of God. Every 
 thing which human ingenuit}"^ and infernal malignity could 
 devise have assailed it. And yet, like the billow-beaten 
 ocean-i'ock, it has been immovcd, while the waves of opposi- 
 tion have fallen back into spray, and the lightnings of perse- 
 cution havebecn woveninto a diadem of glory toadorn itssum- 
 mit. And while God lives it^tvY/ remain — itivi/l be powerful. 
 And why is the ]3ible living Qud poiao-ful / Because 
 the Spirit of the Living and Almighty God is in it. *' All 
 Scripture is given b}' inspiration of God." Take His Holy 
 Spirit from it, and it will be as lifeless and as powerless as a 
 dead body. If we could preach the doctrines of the Bible 
 without any assistance from the spirit of God, we should find 
 "^ it as useless as declaiming the orations of Cicero. Let us, 
 then, remember, in our private study of the Scriptures, that 
 wc are not reading merely the writings of the Prophets and 
 the Apostles, but endeavor to feel each word as though it 
 were spoken immediately from the great God our Savior, 
 
15 
 
 out of heaven and in an audible voice. In our efforts to sup- 
 ply the world with the Bible, let us keep ever upon our 
 hearts the assurance that vve are not sending the words of 
 worldly wisdom, but "the word of God which is living and 
 powerful," and which will do good to the bodies and souls 
 of our fellow men. And Oh ! let us who are engaged in the 
 hallowed co-operation with the blessed Trinity, take the 
 more diligence to make our own peace, calling and election 
 sure ! If the gifted and sainted author of the text, after 
 having seen Christ and possessed the power of working mir- 
 acles, entertained the slightest apprehension lest after having 
 preached unto others he should himself become a cast away, 
 let us not be satisfied unless we feel continually that God's 
 livingwordispowerfulevenuntothe salvation of our own souls. 
 
 And now, brethren beloved, this sacred gift is deposited in 
 our hands by its holy Author, to be dispensed to the whole 
 world. It is a Testament : our Fleavenly Father's will. As 
 the lines have fallen to us In a pleasant place, and we have a 
 goodly heritage, let us not forget our brethren who are away in 
 the darkness of other lands. What shall we say unto God our 
 Father in justification of our conduct if we suffer them to per- 
 ish without telling them of our home in heaven? It may 
 cost us some sacrifice, but let us keep ever before our eyes the 
 example of Him " who though he was rich yet for our sakes 
 became poor,thatwe through his poverty might be maderich.'^ 
 And " if God so loved us we ought also to love one another." 
 
 Father, when you retire from the sanctuary this morning 
 and see the happy faces of your loved little ones around your 
 board, think of your brother in heathendom who has no do- 
 mestic comforts, no pleasant fire-side, no hallowed altar-spot. 
 Christian Mother, let your mind fly from this temple this 
 hour, to behold that mother who is now committing her oft^- 
 spring to the flames or to the waves.* Think not that that mo- 
 
 * To impress this remark, the following anecdote v.'as related : "A Hindoo 
 woman cast her child, between three and four years old, into the Ganges, as an 
 offering to the Goddess. The little creature made its way to a raft of bamboos 
 that happened to be floating by, and seizing one end of it has drifted along, cry- 
 ing to its unnatural parent lor help. Perceiving from the shore the dangers of 
 the child's escape, she plunged into the water, tore away its hold, broke its neck, 
 and hurled its life-warm corse into the middle of die current, by Vvhich it was 
 soon drifted out of sight." — Tyermmi's and Bennett's Journal. 
 
IG 
 
 ther's heart never knew woman's feelings ! "When she first 
 pressed that child to her bosom she felt the rapturous thrill of 
 a mother's pure, devoted affection. But the iron heel of a ty- 
 rannical religion has crushed the buds of her love. Would 
 you save that innocent? Send the Bible and its power shall 
 tear down the temple of the idol and erect the altar of that Re- 
 ligion whose essence is love. Lady, robed, jewelled, accom- . 
 plished and happy, — think of your destitute sister in the dark- 
 ened land ! Less fair, perhaps,than yoursclf,but Oh ! she hath 
 a soul as immortal as your own ! And if you leave her to die 
 in her degradation, at Christ's judgment that she may thus up- 
 braid thee: — I was hungry, and blind, and oppressed, and sinful, 
 andd3'ing; your hands held that which would have relieved me, 
 the tale of my wo fell upon your ear, but with a profitless word 
 of commiseration you turned coldly away to the sound of the vi- 
 ol, and theexcitement of the dance — and I died! How then can 
 the Lord turn uponyou the smiles of his love, when he hath said 
 that "if any man have notthe spirit of Chris' ,he is none of his ?" 
 And now, in behalf of the North Carolina Bible Society, I 
 appeal to this congregation. I feel a solemnity come over me 
 v/hen an appeal on behalf of the cause of Christ is to be made 
 to an assembly of Christian people. It is upon me now, for 
 I know that for all I have said I must give an account ; and 
 lest I have said said something amiss, lest I have left some 
 appeal untouched, there is a fear in my heart. And when I 
 look around upon you and know that God ihe Father, 
 and the blessed Saviour, and the Holy Sanctifier are here, 
 that the Godhead knows the power of His own word and .^ 
 hears the thousand cries and shrieks of a heathen world, and 
 that an account is to be taken of the doings of a crowded, in- 
 tellectual and wealthy assembly of Christians, oh ! how can 
 I but feel for the result ? Remember, my brethren, that "with 
 what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 
 May the Great Head of the Church speedily send the light 
 and health, the lifcand power of his Word to allnationsi And 
 let us remember that he has appointed human instrumentality 
 to accomplish this glorious consummation as wc unite our 
 hearts in responding Ame.v, and A.aiex ! 
 
Lp 
 
 VALEDICTORY SERMON, 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 IN CHmST CHURCH, 
 
 RALEIGH, N. C. 
 
 BY 
 
 RET. GEORGE IT. FREEMAIV, D. D. 
 
 ON HIS RELINQUISHING THE PASTORAL CHARGE 
 
 OF SAID CHURCH. 
 
 RALEIGH: 
 
 rRIKTXO BT "WESTON R. GAt.£S, OFFICE OF TH£ BAXEIGH REQISTEB, 
 
 1841. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 II Corinthians, xiii Chap. 11. 
 
 " Finally, Brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of 
 one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you." 
 
 These words were addressed to the Christian disciples at 
 Corinth. Among these Corinthians, St. Paul had formerly 
 laboured for the space of nearly two years ; having been the 
 first to set before them the Gospel of the grace of God. — 
 During this time, he had had the satisfaction of witnessing 
 the conversion of considerable numbers to the Christian faith, 
 and of seeing the Church well and permanently established. 
 But being afterwards called away by other duties, he soon 
 had the mortification to learn, that the good work, which he 
 had been instrumental in accomplishing, had become sadly 
 marred by the introduction of a contentious and schis- 
 matical spirit ; that the Church, which he had bestowed so 
 much pains in establishing, was split up into parties; that 
 trrievous abuses, both of Christian doctrine and Christian 
 practice, had crept in among them; and that, through the 
 machinations of an unauthorized Teacher, his own influence 
 and authority were greatly diminished. Being moved by this 
 information, he wrote with promptitude his first Epistle ; 
 in which, he boldly asserted his spiritual authority over them ; 
 exposed the insidious arts of the self-constituted Apostle ; 
 reproved the Corinthians for their errors and excesses, and 
 threatened them with the strong arm of discipline. 
 
 This letter, having produced the desired effect, in awaken- 
 ing them to a just sense of their faults and bringing them to 
 a deep feeling of penitence, the compassionate Apostle wrote 
 
to them again, in order to comfort them in their sorrow, 
 occasioned by his former severity, to prepare them for an 
 intended visit, and to confirm them in those Christian doc- 
 trines and principles which he had, from the first, so care- 
 fully inculcated. 
 
 In this Epistle, he employed considerable space in apolo- 
 gizing for himself against certain charges and ijisinuations 
 which had been thrown out, respecting his sincerity and in- 
 tegrity in the discharge of his Ministry, and in justifying 
 his conduct by recounting the evidences of his Apostleship, 
 the scenes of sufiering in which he had borne a distinguished 
 part, and the labours which he had undergone, and the doc- 
 trines which he had preached in the course of his Ministry. 
 In conclusion, he bade them, for the present, an afiectionate 
 farewell ; summing up the particulars of his parting advice, 
 in the words of the Text — " Finally, Brethren, farewell. Be 
 perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace ; 
 and the God of love and peace shall be with you.'' 
 
 And, brethren, may I not with propriety adopt these words 
 of the Apostle as the basis of my parting counsel to you ? — 
 Though no Apostle, certainly, in the sense in which St. 
 Paul was ; though destitute of inspiration, though standing 
 at an immeasurable distance below him in authority, in zeal, 
 in wisdom, in devotedness to the cause of our common Mas- 
 ter; yet, like him, may I not, on this last occasion of ray ap- 
 pearance before you as your Minister, refer to the past exer- 
 cise of my Ministry among you, and leave with you a word 
 of exhortation with respect to the future ? 
 
 When I came first among you, " I came not," as you will 
 readily bear witness, " with excellency of speech, or of ivis- 
 dom ;" and during the space of eleven years, I have con- 
 tinued with you, not in any vain confidence of an ability and 
 strength at all proportionate to the importance of the sta- 
 tion which I have occupied, but " in iveakjicss, and fear, 
 and much trembling.^' Nevertheless, according to my 
 
ability, and agreeably to my understanding of the truth of 
 God, I have made known unto you the way of life. I com- 
 menced my Ministry here, by spreading before you, from 
 this same Epistle of St. Paul, the nature and obligations of 
 the Christian ministry, together with the correlative dut}^ 
 of those for whom that ministry is provided. Ambassa- 
 dors for Christ, heralds of the Cross, stewards of the mys- 
 teries of God, watchmen upon the walls of Zion, we are 
 called upon, (I showed you from the Apostle,) to "renounce 
 the hidden things of dishonesty," not to " walk in crafti- 
 ness," nor to " handle the word of God deceitfully," " but, 
 by Tnanifestation of the truth, to commend ourselves," if 
 possible, " to every man's conscience in the sight of God ;" 
 and in furtherance of this great object, to "preach not our- 
 selves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your ser- 
 vants for Jesus sake." And having shown you what it was 
 to preach one's self, and what to preach Christ Jesus the Lord, 
 I inferred and inculcated your duty in relation to a preached 
 Gospel — proving, that liwe, the Ministers of Jesus Christ, are 
 bound to lay aside all selfish considerations, and to preach 
 unto you the pure Gospel of Christ, the obligation is equal- 
 ly strong upon you, to receive and profit by our preaching. 
 
 Thus it was that I commenced my Ministry as a Preacher 
 of the Gospel among you ; and from that time to the present 
 moment, it has been my constant aim to set before you, with all 
 plainness, and with what of power I possessed, the doctrines 
 and the precepts of the blessed Gospel of Peace — the whole 
 truth as it is in Jesus — and to urge upon you, by the aid of 
 such considerations as the vast importance of your eternal 
 interests most readily suggested, to receive the truth in sin- 
 cerity, to embrace the hope set before you, and thus to " lay 
 up in store for yourselves, a good foundation against the time 
 to come, that you might lay hold on eternal life." 
 
 To this end I have said much to you of your naturally sin- 
 ful, helpless, perishing condition, labouring, by appeals to 
 
6 
 
 your own experience anc! observation, as well as to the holy 
 Scriptures, to convince you of this fundamental truth ; so 
 that being made sensible of your disease and its fatal conse- 
 quences, you might become anxious for relief, and be induced 
 earnestly to apply to that glorious remedy which the mercy 
 of Pleaven has provided. 
 
 This remedy, I have taught, is to be found in the great, 
 the tremendous sacrifice of the Cross; by which, atonement 
 was made for sin, so that God might consistently with justice 
 pardon the sinner, and through which, the gift of the Holy 
 Spirit was procured for the illumination of your understand- 
 ings, the conversion of your hearts, and the sanctification of 
 your whole nature, soul, body and spirit. And to this sac- 
 rifice of the Cross, I have constantly exhorted you to apply, 
 with penitent and contrite hearts, in the full assurance of 
 faith that your application would not be rejected — pointing 
 you, for proof, to the kindly invitation of the Son of God him- 
 self to "all the weary and heavy laden" to " come unto him" 
 and " find rest unto their souls," and his gracious declaration, 
 that " him that cometh unto him he would in no wise cast 
 out." I have encouraged you by the example of the prodi- 
 gal son, to "arise and go to your Father," and by referring 
 you to the most solemn asseveration of our blessed Lord, that 
 " there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one 
 sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just 
 persons which need no repentance." 
 
 I have exhorted you to ^^ strive to enter in at the strait 
 gate," and urged the necessity of so doing from the conside- 
 ration that "many will seek to enter in" who "shall not be 
 able," because they seek not earnestly and perseveringly, or 
 because they seek amiss — -and I have exhorted you to labour 
 diligentl}'^ to " make your calling and your election sure" for 
 the reason, that though " many are called," there are but 
 " few chosen," and that it is only they who "coiitinite in the 
 word of Christ,^' that will be counted his "disciples indeed.'' 
 
I have cautioned you against mistaking the use of the out- 
 ward forms and the prqfessio7i oi reVigion, for religion itself; 
 showing you, by the case of the Pharisee and Publican, that 
 God looks at the real emotions of the heart, rather than to the 
 expressions of the lips, and that he who approaches the mercy 
 seat with the earnest cry, " God be merciful to me a sinner," 
 will go down to his house justified, rather than he who may 
 boastfully exclaim, " God I thank thee that I am not as other 
 men are ;" and proving that no imagined perfections of char- 
 acter will avail you in the sight of God, while it can be em- 
 phatically said to you, as our blessed Lord once said to an 
 amiable youth, " one thing thou lackestj" that, though it is 
 easy to sai/ to the author of our holy religion, " Lord, I will 
 follow thee whithersoever thou goest," yet he who would be 
 the disciple of Christ in reality, must not only say, but do — 
 must "deny himself and take up his cross and follow him;" 
 that " not every one that saith unto him Lord, Lord, shall 
 enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the 
 will" of God ; that whatsoever a man's profession may be, if 
 he be not truly "/or Christ, he is against him;" if he gather 
 not with him he scattereth abroad; and that " if any man 
 have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.'' 
 
 I have warned you of the fruitlessness and the fatality of 
 attempting to " serve tivo masters," so opposite as are God 
 and the world ; of the great danger you incur, by such an 
 attempt, of coming under the condemnation of those who are 
 " lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ;" of the fatuity 
 of suffering yourselves to " be deceived" by the vain hope 
 that you may continue to " soio to ihe flesh" and yet "reap 
 of the spirit;" of the folly of delaying your repentance, like 
 Felix, "to a more convenient season," or presuming, like 
 some of old, on the "long suffering of God," as if he were 
 " slack concerning his promises" and threatenings, "as some 
 men count slackness." 
 
 I have warned you also against the delusion of expecting 
 
s 
 
 to be justified before God, either by your own good works, 
 or by a barren and unfruitful faith — against the imprudence of 
 affording opportunity to " any man to spoil you of your faith 
 through philosophy and vain deceit;" and against the awful 
 danger, to which you are liable, of being "hardened through 
 the deceitfulness of sin." 
 
 In seasons of trial and affliction, I have counselled you "not 
 to despise the chastening of the Lord," remembering that 
 "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," that "they who 
 sow in tears shall reap in joy," and that, if you " cast your 
 burden on the Lord, he will sustain you." In the hour of 
 doubt and despondency, I have encouraged you to "wait 
 still upon the Lord," in the full confidence that he would 
 " strengthen your hearts," to " be of good comfort and arise 
 for he calleth you to him," and, under the severest trials, not 
 to ^'fear,^^ for, if you do indeed belong to the " little flock" 
 of Christ, you have the assurance that "it is your father's 
 good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 
 
 In fine, so far as space of time, and my abilities have allowed, 
 I have fully spread before you, I trust, the blessed Gospel of 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. " I have not shunned 
 to declare unto you the ivhole counsel of God;" and, I think 
 I may say, that it has ever been my principal aim to render 
 that " counseV^ effectual to your spiritual and eternal well- 
 being, by striving as much as in me lay, to keep always in 
 view the great object of my ministry, so as to be able in sin- 
 cerity to say, "God forbid that I should glory save in the 
 Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is cru- 
 cified unto me and I unto the world." 
 
 But, brethren, these things are not said by way of boasting. 
 Alas ! how little reason have I to glory in what I have done ! 
 Even if "the sjnriV^ had always been "willing," 0, how 
 weak has been the flesh ! Had I been diligent and faithful 
 in performing among you all that it was in my power to do, or, 
 possessing the ability, had I fully discharged all the duties 
 
9 
 
 appertaining to my station, still I should have had no ground 
 for boasting; but must have acknowledged myself to be "an 
 unprofitable servant," who had " done no more than it was 
 his duty to do." But now, when I look back on the past, 
 and call up in review the numerous occasions when I might 
 be justly charged, by him whom I profess to serve, with 
 apathy, with slothfulness, wuth neglect ; when I look over 
 the field in which I have been so long labouring, and see so 
 little really accomplished for the glory of Christ and the sal- 
 vation of the souls committed to my trust, I find, you may 
 well conceive, much greater cause for the deepest humility 
 and sorrow and prostration of spirit, than for any thing like 
 exultation and glorying. No, brethren. Clod forbid that 
 I should seek to magnify my weak, my exceedingly im- 
 perfect services in the Redeemer's cause among you. — 
 My sole reason for this slight recapitulation, is, that thus 
 recalling to your minds some of the truths you have been 
 taught, I may peradventure, lead you to bring yourselves 
 into judgment, and to decide how far you have discharg- 
 ed your duty, in receiving the truth into an honest and 
 good heart, and bringing forth fruit to the honour and glory 
 of God — how far you have been " doers of the word, and not 
 hearers only." And happy will it be, brethren, both for 
 you and for me, if the result of such retrospect and self-exami- 
 nation, shall be deep contrition for our past remissnesses and 
 unprofitableness, and a- greater degree of earnestness, a more 
 hearty and thorough engagedness in the great work, which, 
 as Christians, we all have to do. 
 
 Having thus briefly called your attention to the past, I 
 would now direct it to the future. As this day terminates 
 our connexion as Pastor and flock, as this is my last address 
 to you in that endearing relation, it seems to me not unfit, it 
 seems exceedingly appropriate, that I should address you in 
 the language of the Apostle — " Finally, Brethren, farewell. 
 Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace ; 
 and the God of love and peace shall be wj>th you." 
 
10 
 
 Permit me then to explain, to enlarge upon, and to apply^ 
 this farewell advice of the Apostle to the Corinthians, asvij/ 
 parting counsel to you. And should you receive it in the 
 same spirit of sincerity and affection in which it is offered, I 
 cannot but cherish the hope that it will not have been ten- 
 dered in vain, but will prove to you a word fitly spoken and 
 in season — yea, even a "savour of life unto life" to your souls. 
 
 The first part of the Apostle's exhortation is " Be perfect." 
 This, taken literally according to the translation, means, "g© 
 on unto perfection — come not to a stand in your Christian 
 profession — be not content with moderate attainments, but 
 aim at the full completion of the Christian character — labour 
 after perfection in holiness, perfection in knowledge ; cherish 
 every grace and every virtue unto maturity ; and cease not 
 your exertions till ready to be crowned with the cheering 
 sentence in a better world, "well done good and faithful ser- 
 vant, enter thou into the jo)?^ of thy Lord/' 
 
 This, certainl)', is the doctrine of Scripture, whether it 
 be inculcated in this particular place or not ; and I may well 
 be excused, if I embrace the occasion, briefly to apply it. — 
 Some people seem to think they have done enough in the 
 way of religion, and for their own souls, when they have 
 summoned up sufiicient resolution to make a public profes- 
 sion of the faith of the Gospel — and that after this, provided 
 they are not positively and flagrantly vicious, they are very 
 good Christians and have but little more to do. But, breth- 
 ren, let it not be so with you. Remember that your public 
 profession of Christianity in the sacraments and ordinances of 
 the Church, was but the commencement of a work, which 
 you then covenanted to carry on, diligently and without in- 
 termission — the beginning of a icarfure with the great ene- 
 mies of your salvation, " the world, the flesh and the Devil," 
 in which you solemnly pledged yourselves to "fight man- 
 fully" as the " faithful Soldiers" of Jesus Christ, even " unto 
 the end of your lives.^'' 
 
11 
 
 You have been taught that the Christian life is progres- 
 sive (even like the morning light which shines more and 
 more unto the perfect day) — that you are to ^' grow in grace 
 and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" 
 — and that you must be always pressing forward " towards 
 the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
 Jesus," or you can never hope to attain unto " the end of 
 your faith," " the salvation of your souls." Be not satisfied, 
 then, with a loiv standard in your religion — think it not 
 enough, that you are outwardly observant of the Lord's day, 
 constant in your attendance on public worship, exact in your 
 private devotions, scrupulous in the daily reading of the 
 Scriptures, and moral in your life and conversation in the 
 world ; but strive also, after holiness of heart and life. Aim 
 to be truly converted to God, and thoroughly imbued with 
 the spirit of his Son's Gospel. To this end pray, continu- 
 ally, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, " that 
 he would grant you to be strengthened with might by his 
 spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your 
 hearts by faith ; that ye being rooted and grounded in love^ 
 may be able to know the love of Christ which passeth 
 knowledge," and thus "be filled with all the fulness ofGod.^* 
 
 The meaning of the expression, however, in the original, 
 here rendered " Be perfect," is put together again or restore 
 what was before deranged or out of joint. And if we sup- 
 pose the Apostle to have had reference in his advice here, to 
 those divisions and contentions which had formerly prevailed 
 among the Corinthians, it might with much propriety be 
 translated, be reunited, or be reconciled again. " The Apos- 
 tle's meaning," says one of the commentators, "is, that where- 
 as the members of the Church were all, as it were, dislo- 
 cated or out of joint, the}'' should be joined together again 
 in love ; and they should endeavour to make perfect, what 
 was amiss among them, either in faith or manners." And, 
 in this sense also, I may be permitted to apply the exhorts- 
 
12 
 
 tion to ^0?;, brethren. Whatever differences of opinion may 
 have existed among you hitherto, suffer them to continue no 
 Jonger. Be reunited and knit together in the bonds of Chris- 
 tian friendship and brotherly love. Have any, through dis- 
 satisfaction with some of their brethren, or with their Min- 
 ister, or for any other cause, been prompted to withdraw 
 from the communion of the Church or from the common 
 Avorship of the Sanctuary ? Or, are there any unholy, un- 
 friendly feelings between different members of the congre- 
 gation, which prevent the mutual interchange of social inter- 
 course and good offices, or that union of counsel, influence 
 and support, so necessary to the prosperity of the Church ? 
 0, my brethren, he united again — he perfectly joined to- 
 gether i?i love. Let not the welfare of your own souls, the 
 interests of religion at large, or the advancement of the 
 Church of your affections, he hindered by private views, by 
 party prejudices, or by personal dislikes. Especially, now, 
 when you have to provide a successor to him who is about to 
 leave you, let all dissentions cease ; and let the only emula- 
 tion rmong you be, who shall show most attachment to the 
 cause of Christ, vyho shall be most active in promoting the 
 peace and unity and prosperity of his Church. Be jjerfect; 
 grow in grace — increase in holiness — be completely united, 
 and steadfastly maintain "the unity of the spirit in the bond 
 of peace." 
 
 The next part of the Apostle's advice is, "Be of good 
 comfort;" that is, be not cast down, but take courage and 
 put your trust in the Lord. This might have been intended 
 to apply to such of the Christian brethren as had been over- 
 whslmed with sorrow, produced by the severity of the Apos- 
 tle's reproof in his former epistle. Finding them so tender 
 of conscience, so easily affected by his rebukes, and so deep- 
 ly penitent for their faults, he \tas probably anxious to raise 
 them up from their despondency, and restore them again to 
 cheerfulness and peace of mind. " Be ^lot disheartened," he 
 
1^ 
 
 would seem lo say, "you are sensible of your faults and sorry 
 for them — you have renounced your errors and commenced 
 a new course of action — " be of good comfort," then — with 
 humility and penitence cast yourselves at the foot of the 
 Cross, and your sins and iniquities shall be remembered no 
 more." 
 
 In the same language would I address such of you, my 
 brethren, as may be cast down by a sorrowful sense of past 
 transgressions — look upon the Cross of Jesus Christ — see 
 what he has done and suffered in order to take away your 
 sins, and be not prevented from going to him, either by the 
 number or the aggravation of your offences. But, be of good 
 comfort, arise and seek confidently, the pardon which he has 
 died to procure you. 
 
 In like manner, should you be called to struggle with the 
 trials and distresses incident to human life — should disap- 
 pointment and sorrow overtake you — should the waves of 
 affliction and mourning break over your heads — should your 
 pathway be beset with briars and thorns, and should the wide 
 bosom of the world offer to your anxious eye nought but the 
 prospect of a barren and trackless wilderness — still I would 
 exhort you to " be of good comfort" — when trouble is near 
 the Lord is not afar off=r-cast your burden therefore, cast all 
 your cares and sorrows on him, and he shall sustain you. — 
 Put your trust in him, and you shall be supported — Be strong 
 in the Lord and in the power of his might, and he will not 
 suffer your feet to be moved. 
 
 And so, are there any of you sorrowful at parting with 
 your Minister, to them also would I apply the Apostle's 
 words, "Be of good comfort," This separation, though pain- 
 ful, is but for a time — we shall meet again — rif not here in 
 this world of trial, yet in that blessed world above, we may 
 hope to meet, where there shall be no more separation — no 
 more sorrovi^ nor crying ; but where all tears shall be wiped 
 h'ortx our eyes. " Be of good comfort," beloved — though scp-. 
 
14 
 
 arated in person, wc shall be united in heart and affection — 
 iinited in one common hope — united in prayer to the one 
 God and Father of us all — united in pressing onward in the 
 same narrow path, towards the same blessed mansion, which 
 our common Lord and Master and only Saviour has gone to 
 prepare for us. 
 
 The next advice of the Apostle is " Be of one mind," or 
 as the original may, more literally, be rendered, think or 
 mind the same thing. This, of course, is not to be so un- 
 derstood, as if the Apostle meant to enjoin a universal 
 agreement in matters of mere opinion. There are many 
 things about which men may lawfully differ in sentiment : 
 indeed, they are so variously constituted by nature, that uni- 
 versal accordance in opinion must be regarded as nearly 
 impracticable. But the advice is given to Christians, and 
 has reference, mainly, if not solely, to those doctrines and 
 principles, by which they are to be distinguished from the 
 restof the world around them. In /Ae^e it must be highly im- 
 portant that they be of one mind — a difference here, must 
 necessarily involve consequences of the most disastrous kind. 
 Of this, the Corinthians derived abundant proof from their 
 own experience ; when, according to the Apostle, there ex- 
 isted envying and strife and divisions among them. Their 
 want of consent in doctrine — of oneness of mind in the du- 
 ties of their Christian calling — had opened the door to many 
 excesses, introduced confusion into their counsels, and well 
 nigh totally destroyed their existence as a Church. 
 
 And such is the manifest tendency of a ivant of union in 
 sentiment, among Christians at the present day. Well, 
 therefore, may I, brethren, on taking leave of you as your 
 Minister, exhort you, with the Apostle, to " be o{ one mind.-^ 
 And this I would press upon you, as essentially necessary to 
 your present well-being, and to your future prosperity as a 
 Church. '' Be of one mind," in regard (o the great doctrines 
 of the Bible, as set forth and explained in the Liturgy, offices 
 
15 
 
 and articles ol the Book of Common Prayer. Suffer no one 
 to unsettle your faith in those doctrines, or to lower your 
 estimate of their importance. Give no place to that sugges- 
 tion of the Devil, that articles of belief are of no value, and 
 that you may be sound Churchmen and good Christians with- 
 out troubling yourselves about doctrines and creeds. But 
 hold fast your profession as Christians and as Churchmen, 
 without wavering, and earnestly "contend for the faith once 
 delivered to the saints." 
 
 " Be of one mind," also, in respect to the settlement and 
 the treatment of your next Minister. In this matter, it is 
 highly important that you should think or at least speak, 
 the same thing. Without unanimity here, all human efforts- 
 to advance the prosperity of your Zion, must prove unavail- 
 ing — and though you may have a Minister, yet his situation 
 will be uncomfortable, and his prospect for usefulness among 
 you, almost hopeless. Should you, therefore, be so fortu- 
 nate as to obtain a Pastor willing to cast in his lot among, 
 you, who, possessing useful, if not showy talents, is sound in 
 principle as a Churchman, evangelical in doctrine, holy in 
 life, zealous and in earnest in the cause of Christ and the sal- 
 vation of immortal souls ; 0, let no considerations merely per- 
 sonal, no private views, no capricious preferences of another, 
 no party prejudices, prevent your being heartily united in 
 contributing to his support and comfort, in strengthening, 
 his hands and encouraging his heart, and in convincing him, 
 that, whatever differences there may be in tnere opinion, be- 
 tween you and him, you are determined that, at least in 
 practice, you and he, will be of "one heart and one sout.'^ 
 
 Above all, brethren, be of one mind in regard to the great 
 end of your Christian calling. In this respect, it is of infinite 
 moment that you should all think the same thiiig, that you 
 should fix your minds and hearts upon the same object, that 
 you should agree to travel the same road. Let the one thing 
 needful, the religion of the Gospel, the means of salvatio^n-y 
 
16 
 
 be that in which you all agree, the object of all your exer- 
 tions, the centre of all your hopes. In this let us all be 
 united — tlds^ let us all seek after, at all times, with one 
 heart and one soul, so that when called to separate from 
 one another in this world, as we must all sooner or later cer- 
 tainly look for, we may be comforted with the blessed as- 
 surance, that we shall meet again, in the world to come, 
 around the throne of God. 
 
 The last particular of the Apostle's farewell advice is, "live 
 in peace." This is an exhortation always needful in this 
 world of tumult and strife, and well worthy of being heeded 
 by all classes of men. But it is specially important that it 
 be observed by them who are members of the household of 
 Him, who is emphatically styled the Prince of Peace, and 
 among them, if any where, we have a right to look for peace- 
 It was the parting legacy bestowed by our "blessed Lord 
 upon his Church, a little before his death, " Peace I leave 
 with you, my peace I give unto you." And it is only so 
 far as this precious legacy is preserved among Christians at 
 the present, that they truly deserve the appellation of disci- 
 ples of Christ. If then, brethren, you would maintain the 
 honour of the Christian name, and prove your claim to be 
 counted followers of Jesus, " live in peace." 
 
 Be at peace among yourselves. Causes of offence will 
 arise among you. Events will be perpetually occurring, cal- 
 culated to try your patience, to irritate your temper, to pro- 
 voke, perhaps, your indignation. But these must all be met 
 by the exercise of the Christian virtues of forbearance, meek- 
 ness, humility, gentleness and an affectionate, conciliatory 
 disposition. Brethren of the same family must be mutually 
 yielding, compliant and forgiving. "The servants of the 
 Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all, patient, in 
 meekness instructing all that oppose themselves," " forbear- 
 ing one another in love; endeavouring to Icee]) the unitv of 
 the .-spirit in tiie bond of peace." 
 
" Live in peace," also with others, those who arc not of 
 the household of faith — even those who are not of the same 
 mind with you, in religious things, according to that of the 
 Apostle — " if it be possible as much as lieth in you live peace- 
 ably with all men." Cultivate a friendly disposition to- 
 wards them — seek all opportunities of doing them good — be 
 not too ready to believe reports of their harsh expressions or 
 evil designs towards you — and especially return not evil for 
 evil, or railing for railing — but contrariwise, blessing. — 
 And ever remember that the true Christian spirit prompts 
 its possessor to forgive an injury, so soon as it is committed' 
 — so do, and you will " live in peace." 
 
 But be careful above all things that you "live at peace" 
 with God. This, brethren, is your grand concern. This 
 is the point to which the whole circle of Christian virtues 
 tend as to their centre. This is the sum of all Christian per- 
 fection — the goal to which all your efforts must be directed. 
 And unless you attain to this, however you may live, you 
 can neither die in peace, nor dwell with peace hereafter. — 
 0, then, labour earnestly for reconciliation and peace with 
 God; be faithful in the examination of yourselves, and im- 
 portunate in your application to the great mediator of peace 
 between God and man ; be vigilant in keeping your hearts 
 and ruling your lives. In fine — be perfect; be of good com- 
 fort; be of one mind; live in peace; and the God of love 
 and peace shall be with you. Yes, brethren, God shall be 
 with you — he hath so declared by his holy Apostle, and he 
 will keep his word. Be you but sincere and honest in your 
 profession of attachment to his service — be but obedient and 
 faithful, and you shall not be left destitute — God will come 
 unto you and dwell with you in love and in peace. Be you 
 of one mind and love one another, and the love of God shall 
 fill your hearts. Be you perfect and live in peace, and the 
 peace of God shall always attend you. 
 
 The God of love and peace shall be with you, to bless and 
 
IS 
 
 prosper his Church. He will not suffer his vineyard to lan- 
 guish, nor give his heritage to reproach. He will be a wall 
 of defence to his people who trust in. and are obedient to his 
 >vjll, and will not suffer the foot of pride to come near to hurt 
 ihefn, nor the hand of the ungodly to cast them down — By 
 his gracious presence, he will comfort them in their sorrow, 
 and cheer them in the darkest hour of their desolation — He 
 will make their " peace to be as a river, and their righteous- 
 ness as the waves of the sea." 
 
 And if the God of love and peace shall thus be with you, 
 dear brethren, then be not dismayed at the approach of evil 
 — be not cast down by the appearance of trouble ; but take 
 courage and trust in him. What he doeth unto you by his 
 trial*!, ye know not now, but ye shall know hereafter. Hope 
 in God, and you shall yet praise Him — seek a refuge in "the 
 secret place of the most High," and you shall stcxircly ^^ abide 
 under the shadow of the Almighty." 
 
 And now, beloved brethren, and fiiiend?, a few Vtords 
 more, and my message to you is e.nded. The ministry which 
 I have so long exercised among you, is this day brought to a 
 close. For eleven years, nearly one sixth part of the lifp of 
 man, I have been your Minister, the appointed watchman for 
 your souls — and during this long period, it is not improba^ 
 ble, that I may sometimes have erred, both in doctrine and 
 in practice. But if there has been any thing in the instruc- 
 tions which I have given you, inconsistent with the truth 
 and the spirit of Christ's Gospel ; if ever a word has fallen 
 from my lips censorious or uncharitable ; if any part of mj- 
 conduct has been at variance with the principles of the reli- 
 gion which I profess; and if, in any of these respects, I have 
 been a stumbling block and a rock of offence, or have need- 
 lessly give pain to a single soul among you, as I most hum- 
 bly pray for the pardoning mercy of God, so also, I here in 
 .sincerity crave your lbrgivenc:<s. And as I would hope for 
 this mercy myself, so do I most frecl}' extend it to others. — 
 
19 
 
 If there is a single person among you, whose enmity I have 
 incurred, (I do not believe there is one in this whole aom- 
 munity) — if any of you have ever done, attempted, or thought 
 to do me evil, in word or deed, I do most heartily forgive 
 him — as well as, most sincerely declare, that there dwells 
 not the individual in this community towards whom I enter- 
 tain any harsher feelings than those of kindness and good will- 
 Most sincerely, then, can I say to you all, Farewell. — 
 And I heartily pray to God that you may, indeed, fare well, 
 in all things — in your worldly business, in your family rela- 
 tions, in your religious interests — in life — in the hour of 
 death, and throughout all eternity. 
 
 And now, brethren, let us draw near to the tabic of our 
 common Lord and Saviour, and while there, celebrating his 
 great sacrifice of himself for our sins, let us pray earnestly 
 for ourselves, and for one another, that we may al! be perfect, 
 be of good comfort, be of one mind, and live in peace— and 
 that the God of love and peace nny be with us both no'^v 
 and forevermore ! 
 
 # 
 
^Japf 
 
 w • 
 
I 
 
 USEFUL LIFE 
 
 AND 
 
 A PEACEFUL DEATH: 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 LEGISLATURE OF NORTH CAROLINA, 
 
 DECEMBER 18, 1842. 
 
 BY REV E. L MAGOON, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH, 
 RICHMOND, VA. 
 
 RICHMOND; 
 
 PRINTED BY H. K. ELLYSON, 
 
 1843. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The author of this pamphlet visited Raleigh, for the purpose 
 of attending a series of religious meetings. On the night of his 
 arrival, he was present at the organization of an Executive, Legis- 
 lative and Judiciary Temperance Society, and, after an address on 
 the occasion, vvras desired to preach before the Legislature on the 
 following Sabbath night. The largest church was procured, a 
 very full audience of every rank were present, and the following- 
 discourse was submitted. 
 
 A request was soon after received, signed by twenty-one Sena- 
 tors and Members of the House of Commons, " in behalf of them- 
 selves and their associates," desiring a copy for publication. 
 This request is reluctantly complied with, urged chiefly by the 
 desire that the publication may prove beneficial to citizens renown- 
 ed for a tolerant spirit. 
 
 As early as 1672, George Fox, when he had crossed "the 
 great bogs, laying abroad anights in the woods by a fire," and 
 reached the groves of Albermarle, " met with a tender people " 
 who received " the authority of truth ; " and when he had " opened 
 many things concerning the light and spirit of God that is in 
 every one, " he was still " received lovingly. " From the house 
 of the Governor, who "heard him meekly," he went to the resi- 
 dence of " Joseph Scot, one of the representatives of the country 
 where he had a sound and precious meeting with all conditions of 
 people ; " and when he returned to Virginia, he declared that ho 
 found the people of North Carolina, " generally tender and open, " 
 and that he had made among them " a little entrance for truth. " 
 
 The characteristics which this envoy of humanity found in that 
 chivalrous State yet remain. The kindness which the unworthy 
 author received Avill be gratefully remembered, and in return he 
 prays that every soul on her domain may become enlightened, 
 sanctified and saved, E, L. M. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 Acts xiii : 36. — For David, after he had served his own 
 ^'eneralio/t hy the will of God^ fell on sleep. 
 
 The Apostle uttered these words in his argument at Antioch. 
 His immediate object was, to prove that Jesus was the true Mesi- 
 ah " whom God raised from the dead. " In this allusion to the 
 person of David, we have a compendious description of a good 
 character and a useful man. 
 
 The occasion which has called us together, will, perhaps, re- 
 ^luire and justify a slig'ht departure from the usual style of ser- 
 monizing ; but while we proceed to discuss some of the great 
 principles which relate to the general good, most earnestly is it 
 desired that none of you will forget the dread responsibilities con- 
 nected with your personal relation to Almighty God. In this 
 service we shall consider the subject of A Useful Life and a 
 Peaceful Death. 
 
 It is said of the ancient Monarch of Israel that " He served his 
 own generation by the will of God. " This will suggest several 
 particulars. 
 
 In the first place^ he took his position in society as Providence 
 directed, and recognized this life as a state of active service. He 
 felt a tie linking him to his brother man, to all men, and while he 
 served them beneficently, he felt most deeply that his highest 
 relation was a divine one, and because he was truly devout, his 
 patriotism was the inspiration of goodness. He was greatly sincere 
 in his uncommon greatness ; though imperfect in his life, he was 
 perfect in his purposes, and hence he was by infalible wisdom 
 declared to be "a man after God's own heart. " His repentance 
 was as profound as his faults were obvious. He was "zealous for 
 the Lord, " and desired the prolongation of earthly existence only 
 that he might be more useful. In the seventh chapter of Acts it 
 is said that " David found favor before God, and desired to find a 
 tabernacle for the God of Jacob. " Perseverance, that great ele- 
 ment of usefulness, entered into his composition. Having served 
 the world through a long life in the highest station, he Inade his 
 death-bed a throne of perpetual admonition, from which he taught 
 his son to "show himself a man," aud died prajdng that his iuflu- 
 
ence might be augmented through the agency of worthy successors. 
 
 In the second place, this ancient servant of God and humanity 
 served his generation. By this we arc to understand that he. 
 served the age in which he lived. He Avent out of himself, rose 
 above the narrow and contemptible precincts of sectional preju- 
 dice and took generous and comprehensive views. It is not 
 forgotten that public men are here, — men who rule this common- 
 wealth and legislate for this great people, — men older, wiser, and 
 better every Avay than the speaker. We come not here intention- 
 ally to degrade the pulpit so low as to make it the desecrated scene 
 of political fulminations, nor would we willingly deserve contempt 
 by presuming to dictate to your superior sense. But we meet as 
 citizens of a common country, christians of a common faith, and 
 descendants of a race who never deemed it irrelevant to inquire 
 earnestly into the process by which successive generations have 
 been served and by which coming ages should be blessed. How 
 will the Christian Patriot serve his age? 
 
 First of all he must understand it. He must be capable of 
 imbibing its spirit before he can ennoble it. The wind must not 
 only be strong, but it must come in contact with the sea before the 
 billows roll and are purified by the motion. As well might we 
 expect, that of itself "the spicy breath of Araby" would cause 
 the stormy Atlantic to swell and dash against the adverse shore 
 as that the great mass of the people will be moved and elevated, 
 and constantly impelled towards one great point by the conflicting 
 whims of those whom luxury has emasculated of strength, and 
 ignorance has incapacitated for counsel. 
 
 Moreover, one will begin to understand his age just as soon as 
 he has the power oi feeling its claims. Cold theorizers and frigid 
 dogmatics are obsolete in our day. Men of acute sympathy are 
 our men of power, and men who have had experience among the 
 people, are the leaders who have won wisdom in the best school, 
 and with that prophetical sagacity which is quickened by the throb- 
 ings of the popular pulse can intelligently guide human destinies 
 to the noblest goal. What is the predominant character of our 
 age? Action! Who are fitted to serve it? Men who are active, 
 who are practical, and who in every vocation are working men. 
 The age of metaphysical disquisition is past, and the time has 
 come when if one would be useful he must be active in acquiring 
 wisdom and equally mdustrious in embodying all he acquires in 
 magnanimous acts which are palpable to the general feelings and 
 conducive to universal good. Hcaltliy souls in sound bodies, men 
 of solid qualities and indomitable application are dt mandcd now. 
 This age though distinct is not seperate from those that have pre- 
 ceded. We are bound to past generations, even to tlie most remote, 
 by a sublime connection. Our age i.'^ the cnniulatf^d and com- 
 pressed result of all antiquity, as the majestic river widening to 
 the sea, is the rcsuU of every tributary, however obscure, and of 
 
every fountain, however small. Hence he w^ho would mould and 
 guide the elements of the future should not take his position as a 
 pilot in the eddying current of opinions until he has explored the 
 past and caught an inspiration commensurate with the magnitude 
 of the world's increasing claims. Our proper destination is into 
 purer and deeper waters; but he who is ignorant of what has been 
 will be most indifferent to what needs be, and will be as likely to 
 navigate his craft in one direction as another. 
 
 There are two Avays by which we obtain the power of serving 
 our generation. The first lies in generous and comprehensive 
 self-culture. Human nature is identical in its constitution and in 
 its susceptibility to social influence. We thrill others most when 
 our own soul is best toned. But the elements of public thought 
 are diversified, temperaments differ, and local characteristics con- 
 flict. He therefore who is to mingle among all and would move 
 each must possess an education as varied as the multifarious gra- 
 dations of the surrounding intellectual world, and must urge 
 repugnant demands through the universal avenue of love. The 
 giant in his best condition can move no farther than he takes hold. 
 The power of grasping moral powers is moral, and is within us. 
 We reach the soul through the soul, — we arouse the passions 
 only through the passions. True power is intellectual. Its 
 honor and reward lies in the capacity of uttering the bright coin- 
 age of immortal thought. 
 
 Providence has appointed our existence in an age and country 
 most favorable for the illustration of this point. In ruder ages, 
 physical strength obtained mastership in life. In the subsequent 
 era of chivalry, the prowess of military chieftains monopolized 
 the brightest smiles and the highest honors. But under the high- 
 er civilization of modern times, beautiful thought is the favorite 
 sovereign, who from the printed page or speaking lip sways with 
 omnipotent energy a sceptre that is omnipresent. Look at the 
 regal power of mind. If it cannot " create a soul under the ribs 
 of death, " it will chisel frosty marble into the lineaments and 
 gracefulness of more than kingly majesty. Disdaining to employ 
 agents weak and fragile to execute its purpose, creative mind has 
 produced a titan-progeny whose strength is greater than Briareas 
 with his hundred hands. Vivified with a soul etherial and light- 
 ning-winged, these servants, whose toil is neither uncompensated 
 nor unjust, open the quarry and drive the loom ; or when linked 
 to the car and ship they unexhausted go 
 
 " Tramp, tramp over the earth. 
 Splash, splash across the sea. " 
 
 There are intellects at this moment extant and luxuriating in 
 the solitudes of profound meditation, or active in public toil, whose 
 
8 
 
 conceptions, Lng- ^ince dispatched on their mission of conquest, 
 are rushing- in a thousand directions with iuHniti iy more spfcd 
 and energy than the Eagles of imperial Kome. As the lightning 
 shineth from the east unto the west, so the clear broad light of 
 sterling thought, glittering through "the spacious circuits of her 
 musing," is pouring an efjulgfnce round the globe. Not the fit- 
 ful coruscations of vapid mediocrity, but profound and glowing 
 mind is the universal queen whom all must adore or serve. 
 Republicans though we are, we must acknowledge that here is a 
 sovereign victorious beyond our envy or our hate. 
 
 But mental strength docs not lie in the power to sit still. 
 Action, action energetic, persevering and comprehensive, is the 
 condition of deveiopiuent and progress. Mind must have mind in 
 masses to act upon, and in that contact there is an exciting power 
 beyond all human computation. Napoleon must have high Alps 
 to overleap, nations for his conquest, and universal empire for his 
 dominion. Nothing less than a whole planet will answer for 
 Columbus to shape his course upon ; and such mental emperors 
 as Bowditch and Newton require immensity thick-shown with 
 myriads of constellations for apparatus, angels for fellow students, 
 and all eternity to unfold the latent energies of the human mind. 
 
 Why even here in this doomed earth, where storms howl and 
 disease destroys, the empires that rise, and the institutions that rule, 
 are only lengthened shadows of individual minds walking before 
 the sun of immortal glory. It is the same now as it ever has 
 been, the thick ranks of the great army of mankind are marching 
 with lock-step over the field of time to great conflicts and eternal 
 rewards. They march to the music of thought regular or dis- 
 tracting, and he who plays loudest and best will be folloAvcd by 
 the strongest host. 
 
 A thought put into action is infinitely more cflective than 
 exploding cannon. The tones of true eloquence will drown all 
 their uproar, counteract the force of their destruction, and render 
 the emperor of all the Russias utterly impotent before the splen- 
 dors of inspiring truth. The crash of iron hail and the growlings 
 of "the elogs of Avar" are intermittent, but the salvos of mental 
 artillery are perpetual. 
 
 Our power to serve the age in which we live is measured by 
 the excellence of our spiritual cultivation. God has indicated our 
 duty in the wonderful endowments of our race. He has made it 
 the eternal nature of the soul to make all things its own; and it is 
 the glorious prerogative of a virtuous mind to make all excellrnce 
 its solace and its food. Is a diamond beautiful ? — mind will set it 
 on fire and from its flame educe truth more sparkling and profita- 
 ble than the perishing gem. Is light trnnspnrcut ? — un'nd lays 
 hold of a ray, and with a scalpel mor(^ tthrrial tiian the subject it 
 dissects, spreads before the rye ol admiration, the discriminated 
 hues which in diversified combinations tint the rose and form the 
 
9 
 
 ruiiibow, beautify tlic earth niid uvluin llie lieavriis, And is the 
 deep blue vault of those heavens sublime with the respleiidt rit 
 glories of majestic worlds circling- there?— mind, aye the mind of 
 man, has from that awful dome suspfiuled its balance-beam, and 
 calmly Aveighed vast systems of worlds in the even scales. Mind 
 thrown into the lowest vale of nature, an intangible and immortal 
 essence, illumines whatever is dark, conquers opposing strength, 
 and with pinions swifter than the lightning's wing, flies an angel- 
 fiight, foith and right on whithersoever it will. 
 
 Again, by high self-culture v/e reach the spirit of our age and 
 move it by the power of principles. He who deeply /ee/s the rid- 
 dle of the world is in a good way to unravel it. One spark may 
 kindle a conflagration which shall destroy the temples of liberty 
 and justice. Such is the fanatic Y\^ho hurls his torch on high and 
 vaunts himself as a philosopher, when he is only a madman. 
 One spark of hallowed fire may set rubbish in a blaze, from 
 whose flashy and blasting heat rich products may flow, as Cor- 
 inthian brass was first formed amid the cinders of a voluptuous 
 city. One little word embodying a nation's spirit, — one speech 
 glowing with the inspiration of the age, — may fall on combust- 
 ibles which oceans cannot quench. Old John Adams, when a 
 college student, chanced to be in Boston and heard a patriotic 
 speech, one of the first sparks struck by the Genius of American 
 Liberty from his majesty's oppressive throne. That seed of fire 
 was not lost. It fell in the already glowing heart of him whom 
 a great rival frankly termed " our colossus in congressional 
 debate. " What the worth and power of the principle then 
 broached were is indicated by Mr. Adams' declaration, " I say in 
 the most solemn manner, that Mr. Otis' Oration against Writs of 
 Assistance breathed into this nation the breath of life. " 
 
 Martin Luther found a bible uncumbered by traditions, and read 
 it in secret, panting after truth until the bright vision burst upon 
 his enraptured heart. In the light of a new and nobler principle 
 than Avas possessed by his cotemporaries, his cell became more 
 glorious than grandeur's most magnificent saloon, and he deeply 
 felt that no man should hide what God designed all men to know. 
 Inspired by holy truth he could but inspire, and those Teachings 
 of his soul went forth conquering and to conquer, until he had kin- 
 dled the surrounding atmostpht^re into a canopy of magnificence, 
 inspired contiguous minds with his own ardor, and left the world 
 all blazing from his torch, to assume hereafter a crown compared 
 to which the laurels of selfish heroes are v/eeds. 
 
 And yet the reformation was not complete. Latimer and Ridley- 
 struck for a still nearer approach to undoubted right, For their 
 fidelity they must share in the peril and glory of all great 
 advancements. "Fear not, Master Ridley," said the heroical 
 Latimer, as both in chains were going to the stake, " for by the 
 blessing of God wc will this day kindle such a flame as shall 
 
01 
 
 never g-o out ! " No ! it shall not go out. Each new principle 
 discovf-red and proclaimod, is a naw and imperishable luminary 
 added to the moral heavens. 
 
 To support an unjust war, Charles I of England taxed his sub- 
 jects illegally and without just cause. Hampden resisted the 
 trifling assessment of twenty shillings on his vast landr'd property, 
 and stood up the mightiest among the mighty to dcfmd a do^^^l- 
 troddrn principle of justice and ceased not until he had brought 
 from the dust tho cry of liberty, and rendered $hip-money in all 
 men's ears a hated word. 
 
 There is another and still more striking illustration of the ser- 
 vice rendered to one's age and to all ages by the discovery and 
 defence of profound and original principles. Sir Edward Coke, 
 the distinguished lawyer, — for it was fashionable for lawyers to 
 go to church in those days, — one day discovered a lad taking 
 notes during divine service. Being pleased with the inodest 
 worth of the lad, he asked his parents to permit him to educate 
 their emulative son. It is said that Coke sent him to Oxford. 
 He drank from the fountains of knowledge, and in those draughts 
 he found 
 
 " The sober certainty of waking bliss. " 
 
 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, he longed for the 
 wisdom that rouses the might A^'hich so often and so long slumbers 
 in a peasant's arm. He communed with the past and with his 
 OAvn startling thoughts. He summoned around him the venerable 
 sages of antiquity, and in their presence made a feast of fat things, 
 
 " A perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets where no crude surfeit reigns." 
 
 At the fount of holiest instruction he cleared his vision, and 
 from the mount of contemplation breathed in worlds to Avhich the 
 heaven of heavens is but a veil. But his soul was too free for the 
 peace of his sycophantic associates, his principles Avere too philan- 
 thropic for the selfishness of his age, the doctrines which he 
 scorned to disavow were too noble for old England, and he sought 
 an asylum among the icy rocks of this wilderness world. He came 
 
 " To plant the Tree of Life, to plant fair Freedom's Tree. " 
 
 and was driven from thr- socifty of white men through wintry 
 storms and savages more lenirnt than interested factions, to plant 
 the first free colony in America. 'J'hat boy was thr founder of 
 Hhodr Island, that man was the patriot who stooped his annoint- 
 ( d hrad as lo\v as death for universal rights, and ever 
 
 " Fought to protect, and conquered but to bless. '» 
 
4. 
 
 II 
 
 That christian was Roger Williams, the first who plrad for 
 liberty of conscience hi this country and the pioneer of religious 
 liberty for the world. 
 
 Such lovers of truth and justice are the pillars of society and 
 the benefactors of their age. They expel popular fears, steady 
 popular fickleness, expand narrow prejudice, and sink factious 
 tempers in their enlarged wisdom and public spirit. 
 
 Such service is neither transient nor spasmodic. Thoughts 
 born in solitude and agony most frequently convulse or console 
 the world. In the lightning-gleam of intellect which in the 
 murky gloom of his indigence and neglect created in the mind of 
 Columbus the conclusion that the earth is spherical, and that the 
 Indies might be reached by sailing due west, America with all her 
 vast domain inhabitants and history was discovered ! But we have 
 had moral explorers who, striking out a new and successful voy- 
 age, have returned with "rich argosies" of inestimable wealth, 
 Fifty years ago a few Baptist preachers assembled in a small 
 parlor in the retired town of Kittering, Eng. After spending a 
 season in prayer for divine direction, they resolved to form an 
 association for diffusing religious knowledge in the heathen 
 world, and from their own scanty means they contributed thirteen 
 pounds sterling as alms to accompany their devotion. This was 
 the beginning of the great work of modern missions. The germ 
 has grown to a mighty tree overspreading the earth. There are 
 now fifteen hundred missionaries in the field, aided by five thou- 
 sand native teachers. These are laboring around twelve hundred 
 central stations and fifty printing establishments. One hundred and 
 eighty thousand have already professed conversion to the Chris- 
 tian faith, and two hundred thousand more are daily taught wis- 
 dom, human and divine, in the missionary schools. William 
 Carey struck the first blow at home and kindled the first beacon 
 light on the shores of the kingdom of darkness abroad. He rose 
 to be the first scholar and foremost philanthropist in India. He 
 emulated every excellence and became the purest among the 
 great, the greatest among the pure. The government which first 
 opposed him came at length to acknowledge their obligations to 
 true religion, and on the 10th of August. 1842, a great concourse 
 of British statesmen and native patriots m Calcutta resolved to 
 signify their gratitude and veneration for great services and 
 exalted worth, by ordering the form of Dr. Carey cut in mar- 
 ble. But neither they nor the angels above can fully estimate 
 how wisely and how well he served his generation. 
 
 Robert kaikes, the industrious and benevolent printer of Glou- 
 cester, having acquired a fortune, set about subordinating it to the 
 benefit of his age. Happily he struck upon a new principle, by 
 gathering the vicious and ignorant into a Sabbath school. A 
 great light has sprung up and spread from that heavenly spark, 
 and millions are now blessed in that institytion of which, since 
 
^ 12 
 
 God liiinsL'lf is llie Presidoii. every matured chrlslian should be a 
 teacher, and the whole world of yoiilli llie aluiurii. 
 
 Clarkson out of Parlianitnt and Wilberforce in it, willi their 
 tongue and pen, like How.ird with his heart and hand, served 
 their generation hi the advocacy of justice and mercy, and won 
 fame and glory which shall be luminous and immortal when the 
 names of iheir calumniators shall rot in the caves of eternal infa- 
 my and oblivion. 
 
 Another illustration, the strongest and most striking of all, Avill 
 stand prominent in the hislory of this eventful age. It is that those 
 six inebriates in Baltimore, when drimk, should have staggered 
 upon the only true principle of sobriety, — a principle Avhich, had 
 it been acted upon, would havfe prevented previous dissoluteness 
 and which is hereafter destined to rescue the abandoned drunkard 
 from his hell, and elevate the moderate drinker into the condition 
 of a temperate and virtuous man. 
 
 The influence of true service to one's age goes on multiplying. 
 Washington and his compatriots went to " war against a preamble," 
 — -behind a small but unjust requisition they detected the presence of 
 tyranny, and dragging up from the deep well of truth an old but 
 tmdiscovered antagonist principle, they first felt its worth, authenti- 
 cated its justness, and then went to the struggle of death in hs 
 defence. What are the results ? The principle has survived its 
 first patrons, and is now circling the globe. From us to the south 
 pole, from sea to sea, almoste every foot of soil is disenthralled 
 from European rule, the peasants of the vales and hardy moun- 
 taineers of the old world snuff the air of liberty from our shores 
 and pant for the blessings we e-njoy. 
 
 What has done this ? Opinion ! — mind aroused, and stimulated 
 into action. It is a fearful power to unloose, but it is more fearful 
 when arbitrarily confined. When ardent truth has once fallen 
 where it kindles, and latent thought has bet^n draAvn from the 
 quickened mind, it thenceforth becomes a sword of lightning which 
 no material scabbard can sheathe. 
 
 The volcano in eruption, if allowed in a natural way to expend 
 it.^ force may be comparatively harmless. Its currents of noisome 
 scoria and melted rock may flow down through channels blasted 
 by outbursts of preceding flame, or they may quietly subside at 
 the roots of richest vines to improve their flavor and mature the 
 richest fruit. But when the crater is closed by force, and the 
 abortive attempt is made with coercive bonds to imprison internal 
 heat, then there is danger all around. No one can safely anticipate 
 where or in what shape the inevllalile rxjdosien will apjicar. 'S ou 
 may, if you rhoosi^, play with the uncaged lion, — you may 
 tantalize the lig(>r when ilio first gush of worm blood is on his 
 gnashing iceili, I.iit do not peril yourselves and your country by 
 sporting with an inccuscd public opinion ! 
 
13 
 
 "At whom do lions cast their f;enl!e looks T 
 
 Not to the beast thdt would usurp their den. 
 
 Whose liand is tiiatthe forest beardnth lick'^ 
 
 Not his, that spoils her young before her face. 
 
 Who scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting 1 
 
 Not he that sets his foot upon her lack. ' 
 
 The smallest worm will turn when trodden on ; 
 
 And doves will peck, in safeguard of their brood." 
 
 The age of physical force is passing away. Men are begin- 
 ning to be less enthusiastic in heroising their fellow men for 
 wholesale murder. Probably we shall not vote the apothcsis of 
 many more military chieftains. The gladiatorship of mind m.ust 
 be our peril and our glory. It is useless to stand still and frown, 
 as if we could wink difficulties away. If a great conflict arises, 
 why " let the weakest fend off. " Two things demand gratitude. 
 
 First, God gives the best minds the widest field. All souls 
 have some points of contact. Love of fraud and error are unnatu- 
 ral. One true soul will touch the latent springs in every other. 
 The sparks of genius will kindle. The voice of reason, truth 
 and justice will eventually be heard. The whole earth listens. 
 When the ambassador from God shall appear with true creden- 
 tials, — a heart to feel every throbbing of humanity and an intel- 
 lect armed and ready to make aggressions on every tyranical foe, 
 that man will be heard ! 
 
 In the second place, God gives favor to the best men by ensur- 
 ing their success. The certainty of triumph lies in the inherent 
 superiority of truth over error. Good men have a wide field, — 
 they ask no favor but a fair one. If this is unjustly forbidden, it 
 is only a momentary restraint. Every free element comes to their 
 aid. Some press Avill throw out rays of light. Some kindred 
 soul will speak. Slander only reduplicates truth indirectly by its 
 repititions of detraction. Every breeze blows but to augment the 
 treasure it circulates. Every bounding billow rolls joyously on 
 to the world's limits, rejoicing in the dissemination of that which 
 is most like itself — truth ! — knowing no fear and yielding to no 
 chain, but living on forever, boundless, fetterless, sublime! Who 
 is so mean as to quail before the discussion of any important truth ? 
 
 " If we have wh;spcr:d truth. 
 
 Whisper no longer ; 
 But speak as the thunder doth, 
 
 Sterner and stronger." 
 
 If a storm gathers in the political or moral heavens, it is more 
 than folly, in our age, to depricate its approach or fear its might. 
 We must have men of no whimpering, childish composition to 
 
14 
 
 r 
 
 conduct off safely the elements of cumulated wrath. Men who 
 efficiently serve their f^'-enera'ion arc of this mettle. They were 
 anticipated and described by the classic poet, — the moral giants 
 who march along the earth and across the ocean, but their front 
 is among the stars. They do not stand with pale lips and quak- 
 ing knees, but grasping the pillars of the temple where tyranny 
 sits enthroned, not in blindness, like the strong man of old, to be 
 self immolated, they crush oppression from its iron throne and 
 trample in their strength on the colossal ruins. Day and night, 
 sunshine and storm, are vicissitudes which neither impede such 
 men nor change their course. They are not weathercocks to be 
 turned by the winds, but they take their positions in storms, like 
 the Alps, to turn the wind. A great American poet has told us 
 the whole truth in lines worthy of the country and the man : 
 
 " Truth crush'd to earth shall rise agairr, 
 
 The eternal years of God are hers ; 
 But error wounded writhes in pain, 
 
 And dies among her worshippers. " 
 
 It is suggested in our text that the service we owe our age is 
 measured and sanctioned by the Divine will. " David served his 
 generation by the will of God. " How shall we deserve this 
 eulogium 1 We must rise above a slavish devotion to a sect, and 
 consult our common Father's will. We must so far loosen our- 
 selves from a segment of the circle of humanity as to comprehend 
 the whole. When men are fujiously and fanatically fond of a 
 particular object, they will prefer it to their 0A\'n peace, to their 
 own life, and to every other claim. Men should be decided, all 
 men should have their sentiments well understood by themselves 
 and frankly avowed to others. "'Tis noble to have a giant's 
 strength, but not to use it as a giant. " We should be open to 
 conviction while we are enforcing it. The outlet of generosity is 
 the inlet of true greatness. "The liberal soul, " said Solomon, 
 "shall be made fat." God puts a noble and generous man into stall- 
 feed, while the poor, meagre, miserable miser is left to shrivel up 
 his pigmy soul in this world, and in the great winnowing day of 
 God's almightiness, the crisped and haggard i/iin<i- will be blown 
 into eternal despair by the burning winds of contempt. 
 
 The will of God requires us not to elevate a few by depressing 
 the many, but on the contrary to seek the greatest good of the 
 greatest number. What means arc to be used ? Tliis brings mo 
 to the great point I woiikl enforce in all this discourse. AV^e must 
 educate. Let us not leave the mass of mind to grow ignorant and 
 corrupt, and afterwards attempt coercively to bind it. Xerxes 
 may as well expect to chain the vexed Hellespont in peace. Le- 
 gislation is impotent any longer to resist the beamings of a bright- 
 er day. Knowledge is generous and communicative, and jealous- 
 
15 
 
 sy at its progress is a sure symptom of its Avant, But, thank God, 
 the day has come when it cannot be successfully resisted. Super- 
 stition may condemn Galileo for his improved astronomy, but the 
 earth continues to turn round with all its stupid inhabitants revolv- 
 ing- into light. Some are born in darkness, have always dwelt 
 there from choice, it is their native land, for it they fight, and it is 
 the only sense in which they are patriotic. This is natural, but 
 they and all like them who fear the efTulgence bursting up the 
 horizon should quickly kindle counter fires and educate, educate ! 
 The more obstructions you throw before the flooding tide of know- 
 ledge, the more destructive energies will be developed. The 
 force of cannon may quell mobs, but education will prevent them. 
 Moral power creates the strongest munitions of safety ; while 
 arbitrary compulsion degrades both the tyrant and his victim. 
 We may expect that a few will continue to cry out against in- 
 creased illumination, as that which they depricate shames bigotry, 
 cures superstition, and destroys all tyranny over body and soul. 
 But the fire-cross of wisdom is shining from hill-top to hill-top, 
 and is rapidly bounding from hand to hand. Aggressions into 
 the kingdom of darkness have commenced. We do not " cry 
 havoc and let slip the dogs of war, " but in God's name and for 
 all God's creatures we do say " Let there be Light! " It is said 
 that if the beak of a bird is bound up fast, and his wings broken, 
 he can still live and breathe through the hollow bones. But, say 
 we, give the bird both wings and beak to be used as heaven de- 
 signed. Epictetus told his sovereign that he would confer a 
 greater favor upon the state by elevating the thoughts of the peo- 
 ple than by raising the roofs of their houses. 
 
 To sow the seeds of thought in uncultivated mind, is the first 
 duty of this age ; and on the timely discharge of this duty our sal- 
 vation depends. The lower classes must be made intelligent men 
 before they can possibly become useful citizens. The time will 
 soon come if it has not already dawned, when the greatest martial 
 victory ever achieved will be regarded as infinitely less important 
 than the opening of the first Lyceum or the establishment of an 
 additional school. Mind, ruling with a sway as peaceful as sun- 
 light, like it will be most powerful. There are not physical 
 energies enough in the universe to bend one thought of the human 
 soul : and if we can succeed in training the rising generation as 
 they should be trained, each youth will become an intelligent pat- 
 riot ready to say to any oppressor as the ancient hero said — 
 " You may destroy the case of Anaxarchus, himself you cannot 
 reach. " 
 
 The extent and resources of our country ought to stimulate us 
 to prompt and persevering action in this enterprise. We have 
 already under cultivation a fragment of our vast domain, includ- 
 ing twenty-six sovereign states, some of which are larger and more 
 powerful than whole kingdoms in Europe. We are occupying 
 
16 
 
 an :ivf',a of two million throe hnnrlred thoris-and squire niil< s ; or, 
 one bill ion four hiuvJrod and sevrnty two iiiillioii acres'. What 
 a theatre is here spread out for the lust experimmt of civilization! 
 A son of the Pilgrims may turn his back on the dust of 
 his sires and the foam of his ocean haunts, and travel three 
 thousand miles towards the s tting- sun, and still be on his father- 
 land. The most magnificent scenery will greet him everywhere. 
 Chains of inland seas, and innumerable majestic rivers leaping 
 from their mountain springs, and coursing from Columbus to Ore- 
 gon, from the Lake of the Woods to New Orleans, may entice 
 him- on through every zone and every clime, from the stern north 
 to the balmy south, from the regions of rock and ice to the per- 
 petual zephyr and rose, a journey of twenty thousand miles, and 
 ytt he will not have passed from his fatherland. 
 But what if along our coasts, our rivers, our plantations, mind lies 
 passive to the bigot and the demagogue? What if some crafty 
 intriguer, clothing his hollow pretensions in " the rhinosceros 
 skin of impudence," shall act the part of a baser Cromwel here, 
 by launching from the little fulcrum of a military and religious 
 d'spotism a power which once annihilated all that remained to 
 England of church and parliament, frightened the great nation 
 mto submissive, dumb despair, and 
 
 " hewed the throne 
 Down to a block !" 
 
 Let foreign bigots flood our land, and native intellect be steeped 
 in ignorance but for a brief cycle of yf^ars, and the dreadful end 
 will come, the last experiment of republican government will fail, 
 patriotism will perish and this great national compact will tumble 
 to ruins, like a globe shattered by earthquakes. We must educate. 
 We must supjily the means to cultivate the hardy yeomanry 
 scattered over "the low-lying fields of our beautiful land." 
 Especially is it needed that the cant and teenies of religion should 
 give place to a geneious spirit and an active benevolence. Make 
 the pulpit respectable and it will be respected. Do not drive thin- 
 king men from the sanctuary. Let the altar of Gton remain 
 attractive as it was originally designed, the watch tower of wisdom 
 and not the throne of dulness. Keep teachers of religion out of 
 the political arena. May God paralize the hand that Avoukl imitc 
 church and state und-r our skies. We can dispense with such a 
 curse. Let statesmen look well to their appropriate businrss. and 
 let religionists see that trutli is not perverti d nor morals injured. 
 No preacher should be a parti.^an, but every herald of the Cross 
 should be a sentient nerve of Freedom, the toughest sinew in the 
 whole body of patriotism. 
 
 The. result and reward of a useful life is a peaceful death. 
 When David had served his generation "he fell on sleep." This 
 
i7 
 
 beautiful description of a peaceful termination of life's toils and 
 solicitudes, is applied to David, Solomon, Jehosaphat and Hezekiah 
 in the Old Testament, and to Lazarus and Stephen in the New. 
 To the conscientious there is no guile in life, and to the useful 
 there is no terror in death. 
 
 " The good man lays his hand upon the skies 
 And bids earth roll, nor heeds her idle whirl." 
 
 He who has consulted the will of God and the welfare of man- 
 kind in the transactions of his life, will not fear with Moses to " go 
 up into mount Nebo and die in the mou7it.'^ The veteran chris- 
 tian be his walk of life what it may, will hear the summons 
 without remorse, and like the venerable Grecian sage surrounded 
 by grateful pupils, will calmly fold his mantle about him and sit 
 down to die. He bids the world good night and wakes in eterni- 
 ty all fresh for an immortal race and reward ! 
 
 The purpose of this discourse will be lost unless an immediate 
 effect is produced on those who hear it. We have no time to 
 waste. The remote horizon gleams with lurid foretokenings, the 
 monitory thunder mutters hoarsely, and reverberates through 
 subterranean caves. The sagacious look thoughtful, and the 
 patriotic with suppressed forebodings anticipate coming storms. 
 There is no better alternative than to prepare for them. To be 
 conscious of our peril, is to be already in a propitious condition 
 to avert it. To have good men among us well educated, is to 
 possess the richest gifts of a beneficent Providence ; but to suffer 
 imder great powers perverted, is to be scourged with the bitterest 
 curse. An uneducated population may be degraded; a population 
 educated in unrighteousness will be ungovernable. The one may 
 grind in slavery ; the other will give anarchy its venom and its 
 crimes. All lesser luminaries that shone on the reflecting Nile 
 found no responsive melody ; but Avhen the Sun shone there, even 
 stony Memnon poured forth melodious strains. The light of flow- 
 ers, of stars, and of kindred intellect may with intellect harmon- 
 ize in the notes of inarticulate praise, but it is only the highest light 
 that wakes the adoration of gratitude vocal and sincere. A palace 
 of ice may be radient with hues as splendid as they are cold, but 
 Avhile the fabric is admired it melts, and as its treacherous material 
 grows liquid around the imprisoned occupant, his remorse will 
 ignite it into a sea of flame. 
 
 It is demanded by our country and our God that you who 
 occupy the principal places should be men of principle. Your 
 talents, all the influences you can wield, are to be consecrated to 
 the public good. Your responsibility is fearfully great. If you 
 err even in an honest view of your duty, mistake the spirit of the 
 age, wound the constitution under which we subsist or indulge 
 prrN'ate passion at the cost of the general weal, than will you 
 
18 
 
 suffer the reprisal which neither wealth nor station can avert, — • 
 you will receive in your persons, and forever pay in your fame, 
 the penalty of those whom Providence signalizes as doomed but not 
 useless barriers to the violent current of changeful times. If any 
 wish to augment the fury of gathering waters by braving them, 
 they Avill only prepare fertility for coming generations by forcing 
 them to sweep away unrighteous impediments, and then to waste 
 their rage in diffusion. Every violence done to human rights 
 is grimly noted down in the grand impeachment-book by the 
 Genius of Humanity who patiently waits till the shadow upon the 
 darkening political sun-dial points the hour of retribution. The 
 crafty demagogue may hurl 
 
 " Hij dazzling .spells into the spungy air 
 Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion 
 And give it false presentimenls, 
 
 but hypocritical falsehood is always suicidal to its o\\ti interests. 
 "Be ye sure your sin will find you out." The gawdy shows 
 of the coronation of chicanery and ignorance cannot endure and 
 will not long beguile. Restless wisdom Jias a broom to give to 
 the world a speedy riddance of all such nuisances. 
 
 We all have a great work to do. Polfeal asperity should be 
 softened, popular ignorance dispersed, and a moral emancipation 
 every where achieved. This will require protracted and incessant 
 toil. It is vain to wait for some potent magic to change the cha- 
 racter of a people all at once. We have the inveterate habits of 
 centuries to conquer. A copious administration of food is not the 
 most prudent means of curing the debility which results from 
 protracted abstinance. The influence of example descends. We 
 must have purity, patriotism and piety in high places. We need 
 statesmen who shall aspire not so much to harrangue each other 
 as to exemplify exalted virtues before a great, earnest and intelli- 
 gent nation. 
 
 Pardon the warmth of my expressions. I know where I am 
 and whom I am addressing ; but tmder the eaves of your magnifi- 
 cent Capitol, and in this dense throng of chivalrous Southerners, 
 I think of that venerable christian patriot whose son was my 
 father, and on whose white locks my young brow leaned and 
 learned the sentiments wliich he enthusiastically imbibed from the 
 lips of Washington and Lafayette. Not like Spartacus do I rush 
 to this scene and under oppression cry — "I'm hereto fight!" — 
 but as a free man among tbe free, I pray yon guard well and 
 transmit unimpaired the great inheritance which our fathers won. 
 Go to your constituents and declare your purpose ; and if some 
 rival, skilful in meanness, commands more votes because his 
 Avhiskey equals his selfishness let him enjoy his brief triumph. 
 Labor generously for the real good of your county and your 
 
19 
 
 commonwealth, while life lasts, and then fall on sleep as gently 
 as the beneficent orb of day sinks from human view. A glorious 
 reaction will follow, and your son, justly proud of an upright 
 fiither's integrity, or a beneficiary, rescued from obscurity by your 
 kindness and educated as a worthy successor in the legislative hall 
 will stand there with tears of gratitude more noble than a coronet, 
 and inspired with an eloquence more thrilling and magnanimous 
 than the sycophancy of a parasite will proclaim in deathless tones 
 that, 
 
 " ' Man was made to know, 
 
 And there will be a time when thia great truth, 
 Electric shall run from man to man, 
 And the blood-cemented pyramids of ignorance 
 Shall by its flash be thrown to earth in atoms— 
 "When it shall blaze with sun-refulgent splendoF 
 And the whole earth be lighted." 
 
 There is an imposing grandeur in public testimonials to exalted 
 worth. It is a noble thing to honor the truly excellent of our 
 race ; it awakens the purest sympathies and gives energy to the 
 most generous sentiments. It has always been natural for nations 
 to associate the honors rendered to great men with religious solem- 
 nities. We would not be idolatrous, neither would we Avish to 
 deprive society of the illustrious, nor disenchant human nature of 
 the love of glory. We Avould only have men seek true celebrity, 
 by executing what is worthy of being celebrated. True honor is 
 not external ; it can only be acquired by virtuous integrity in all 
 our relations to man and God. Moral honor alone is permanent. 
 Like a hymn it is always attractive, while the fleeting pufT of 
 worldly praise is like a street song, which wearies the ear. Fame 
 created and sustained by intrinsic worth is like the planets on 
 high. To our imperfect sense they may sometimes appear to 
 stand still, or move backward ; while in reality, under the 
 guidance of the Infinite, they never are arrested in their orbits, 
 but Avith an original and sublime momentum compass the 
 heavens. False fame is like a gawdy flag floating over a 
 foundered ship; it streams out gaily as the craft sinks, and then 
 disappears forever. Fondness for such honors is certainly 
 "avarice of air" ; Avhile a deep passion for enduring reputation is 
 among the noblest emotions of the human heart. The mind that 
 is indifferent to the veneration of posterity is undeserving of co- 
 temporary esteem. Citizens and Patriots make this great boon 
 your oAvn. Secure the homage of unborn generations, by 
 opening fountains to supply their wants as they rise. Let the 
 stream of high thoughts and generous deeds go sounding down 
 the future, to charm the dull into intelligence and rouse the obdu- 
 rate into praise, deep and sublime as the mighty ocean. 
 
26 
 
 There are in this congregation many christians, and christian 
 ministers. Let us, my brethren, approach the holy ahar in spirit, 
 and before this solemn stillness is broken by the moving mass, like 
 the young Carthagenian swear eternal enmity to every vice. 
 Then may a Father's blessing go with us, our words of stern truth 
 be more often a warning than a prophecy, and our influence in the 
 cause of God and our country continually increased, 
 
 "Till wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow, 
 
 And heaven's last thunders shake the world below.'' 
 

 ,EVIEW ,^ 
 
 OP 
 
 THE SERMON OF THE RT. REV'D L. S. IVES, D. D., 
 
 "BISHOP OF NORTH-CAROLINA," 
 
 AT THE CONSECHATION OF 
 
 TfflE RT. REVB JOHM JOIIIVg, B. D. 
 
 ASSISTANT BISHOP OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 BY THE REV'D BENNETT T. BLAKE, 
 
 OP THE NORTH-CAEOLINA CONPERHNCE. 
 
 RALEIGH: 
 
 T. LOHING, PRINTER — OFFICE OF THE NORTH CAROLINA STANDARD. 
 
 1843. 
 
 «lt 
 
 y 
 
 #.. 
 
 *•• • ^»- 
 
 :♦ 
 
0t TO THE READER. 
 
 "What is ihi.s dreain that thou ha-^t dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy 
 brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to tlice, to the earth?" 
 
 Reader: The age of miracle* and prophetic vision liaa passed away — the world is 
 growing" old and tremulous. Signs and wonders are seen in the earth, in the heaven.«, 
 and under the earth. Terrific dreams disturb our repo.?e — and waking- viaion.-s, unliko de- 
 parted and unhappy ghosts, go not away "when the light of the morning breakeih." 
 Now the Raven's croak — that dread precursor of Death — spreads terror in the donie.stic 
 circle, and the little ones draw closer to the maternal arm. The fiery Comet with its 
 blazing trail, portentous of approaching war, sweeps in its unmeasured orbit over our 
 world. The sun goes down behind a lowering sky. Forked lightnings skip and play 
 amidst the sombre clouds, in lines of lurid light; and loud, rustling thunder — "the ma- 
 jestic voice of an angry God" — ^peal after peal, strikes consternation in the guilty heart. 
 When lo! riding above the storm, One like the Son of God appears in sight, and uttera 
 the language of reproof — "Ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky, but cannot 
 discern the signs of the times." Then came one and told his dream, saying "The bur- 
 den of the Lord, the burden of the Lord;" and another asked "What is this dream that 
 thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down 
 ourselves to thee, to the earth?" and he ran to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said, 
 "Is not my word like as fire, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? The 
 Prophet that hath a dream, let him toll a dream : and he that hath my word, let hiui speak 
 my word faithfully! AVhat is the chaff to the wheat?" saith the Lord. "And when I 
 looked, behold a hand was sent into me, and lo! a roll of a book was tlierein, and he 
 spread it before me : and it was written within and without, and therein lamentations and 
 mourning and wo." And when I awoke, I found I had been reading the Sermon of 
 4; Bishop Ives. 
 
 Reader! Catholic, Protestant, or Dissenter, procure the Sennon.' Read, learn, mark, 
 and properly digest it, if you can, and you will be more ready than ever, in the language 
 of the Fathers of the Reformation, mo.st devoutly to pray: "Fron> all false doctrine, 
 "heresy and schism, from hardness of heart and contempt of thy word ana conunand- 
 "ment — Good Lord deliver us !" 
 
 
REVIEW. 
 
 By a careful examination of the principles and statements set forth 
 in the Sermon of the Rt. Rev'd L. Silliman Iv^s, the intelligent 
 reader will not fail to discover that the Sermon, in its published form, 
 is designed to arouse Churchmen in Virginia and North-Carolina from 
 a too quiescent and conservative state in regard to heresy and schism, 
 (as these terms are applied to other Churches,) which the Bishop saw 
 every where abounding, and often running into the prurience and 
 excess of novelty. Appropriating to the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 the name of Catholic — limiting the generic term of christian to 
 the members of his own sect, and ranking all other Churches under 
 the general denomination of dissenters^ and sometimes professors of 
 the faith — the reverend gentleman overlooks, for the time being at 
 least, the evils existing in the Catholic Church and ^'-ihe world at 
 larf^e,^'' and enters, like a redoubtable champion, into the general cru- 
 sade of high-churchmen against these pestiferious sects, defined in the 
 appendix as "Romanist, Calvinist, Socinian, Methodist, and their kin- 
 dred hosts;" exhorting and invocating, most feelingly and piteously, 
 the Bishops and Clergy, and all true churchmen, to put on the armor 
 of ancient Apostolical authority, and aid him in extirpating schism 
 and heresy and semi-infidelity, as they are revealed in all their propor- 
 tions, under the various modifications of dissent — a principle so an- 
 tagonistical to the catholic unity of the Church, that one, if not both, 
 must needs die in the conflict — assuring them, by the most infallible 
 arguments and the most candid statements, that the prosperity of the 
 Church catholic has been greatly diminished, her glory obscured, her 
 advancement retarded, if not entirely obstructed, by dissenters ; that 
 the difficulties of the success of the modern Apostles have increased 
 to such an alarming degree, by the degeneracy of the times, that the 
 heart of a Bishop well nigh fails at the appalling scene upon which he 
 gazes ; — that, in view of these difficulties and embarrassments, it is the 
 first duty of Bishop Johns to come out openly and decidedly a high- 
 churchman ; to lower the white flag of peace and amity ; to raise the 
 banner of the cross, bearing on one side in no ambiguous terms the 
 inscription Apostolical Succession, and on the reverse Episcopacy 
 
4 
 
 Diocesan jure divino ; that under this banner all true churchmen 
 should unite ; that by lessening the comprehension of their charity 
 and amity, and bringing them within the narrow limits of the system 
 of Catholic exclusion, they should not only put themselves in a pos- 
 ture of defence, but resume the originally aggressive character of the 
 Apostolical Church in its purest and most ancient form — not so much 
 as a witness and defender of the truth against the wickedness and pro- 
 fligacy of '^theivorld at laj'gc,'" but as a reprover of, sectarian infi- 
 delity, which, under the m.ask of a loud and rampant pro/e55io?i, shel- 
 ters itself against the weapons of truth, securely entrenched within the 
 enclosures of some modification of ecclesiastical polity, from which it 
 may now more successfully assail the institutions of the Catholic 
 Church ; that, inasmuch as they, and they o?ili/ who are thus truly 
 catholic, compose the one only true Apostolical Church, it is their duty 
 as christians, in the only available sense, not only to contend for the 
 faith once for all delivered to the Saints, and now in the highest sense 
 committed to their trust, but, as churchmen, to contend for Episcopacy, 
 as the only instituted means, as the only channel of mercy and grace 
 to the otherwise desperate necessities of dissenters^ as well as other 
 condemned sinners; — that, in view of this desperate condition of 
 ^^ these men as a hody^^ it is the very highest act of mercy and charity 
 to make an effort, however unsuccessful, to inform them, to correct 
 their errors, and bring them into a state of certain salvation^ through 
 the interposition of a divinely constituted ministry. 
 
 After carefully reading the Sermon over and over ngain, weighing 
 its studied and ingenious phraseology, we sum up its contents in the 
 words of a strong and perspicuous writer on a similar occasion, vary- 
 ing only a few terms to justify the application of our views to the 
 Bishop's Sermon, instead of to the publication of the Bishop of Aire, 
 which called forth the "Difficulties of Romanism," by Geo. Stanley 
 Faber, Rector of Longnewton, England: 
 
 "Of this Sermon the main object is evidently the proselytism of 
 Methodist and other dissenting- laity. Such being the case, it was 
 necessary on the one hand to attack dissenters generally, while on 
 the other it was equally necessary to vindicate and to recommend tiie 
 peculiar doctrines and practices of high-chnrchmen. The respectable 
 author of the Sermon is a Prelate of the Protestant Episcopal Chnrch 
 of the Diocess of North-Carolina. lie has undertaken to exhibit the 
 peculiarities of high-church divinity, as they really exist, not as they 
 
5 
 
 are alleged to have been disfigured by the Oxford tract writers^ or 
 dissenting misi'epresentations ; and in his high Episcopal character 
 he may be viewed as one who speaks with a full measure both of 
 knowledge and of authority. Under the hands of the exenjplary 
 Bishop of North-Carolina, high-chiirchism appears in its most capti- 
 vating habiliments. Whatever might awaken the suspicions of a 
 dissenter is gracefully and ingeniously decorated by a glowing con- 
 ception and a fervid eloquence. Doctrines and practices which the 
 articles and homilies had taught us to look upon with unutterable dis- 
 like, are shown, on the professed score of scriptural and primitive 
 Christianity, to be not only lawful, expedient and most eligible, but 
 even venerable and obligatory. And that alone Catholic Church, 
 which the distempered imogination of the panic-struck dissenters, and 
 a due proportion of Protestant Reform.ers in the Church of England 
 and the United States, had charged with verging towards an unmixed 
 spiritual despotism, proves, upon a candid examination, to be nothing 
 more nor less than the glorious liberty of the Gospel, wherewith Christ 
 has made us free. If, then, high-churchism, even as exhibited by such 
 an advocate as the Bishop of North-Carolina, still presents such insep- 
 arable difficulties, the sober churchman, as well as the dissenter, will 
 at least pause before he adopts a theological system thus unhappily 
 circumstanced." 
 
 We have long since desired to see under what modification the 
 theological system of Oxford would make its appearance in the Pro- 
 testant Episcopal Church of the United States ; there being so little 
 affinity between that freedom of worship which is so successfully 
 maintained in her articles and liturgy, and that form of spiritual des- 
 potism which has been but too extensively revived and promulgated 
 under the imposing names of "ancient Christianity" and evangelical 
 piety. And although it does not come to us in the Sermon of Bishop 
 Ives, like the meteorous and portentous glare which streams across 
 the Atlantic, it nevertheless falls gently on us like the changeful moon- 
 light from the shores of New Jersey. If the pure coin, bearing the full 
 image and superscription of D. Hook, has not been imported into the 
 American Church in sufficient quantity to supply the deficiency of a 
 circulating medium, enough has come to us to enable us to mould our 
 symbols after the same likeness and image, and thereby to supply the 
 desideratum out of our domestic manufacture. Hence in the short 
 space of a few years, newspaper scribblers, tract-writing sermonizers, 
 
and book makers, soma with names and some without names. Hke the 
 ephemera ot nature, drawn out ot their cells by a genial sun, have sal- 
 lied forth from their long night and winter of discontent, to breathe 
 and live and flutter among kindred nnimalculac, until the short day 
 that gave them birth sinks to rest. The coming forth of these, under 
 the burning zeal of the master-spirits of Oxford, has called forth an- 
 other tribe equally strong, courageous and belligerent, and a war of 
 extermination seems to have bcgim. At all events these skirmishes 
 between the small tribes seem to have been a prelude to a more geneml 
 and more irreconcilable hostility between the two adverse principles of 
 spiritual domination and religious frredom. In this contest, it may be 
 said with truth, "Greek has met Greek." learning has met learning, 
 antiquity has met antiquity, authority has met authority, Bishop has 
 mot Bishop and Archbishop has met Archbishop, Priest has met Priest, 
 layman has met layman, until Mary and Elizabeth, if they have 
 not been combatants, have mixed an itching desire to share in the 
 spoils of victory. Although the battle-field be not in those once happy 
 and sunny plains where first the war-worn Trojan found a liomeand 
 a heart in the hospitabh dome of the Latin King and his lovely daugli- 
 ter, where the Horatii and the Curiatii, to stay the slaughter of their 
 countrymen, sacrificed their lives on the altar of patriotism ; although 
 the deadly strife may not be going on in the valley between the Capi- 
 toline and the duernal hills, where for the last time Roman and Sabine 
 arms clashed in direful conflict, till the Roman matrons, allied to both 
 by nature's sweetest and strongest ties, bade them put up the sword — 
 yet, may we not hope that the fair daughters of Jerusalem, who went 
 forth weeping, to behold the crucifixion of their Lord, may have tears 
 to spare to bathe the wounds which he now daily receives in the house 
 of his friends? 
 
 Disclaiming all personal unkindness to Bishop Ives, entertaining 
 for the Church over which he presides naught but feelings of high 
 christian regard, and for the individual members of the Church the 
 most sincere and unaffected good will, which we liave on all suitable 
 occasions evinced, we approach the task upon which we have essayed 
 to enter, under the most honest conviction that, if we succeed in what 
 we have undertaken, we shall alike benefit the cause of true piety, 
 whether in the Church which claims to be the only true Church, or 
 in that which claims an humble share of the blessings and privileges 
 of the family of Gud — 'the household of faith, buildcd upon the Apos- 
 
ties and Prophets, Jesus Christ liimsolf being the chief corner stone." 
 
 Tlie hue and cry which has been made against dissent, since the 
 reign of tlie too haughty and overbearing Elizabeth, Q,ueen of 
 England, which has come down to our own times, like the rolling 
 onward of the coming storm, falls gratingly and harshly on an Ameri- 
 can ear, and must ever be regarded by all considerate men, in whose 
 estimation the end to be attained does not sanctify the means, as one of 
 the artifices by which clerical vanity and jealousy endeavor to fortify 
 themselves in the possession of titles which they have not legitimately 
 acquired. Next to the assignation of a false cause and the imputation 
 of evil where it does not exist, we regard the frequent, the incessant 
 application of dissent to the different Churches in the United States, as 
 one of the most disingenuous devices of intelligent men to perpetrate a 
 pious fraud upon their less informed fellow-citizens ; to harrow up 
 their minds by terrifying images, rendered the more horrible and mon- 
 strous because they are indistinctly seen or imperfectly defined; and 
 thereby to transfer the hatred and malignity of a cruel and barbarous 
 age to a period and a people whose chief excellence it is to place things 
 in their true position, accurately to define their varied relations, and to 
 enforce, by equitable laws, as far as possible, their mutual obligations. 
 Among the appellatives used for this purpose, by churchmen of the 
 higher order, none seems to be so availing or relied on so much as 
 that of dissenter — a term imported, with other like commodities, across 
 the Atlantic, and incorporated in the vocabulary of Church tactics : 
 transferred to the catechism of young children, and taught them as 
 regularly as the Creed and Lord's prayer. Every intelligent man 
 knows that in its application to the different Churches in the United 
 States, it has neither reason nor analogy nor common sense to justify 
 it ; that it is an outrage upon the courtesies of life, upon the decencies 
 and proprieties which the common consent of mankind regards essen- 
 tial to the well-being of society. However, in the American States, it 
 has no meaning at all, or just so much as will make its application as 
 proper and fitting in the mouth of a Mormon Phrophet as in that of a 
 modern Prelate. In this country we have no ecclesiastical machinery 
 attached to the Government ; and it is a subject of devout thankfulness 
 to Almighty God, that we have not. Had it been otherwise, the vari- 
 ous political conflicts and revolutions (as has been the case in Great 
 Britain, and as it may be the case again) instead of being marked only 
 with the personal disappointment of various aspirants — and if you 
 
8 
 
 please so to acid, pecuniary embarrassmsiits in the fiscal operation of 
 the Government and the affairs of individuals — would have whirled 
 on in their accelerated fury, like the merciless car of Juggernaut, over 
 the best blood of American citizens. Where, then, is the propriety of 
 familiarizing to our minds and the minds of our children, the images 
 of things which, with us, have never existed since the sages of the 
 Revolution laid it down as a fundamental principle in national law, 
 that no man should be restrained from the worship of God according 
 to the dictates of his conscience, so long as he regards the rights of 
 others ? When our enlightened statesmen laid it down as a maxim of 
 judicious policy, that error may be tolerated while truth is left free to 
 combat it, why, let me ask, do we continually revive the images of the 
 past, unless, like desperate adventurers, we sigh over some irrevocable 
 loss, or riot in fancy on the pleasures of a long cherished hope. If 
 after all that has been said for years past — after our own charitable 
 effort to reform them of their errors — churchmen will persist contempt- 
 uously to style us dissenters, we shall be compelled to give them over 
 as incorrigible offenders if not contumaceous schismatics, to the "un- 
 covenanted mercies" of public criticism; as legitimate subjects of a 
 literary inquisition, for violating the rules of philological accuracy, 
 overturning the established principles of logical precision, and sinning 
 against the common decencies of christian intercourse. 
 
 As the main point of attack set forth in the Sermon is dissent, we 
 hope the reader will not be offended if we take some little pains to 
 define the term. Walker says : ^'■Dissent, a verb, to disagree, differ. 
 Dissenter, one who refuses the communion of the English Church." 
 That, of course, applies to those who live under the English Govern- 
 ment. A dissenter, in that sense, is one who refuses communion in 
 the established Church of the Government under which lie lives. — 
 Will the Bishop allow us to take the word in the first sense? Then 
 it will amount to this : We dissent from the Bishop, and he dissents 
 from us ; so we are both dissenters. Will he take it in the second 
 sense ? Then the Bishop may be a dissenter from the Church of En- 
 gland for all that we can tell — at least he does not pray for the success 
 of Her Majesty's fleet and army against the Chinese ; nor do his mem- 
 bers nor himself, like the oppressed and persecuted dissenter, pay the 
 burdensome taxes imposed for the support of the establishment, what- 
 ever maybe the character of the parish minister — whether a "cossacked 
 huntsman or a fiddling Priest"— and then pay their own minister, and 
 
support by volantary contributions their benevolent institutions. If 
 the Bishop dissents, we do not; for if the English Church has been 
 brought over to the American States, it must have been by Bishop 
 DoANE, of New Jersey, and as it has no corporation in this country, 
 we do not know it, either in civil or ecclesiastical law. 
 
 But let us try the third definition, which is more general, and say 
 that a dissenter is one who refuses communion in the established 
 Church of the Government under which he lives. If this is what the 
 Bishop and other high-churchmen mean, we shall not fall out, though 
 it is given to us in contempt, without the least propriety of speech. If 
 this be dissent, we are content to bear the contumelious sneer of the 
 churchman when he arranges his oro-ans of articulation with so much 
 precision and says dissent. We are in company with some of the 
 choicest spirits, whose stern and unbending courage made the thrones 
 of the CiESARS tremble — not by thundering anathemas, but by reason- 
 ing with their occupants in meekness on the great subjects of Righte- 
 ousness, Temperance, and Judgment to come, and telling the simple 
 story of Jesus and the Resurrection. In this respect, at least, we are 
 the followers of the Apostles, if not their successors. For his dissent 
 from Judaism, Paul says : "Of the Jews, five times I received forty 
 stripes save one ; thrice was I beaten with rods ; once was I stoned ; 
 thrice I suffered shipwreck ; a night and a day have I been in the 
 deep." We find ourselves among the faithful at that period when 
 the courageous Athanasius, for his inflexible adherence to the doc- 
 trines of the Gospel in opposition to the decree of the Emperor, was 
 banished from his Episcopate at Alexandria ; we find ourselves in 
 company with Wickliff, that luminous star that rose on Britain's 
 Isle, the precursor of the glorious Reformation ; and finally, we are 
 with Cranmer and Ridley, and thousands of Reformers in Eng- 
 land, whose blood enriched the soil of their country and made it 
 prolific with all the fruits of religious ireedom. "What were all the 
 Reformers who fell victims to the ferocity of Bloody Queen Mary? 
 Who saved their lives, in those times of blood? The obsequious 
 Parliament and the obsequious Clergy, who — like the French diplo- 
 matist who was always on the side of him who retained the power 
 to bestow his benefits — could in one reign call the Church of Rome 
 a harlot, and in the next reign submissively ask absolution from 
 the Pope. 
 
 Search the History of the Church, either of Catholic, or Reformed, 
 
10 
 
 or Protestant history, and every candid and impartial man will see 
 that, in almost every instance, the triumph of dis.^eiiters has heen the 
 triumph of religious and often of civil freedom. The genius of liberty 
 has ever hovered over them ; and when they have fallen, she has wept 
 and hid herself in dens and caves of the earth. 
 
 The English historian, who, though he was an infidel, not so 
 much in respect of truo Christianity as set forth by its most blessed 
 Author, as in respect to that mongrel generated by the extraordinary 
 mixture of truth with error, freedom with bondage, which the English 
 establishment has ever exhibited, and which it will continue to exhibit, 
 under its present modification — we say, the historian has left it on 
 record that the Puritan dissenters of Elizabeth's reign, "were they 
 by whom alone the precious sparks of liberty had been kindled and 
 were preserved, and to whom the English owe the whole freedom of 
 their Constitution."' And yet these are the men against whom the 
 Sermon aims its sternest, heaviest blows! These are the disturbers of 
 the Bishop's indivisible and universal and unchangeable unit ! To 
 put down whom, he most imploringly and piteously calls upon the 
 Bishops and all good churchmen to unite! That tliis is the main 
 design of the Sermon appears on its face, its body, and its appendages. 
 If any further proof were necessary, we have it at hand, in the ante- 
 cedent course of the Bishop in his Diocess. But to form a just estimate 
 of the Sermon — to see its "merciful adaptation" to accomplish its 
 charitable end — let us take a more extended view of the circumstances 
 that gave birth to the Bishop's most extraordinary performance. The 
 mere consecration of Bishop Johns was an incident only ; the Sermon 
 was consequent only in the order of time. We must look for its caus- 
 ation below the surface of the events then transpiring; and to give the 
 subject its proper illustration, we must go back, we must look around; 
 we must, by the power of sympathy, transfer ourselves from our own 
 position and stand where Bishop Ives stood, that our eye may trace 
 the images which disturbed and perplexed, and fired and cooled, alter- 
 nately, the Bishop's mind ; we must catch the inspiration of his fervid 
 eloquence, while, like a Prophet of old, he gives out the shadowy 
 images of coming events — events yet in the future, but painted on the 
 broad canvass of rational conception, which we may trace, though 
 unblessed with prophetic vision. 
 
 It is known, doubtless, to the intelligent reader, that in addition to 
 that subdued tone which, ever since the haughty Queen Elizabeth, 
 
11 
 
 whom the Bishop in his appendix quotes with so much complacency, 
 took it into lier head to strip the Clergy of England of every thing 
 except the ministering God's Avord and tiie Sacraments, and, in return 
 for their submission, agreed to rule all estates and degrees committed 
 to her charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and 
 to restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doers ; the voice 
 of discontent, as well as dissent, has grated harsh thunder on the 
 churchman's ear. The Church of England, being an essential ele- 
 ment, a part and parcel of the Government, the Church is necessarily 
 involved in all political questions as well as ecclesiastical. Whatever 
 may be the popular will, they have for the time being transferred their 
 original and inherent sovereignty to a Constitution which, while it 
 was wrung from the hands of their rulers at different periods of their 
 history, nevertheless secured to the subjects an eminent degree of con- 
 stitutional liberty; such as, perhaps, no nation on earth ever enjoyed 
 under the prerogative of the crown and the privileges of an aristocracy. 
 But notwithstanding, the British nation presents an anomaly for which 
 it is difficult for the most enlightened statesmen to account — a mixture 
 of spiritual despotism and civil freedom. 
 
 The parties disaffected towards the Government in its radical 
 principles are, perhaps, few in number ; and they, as in all Govern- 
 ments, may be, for aught we knov/, of the baser sort, at least in the 
 estimation of the '^ powers that be." But they are few in comparison 
 with the great body of the nation, who, while they seek^redress as far 
 as they have the constitutional power, are as loyal to the Q-ueen as her 
 most humbled and obliged Bishops and Archbishops, without money 
 and without price, without the regalia of office or the ensigns of royal 
 favor. Among these are Catholics, and dissenters in general-; not 
 those who rebel against the Government, but who dissent from the 
 authority of Bishops and other Clergy to take the keeping of their 
 judgment, their consciences and their souls out of the hands of indi- 
 viduals where the God of nature and of grace has placed it. But yet 
 they pay their taxes, they pay their Church dues — not without com- 
 plaint, but they pay them — although they see themselves oppressed 
 and burdened, and ground down to misery and poverty, to support 
 a bloated establishment called a Church establishment, which, were it 
 riot for the golden chain that binds it to the throne, would fall to pieces 
 by the repulsiveness of its own materials, or dwindle away to an 
 invisible or indivisible unit. As the only hope of relief is from the 
 
m 
 
 House of (l^ommons, that being the popular branch of the Government, 
 religion has become so involved with the popular elections that chris- 
 tians of all sects, as well as infidels, have, in these elections, been 
 found in union — not to subvert the Government, but to carry the 
 election. However diversified their views may be on every other 
 subject, they are united in this : that there ought to be a reform 
 at least in the ecclesiastical machinery that grinds them so heavily. 
 It would be folly in the extreme for those who are oppressed, to hope 
 for any relaxation of the prerogatives of the crown or the privileges of 
 the Church, (especially when the Q,ueen is daily. admonished that her 
 throne stands or falls with the establishment,) unless, by a formidable 
 array of numbers, the subjects of the Government can wring from their 
 death-grasp the reluctant concessions which they demand. They 
 have already accomplished much — as much as the times and peculiar 
 circumstances of the country, perhaps, justify. The dread of Roman- 
 ism, which, notwithstanding the long oppression of Catholics, has 
 increased to a most alarming extent, has arrested the progress ol 
 reform. The great body of the nation have been, and ever will be a 
 religious people ; and while the ecclesiastics of the establishment have 
 been working the wires of Government, the Catholics and dissenters, 
 having no part nor lot in the matter, have confined themselves to their 
 appropriate work of spreading their religion, whether true or false ; 
 while a refined species of infidelity, affecting the Church as well as 
 those out of it, has been substituted in the place of vital piety; and a 
 decent conformity of the exterior man to the periodical services of the 
 Church, constitutes, to an alarming extent, the distinctive character 
 of a churchman as well as of a dissenter. Honorable exceptions are 
 found; more numerous than, perhaps, have existed for many years; 
 but still, the fact is not to be disguised that political contest between 
 those in the Church establishment and out, that gangrene of piety has 
 preyed upon the vitals of the Church as well as of the dissenters. — 
 Some new adjustment of the union between the Church and the State, 
 is imperiously demanded and impatiently looked for. The English 
 hierarchy may continue to keep the fires of the volcano pent up, by 
 the stern arm of civil rule; but as the smoke and dust precede an 
 eruption, just so fure will the outbreaks of popular fury, which are 
 frequently recurring, pour the melted lava over the plain, unless those 
 who can do so will meet the crisis in the spirit of honorable compro- 
 mise and conciliation. 
 
IS 
 
 A proud and overbearing- priesthood may continue to sport with 
 the miseries of an oppressed people, and trifle with the elements of the 
 human constitution which are at work in the British nation ; but the 
 time will come when, perhaps too late, they may see their folly. So 
 sure as human nature is the same ; so sure as the lundaraental princi- 
 ples of man's nature are the gift of God ; so sure as the love of freedom 
 is the constituent element of the English character — just so sure will 
 the nation be one day as free in their ecclesiastical as they are in their 
 civil Government. The stern arm of civil authority may do what 
 the authority of the Church never has done, and never, in any age or 
 nation, could do — smother the fires of religious freedom. But, ere 
 long, the crisis will come ; the issue will be made up, and the demands 
 ot justice must be met; — if in the true spirit of primitive Apostolical 
 Christianity, the Church and the nation may be saved ; if with scorn 
 and contempt, the giant of freedom, stung and chafed, and galled, by 
 worse than Philistian mockery, sightless with rage but still mighty, 
 will lay hold of the columns that support the fabric of Government, 
 and with the last convulsive throe, pull down ruin on millions of the 
 oppressed and the oppressors — a ruin and a desolation, beneath the 
 rubbish of which he may find his own sepulchre, without a Priest or 
 a ruler to write his epitaph ! 
 
 In view of such appalling disasters, well might the heart of a Bishop 
 fail ! Well might any man, if soft humanity ever touched his breast ; 
 if ever pity moistened his eye ; if ever, in the deep heavings of his soul, 
 he has sent a prayer to Heaven to avert impending evils from our 
 guilty, sin-stricken world — well might he, in view of these calamities, 
 gather strength and fervor, from bitterness and anguish, when he 
 prays: "From all blindness of heart, from pride, vain glory and hy- 
 pocrisy, from env}'', hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness — 
 Good Lord deliver us ! " 
 
 That the case of the English establishment is somewhat as we have 
 represented, we learn from the writings of churchmen themselves. 
 We have but little knowledge of the science of Government, much 
 less of the secret springs which move the political machinery of nations. 
 We know some little of human nature, and for several years we have 
 been silently watching the movements of the Church in England and 
 the United States. Our information is neither extensive, nor perhaps 
 definite enough to make up an opinion as to the result. But that the 
 issue is now made up between the Church of England and dissent, 
 
14 
 
 noiie can deny. What mean such expressions as these on this side of 
 the Atlantic: "Unholy alliance of intidels, papists and dissenters"/ 
 What mean the cant and studied speech of those who appeal so implor- 
 ingly to the American Church '-to defend her motlier"? liut we 
 affirm that the issue is made up; and if there be any essential connec- 
 tion between the Church of England and her dissent, and the Avxeri- 
 can Church and her dissent, we want to know and prepare for it ; 
 that it come not suddenly upon us, unawares. 
 
 The wisest and best men of all parties, in tlie Church and out of 
 the Church, are preparing to meet the crisis ; and there are many 
 projectors and projects. Some, nothing will satisfy but a disruption 
 of the Church and State alliance. Others go for a new adjustment of 
 the union — a reform on the basis of enlightened christian principles, 
 not according to the ancient doctrine, ''no Bishop no King;" but 
 according to the true nature and genius of Christianity, as taught by 
 the Son of God and so beautifully illustrated in the lives and acts of 
 the Apostles — a religion which, if it does not accommodate itself to the 
 varied ^'tastes^^ of men, shows us a most beautiful adaptation to their 
 wants under every form of Government, absolute or constitutional, 
 despotic or free — a religion v/hich may live, and flourish, and glow in 
 pristine purity, in the bosom of a Russian serf as well as in that of an 
 American freeman— a religion which is, at all times and in all places, 
 the "same one and only one true and saving" power, which, in the 
 beautiful language of an English bard, says to all, high and low, rich 
 and poor, bond and free, 
 
 Who does the best his circumstance allows. 
 Does well, acts nobly — angels could no more ; — 
 
 A divine system which, when isolated from the various macliineries of 
 human government, stands alone, bearing "twelve manner of fruits, 
 whose leaves are for the healing of the nation." Such was Christianity 
 when Paul planted it in the various cities of Asia, Africa, in the Ro- 
 man empire, and in the British Isle. Such it stood, rooted and groimded 
 in the doctrines of Christ and his Apostles, until the dispensation of its 
 fruits became the exclusive province of weak and fallible men, who, 
 by a most strange infatuation, took it into their heads that God had 
 made angels of them and had placed them, with flaming swords, 
 pointing every way, to guard the tree of life. And because, forsooth, 
 men would gather the fruit and eat thereof, in spite of their spiritual 
 weapons, which they never had only in their vain imagination, they 
 
w 
 
 dno lip the tree as far as they could; they cutoff the branches and 
 transplanted the naked trunk in the Palace Garden, as a soil more 
 cono-enial than that which God had chosen, fast by his own eternal 
 throne. And there, in the Palace Garden, to this day it stands, if not 
 a leafless, lifeless trunk, a vine of Sodom, yielding most abundant 
 crops of ^^horrid cnormities.^^ While we live, we shall ever devoutly 
 pray, from such a curse "Good Lord deliver us !" 
 
 No, say the learned men at Oxford, let us dig about and dung it, 
 and if il bear fruit, well ; if not, cut it down. But, before you do this, 
 we will prepare to meet the crisis. If we must lose our right arm, we 
 must strengthen the left. If civil government, which is alike ordained 
 of God ; if rulers and princes (once intended by God as nursing 
 fathers and mothers) must resign their headship as defenders of the 
 faith, and take their places in the Church of God, according to the 
 relative merit of personal virtue and holiness, we must go back to 
 ancient Christianity; we must take the spiritual '^ sword and axe" — 
 the one to guard the vine of Sodom, the other to cut down and grub 
 up every sprig of the Apostolical root which, owing to its indestructi- 
 ble nature, we can never kill. By a new impropriation of all authority, 
 of all good and all salvation to us and our successors for ever, " Princes 
 and rulers, and men of every rank will come to bow down to us, and 
 then we ourselves shall become rulers and princes, and our diocesses 
 shall be principalities." To stop the allegory, let us ask what this 
 parable meaneth? 
 
 It is known to the intelligent reader that, in view of the loss of 
 civil power, to stop the overflowings of dissent and Romanism m En- 
 gland, which must ensue by a disruption of the Church establishment 
 from the throne, some of the most learned and ingenius men in the 
 English Church have laid the scheme to engraft on the English Church 
 that spiritual despotism which seems to have grown up spontaneously 
 in the very first ages after the Apostles. When usurping Prelates, 
 like heathen priests, to increase their power and authority and enlarge 
 their prerogatives, being destitute of the spiritual power which the 
 Apostles had, of which they gave witness in the bestowment of spirit- 
 ual gifts and the immediate punishment of the contumacious, when 
 such punishment became a matter of prime necessity to meet some 
 alarming exigency, they, the Bishops, devised the device of making 
 mysteries of God's institutions and revelations. Baptism was made 
 a mystery ; confirmation, a mystery ; the Lord's supper, a mystery ; 
 
marriag-e, a myslery ; the bestowment of grace, a mystery ; and ordi- 
 nation, the greatest of all mysteries ; into which none but the Bishop 
 was permitted to inquire, unless by his most gracious leave. This we 
 say is the system of despotism, with all its kindred vagaries, that the 
 learned men at Oxford would engraft on the English Church as an 
 available substitute for the authority of civil rule, to stop dissent and 
 Romanism in Enoland, and save a rotten establishment. ^-m^mtmmif^Hi^' 
 And this they have attempted to do, not in the character of enlight- 
 ened statesmen nor of enlightened christians, by giving the outlines of 
 the plan and the details as far as the exigences of the case may be 
 anticipated; but like artful politicians, who, keeping the great princi- 
 ples out of sight, proclaim they are no abstractionists, and begin by 
 tinkering at the odds and ends of some favorite scheme, until the 
 nation is committed to its support. Isor do they come out like honest 
 architects, with a matured draft and an accurate admeasurement of 
 space, and a safe estimate of cost, to meet the liberal views of an unsus- 
 pecting employer, but as a skilful projector, who, for fear of awaking the 
 jealousy of a too rigid economy or the stronger principles of avarice, 
 begins by shewing the plan of the vestibule, and asking the pitiful sum 
 of a few thousand to begin witli, wliich it would be meanness not to 
 appropriate; and when the foundation is once laid and there is now 
 no way of retreat, rising in demand in the increased ratio of the one 
 million to a thousand. As one million is to one thousand, so is one 
 thousand to a million. One thousand will do the work, but it will take 
 a million to complete it. The Oxford men are not only men of learn- 
 ing, but they are far from being learned fools. They are philosophers 
 in the highest and most comprehensive sense of that word as a scien- 
 tific term. They are deeply read in human nature, as well as in the 
 writings of antiquity. They know that the world is governed by 
 compromise, conciliation, concession, and insinuation, as well as by 
 attraction and cohesion ; that the discordant elements of nature only 
 required to be adjusted by the hand divine, to bring order out of chaos. 
 They know that heat and cold, moisture and dryness, fluid and solid, 
 might be made to dwell together in unity, could some master-spirits 
 brood over the face of the great deep, arrange the materials and fix the 
 bounds of their habitation. They know that the lever must compro- 
 mise with the fulcrum, that the mass may be moved ; that the wedge 
 itself, with all its tremendous power, must enter by conciliation and 
 insinuation. Accordingly they have hiinimcred their scheme into the 
 
ir 
 
 form of an oiiiteriiig wedge; they have ground it and polished it to an 
 imperceptible edge, and now, without hammer or mallet, or the sound 
 of a tool, they are driving it imperceptibly into the heart of the English 
 nation ; — and but for the poor, despised dissenters, those ever watchful 
 guardians of liberty, the British nation would, ere long, be, if not now 
 quietly slumbering in the tranquility of a pure, unmixed spiritual 
 despotism, in its most malignant form. Their system is so framed, 
 that it accommodates itself to the religious prejudices of all ranks of 
 men, however diversified their "tastes" or opposite their qualities, so 
 they are not dissenters or Romanists ; and even these are not left out 
 in the details of the scheme. Their profound erudition enables them 
 to control, if not originate the entire literature of the Church and the 
 nation. With the great lever of the press, they are acting on the whole 
 nation, always compromising its length to the levity or ponderosity of 
 the mass to be moved. They have abstruse science for the thoughtful 
 and inquisitive, and light literature for the gay and polite ; leaden ser- 
 mons and tracts for the grave, and songs and ballads for the gypsies; 
 primitive Christianity for the puritan ; evangelical piety for the dis- 
 senter ; ancient Christianity for the churchman, and old and venerated 
 names for the catholic. Such is their power over the varied depart- 
 ment of mind, that, like the men of Ephesus, the wondering multitude 
 lift up their voices and say, the gods are com.e down unto us in the 
 likeness of men ; and they call them by the names, not of heathen 
 gods, but of the Lord Jehovah — holy fathers, holy confessors, princes, 
 priests, and kings. And if the established priesthood do not bring oxen 
 and garlands unto the gates to sacrifice with the people, it is because 
 the Bishops of Oxford and Exeter* exert the salutary injluence of 
 their office to check their folly and extravagance ; or because some 
 desperate, hopeless dissenter, who had no hand in originating the 
 scheme, and fears that his own scheme is tottering, strips off the livery 
 of heaven, which these men have stolen to serve the Church in ; 
 exposes their nakedness, that the people may see that they are men of 
 like passions with themselves. 
 
 But what has all this to do with the Sermon? Much every way ; 
 but chiefly and mainly because it is the head and front, the body and 
 tail of the Sermon. There is the same connexion between them, as 
 between the sprig and the tree from which it grows ; the same connex- 
 
 * See J^ote to Bishop Ives' Sermon. 
 
 *3 
 
18 
 
 ion that there was between the Shadow of tlie degrees and the sun 
 dial ot Ahaz. If the Sermon has no connexion with the state of the 
 English Church and dissent, "its bones are marrowless," and there is 
 no speculation in its eyes. And to say the least of it, it is an ingeni- 
 ously contrived hobgoblin ; so true, however, to nature, that unless the 
 Bishops were drowsy and did not see the fairy thing, they must have 
 taken it for a fancy sketch. If the Bishop applies his statements to the 
 Churches in the United States, then they are false in fact, fi.lse in form, 
 and false in almost every particular. These Churches are not dis- 
 senters ; they are not semi-infidels ; they do submit as a body to the 
 authority of God as revealed in the Gospel, at least as fully as church- 
 men in general do ; and their case is not more desperate than the case 
 of those who claim to be in a state of ccrtian salvation because they 
 are churchmen. 
 
 We admonished the reader, in the outset, that we must not look to 
 the circumstances immediately connected with this extraordinary 
 Sermon. It has a deeper and more concealed root, which it is our 
 duty to dig into. The Sermon certainly affects to appeal to private 
 judgment and interpretation, so far as the Bishop has left the inter- 
 pretation out of his notes and appendix. We will not go behind 
 the acts of the Bishop to interrogate his motives; nor will we torture 
 his acts to extort an answer of our own framing. We will duly ac- 
 knowledge and desire to feel all the restraints of legitimate interpreta- 
 tion. Some things we may dare to suggest, because we have no testi- 
 mony such as will be satisfactory to one who does not see the Bishop's 
 true position. 
 
 The relation existing between the Church of England and Pro- 
 testant Episcopal Church is so intimate, that, in the tropical language 
 of their writers, one is the "mother" the other "the hopeful daughter." 
 The metaphor has, in some instances, been carried to a ridiculous 
 excess; and the expressions of deep solicitude for each other, would 
 justify the belief that some high-churchmen are really afraid to trust 
 the daughter out of sight, lest she might sell the ornaments of a 
 mother's purity, by too much familiarity with dissent. From others 
 you migiit take the impression that, though old enough, she is a 
 ricketty child, and must not be allowed to go out alone. While others 
 view her as being yet bound by ligaments, the pulsations of which 
 have not yet ceased to diffuse the life-blood through her system; and 
 that if such cords as Bishop Doane and Bishop Ives were cut asunder, 
 
she would die an uiuuiluial death. Writers on tlie other side of the 
 Atlantic take a more rational and consistent view of her, as a noble 
 monument of the wisdom of those pious men who reared her up from 
 her infancy, and rejoice that, in the event of the going down of the 
 establishment in England, she stands on firm footing. Such being 
 tlie view entertained by churchmen, it cannot be but that a churchman 
 in America constantly associates in his mind the two Churches; espe- 
 cially when it is remembered they are, as to cathohc unity, one and the 
 same. A daughter who had just been reading the painful story of a 
 mother's calamities, might just as easily have lost sight of them in a 
 detail of family afflictions, as for Bishop Ives to have composed a 
 Sermon on the difficulties of a Bishop and the afflictions of the Church, 
 without borrowing his most glowing images from the afflicted state of 
 the Church in England. As before remarked, we must place ourselves 
 as nearly as we can in the position of the Bishop, to see the scope and 
 comprehension of his Sermon. After our foregoing remarks, the 
 Sermon will help us to do so in some good degree. 
 
 The Bishop, then, must have composed his Sermon in full view of 
 the present distracted, dissenting world ; in view of the rapid progress 
 of Romanism and dissent in the United States, and especially in North 
 Carolina; and in full view of the difficulties and embarrassments he 
 had thrown around himself, in taking the oversight of his flock in 
 North-Carolina. Then the Sermon, in some respects, is such as we 
 might have expected from mortified clerical ambition. He has, most 
 signally, failed in bringing his Church out of the wilderness, in North- 
 Carolina ; — not for want of the most indefatigable zeal, the most tmtir- 
 ing industry on his part. All who know the Bishop, know that he 
 resembles more a universal Apostolical Bishop than a modern Dio- 
 cesan, or an ancient Pastoral Bishop, from his abundant labors and 
 visitations. His diocess extends from the Atlantic, over the Blue Ridge 
 and the Alleganies, to the Tennessee line ; contains forty-three thousand 
 eight hundred square miles — nearly as large as England ; with a scat- 
 tered population of seven hundred and fifty-three thousand one hundred 
 souls, and twenty-five clergy. To have fulfilled his ministry, he must 
 have crowded ten years' labor into one. But he has nearly worn 
 himself out, literally, in the work. The last conventional report, if we 
 remember, gave one thousand four hundred members of the Church. 
 We have followed the Bishop, in North-Carolina almost to the seaboard, 
 where, about ten years ago, we labored in his diocess, and often heard. 
 
20 
 
 not the Episcopalians, but the Methodists speak of him in the highest 
 terms as an eloquent, zealous minister. But the Bishop has been 
 exceedingly, disappointed, in the result of his labors ; he feels it most 
 sensibly, most painfully. But the Bishop sees notliing defective in his 
 Apostolical organization ; nothing injudicious in his own course, or 
 defective in his own laborious ministry. He must assign some cause 
 for the failure ; for it is an implied censure upon the wisdom of God's 
 most -'wonderful adaptation" of the Gospel to meet the necessities of 
 dying, perishing sinners ; if some cause, which was not foreseen and 
 provided against in this plan, cannot be brought to light. But the 
 Bishop, not being able to assign any better cause, fastens it on the 
 poor dissenters, who, perhaps, have done more towards adding to his 
 Church than the labors of liis twenty-five clerical assistants. We 
 could inform the Bishop where the great error lies, if his insatiable 
 cupidity of instructing others did not render him inaccessible to the 
 teaching of unauthorized men. But the Bishop was chafed and irrita- 
 ted, and for aught we know dyspeptic, for his Sermon seems to be 
 marked with high nervous excitability, under the painful influence of 
 which our difficulties are magnified beyond all proportion. He was 
 called on to preach at the consecration of Bishop Johns, assistant of 
 Bishop Mead, in Virginia. Now the Rev'd Bishop elect and the Rev'd 
 Bishop Ives are as far apart, in their 'private views and some of their 
 avowed sentiments, as a dissenter is from a high- churchman. The 
 reader is referred to the address of the Rev'd Mr. Johns, to his former 
 charge in the city of Baltimore. The Rev'd Mr. Johns left a flourish- 
 ing church in Baltimore, of whom no churchman need be ashamed, 
 unless he hates dissenters as if they were leprous. Under the charge 
 of Bishop ]\looRE and Bishop Mead, the Church in Yirginia was 
 comparatively undisturbed, and at peace with themselves and dissent- 
 ers ; and the Church was happy and prosperous. It must have been 
 truly mortifying to the Bishop — not that it was so, but that things were 
 so different in his own diocess. Now, to heal the wounds of his morti- 
 fication, he fixes the censure upon dissenters who had blocked up his 
 way, and like the Boar out of the wood, had spoiled his vine. He 
 being an experienced Bishop, and Mr. Johns being an inexperienced 
 Bishop, it was a most fit occasion, if possible, to cure him of his suspected 
 fondness for dissenters ; and to assure him that the most efToctual way 
 to approve himself unto God, would be to break amity with dissent; 
 deal out to it— if not thundering anathemas, at least the heaviest, dead- 
 
21 
 
 liest blows. Now we are not acqiuunted with llie ilev'd Mr. Joints ; 
 but if lie be the man that his writings seem to indicate, he must have 
 thanked the Bishop for his good intentions^ and good-naturedly joined 
 with others in asking for the publication of the Sermon, hoping that, 
 as there was much ambiguity in the Sermon, it would be most favor- 
 ably interpreted by those most interested in it. But if Bishop Johns 
 and the other clergy were aware of the purpose of the Bishop, to add 
 his explanatory notes, and to send it forth as a suitable tract for the 
 times, we have but little gratitude for their friendship on less imposing 
 occasions ; and we further say, that while we hear the notes of friend- 
 ship quavering from their lips, we feel the sword going to our vitals. 
 Let Shimei curse us, if so the Lord will, for our supposed rebellion 
 against our lawful king ; we can forgive him ; but we trust to be 
 delivered from the tender mercies of a Joab, lest we die with malice 
 in our heart. 
 
 We now distinctly affirm, as our most matured private judgment, 
 that if the Bishops and clergy asked for the publication of the Sermon, 
 with the notes and appendix, as it now appears for distribution, it is 
 one of those pious frauds which even good men have sanctioned in 
 their corporate capacity, but of which they would be ashamed to have 
 originated on their individual responsibility ; that in so doing, they 
 have affixed their official sanction to the most absurd and impro- 
 bable tales against their fellow-christians ; and by the circulation of 
 the tract, in its present form, have assisted in destroying that jjeace 
 with mankind, which they solemnly promised to promote, as far 
 as in them lay. 
 
 The only apology our ingenuity can devise, is that they knew not 
 what they did. They asked for the Sermon, as they heard it glowing 
 from the speaker with all his fervid eloquence ; that, as is often the 
 case, under such circumstances, when appeals are made to our reli- 
 gious sentiments and feelings, they were affected more by what the 
 speaker sai^Z than what he meant; that, consequently, they desired 
 the Sermon, and not its explanations, as the Bishop has given them, 
 with his silly tale about the Methodists. The pamphlet, as published, 
 we look upon as a tract for the times, and shall so treat it. 
 
 Had the Sermon been the production of some newly initiated cox- 
 comb, we would, in pity, have passed it by. Had it come from Dr. 
 TAt-LOR, the first fruits of Bishop Ives' labor in North-Carolina, we 
 would have let it pass for what it is worth. But the Sermon comes to us 
 
22 
 
 \iiider the official sanction, not only of Bibiliop lvi:s, but of the Bishops 
 and Clergy present at the consecration. It has been sent abroad, with 
 the spirit's wincr, over our poor earth, to speed on the too tardy wheels 
 of a ri2:heous retribution ; to appease the manes of Ghostly Power, and 
 avenge the deep damnation of this taking off. It has come to us in 
 questionable shape; — we have dared to speak to it, if perchance it 
 might reveal the secrets of its prison-house ; and although at its reve- 
 lations our blood did not curdle in our veins, nor our eyes start in their 
 sockets, nor our hair stand on end-r-yet we could not forbear our pity, 
 when we heard its sepulchral tones relate the story of its diflicul- 
 ties, speaking so imploringly ; and we involuntarily exclaimed, Poor 
 ghost ! for well we knew that, when the shrill notes of the wakeful 
 sentinel thnt tells of the coming morn, stiould fall on its ear, it would 
 retire with the first stream of light, and seek companionship with its 
 kindred ff hosts and kindred hosts ; and should ever i^5 5/m<^e, that 
 now so nobly bears the "Banner of the Cross," deign to visit our 
 chamber and leave his caveat, we will prepare to meet at Philipi ; 
 and should it be our sad misfortune there to see the noble array of 
 Scripture facts and arguments, which we are prepared to bring into 
 the field, overwhelmed by the superior force of authority — we shall 
 have left to ns the last resort of an American citizen, if not of a Roman 
 freedman, to entrench ourselves behind the impresfnable fortress which 
 has been so successfully reared by freemens' noblest sons* ; we shall 
 at least leave but this last resort for the Bishop, that is : to put us, 
 together with the learned defence of a Vestry in his own diocess, into 
 the Index Purgatory, as too deeply tainted with damnable heresy to 
 be read by the faithful. 
 
 Having thus shewn the object of the Sermon, namely, to excite the 
 minds of churchmen asrainst dissenters ; we will now show how admi- 
 rably the Bishop has preserved the unity of his design : 
 
 To accomplisli this christian design, and to carry out the enter- 
 prize most successfully, the mere narration of facts was not sufficient, 
 though supported by Episcopal authority. The Bishop knew full 
 well that men's hearts have something to do with their religion, as well 
 as their heads; he disdains net to employ all the art of the most suc- 
 
 * Declaration of Rights made by the Representatives of the Freemen of the State of 
 North-Carolina, in Congress assembled, at Halilax, the 17th of December, in the year 
 of our I>ord 177G " Sec. 19. That all men have a natural and unalienable right to wor- 
 ship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences." 
 
23 
 
 cesslul orator; he kindles lip his own conceplion by conleir.plntiijg- 
 the scene which he had spread out fefore him, with all its grand and 
 sublime prospects, as well as the desolation and ruin, the fens and 
 bogs, which contrasted so well together; he sets off the Bishop of the 
 apostolical days in the most happy and delightful task of preserving 
 the Church in the unity of the faith and the bonds of peace, when as 
 yet it was comparatively united and undisturbed ; he continues his 
 description of the Church in all the freshness and perfection, and 
 beauty which she possessed when she came from the hands of her 
 great Architect, when the Bishop's task was comparatively easy, yet 
 having his difficulties. Then as quick as the Bishop's bounding 
 thoughts could carry him from the glowing picture of unity, peace and 
 concord, the Church stands before us marred, mutilated, trodden down, 
 "a jest for the profane and a rock of offence for the schismatic." 
 Behold it churchmen ! To you it appeals, imploringly. See her 
 walls are broken down, her altars are desecrated v/ith the incense of 
 the unholy and profane. See how desolate, how forsaken ! And who 
 has done all this? The Turks? No ! The Saracens? No ! The 
 wicked world? No! Who, then, has perpetrated this mischief? 
 Behold the man ! — a poor dissenter ! Poor old Calvin! Poor old 
 Wesley! that "set up a Church in his dotage" — a mighty good 
 old man ; did a great deal of good among the colliers and poor of 
 England — 'pity his people ever left us ; he never intended it. The 
 Bishop would have made an admirable auxiliary to the Grecian orator, 
 when he wanted to arouse his slumbering countrymen to arms against 
 an invading foe ! This part of the Sermon, to say nothing more, is an 
 admirably contrived piece of machinery. The figure of contrast is 
 carried out most successfully. We are only surprised that his listen- 
 ing and entranced auditors, who felt their church-blood stirred up, did 
 not, under the impulse, rise up and call for fire from heaven to con- 
 sume the uncircumcised Philistians ! Had such an appeal been made 
 in Italy or Spain, the result might have been truly disastrous to the 
 English Protestants. We feel devoutly thankful to Almighty God, 
 that the Sermon was delivered at the capital of that State, whose 
 emblematical representation shows 
 
 "A tyrant crushed beneath the foot of liberty : 
 " Sic semper tyrannisP 
 We contemn the proffered charity of that man, though it comes 
 with paternal solicitude and pity's tears, be he Bishop or be he layman, 
 
24 
 
 w!io could thus arlfuliy work upon the noblest principles and leelings 
 of our nature, and turn tlieni with the full tide of a new and awakened 
 energy against — what? Not sin and wickeness, drunkenness and 
 debauchery, but against our fellow-christians, who adore and worship 
 the same God; who trust in the same Lord Jesus; who have the 
 same Holy Ghost to comfort them; who believe in one holy catholic 
 Church; the communion of saints ; the forgiveness of sins ; the resur- 
 rection of the body, and life everlasting — simply because they do not 
 see, and therefore will not acknowledge, th.at Episcopacy is the only 
 constituted means of salvation for the millions of our apostate race. 
 
 As to the name ot dissenters, we bear it ciieorfully, though spoken 
 contemptuously. As to heresy, we can well retort the charge. As to 
 schism, we have yet to learn what the term implies — who will tell us? 
 What is that which has caused the shedding of so much blood? We 
 ask the Catholic Bishop, he replies "that it is separation from the Pope, 
 the universal Bishop; that the English Church, ever since a wicked 
 and profligate Prince, to gratify his own lust and ambition, denied the 
 authority of the Pope, the whole church of which he claimed to be the 
 head, is in a damnable schism and heresy.'' I ask the churchman 
 what is schism? He says, a separation from your Bishop, and setting 
 up another altar in his diocess : that in England and America, Roman- 
 ists and dissenters are in the damnable sin of schism. I ask the high- 
 churchman what is the difference between Romanism and the Church 
 of England ? He replies, just the same as there is in a man before he 
 washes his face and afterwards. I ask the old Reformers, and they 
 answer in their homilies, the difference is the same as between a scarlet 
 whore and a chaste bride. I ask the Bishop of North-Carolina to tell 
 us how we are to know that he is not both schismatical and heretical? 
 The only reply is, that ilte Church teaches hij author it i/, not Li/ judg- 
 ment ; that he teaches as the Church teaches ; and they both teach 
 according to the Scriptures, interpreted by the Church. Is the Church 
 infallible? May it not teach some things that arc wrong? The 
 whole system of despotism, cither in the Catholic Church of Rome or 
 the Catholic Church of the United States, is founded on this infalli- 
 bility. With it the Catholics make a plausible theory; without it, the 
 Protestant Church, in the hands of a high-churchman, is a fit subject 
 for ridicule to Romanists and dissenters. 
 
 The Bishop, having wrought up his own high-church blood, and 
 that of his brethren, by the most horrid representations; and having 
 
25 
 
 guided their just indignation towards the dissenter, for fear that, in the 
 warmth and animation of his appeal, they might miss the track — lest, 
 in their good nature, they might be led to apply his just remarks to 
 "/Ae loorld at large^' — he gives another " whoop." Here they are: 
 / know them ; as a body, they talk earnestly of the value of Holy 
 writ, contribute liberally to its general distribution, (mark the par- 
 ticularity;) they may be sincere; they may believe the Bible, for 
 aught we know. But let the Bishop fill up the picture, without our 
 daubing it "I am not disposed," says the Bishop, "to question either 
 their sincerity or their belief in its divuie authenticity ;" but they are 
 professors. And then, as if he was leading on a new importation of 
 Florida warriors, he would fain track them into secret places, where 
 none but God could see them. I mean, says the Bishop, that they fail 
 (to do what? to fall before the Bishop?) they fail "with a believing 
 eye to trace upon its sacred pages the aioful presence of Almighty 
 God, revealing to them, condemned sinners, the only way of salva- 
 tion," And what is this way? This Bishop tells us "a three-iold 
 ministry" — Diocesan Episcopacy by divine right, to ordain, to con- 
 firm, and consecrate ; priests to ofi'er sacrifice, and deacons to attend 
 upon them. 
 
 Now let us sum up the Bishop's ingeniously framed category, and 
 see how it stands. First, they are men, (rather indefinite) ; secondly, 
 a body of m.en (more specific,) not of the ivorld at large, (still more 
 so) ; thirdly, they are professors ; fourthly, they talk earnestly of the 
 value of holy writ ; fifthly, they contribute liberally to its general dis- 
 tribution ; sixthly, sincerity not doubted, or doubted, as you please ; 
 seventhly, their belief in the same predicament ; eighthly, their faith 
 fails (if they have any) to trace the awful presence of God ; and there- 
 fore, ninthly, mainly, chiefly, and lastly, they are condemned sin- 
 ners. And lest, by any possibility, the clergy and laity might get 
 on the wrong track, the Bishop, in his notes and appendix, specifi- 
 cally points them out — " Romanist, Calvinist, Methodists, and their 
 kindred hostsJ^ 
 
 Here you have the natural product of that universal, invisible, un- 
 changeable, and indivisible unit, spiritual despotism, absurdly called 
 the unity of the Church — a union which, while it condemns the abuse 
 of an inquisitorial tribunal, regards it as a legitimate instrument in the 
 hands of a Bishop, for the safety of the Church against schism, heresy 
 and dissent. Is it amazing, that such a unity should become a "jest 
 
26 
 
 for the profane and a stumbling block for the schismatic "? The Bish- 
 op's good intentions may screen him from the force of our remarks ; 
 but candid men must see tiiat the Bishop either said what he did 
 mean to say and that he meant what he said, or that he did not 
 know what he was talking about — as is too frequently the case when 
 men are irritated. 
 
 The next thing which strikes our attention as very merciful for 
 the poor, desperate dissenter, is the most singular adaptation of merci- 
 ful provision, not in the Gospel, but in the Bishop's plan. They are 
 required, in order to realize its benefits, to yield the most entire, un- 
 qualified and childlike submission in faith^ and obedience to this pro- 
 vision. What provision? The Bishop answers the question: The 
 three orders of the ministry. A friend of the Bishop may reply, the 
 Bishop does not mean so. Well, let the Bishop tell us so. If he does 
 not mean this, what does he mean? Is he talking nonsense all the 
 time ? Sure, the Bishop is his own best interpreter. "I do not mean," 
 says the Bishop, "that this spirit (of faith and obedience) always re- 
 " quires a written command to ensure its obedience. Far otherwise — 
 "such a spirit, ever ready to be taught, reads God's will, as well in his 
 "established institutions, as in His recorded precepts. When, for ex- 
 " ample, it sees three orders of ministers fixed in the Church of God, 
 "as it arose under his direction, through the instrumentality of the in- 
 " spired Apostles, and that the power of ordination in its exercise, was 
 "restricted to the highest order, it asks not in shaping its obedience 
 "to the divine will for a command to continue this arrangement, but 
 "for authority (o alter it." — (Sermon, 14th page.) 
 
 The good churchman, we hope, sees that the Bishop did mean 
 what we have said. The only offset we have is this : We do not see 
 it ; WE cannot see it ; and we, therefore, do not submit to the Bishop's 
 plan to save dissenters. That we have not pushed the Bishop's 
 doctrines beyond the legitimate deductions of common sense, plainly 
 appears from the fact that the moment these half-infidel professors, 
 these desperate sinners, called dissenters, without the least change in 
 their moral characters, except what is implied in their submission to 
 the Bishop, ask for and receive confirmation or ordination, they are at 
 once assured thai they are in a state of certain salvation ; their sincerity 
 or good intentions having little to do in the premises. — (See the Bish- 
 op's note, Uth page.) 
 
 We cannot follow the Bishop through all the mazes and intricacies 
 
27 
 
 of his Sermon. We will transcribe a part of the seventh page, and add 
 such explanatory words as make sense of the Sermon. The Bishop 
 continues : "I mean that they, these men described, fail, as trembling 
 rebels brought in chains to the feet of their dread sovereign, to hear 
 him, through the Bishop, speak to them the words of eternal life ; tell 
 them, in mingled accents of love and authority, what they must do to 
 be saved — that is, to submit to a three-fold m,inistiy, that they may 
 point them to the only begotten of the Father, now through simple 
 means of his own appointment, by a three-fold ministry in his Church, 
 opening the treasures of his grace and shedding on them abundantly — 
 first by baptism,, secondly, in greater measure by confirmatioii, and 
 thirdly, by the Lord's supper — the energies of his blessed spirit. And, 
 lest their presumption should lead them to violate this plan 0/ a iJ/wee- 
 fold ministry, recording the applying testimony in Rev. xxii, 18, 19." 
 If ever military prowess was successfully exerted to shut up an 
 enemy and bring them to lay down their arms at the mercy of the 
 triumphant General — the Bishop, at least in his own estimation, has 
 shut up these dissenters. But there is one serious defect in ihe Bish- 
 op's seige. He built a castle, first, to put the enemy in ; he brought 
 all his artillery and engines to bear upon its walls — but lo ! the enemy 
 was not there ! They had watched the Bishop's movements so closely, 
 that, before he was aware, they seized his own armor, which he thought 
 he had so dexterously used, and dealt out to him ils dealiest, heaviest 
 blows I Nothing could have been so imprudent, at this juncture — 
 nothing could betray theBishop's want of controversial generalship sO' 
 much — as his drawing so largely upon the rich magazine from which 
 the dissenters draw all their weapons. The Bishop had much better 
 fought in Saul's armor than with David's sling; it certainly suits 
 better the princely dignity of Oxford, than the simple stones gathered 
 from the brook of Truth. Besides, the sword of the spirit, in unskilful 
 hands, may be harmless to an adversary, while it deals death to him 
 that uses it. The Bishop seems to have been aware of this; and 
 before his final triumph — before he could shout over th3 spoils of vic- 
 tory — he cast his sword away, as a useless thing ; and to end the con- 
 test most gloriously, he says: Submit to my authority ^ if you will not 
 to my heaviest, deadliest blows ! 
 
 Here is, indeed, a noble achievement for the successor of the Apos- 
 tle who said, "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty 
 through God to the pulling down of strong holds"! After a whole 
 
28 
 
 campaign of exterminating warfare against heresy and schism, the 
 Bishop concludes with this most grave and solemn truth : that a spirit 
 of obedience does not always require a written command to ensure its 
 obedience, in a case where the penalty of disobedience is damnation ! 
 
 No wonder tliat the Bishop prefers to teach by authority, rather 
 than Scripture, or reason, or common sense ; that he may tell dissent- 
 ers, with all the authority of his official dignity, that they are to see 
 what is not to be seen — to do what they cannot, dare not do, without 
 violating honesty and truth, and reason, and scripture — in order that 
 they may be saved by God's instituted means, namely, submission to 
 the authority of a diocesan Bishop, as the successor of the Apostles, for 
 which there is no written command in the word of God, none on the 
 face of nature, and every thing in God's providential dispensations 
 against it. 
 
 As we have commenced a review of the Bishop's Sermon in an- 
 other place, we here dismiss it, with this single remark: that in all 
 the attempts to make out a case, we have met with but one instance of 
 such a triumphant failure as that in the case before us. The case is 
 that of a Mormon Prophet with whom we conversed, very recently, 
 who, when he was asked how it came to pass that Joe Smith could 
 interpret the Mormon Scriptures when no one else could, very gravely 
 replied, by "Urim and Thummim." 
 
 And now, candid churchmen, we address ourselves to you. We 
 anticipate the cry of persecution. That comes with an ill grace from 
 one who aids and abets the persecutions of others. But whom have 
 we persecuted ? The Protestant Episcopal Church ? We deny the 
 charge. Let any man of honesty look into the writings of the Metho- 
 dist Church, and he will see that, in every instance of controversy 
 with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, or the 
 English Church, the Methodist Church has always been the criminal 
 prosecuted ; and she has set up her defence on the broad ground of the 
 law of nature, as well as scripture, that a criminal should not be con- 
 demned unheard. The Methodists make no assaults on the Church ; 
 and if they at any time have admonished the Church of what might 
 appear to them to be blemishes, it has been only, in the language of 
 Dr. Hook of Oxford, that she might be the same Church after as before, 
 as a man is the same man after he washes his face as he was before. 
 We have never seen the time since our attention was called to the 
 subject of Christianity, that we could not in conscience have been a 
 
29 
 
 member of your Church, until the exposition ol her doctrines by the 
 Sermon we have reviewed. And even now, could the great purposes 
 for which the Church was instituted — the alleviation of human sufler- 
 ings, the renovation and sanctification of human nature, and the pre- 
 paration of every one to meet the glorious advent of the blessed Son of 
 God — be best subserved by an association with the Protestant Episco- 
 pal Church, it would be no sacrifice to us to subscribe her articles : to 
 adopt the traditions as set forth in her admirable and scriptural prayer 
 book. Leaving all other denominations to make their owi> apology, in 
 that way and at that time which to them may seem best, to ward off 
 the illiberal and unfounded attack of the Sermon — we ask, what intel- 
 ligent Methodist has ever assailed the Church of which you f,re a 
 member? The traditions of Wesley, of Clark, of Wanson, of 
 Bangs, and Emory, have taught us otherwise ; — we have endeavored 
 to follow their teachings. But we have assailed your Bishop 7 By no 
 means. We have assailed his dissent, his heresy and schism ; and 
 could we find a competent tribunal, having appellate jurisdiction in 
 the premises, it would be a small task to convict his Sermon of the 
 charge of heresy and schism, if not of dissent. If we carry the cause 
 up to the Bishop of Rome, he certainly would be at no loss to decide ; — 
 if we take him to the Fathers of the Church for the first three centu- 
 ries, his case would be equally hopeless ; — if we carry him still farther 
 back to Primitive Christianity, even the Oxford tract men, as well as 
 Bishop Ives, acknowledge that the command to continue the Bishop's 
 arrangement in the establishment is wanting; — if we take the case up 
 to the Reformation, there the judges have been divided ; but a majority 
 of the early Reformers are against the Bishop ; — could we take the 
 case up to the House of Bishops, at their next convocation at Philadel- 
 phia, we could just as easily convict him of heresy and schism, as he 
 can convict us of dissent — heresy in doctrine, leading to schism. And 
 the Church may wake up as much as she may, to the dangers that are 
 without ; but she will yet feel most deeply from the injuries within 
 her body. Schism in the body, is Paul's schism against which he 
 cautions the Church. We want nothing but the prayer book and the 
 old homilies, if they have not been abrogated by disuse, to establish 
 all we say. 
 
 To charge the Methodist Church with heresy and schism, comes 
 with a very ill grace from the author of the Sermon ; when the Metiio- 
 dist Church has done more to revive and perpetuate the godly and 
 
30 
 
 wholesome doctrines of the homilies, than tiic Protestant Church itself! 
 With most churchmen they are obsolete— not in phraseology only, but 
 in substance and matter. And it is but a poor apology, indeed, that 
 their antique diction should be so offensive to a churchman's ear, that — 
 in a Sermon of twenty pages and an appendix often pages, interspersed 
 with references to and quotations from Palmer, Doane, and Bishop 
 Ives, and the Oxford writers — there is not a single quotation, not a 
 single reference to the old homilies of the Church; and any one may 
 see that the Sermon has dropped its acquaintance with those antiqua- 
 ted authors, and exchanged them for the writers of high-church Epis- 
 copacy. But still you cry out, persecution ! We have not not perse- 
 cuted Bishop Ives ; — we have only picked up his Porcupine quills, 
 which were intended to kill us out-right, and, with reversed points, 
 thrown them back at him — not to kill, nor to wound him; much less 
 to abate the reverence due to his official character or his moral worth. 
 We do not wish to hurt a hair of his head. The only essential prin- 
 ciple of his nature we would affect, is his conscience ; the only acci- 
 dental property we would destroy, is his excessive vanity; and we 
 would do that in perfect good humor. There is another view whicli 
 churchmen overlook, in this controversy. AVere we to gain a com- 
 plete victory, the Protestant Episcopal Church would stand forth before 
 us in all the freshness and beauty of primitive times; — in other words, 
 her face would be washed — perhaps, a little cleaner than when she 
 escaped the enormities of Rome. That would be all the injury we 
 . could in our heart give her, if we had her in our povver. On the other 
 hand, if high-church Episcopacy triumphs, what monstrous conse- 
 quences must follow, any intelligent man may see: all of us are living 
 without grace, and, like our fathers before us, we must die without it ! 
 If the Bishop triumphs over our Church, and we suffer him to put his 
 heel on our necks, we have too little confidence in his sort of charity 
 to suppose he would stay his hand until we were dead and buried, and 
 a stone of the heaviest weight set down on our graves, for fear that we 
 might by possibility get up again. Now let us ask, if a man who fights 
 for a garland of flowers may yet be allowed to agonize, what may not 
 a man do when he strives for breath ? If Bishop Ives can be allowed 
 to contend so warmly for an indefinable something, that no human 
 being has ever seen or can see, if it exists at all, or has been able to 
 find it where it has been said to exist, sure a Methodist preacher may 
 be allowed to contend earnestly for that "liberty wherewhilh Christ 
 hath made us free"? 
 
31 
 
 We are aware that those who liave not properly analyzed the 
 Bishop's Sermon, may think we are persecuting the Bishop instead of 
 exposing the enormities of the Sermon. We ask them not to read our 
 remarks, without having read or intending to read the Sermon. We 
 ask them to consider what are the legitimate deductions from the 
 Bishop's own doctrines and statements. 
 
 Notwithstanding his ingeniously constructed category, here is 
 what the Sermon distinctly assumes : That dissenters, as a body — that 
 is, Methodists, Calvinists, and their "kindred hosts," who are so well 
 known to the Bishop ; who talk earnestly of the value of holy writ, and 
 contribute liberally to its general distribution ; whose sincerity the 
 Bishop cannot feel disposed to question ; whose belief in the divine 
 authority of the Bible he is not disposed to doubt ; but who, neverthe- 
 less, fail with a believing eye to trace upon its sacred pages, the awful 
 presence of Almighty God, revealing to them, condemned sinners, the 
 only way of salvation, by "a three-fold ministry," Bishops, Priests and 
 Deacons ; the evidence of which failure, is found in their not yielding, 
 in order to realize its benefits, the most entire, unqualified, and child- 
 like submission in faith and obedience to this merciful provision of the 
 three Orders in the ministry, as God's scheme of saving guilty and 
 perishing men — being in a damnable error, it is the duty of all church- 
 men, Bishops, Priests and Deacons, to address themselves mainly to 
 the most charitable work of proselyting them from their different com- 
 munions ; and when tears and entreaties fail, to overthrow them with 
 nothing less than the sternest, heaviest blows of the two-edged sword 
 of the spirit, polished and sharpened by tradition and the authority of 
 the Church — by telling them, that they might just as well try to make 
 a world, as to obtain the promised grace of the Gospel, except in the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church ; that they are schismatical and hereti- 
 cal, their ministers intruders, and their sacraments nothing more than 
 eating bread and drinking wine ; — and now, having, by the Providence 
 of God, the requisite means of avoiding error, they are without excuse, 
 and even the uncovenanted mercies of God will not avail. 
 
 Now let us suppose the Bishop's feeling and resistless appeal to the 
 religious feelings of Bishop Johns, the other reverend Bishops and 
 Clergy, and the congregation, were to take full effect. What would 
 be the consequence ? But that is nothing to a fanatic — yet it ought to 
 be to a Bishop. A man should be morally certain that it is his duty 
 to act in the premises, before he scatters firebrands, arrows and death, 
 
32 
 
 amongst his neighbors. He ought to be able to say, "thus saith the 
 Lord," at least, before he begins. 
 
 Suppose the Methodists were to take it into their heads, among 
 their other '• vag-iries," that they were the true Church, the only cath- 
 ohc and Apostolic Church ; that all others were intruders, and were 
 in a damnable sin. so long as they refused submission to a Methodist 
 Bishop ; and under an exciting sermon from him, were to think it 
 their duty to go on a crusade to convert the Episcopalians. We 
 should like to see a Methodist Bishop leading a Bishop of the Protest- 
 ant Episcopal Church to the altar to get his soul converted by their 
 "new measure — the opus operatum of Popery ^ Would it not be 
 a sight supremely ridiculous! Would not the Methodist unity be a 
 jest for the profane, and a rock of offence to the schismatic? And 
 after all, what is this stumbling, this rock of offence, which the Metho- 
 dists throw in the Bishop's way, and in the way of Protestant Episco- 
 palians? We do not bring them to our houses of worship or private 
 dwellings, and shock and insult them, by abusing their Church, which 
 we believe to be a branch of the true Church : we do not go to their 
 houses of worship or their dwellings, unasked, to sing hymns and pray 
 and exhort them to repentance, and to bring them back to our Church 
 as the only true Church — the only saving sacraments — and thereby 
 outrage all the decencies of life and the rules of hospitality. "What is 
 it, then? It is this. We differ from them, and do not make their 
 consciences and opinion the rule of our conduct. But is it reasonable 
 to expect this? They differ as much from us as we from them. 
 Why should they govern us more than we them? Why should not 
 each be content to differ, without iiny breach of kindness or charity? 
 To love and bear with those who agree with us in all things^ said a 
 distinguished divine, is but a low pitch of virtue. I had almost said 
 it is but sacrificing to our own pride, and little better than loving our- 
 selves over again in others. But to bear with and be kind in our 
 opinions of those who differ from us, is to sacrifice pride and self- 
 complacency at the altar of charity. Let us learn to bear with all that 
 variety of judgment which can possibly be accounted for from thai 
 variety of temper, education and conversation, which are unavoidable 
 in this State." 
 
 After all, what is that great and irreconcilable difference between 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 in the United States? We ask, what is that impassable gulph over 
 
which a Bishop of the one Church cannot pass in the interchange of 
 ministerial courtesy; unless the Bishop chooses to occupy a pulpit of a 
 Bishop, when he has none of his own? What is that leprosy that so 
 cleaves to a Methodist minister, that every clerical com.edian must 
 wiilihold from him even the common title of his office, for fenr of in- 
 juring the Church 7 And what must be the foundation of that Church 
 which stands or falls by the right or wrong use of the definite and 
 indefinite articles a and the ! Is this the rock upon which the Lord 
 Jesus built his Church? What, then, is there in Methodism, as it has 
 been contemptuously named, so autagonistical to the Churchy that one 
 or the other mnst die- — that it amounts to the noblest charity to pluck 
 them as brands from the fire? Do our church friends fear God in 
 truth? So do we. Do they love the Lord Jesus, and daily look for his 
 promised coming ? So do we. Have they the comfortable communion 
 and fellowship of the Spirit ? So have we. Are they dying to the world, 
 daily, as their Bishop has so often taught them ? So, we trust, are we. 
 Have they the spirit itself bearing witness with their spirits? So, we 
 trust, have we. Have they received the spirit of adoption, whereby 
 they cry Abba Father? So have we. Do they bring forth t!ie fruits 
 of the spirit ? So, we trust, we do, in some tolerable degree. Do they . 
 carry out their baptismal vow to renounce the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil? So, the Lord being our helper, we have intended, and do 
 still intend to do. Do they believe that to love C-cd with all the heart, 
 and our neighbor as ourselves, is better than all whole burnt ofterings 
 and sacrifices? So do we. Have they been regenerated and born 
 anew, as well by the spii:it oi God as by water ? So, we trust, have 
 we. Have they been confirmed In the hopes and promises of the 
 Ijospel? So have we, daily, by the renewed application of the blood 
 of sprinkling, purging our hearts from an evil conscience, to serve the 
 living God. Have they a good hope, through the blood of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, so freely shed for our sins, that they will come to 
 heaven ? Bless God for it ! so have we. And it maketh not ashamed, 
 because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy 
 Ghost given unto us. Where, then, is the ground of mutual jealousy 
 Jind hostility? Do they love the Scriptures, and read, and learn, and 
 mark, and inwardly digest them? So do we ; interpreting them, not 
 according to our vagaries^ but restrained by the common rules of in- 
 terpretation — by reason and common sense, aided by the best lights of 
 Ancient exposition, and the spirit of God that inspired them; reserving 
 
 *5 
 
,* 34 
 
 to ourselves the right to aj)peal from all Fathers, Councils, cECunienicai 
 or provincial, all conyocations of IBishops or individual interpretation 
 of Bishop-!, when they contradict ihc plain letter of Scripture, outrage 
 the rules of just criticism, and common sense interpretation : and 
 when, by torturing and twisting obscure and isolated passages, they find 
 out conditions of salvation other than those wliich are so clearly, np- 
 cquivocally and constantly revealed. Do they allow to others while 
 they claim for themselves liberty of conscience ? So do we ; — as indi- 
 viduals, resjionsible only to God for the use or abuse of the powers and 
 privileges he bestows ; as christians, holding ourselves responsible to 
 all other christians, so far as their charity and amity are concern- 
 ed, for our opinions and practices ; us members of the Church, holding 
 ourselves r-csponsible to the society to which we belong — M'hatever our 
 private judgment may be, not to inveigh against her doctrines and dis- 
 cipline, or otherwise disturb the peace of the Churcli or society to 
 which we belong, so long as our connexion lasts. Do they honor and 
 respect their Bishops and other clergy, and pray for them? So do we ; 
 and \vc can do so for all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, iu, sincerity. 
 Do they fear the reproofs and censures of their Bisliops and clergy 
 who oversee them 7 So do we; as dutiful children we would not 
 offend them, unnecessarily, for any consideration. Do tiiey tremble at 
 the axe and sword of e.vcommimication, which is inore terrible to the 
 soul than death ? So do we, when our guilty hearts condemn us ns 
 apostates from the faith of the blessed Lord Jesus. But -while we 
 retain a conscience void of offence, the ind>A^elling testimony that we 
 please God, with the comfort of his holy spirit to sustain us, we have 
 as little regard for the bulls of Popes and the thundering anathemas of 
 the Vatican, ns we have for the peacock's plume that any spiritual fop 
 may stick in his oflicial cap. What then, we ask again, is it that sepa- 
 rates us from our Episcopal brethren, who, from our hearts we can 
 say, arc in all vespects as good as we are by natural inheritance, and 
 better, for all we know, by more aboimding gifts of the Holy Spirit 
 working in them energetically that renovation wiiich constitutes their 
 virtue here on earth, and prepares them for glory in lieaven? To 
 this repeated interrogatory, we have but one answer — it is this: 
 Me cannot .see how a personal succession of ministerial character can 
 corne down unpolJutod, through a race of moral monsters — from 
 whom, in tlir time of the Pious King F.nw.^RD VI, tlie Reformers 
 taught the pciipli' to [Tiiy to be delivered on account of '-detestable 
 
enormities" — when Ihe homilies ol the Ghurch, unannuUed to this 
 day, declare the Ghurch of Rome to be not only a harlot, but also 
 ^'•a foul, filthy 1 old, withered Harlot.-^ 
 
 If for the sake of such a succession, Protestant Episcopalians close 
 their Churches against our ministrations; — if they uirn from us with 
 horror, as sacrilegious intruders into the work of the ministry ; — if they 
 withhold even the common courtesies and civilities of life from us, 
 sooner than give up this figment which the purest men and best wri- 
 ters in the Church of Englan.d never did believe ; — they may have all 
 the glory which the present or the future may bestow upon them. 
 We are willing to take the shame of being contumacious toward 
 priestly dignity in the exercise of our private judgement, and will en- 
 deavor to pursue the even tenor of our way. as we have hitherto 
 done; doing our work in the way which to us seems most according 
 to God's holy word, to the times, and circumstances around us. 
 
 In what we have written, we have endeavored most zealously and 
 faithfully so to write as to show ourselves approved unto God, a work- 
 man that needeth not to be ashamed ; rightly dividing the words of truth 
 and giving to each his portion in due season. Such as we had we have 
 endeavored to giNQ. Jt may be coarse, but yet wholesome. It certain- 
 ly will not suit those whose . ias-Zes* are refirjed above the standard of 
 the ol,d homilies; — but it may have this effect, at least, to show our 
 Ghurch friends it is easier to provoke an assault than it is to repel one, 
 and where neither can gain any thing in the contest, we had better let 
 strife alone before it is meddled with ; that in '■'•carrying the war into 
 Africa^^ as an Episcopal writer has it, success mainly depends on their 
 hiving a Roman General — other^wise, they will run bacic tp Rome 
 much faster than they marched out of it. Some are already gone back 
 in England; some in the United States; some in North-Carolina! 
 The position in which high- church jnen place the Protestant Episcopal 
 Ghurch, is by no means an enviable one — between the fires of Roman 
 schismatics and American dissent. If she can find nothing else to 
 assail — if there are no unoccupied \yastes in the vales jand hills of the 
 Canaanites nor the plains of Sodom — she had better put off her aggres- 
 sive character, fix down her stakes, and tarry on this side of Jordan. 
 IJut if she will enter the league with us against sin and wickedness, 
 which abound in the world at large ; — if she will aid us in beating 
 down tlie strong holds of Satan, either in the Church or in the world ; — 
 we say, Give us your hand, we will never fall out about your Epis- 
 
4%. 30 
 
 copacy; we will reverence your prayer book, as a monument of the 
 learning and piety of our Fathers ; we will hold the ancient Creed in- 
 violate, as a sacred treasure gathered from the exhaustlcss mine of un- 
 mixed truth ; and when we have, in the name of Jehovah, the God of 
 Israel, and the Lord Jesus, the captain of our salvation, beat down our 
 mutual foes — ignorance, vice, and profligacy — we will calmly wait the 
 Second Advent of our Lord to shew to us how, by his most miracu- 
 lous power, he has transmitted his pure Word, and, by an uninter- 
 rupted succession of spiritual ministers, brought about the glory of 
 these latter days ; when many are running to and fro, and knowledge 
 is increasing even unto the ends of the earth. Come, Lord Jesus, 
 come quickly ; and let the world be filled with thy glory. Amen. 
 
 tJ^ On the 6th page, in the I6th line from the top, for the word 
 ^^mixedJ^ read evinced. 
 
 * 
 
 U ^^^ 
 

 PASTORAL LETTER. 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 MEm m Mmmm tmwLw 
 
 TO TItK 
 
 CHURCHES CxXDEll ITS CARE, 
 
 ADOPTED AT 
 
 lOtSi iVovesnber, 18i5. 
 
 FAYETTEVILLE : 
 PRINTED BY EDWARD J. HALE. 
 
 1846. 
 
"^ 
 
 pAgf OlAi hMW 
 
 
 The Synod of North Carolina to the churches under taotr care. Grace, 
 jnercy and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Beloved Brethren in the Lorb: 
 
 You are, no doubt, aware, that one of the primary objects 
 of the annual meetings of your Synod, composed, as it is, of the Pastors 
 and representatives of your churches, is, carefully to iinquire into the con- 
 dition of our beloved Zion; and to devise and propose measures for her, 
 improvement and enlargement. Remembering our high responsibility, 
 as watchman on the walls of Zion, we feel constrained to communicate 
 to you, the results and conclusions at which we have aniv€>d, in an af- 
 fectionate but faithful Pastoral Letter. Regard it, we beseech you, net 
 a,s an ordinary official document, but as a special communication upon 
 matters of practical and vital importance to yourselves, to your children, 
 to our common country, and to the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ^ 
 
 And, at the very out-set, truth requires us to state*, that the general 
 aspect of our Zion, at present, is unusually discowraging and humiliating; 
 that feebleness and decline are the leading features o( many, whilst cold- 
 ness, inactivity, and barrenness, are the most prominent characteristics 
 <if nearly all our cluirches; — a very few only appearing lo he prosperous. 
 Death and emigration are steadily, and with increasing rapidity, thinning 
 ■our ranks, and diminishing our numbers. Very many of our venerable 
 Fathers, both in the ministry and among the laity, who have been, du- 
 I'ing the last half-century, so prompt to come up to the help of the Lord 
 against the mighty, have no longer a place, either in our churches or in 
 our church judicatories. Nor have any of our churches, of late, been re- 
 freshed and strengthened by revivals of religion, as in former years. The 
 I'^athers have fallen asleep; but their sons, to an alarming extent, con- 
 tinue in the course of this world. The spirit of revivals, those preciou£S 
 harvest seasons for the souls of men and for the churoh of God, sesms to 
 
]!!ivc (icpartt'd from nmnng us. AVitli vory few cxceptiong, tl.c numltcr 
 of deaths ;ind removals, in our churches!, has exceeded the nuiiiljer of ad- 
 <litions. From our statistical reports, it appears, that, uithin the past 
 }eaf, the number of our ministers has Ijeen diminished, hy six, and uf 
 <mv candidates tor the ministry, by ten. In addition to all this, the fie- 
 fjiient, and, as it appears to us, unwise breaking' n|) of Pastoral relatiiuis, 
 f>f late, the rapid increase of vacant churches, and the jnanifcst want of 
 unity, energy, and cheerful liberality in the support of the gospel, are 
 eviib already of enormous magnitude, and fearfully ominous oia stil! daik- 
 er day approaching. This state of decline, moreover, has Ijeen going 
 on, for several years. We have, now, witliin the l)OU)ids and under the 
 jurisdiction of our Synod, 27 vacant churches; — 6 more than we had l!\e 
 years ago; and some of them, churches that have been heretoforp regard- 
 ed as amono: the strongest and most flourishin'i amoji"^ us. And v. hat is 
 f-till more alarming, Vvhilst this state of things not only continues among 
 us, but steadily increases, our people seem to be recklessly and fearful- 
 ly indiflerent to it; and neither ministers nor people have liearts to piay 
 Jil>out it. Nor is this all: For som<> si\ or oi"ht years past, the number 
 <if revivals of religion within our l)cunds, the additions to our churches, 
 (he success of the Sabbath-school cause, attendance upon Bible class and 
 Catechetical instruction, the amount of benevolent contributions, the dis- 
 position of our young men to devote themselves to the service of C>od aiui 
 i.is chuich in the work of the ministry, the disposition of the peo|)le to 
 •sustain indigent candidates for the sacred ofiice, and the zeal manifested 
 by both ministers and p>eople in the Temperance reform, insUad of i)i- 
 creasing, as the gnnvth ot our population and the indications of l)i\ine 
 Providence have loudly demanded, have, with very few exceptions, been 
 fcteadiiy retrograding. Alread^^ some of our feebler churches have a mere 
 nominal existence; whilst others have become vacant, front their inabili- 
 ty to support their Pastors: and, in some of the rest, there is eitjier such 
 a slate of disaffection towards the Pastors, such an enervating indulgence 
 i;i ])crsonal animosities and family quarrels, or, from some otlier causes, 
 jsiich an increasing difficulty to secure the stipulated ministerial suppoit, 
 :is to render the prospects of their Pastors exceedingly discouraging and 
 j/recarious. Under such circumstances, neither ministers nor people 
 Know what to expect; nor do they feel the right sort of stimulus, either 
 to pray or to labour for the building up of the church. On lh<' contrary, 
 ihey are both disheartened, and disposed to criminate each other. This 
 worliof decay and mortification, though slow and often imperceptible, is, 
 nevertheless, progressive and certain. Let the present state of things 
 continue a little longer, and the weaker of our churches will licctime ex- 
 tinct; whilst the stronger will continue to decline ami dwindle, until they 
 become as weak as the weakest. 
 
 Beloved brethren: We camn)t witness such tilings, and contemplate 
 such prospects respecting our bi-loved Zion, without sdiuiding an alarm; 
 — without stating distinctly, so far as we can ascertain them, not only 
 the languisliing state of ihe church, but the causes and the remedy. 
 
 We know, indeed, that rreif/ good and j:crj\'d gift is from above, 
 and conii'th doun from tlir Valhrr of lights, villi xiliom is no rariablc- 
 ituss, lu'.illicr shadow of turning; and that, \\ ilh<nit the divine blessing. 
 
;ill our cflurts to build up Lis kingdom amongst men must lie fruitless. 
 ^Vo cannot, however, charge the decline of religion and the barrenness 
 of ordinances to the Author of all good. We ace assured, that His arm 
 is not shortened that he cannot save; neither is His ear heavy that he can- 
 not hear; but that ^in produces a separation l)et\veen Uini and his peo- 
 ple. The fault is ours; — chargeable either to the ministers or to the 
 people; — most probably to both. 
 
 We have most solemnly asked ourselves, as v>e, now inquire of you, 
 — Is the present languishing state of religion among us, and declining 
 condition of our churches, owing to a want of faithfulness i)i the exhibi- 
 tion and application of appropriate Bible truth, from the pulpit, or in 
 Pastoral visitations? Or, Is it owing to scandal, or gross inconsisten- 
 cies, in the lives of your ministers? As to our professional performan- 
 ces, wc are conscious of much imperfection. I'his, and any want of 
 entire excmplariness of life, is, undoubtedl}-, too often, the legitimate re- 
 sult of the Mant of a sufficiently ardent, absoj-bing, and controlling pie- 
 ty, in our own hearts. Your ministers, then, need to be revived, — to 
 have the Holy .Spirit poured out, copiously, upon them: and, usually, 
 vv'hen the people are revived, the preachers, as well as the people, feel 
 it, and manifest it, as much as any. 
 
 But, it sometimes occurs, that, when we would otherwise fee! stirred 
 up to greater zeal and activity in our professional work, we are discour- 
 aged and disqualified, by the fatigue and perplexing care? of employ, 
 rnents that are utterly foreign from our sacred functions. To such em- 
 ployments, Ave are, not unfrequently, absolutely drircn, in order to secure 
 a bare competent support, for ourselves and our families. It is utterly 
 impossible for us to be in a suitable frame, either intellectually or 
 spiritualh', to preach the gospel, either in the pulpit or in the family. 
 when our l)odies are worn down by secularizing employments, or our 
 minds are jaded and harrassed by the pressm-e of debt, and the know, 
 icdge, staring us in (he face, that that debt is enlarging, our liabilities 
 increasing, our families unprovided tor, our children growing up in 
 ignorance, and that a large part of wiiat little we do receive is paid 
 either grudgingly or as a mere charity. We affectionately suggest, 
 tlien, Dear brethren, that fervent prayers he ofiered to the Head ot" the 
 church, and that appropriate effijrts be made by both ministers and peo- 
 p\e, that the Lord would revive and encourage the hearts of your Pas- 
 tors, and place them, in every respect, in a situation, as far as possi. 
 ble, free from world!}- care, and favourable to their official usefulness. 
 
 Again: We would afiectionately inquire,' — Is there no delinquency 
 ia duty among our Kuling-Elders, — in maintaining a wholesome disci- 
 ]dine in the church, tor the preservation of its purity: and in keeping up 
 and encouraging weekly prayer-meetings, for the comfort of the saints, 
 :ind the special beneht of the rising race? Are they sufficiently care- 
 l"il, to see that such meetings are attended, and conducted in an interest- 
 iug and edifying manner? Are they doing all they can, to shield their 
 ]*ast(irs from the shafts of wicked met!; to hold up their hands, to second 
 their etibrts, and to carry out their plans fordoing good; — for proumtiui- 
 the intelligence and spirituality of the people? Surely, we can never 
 reasonably expect religion to be revived, or tlie church to tl(juri>h, 
 
whore thero is little or none of the spirit of prayer. Our God is both 
 rihic and wiliiiig, to cause his Zion, though ever so desolate and waste, 
 to become as the garden of Eden: But He saith himself that He zcill 
 t/ct for this he inquired of, l)y his people, to do it for them. And, are 
 not the Elders of the church, men selected tor their zeal and piety as 
 well as tor their wisdom and prudence, expected to be leaders and en- 
 fiamples, in this most important and delighttld exercise? If, therefore, 
 ihey are not throwing their experience, practical skill, and personal in- 
 liuence, into zealous efforts to maintain weekly prayer-meetings, and to 
 render th(?m interesting and useful, they a.re not doing what the people 
 exp.ect them to do, what tliey might do, and what their office requires 
 them to do, as co-workers with their Pastors, in fostering the impres- 
 sions, which are often produced by the public and Parochial labours of 
 tiu'ir Pastors, by the Providences of God, and by the common influences 
 of the Spirit. It is seriously feared, that the church is suffering, for 
 v.Awi of more social prayer; — which always encourages fimily worship, 
 and closet devotions. There are, probablv, not less than lour hundred 
 and thirty Ruling Elders, within our l)Ounds. How many weekly 
 prayer-meetings are there? If every Elder had the spirit of prayer, 
 and exerted himself to keep up a well conducted prayer-meeting, might 
 we not confidently expect good results soon to appear? Would not 
 tlieir Pastors preach and pray more and better? Vfoulrl not the people 
 attend both Church and prayer-meetings better, and he^.r the gospel to 
 better purpose? Would not sinners Ije converted, christians be more 
 consistent, and our churches be more flourishing? 
 
 }3ut dear brethren, — Have our private church members no share in 
 the guilt of bringing about the present languishing state of our Zion? 
 Is there nothing like corruptioti, or mere nominal religion, in cur 
 ciiurches? If a large j)roportion, or any considerable number of onr 
 ciujrch members are mere professors of religion, though ever so zealous 
 for an orth(;dox creed, whilst they are strangers to experimental reli- 
 gion, having never been born again; — if they attend ever so punctili- 
 <;usly upon the outward and popular forms of Christianity, whilst they 
 !<re igtiorant and destitute of its vital power, and neglect its practical 
 duties, — can we expect the Church to flourish? If family worship be 
 generally, or to any considerable extent, neglected: — if secret prayer 
 be but rarely practised; — if personal, faroilv, or neiph!)orhoi>d giudges 
 and quarrels be allowed, — so that individuals and liimilies of the same 
 couununion, who arc brethren by profession, can say nothing but evil 
 of each other, and never even speak to oiu' another; — is it any wonder 
 that the church is in a languishing state? If such be the state of things 
 am >iig us, (and we most ht^utily wish there was no evidence of such 
 Ijeing the state of things in any j)art of our bounds:) has not the church 
 the very elements of destruction, in her own bosoni? It is not a novel 
 thing in the History of the church, that li<>r pro:;pefts are beclou<led, and 
 her friends dismayed by defeat and sore chastisements, on account of 
 some sin indulged in by onlv a [xtrlion of her members, and sometimes 
 only by a single individual. As memorable instances of this, and solemn 
 \\iirnings to us, we need only refer ynn to liie golden calf", the min'mur- 
 ii.!<Toftlie peoj)!e of Israel in Kadish, the iniquity of Peor, and the sin of 
 Aehan. in meddling with the accursed thing. We must ferret out, and 
 
put away sin, if we would have the Lord to prosper the work of our haiuLs. 
 
 In this connexion, we feel constrained to specity some two or three 
 prominent and growing evils, which, we fear, have already obtained lii 
 strong hold; and are exerting a most withering influence, in the church. 
 
 1. In the first place, we mention, the indulgence of a wordjy spirit, 
 in the form of selfishness, avarice, and cupidity. We are aware, tliat 
 it is difficult, in many cases, to distinguish between the operation of this 
 spirit and dire necessity. Let every one scrutinize his own motives on 
 this subject. But, whenever it is as obviously true of professing chris- 
 (ians as of others, that every man seeketh his own, irrespective of his 
 neighbour's wealth; that the constant and predominant current of their 
 thoughts and desires is in the pursuit of wordly emolument; that their 
 objects of pursuit, and plans of action, as evinced by their daily conver- 
 sation and conduct, tend exclusively to the same end, viz: to the acquisi- 
 tion and hoarding up of property, for their own sensual enjoyment; and 
 that it is with manifest reluctance that they contribute even a pittance 
 — (a mere mite in comparison with the amount of their resources) — for 
 the supj-oi't of the gospel, or for benevolent purposes; — is it any wonder 
 that religion languishes, or that the church dwindles? The influence of 
 such a spirit, not only shuts out from the soul the claims of benevolence; 
 but it freezes up the channels of charity, excludes God and religion from 
 the mind; keeps men too busy to attend either upon family worship or 
 the social prayer-meeting; prepares them to disregard the law of the 
 Sabbath; disqualifies them for the devotions of the sanctuary; disposes 
 them to take unlawful advantages in trade; and to extort, from their fal- 
 low-men, in direct proportion to the pressure of their necessities. Thos'e 
 who possess such a spirit, not only fail to be the salt of the earth and 
 the light of the world; but they are spots in our feasts of charity, clouds 
 without water, trees whose fruit wither eth, raging waves of the sea, icaii- 
 dering stars, to whom is reserved, the blackness of darhness for ever. 
 Dearly beloved, — Love not the world, neither the things that are in the 
 world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 
 And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renew- 
 ing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, 
 and perfect will of God. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put 
 of the old man u-ith his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is 
 renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where 
 there is neither Greek tior Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barba- 
 rian, Scythian, bond, nor free; hut Christ is all, and in all. Put on, 
 therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kind- 
 ness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering; forbearing one an- 
 other, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; 
 even g,s Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And, above all these things, 
 put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of 
 God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and 
 be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wis- 
 dom; teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms, and Hymns, and 
 Spiritual Songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And 
 whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jcsus^ 
 giving thanks to God and the Father, by him. 
 
8 
 
 2. Secondly: Wi; have reason to fear, that the preaching of the 
 blessed j^ospei, and the ordinances and privileges of God's house, an; 
 beginning to be greatly undervalued by our people. Already, it is but 
 too evident, that the people feel no serious alarm when their house of 
 worship is closed up, the candlestick of the sanctuary removed from a- 
 mong them, and the preaching of the gospel, which God has ordained 
 a-! tlie principal means of salvation, is no longer enjoyed by them. For 
 the same reason, in too many instances, vacant churches, — althougli 
 they are scattering and becoming weaker every day, — seem to 1)C con- 
 stantly-becoming less zealous and less united in effort, to procure, tur 
 themselves, an adequate supply of gospel ministrations. Hence, too 
 many who enjoy the ordinances of the gospel and the privileges of the 
 church, — persons, moreover, who are in far more affluent circumstance;*, 
 — regard it as an intolerable tax, — a burden too heavy to be borne, — 
 to have to pa}', even a tythe of what their forefathers paid, tor the 
 planting of the church, and the support of the gospel. Perhaps, they 
 have enjoyed such privileges so long, that they have become surfeited 
 with them. Let them visit a new country, and there witness the la- 
 nientable effects of a destitution of the means of grace, and begin to feel 
 pinched with hunger for the bread of lite: then, feeling as if they can- 
 not do without it, they will be glad to get that gospel which they now 
 undervalue, even by paying ten tinies the amount, w hich, at present, it 
 costs them. In direct proportion, moreover, to our valuation of gospel 
 privileges, will our desires and cries be poured (Uit to God, for his bless- 
 ing to attend the ordinances of his house. Although the gift of the Koly 
 Spirit cannot be purchased with money; yet, so long as professing chris- 
 tians love their money or property more than they love the means of 
 grace, or the souls of their fellow-men, they need not expect the Holy 
 Spirit to give efficiency to those means of grace, either in comforting 
 their hearts, or in enlarging the church. As you value, therefore, the 
 souls of men, your own true happiness, the salvation of your childreii, 
 and the best interests of our beloved country, beware of uiu'ervaluing 
 the gospel and its ordinances: guard, most sedulously, against even a 
 temporary privation of the healthiul influences of a stated gospel minis- 
 try; and, if you are already deprived of them, spare no pains to regaiji 
 theui; and cease not your prayers to God, both publicly and private!}, 
 till he shall send unto you, a shepherd af'ler his own heart. 
 
 3. Thirdly: The love of novelty and change, instability and vacilla- 
 tion of mind, in regard to the doctrines, institutions, and mini-try of the 
 church, must he mentioned, as another growing evil, of disastrous ten- 
 dency. We fear, the scripture is about to be fuifilled, even among us. 
 whi(;h says, ihe lime will come, when ihcy irill not endure xonnd tloeU-iitc: 
 but after their own lusts, htirifur itching cars, ihei/ shall heap to tjiein- 
 se'res teachers, turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned into 
 fables. This spirit has already begun to do its work among us; and, 
 
 men, under its inlhienee, whenever there is a protracted nuM^ting, or u 
 strangt' |)rea(-lier within re;ich, will leave the mo.sf I'aithful Pastor to 
 preach to vacant seats and empty walls. And what is still worse, this 
 spirit will drive from their homes, however comfortable, and from their 
 
9 
 
 iiclds of labour, however important and inviting, the best of men, hov.'. 
 ever eminent for piety, sound in doctrine, and indefatigable in duty; for 
 no other cause than the desire of change, the love of novelty, or the 
 hope of having the ear tickled by the popularity of a new preacher. 
 This disposition to set aside the Pastoral office at pleasure, and to pre-t 
 for an itinerating ministry, is diametrically oppos-id to one of the most 
 prominent, distinctive, and vitally important features in our Presbyterian 
 system, and to the great design of the Pastoral office, as instituted by 
 Christ; and frauglit with most dangerous consequences. It has already 
 hegini to threaten our churches; and while it continues among us, v,'e 
 need expect little else than desolation. 
 
 Upon this subject, we cannot forbear giving you, in full, the views 
 and cautions of the American Home Missionary Societ}', as the result 
 of their long experience and extended information, as published in the 
 Annual report of the Central Agencv, in the State of New York. May 
 1837. 
 
 'We consider,' say that Society, 'the frequent changing of ministers 
 ■so destructive an evil, that we are constrained to invite the attention of 
 tour Missionaries and churches to the following considerations, in the 
 hope that they will ponder the subject thoroughly; and, by the grace cf 
 Cod, be guided in the path of dutj-. 
 
 'I. We will mention a tew of tJie ways, in which a minister, viho 
 .means to be a Pastoj-, is injured by frequently changing his field of ia,- 
 bour. 
 
 '1. It increasca the expenses of his family. None of our ininisters 
 Tcceive more for their services than enough to meet the necessary er- 
 ^jenses of the year. Every removal, by loss of time and consumption 
 •of property, increases his expenses, from fifty to a hundred dollars. 
 This must embarrass him, and diminish his usefulness. 
 
 '2. Neglect of study is another evil tendency of a changing ministrj'. 
 In this day of commotion and reading of ephemeral productions, theje 
 ure but few ministers of sufficient self-command to pursue a course of 
 Theological research, which requires mental agony, but which is indhs- 
 pensable, would they grow in knowledge and be able to feed their flock, 
 — so long as they can depend upon the labours of former years. We 
 are aware, that some churches prefer to have their ministers spend the 
 whole year in visiting. Experience, however, proves, that, with few 
 exceptions, a people never know the worth of their minister, until the 
 last old sermon is used up, or burnt up; and he begins to draw afresh, 
 from the stores of eternal tnith, things new and qld. Such a people may 
 know what they have got; but they never can know what they have lobt. 
 
 '3. It diminishes a minister's consciousness of responsibility i and makes 
 him, indiferent about the distant results of his labour. A minister is a 
 man of like passions with others; and needs every possible influence, to 
 induce him to seek the path of duty, and hold hira in it. We cannot 
 doubt, that the perpetually recurring thought, — ^ I shall probably remain 
 here but a year" will tend to make him reckless. How is it possible 
 to avoid it? A man, were he as pure as an angel, needs the hope of 
 success, as well as the love of doing good, to kindle his zeal, and prompt 
 him to watchfulness, forethought, and industry. But often, he is a mero 
 
10 
 
 annual hiroling, \vitli but a few moiitlis'at most, to Ijegin and close iip 
 all hiri labours, in a given place. And the agreement which holds hiiu 
 there, has, on the face of it, evidence, that his people legard him \viti» 
 verv little confidence; and iiis prospects are withering, rather than re- 
 freshing. VV'e need not wonder, if a man held by the church in such 
 circumstances, should do, or neglect to do, what would render him un- 
 popular, or his labours unproductive. 
 
 '4. /' prevents a minister from ca7-n/ing into effect any important plan 
 for galJicriiig and building up a congregaUon. Would he accomplish, 
 what a minister, b}- the grace of Ciod, may do, all the various circuiu- 
 stances and wants of the whole church and congregation are to be 
 sought out; — tlie childrea and youth are to be gathered around him and 
 taught t(j remember their Creator; — parents are to be instructed how U* 
 command their children and househ(;lds to keep the way of the Lord; — 
 the church is to be purilied by discipline; her understanding eiilighten- 
 ed; her •affections directed; her energies combined; and all her power;! 
 enlisted in the enterprize of the world's conversion. Who can acconi- 
 plish such a work, in one year, — or two years, — or five years? How- 
 ls it possible for a man, even the best, to clear and prepare the soil, 
 sow the seed, and bring in the ripe harvest, short often or lifteen years? 
 He may do something, yea much, but can he shew what a faithful Pas- 
 tor is capable of doing? Can he carry a church through the school uf 
 Christ? Can he train a generation for the service of God? 
 
 '5. It prevents a minister from acquiring the habit of patient endu- 
 rance, which is so important to an Ambassador of Christ. A ministei-, 
 who would exert a solid, holy, and lasting influence in the world, may 
 depend upon being severely tried. He cannot escape trials by chang- 
 ing places. They niust and will come. If he attempt to run away fr(»ni 
 them, and be overtaken at last, he will be likely to imbibe a petulant 
 and tliuit-linding spirit. If he meet them manfully, and endure tliom 
 paiiently, it will chasten his spirit, and incr(?ase his meekness. Tin? 
 easiest way to dispose of jninisterial trials, Avhatever be their nature or 
 magnitude, is to endure them. The habit of endurance, whicli this 
 course will strengthen, greatly diminishes the severity of trials; and, in 
 the apprehension of the subject, it will probably diminish their number. 
 But, what is of more importance still, trials, well endured, raise a min- 
 ister vastly in the estimation of his people, while they increase his con- 
 fidence in the grace of God; and thus, the way is prepared for his v\- 
 crling a niore powerful, salutary, and permanent influence. 
 
 'jl. We will now name a few of the ways, in which a church is in- 
 jured, by frequently chahging their minister. 
 
 1. // uill, almost invariably, lead to the neglect of discipline. Th:.'< 
 is une of the most important and painful duties a minister has to per- 
 f. -rm. When he supposes his residence with a people is merely tcin. 
 P'trary it has often presented a fatal temptation to pass over this self- 
 i'-nying duty. His successor takes the same course, until that church, 
 vl.ioii might have been united, flourishing, and strong, is alienated, 
 f<"\\ and feelile. 
 
 •j. It tends to divide and distract a church. Some churches scom <o 
 imagine, that the most safe and certain way to dispose of the great 
 
11 
 
 mass of tlioir parish difficulties, is to dismiss their minister, especially 
 iiiiiiy serious op[)osition appears against him. But the people of CtO(1 
 anay never hope to get a minister who will build them up, w ithout llicii- 
 :u'e tried and proved, as well as their minister. They must he u- Hit. 
 }iiin, and licartily with him. They must labour vi'ith him, aiid suflei- 
 M'ith him; or the cause of christ must sutler, and languish, aiid dii'. 
 l\ow, suppose that a congregation has secured a minister, and a faitli- 
 ful one: Suppose that congregation is in the habit of dismisising their- 
 niinister as often as any serious difficulty arises; and suppose the truth 
 <'f God has chafed the consciences of some of the people, so that they 
 leel uneasy; What is the consequence? These restless spiri-ts know, 
 what has been done, more than once, in similar circumstances: By ^: 
 jitfle ar;f il manoeuvering, the minister has been dismissed. Their course 
 is plain; and their work is easy. They know the church will not en- 
 dure hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Clir'isi; but will siirink from 
 -opposition raised against their minister; and though they profess to love 
 liim, will part with him, rather than do their duty. Some of the church, 
 however, are willing to hazard any thing uecessar}" to retain him: but, 
 he must go, leaving the church to contend about him. When such a- 
 ricene has been acted over, again and again, and another, and sti'i 
 another party is formed in a church, their affections, instead of being 
 united and settled upon one, are divided among nearly as many minis- 
 ters, as there are members in the church. 
 
 '3. It mukes them fastidious and fault-finding. Called as often a"s 
 s(ime of our churches are, to hear candidates, (not for settlement, but I'o 
 ho hired for a year oi* two,) they unconsciously acquire the habit <!f 
 criticizing every thing (hey see a minister do, or hear him say. And 
 ;is one great object of changing is, to get something now, — something 
 that will arrest attention, they are led to attach an undue importance to 
 novelty; and this l)egets a disposition not. to be satisfied wilh any thing; 
 Tiiis habit, aside from its destiuctive influence in neutralizing the trutli. 
 iias led the way to numerous complaints, which have been the cause of 
 bitter regret to the authors of them; and have injured the reputation and- 
 wrung the heart of many an affectionate minister. 
 
 '4. It precents a church from acquiring that confd('nce in her iniuis- 
 tcr, u'hich, next to the truth of God, is one of the most powerftd and de-' 
 lighiful instruments of Pastoral usefulness. When a minister has been 
 in a congregation for a course of years; has often wCpt with those that 
 Mcep, and rejoiced with those that rejoice; mingled in ail their families,- 
 and sympathized with them in the various circumstances through whiciv 
 they have passed; the people then begin to know h'trn, and love him, and' 
 confide in him, as tlit'ir Pastor. When he has followed the child froni 
 the Baptismal font, with the instructions and counsels, warnings and pn-; 
 tieaties of a yearning Father; been with^him when convicteid; answered 
 ids inquiry, — What shall I do to he saved? — led him in prayer when lie' 
 knew not how to pray; and mingled his tears of joy with the penitent' 
 '»)ef()re the mercy seat; — that jonth will never forget his iPastrtr. Hi*' 
 knows his Pastf»r loves him. No voice is more sweet to hirii, than tli'e- 
 one which taught him how to be saved. When a cohgregatioii has 
 beeii thus educated by their Pastor; when they have tried him arid prove J 
 
12 
 
 him; v.hon they have laboured Avith liim, and wept with him, and re- 
 joiced with him; when they have seen and I'eh liis sahitary inliuence on 
 their own souls, in every family and every depaitment of" society; — they 
 reverence and love him as children do an affectionate Father; and are 
 prepared to tijjlow him, as their spiritual guide. But frequent changes 
 forbid the formation of this endearing bond; and shut out a people from 
 its benign influence. 
 
 '5. It destroys the character of a church. It is not yet to be learned, 
 that a church has a character, as well as a ruiiiis^ter. It is not unfre- 
 quently that we hear the tbllowing inquiries, when persuading a minis- 
 ter to go to a particular church, — Have they ever had a settled. Pastor? 
 Do they often change miidsters? Do you know whether they wish to hire 
 hy the year, or to settle? These, and similar inquiries, are made, to de- 
 cide one question; viz: Can I be useful there] If a minister, espe- 
 cially one of the better sort, get the impression, that the people are slow 
 to settle a Pastor, and rather contemplate changing once in a year or two, 
 he will be likely to pity the people; but, despairing of success, he will 
 pass on.' 
 
 Dear Brethren: We cannot close this communication, without solemn- 
 ly cautioning you against all those forms and systems of error, that are 
 beginning to be propagated among us, which either exclude or under- 
 value the old-fashioned, but fundamental scriptural doctrines of Original 
 sin; total depravity; the absolute necessity of a change of heart; regene- 
 ration by the Holy Spirit; justification by the imputed righteousness of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ; and good works, as tljc indispensalile evidence of 
 a man's being in a state of grace: — which set forth Baptismal regene- 
 ration, sacerdotal forgiveness of sin. Baptismal justification; and sacra- 
 mental confirmation, as an easier and more fashionable way of sah ation; 
 which lay claim to Apostolic succession in office, and the exchisive right 
 of interpreting, if not of reading the holy scriptures, as well as of admin- 
 istering divine ordinances; and which urge men, as the step of paramount 
 importance, to join the church, as a means of giace; — or, as tlie only way 
 of safety, to come into the church, hy Prclatical Baptism and Confirma- 
 tion, irrespective of their principles and of their lives. Think not, wo 
 beseech you, that there is, or can be any easier way of salvation than 
 that which the meek and lowly Jesus hath taught us, by newness and 
 Jioliness of life, through faith in his name. Guard against these, and 
 tlieir kindred errors, however arrogantly and pompously they may be 
 urged upon you, by men, enrobed in bigotry, and of exclusive pretensions. 
 • They are the abominations of Rome, in Pusyitish dress; and they are pru- 
 pagater!, with all the zeal and dexterity of primitive proselytism. 
 
 Finally, Brethren, — If you would be joyfiil in the Lord; if you woulti 
 see your children and servants growing up around yon, as fruitfid plants 
 in his vineya«"d; if you would have the candlestick .of the sanctuary to 
 continue its light, and to shine inorc and njore brightly among you; if ymi 
 would have the church of («od revived, enlarged, encouraged, and efli- 
 cicnt; — the salt of the earth, — the light of the world; if you would hav(^ 
 the world, which lieth in wickedness, converted to (umI; — we solemnly 
 charge you, to seek, with all diligence, a more elevattKl and active gradt- 
 of piety: Be more frequently and more importunate in your closets; let 
 

 the Iioly srriptiiros be, more scnipulou.sly, tho daily lani|) to your It'ct, ajid 
 light to your path; lot hrotherly loi-e he vitliuuC ilissimiiUukni; a.sf?ociiiU' 
 yourselves rnoro frequpiitly together, i\)V social prayer and soleuin praise; 
 ninintaiii a higher standard ot"iiimi!y religion; pay special atteiition to the 
 religious instiuc'tiou ot'your children and servants; diill them, more tho- 
 roughly, aftertlie example ormir tbrc-fathers, in the excellent standards 
 and catechisms of our church; maintain a constant and strict observance 
 ot'lhc Sal)b;ith; aiid especially, give the honour which is due to the iioly 
 Wpir.it, and to Him alone; — recognise Flini, distinctly and habitually, in 
 liis divinity, personality, and appropriate work; — cherish an abiding seii>e 
 ot' absolute dependence upon his agency; — and seek, most fer\('nt;y, in 
 l!ie diligent use of the means of grace, a speedy and a mighty effusion of 
 his sacred influences. 
 
 And n(uv, may that God who hath all heart;- in his Isand, and w};o 
 conducteth them whithersoever he will, as the livers of \'\aterare turiieii, 
 incline your hearts, to the cheerful, willing, and habitual exercise (*f e'>ery 
 grace and virtue which adorns the character of his own children; and may 
 Jle make you perfect in every good nork io do his will, uo7-lang in yon, 
 Ihal icJtich is iccll pleasing in his sight ihrough Jesus Ciikisx, to whom 
 be glory for ever and ever, AME?r. » 
 
 By order of the Svnod. 
 
 SAMlUi'L WILLIAMSON, Moderator. 
 
 Charlotte, N. C. Nov. lOlh, 1845. 
 

 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 [pSBsiD'tr^iriEiEafikEi gasiEsa: 
 
 RALEIGH K C, 
 
 ON THTJRSDAY, THE 27th NOVEMBER, 1851, 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. DRURY LACY, PASTOR. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 ■■•♦•■ 
 
 RALEIGH, N. C. 
 
 Printed by Seaton Gales. "Eegister" Office. 
 
 1851. 
 
©©lR^li^©[M©iff^©[ 
 
 • •rrt*r*^\444t « 
 
 Raleigh, Nov. 29, 1851. 
 Rev. Drury Lacy: 
 
 Dear Sir: — The undersigned listened with great 
 gratification and pleasure to your eloquent and excellent 
 discourse, delivered in the Presbyterian Church, on Thurs- 
 day last, Thanksgiving Day. 
 
 They take an early occasion to express to you their con- 
 viction of the great good it is calculated to accomplish, in 
 arousing the people to a fuller sense of their obligations to 
 perpetuate that priceless legacy of our forefathers — the 
 Union ; and to beg that you will furnish a copy for publi- 
 cation. With great respect, 
 
 Your ob't serv'ts, 
 SEA.TON GALES, DABNEY COSBY, 
 
 JOHN PRIMROSE, JAMES M. TOWLES, 
 
 L. E. HEARTT, R. E. MADDOX, 
 
 ALEX. M. M'PHEETERS, J. BROWN, 
 W. R. MILLER, R. H. BATTLE. 
 
 Manse of the Pres. Church, 
 29th Nov., 1851. 
 Gentlemen : I submit to your disposal, the discourse 
 v/hicli you request for publication. If it should be the 
 means of arousing our people, in any degree, to a sense of 
 their obligations to the Ruler of Nations, and increasing 
 their value of the inestimable blessings of the Union, it will 
 fully answer the end which I aimed to accomplish. I am 
 not insensible to the favorable opinion you have expressed, 
 in thinking it at all adequate to this purpose, and yield to 
 your judgment rather than to my own, in furnishing you a 
 copy for the press. I am, very respectfully 
 
 and truly, your friend and servant, 
 
 DRURY LACY. 
 To Messrs Gales, Cosby, Primrose, Towles, Heartt, Mad- 
 dox, McPheeters, Brown, Miller and Battle. 
 
[B a as © [Es 
 
 • ♦ > 
 
 * In pursuance of a resolution passed by the General Assembly at the Session of 1843-3, 
 1 do by this, my Proclamation, set apart Thursday, the 27th of November next, to be ob- 
 ■scrved throughout the State as a day of solemn and public THANKsemNQ ; and I do ear- 
 nestly recommend that all secular employments be suspended during the day ; that Min- 
 isters of the Gospel of the respective denominations assemble their congregations for pub- 
 lic worship, that the people of the State may, with united hearts and voices, render thanks 
 to Almighty God for past blessings, and supplicate a continuance of his cares and kindness 
 towards us as a People, as a State, and as a Kepublic. 
 
 Given under my hand, and the Great Seal of the State, at the Executive Office in 
 [SBAL.] the city of Kaleigh, this the 15th day of October, A. D. 1851, and the 76th of 
 American Independence. DATID S. REID." 
 
 [Governor's Proclamation.] 
 
 Wk are happy in the privilege of meeting you to-day, my 
 Brethren, summoned as we are by this Proclamation of 
 his Excellency, our Governor, to contemplate the blessings 
 of our lot, and to give thanks to God our benefactor. And 
 we are happy in the thought, that nearly every State in the 
 Union, by a previous arrangement made between its chief 
 Executive officer, has fixed on this day for the purpose ; 
 and that our country now presents the delightful — the sub- 
 lime spectacle, of assembling before the Maker of Heaven 
 and earth, to lift up their hearts and voices to Him, in 
 thanksgiving and praise. 
 
 The year which has elapsed since we were last con- 
 vened for a similar purpose, has been distinguished, not 
 only by the continuance to us of our ordinary mercies, and 
 by the increase of our national prosperity, but by peculiar 
 tokens of the favor of Heaven. Although, throughout a 
 large section of our country, the labors of the husbandman 
 have not met with their usual returns, nor have the win- 
 dows of heaven opened, as in former years, and poured a 
 
4 THANKSGIVING DISCOUnSE. 
 
 profusion into our dwellings ; yet, for the absence of suf- 
 fering for the necessaries of life, and for the possession of 
 the means of comfortable subsistence, — for the possession 
 of health throughout our borders, — for the blessings of do- 
 mestic and social life, and of a free and enlightened Gov- 
 ernment, — for our spiritual privileges and hopes, — for these 
 things we are bound to render thanks to Him from whom 
 we have received them. And frozen must be our hearts, 
 if these blessmgs, enjoyed in so high a degree by us, do not 
 awaken in our bosoms some suitable sense of the Divine 
 Goodness, and excite us to pour forth our praises to the 
 God of our mercies. 
 
 There is no nation on earth, for which God has done so 
 much in so short a time, as he has done for these United 
 States. From its earliest history to the present day, — in 
 every season of danger, whether from an enemy without^ 
 or from dissensions within, " God has been our refuge and 
 Defence, our Glory, and the Lifter up of our head." In 
 every foreign war in which we have been engaged, he has 
 crowned our arms with victories the most signal and de- 
 cisive. He has kept us from the confusion and tumults 
 and miseries of civil strife. He has preserved us from be- 
 ing involved in the broils and bloodshed of Europe. He 
 has sweetened all these mercies by fixing us in the secure 
 enjoyment of every privilege our hearts can wish. He 
 has given us the everlasting Gospel, we trust, in its purity, 
 and has been inviting us by the allurements of his love, to 
 the enjoyment of his rest. Behold the Divine clemency 
 with which he has distinguished us from other nations ! 
 Several countries on the eastern shores of the Atlantic have 
 scarcely time to breathe, much less to recruit from the 
 wounds and sufferings of one revolution, before they are 
 plunged into another. It is a foul stain on the civilization 
 of Europe, as well as an awful judgment for her sins, that 
 she is almost continually weltering in blood. Her infatua- 
 ted sons fly to arms, and slaughter each other as the ca- 
 price or politics of their tyrants ordain. Torn with intes- 
 
THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. & 
 
 tine faction, — heaving Vi^ith convulsions and revolutions 
 like the throes of an earthquake, how many of these terri- 
 ble eruptions have, more generally or partially, flooded 
 their curses on Europe, within our memory. How envia- 
 ble our condition in the comparison! How gentle the dis- 
 pensations of God towards us ! Why do we prosper, while 
 other lands are rent with fightings without and fears with- 
 in ? Why does not the sword thin our faniilies, and hew 
 down our gallant youth? Why are we permitted to till 
 our grounds without molestation, and to eat the fruit of our 
 industry ? Why, through the medium of commerce, to 
 keep up an amicable and lucrative intercourse with distant 
 places? Why to dot the land all over with establishments 
 of labor-saving machinery? Why to " speed the car, and 
 stretch the whispering wires" over land and sea, and build 
 our cities and dig our gold ? Why to foster the arts of 
 peace, which refine the manners, and improve the mind ? 
 Why to assemble, without interruption or fear, in the house 
 of God, to sing His praises, to supplicate His favor, to learn 
 the words of everlasting life ? Is it because we are better 
 than they ? No ! in no wise. It is undeserved mercy, — 
 it is because " the Lo7-d has shown his favor unto us." 
 
 Without dwelling on many of these things, which, how- 
 ever worthy of our thankful acknowledgement, occupy on- 
 ly a middle or inferior place in the scale of national bene- 
 fits, allow me to direct your attention to one distinguish- 
 ing blessing, which cannot be passed over, without fixing 
 upon us the stigma of base ingratitude ; — I mean our de- 
 liverance from civil discord. 
 
 Since our last day of Thanksgiving, the nation has been 
 in a state of agitation, and of the most anxious expecta- 
 tion as to the result of events then in progress. Need I re- 
 mind you that this dreadful plague was at our doors ? Have 
 you forgotten the chilling anticipations which but lately 
 obtruded themselves unsought, on your minus? Already 
 did the phrenzied imagination display those scenes of hor 
 ror, at the bare thought of which the heart shudders. A1-- 
 
THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE, 
 
 ready did we hear the burst of hostile thunder : — already 
 did we see members of the same family arraying themselves 
 against each other in murderous strife : — our cities and our 
 dwellings sinking in flames, and our families fugitives from 
 the smouldering ruins. But the storm has blown over and 
 done no harm. The sound of alarm has died away on the 
 ear. All is serene, all secure. This day is witness that 
 peace — domestic peace dwells in our land, and enjo'ys the 
 quiet exercise of her confirmed reign. Give glory to Him 
 who hath commanded deliverance. " O bless our God, ye 
 people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard, who 
 holdeth our soul in life, and sufFereth not our feet to be 
 moved." 
 
 Tremendous as foreign war is, it is infinitely preferable 
 to domestic discord. Internal union is the bond of social 
 strength. When mutual confidence has fled, and coldness, 
 and jealousies, and criminations, and menaces come in its 
 place ; when professed anxieties for the public welfare de- 
 generate into the strife of sectional policies ; and unanim- 
 ity of measures gives way to the violence of faction, the 
 firmest sinews of the national energy are cut, and the rich- 
 est veins of national prosperity sluiced. 
 
 It was a serious, it was an awful thing, to behold in one 
 direction, a large extent of our country, including great 
 numbers of inhabitants, throw off submissioti to the law, 
 and rise in the contumacy of a determined resistance to 
 rightful authority ; and to behold in another an entire state 
 vexed and goaded, as they allege, by unjust encroachments 
 and oppressive exactions on their sovereign and indepen- 
 dent rights, deliberately planning an organised dismember- 
 ment of these States. Nor was it easy to calculate what 
 would be the extent of the calamity, or what its issue. 
 Men of similar habits and in similar circumstances readily 
 unite in similar undertakings. But here, we beheld ex- 
 tremes meeting in the same nefarious work of ruin, men of 
 the most opposite interests and views, materials the most 
 discordant and hetero£jeneous harmonizing in the same dark 
 
THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 7 
 
 designs. " Herod and Pontius Pilate made friends !" 
 Cherished by the wicked assiduity of those sons of Belial 
 who had been industrious in creating it, the dissension, 
 spreading like a flame through the dried leaves of Autumn, 
 might have divided the children of the same great brother- 
 hood, not into the parties of opinion, but into the armies of 
 civil war. Oh, how would despots have exulted in this con- 
 sequence, as the ruin of the fairest experiment, which the 
 sun ever beheld, — of a government reared on the equal rights 
 of man ! But to their confusion and our triumph, the 
 tumult has subsided. The voice of the people, " like the 
 sound of many waters," has proclaimed, We love this 
 Union ; while the temperate, yet firm, the vigorous, yet 
 unbloody manner in which this most unnatural treason was 
 subdued, and is still kept down, is fraught with delight to 
 ourselves, and has filled the whole nation with admiration 
 and applause. To those patriots of every political creed, 
 to those judicial officers, whose unflinching firmness and 
 unblenched dignity, have enforced the sovereignty of law, 
 in the very face of reckless mobs, and the unsparing abuse 
 of fanatics, the tribute due to their spirited exertions is 
 cheerfully paid. Above all, whatever may be our preju. 
 dices or predilections, our eyes involuntarily turn and fas- 
 ten on that man, whom "God has made strong for himself" 
 to meet the appalling exigency; on that man whom God 
 has raised up and honored to be the instrument of so rich 
 a blessing to this land, and whose name will live, and whose 
 memory will be revered, with the names and memories of 
 his renowned predecessors. 
 
 A greater, a more useful political lesson was never 
 taught. It is the victory of principle over passion, of order 
 over confusion, of laws over licentiousness. What a lesson 
 to our country — a lesson which will remain to the end of 
 time inscribed upon their hearts. What a lesson to the 
 nations of the earth, to behold our country, passing safely 
 through the severest trials that ever tested the attachment 
 of a nation to its institutions, without shedding one drop of 
 
8 THANKSGIVIXG DIBCOUBSB. 
 
 blood, gathering fresh strength at every step of its mighty 
 progress, and enthroning itself more steadfastly in the con- 
 fidence and affections of its people ! What precious proofs 
 that the nation means to act, not only well, but nobly ; so 
 that they who see that parties and leaders, as such, are to 
 a deplorable extent corrupt, are obliged to admit, that the 
 mass of our people of all parties love their country, and are 
 werthy of their liberties. 
 
 The facts now mentioned are luminous events, which, 
 at present, absorb in their lustre all other political incidents 
 relating to us. " Fools make a mock at fear," and may i 
 disregard the danger and the deliverance, " but the wise 
 will ponder them in their hearts," and never forget them. 
 They cannot but fix in astonishment the gaze of the most i 
 careless, and impress the hearts of the most hardened. 
 How powerful obligations of gratitude to our God are ere- i 
 ated by such an interposition, will appear from contempla- 
 ting the singular mercies of that providential dispensation 
 from which they flowed. Sources of illustration on this 
 topic, are numerous and fruitful. You will all acknowledge. 
 That the imininent danger in which we lately were, 
 highly exalts the mercy of our deliverance. 
 
 However imagination might depict the horrors of a dis. 
 union before they had a real existence, yet the strong ap- 
 prehension of their approach was not chimerical. Affairs 
 in the north and in the south were fast verging to a dread- 
 ful crisis. I need not repeat the causes of their apprehen- 
 sion — of their dreadful foreboding. They are familiar to 
 you all, for they were not done in a corner, but in the open 
 light of day, and are known and read of all men. But in 
 order that you may realize the danger, you must contem- 
 plate the actual state of the public mind, wrought up to 
 frenzy by the unruly and turbulent passions of men. Be- 
 sides the ringleaders and instigators of such scenes, there 
 are in every community multitudes who have a much 
 greater share of good intention than discernment. Their 
 honest credulity, unguided by judgment and untempered 
 
THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 9 
 
 with caution, draws them into the plots of others whose 
 less upright principles take an eager advantage of their 
 simplicity. An appeal to popular prejudice — to a fanatical 
 philanthropy on the one hand, and to sectional jealousies 
 and State pride on the other, each calculated to influence 
 popular passion — is an engine which the crafty demagogue 
 is ever ready to employ, and generally finds effectual, for 
 enlisting both under the banners ot treasonable resistance. 
 Unhappily, this engine was used by both sections with con- 
 summate skill and prodigious effect ; and it was this draw- 
 ing in of such immense masses of pliant, unsuspecting, but 
 well-intentioned citizens, that gave so fearful an aspect to 
 the threatening danger. Besides this, there will ever be 
 some in all parts of the country, to whom, from natural un- 
 happiness of mind, from a restless, discontented temper, or 
 from less venial causes, order will be imprisonment, and 
 peace a torture ; some, who sicken to see the gallant ves- 
 sel of State riding securely at anchor, or flitting before the 
 favoring gale, and who watch with eagerness for an ad- 
 verse blast to dash her on the reef, that while the crew 
 perish in the waters, they may pillage the wreck. The 
 mischievous projects of such as these, aided by the impru- 
 dent zeal of others, one would think, might of themselves 
 be sufficient to bring on the dreaded catastrophe. But 
 when we add to their machinations, all the exasperating cir- 
 cumstances that gave strength to their counsels, and color 
 to their pretexts, it seems little short of a miracle that we 
 have escaped. We stand astonished at the precipice over 
 which we were nearly hurried, a precipice that would have 
 plunged us into evils for which their immediate authors 
 could never have atoned ; no, not with their lives. It was 
 God's unspeakable mercy that interfered to save us ; and 
 the greater our danger, the more beneficent was the inter- 
 ference, and the more precious the salvation. Surely " He 
 hath not dealt so with any other nation." " Praise ye the 
 Lord." 
 
 Again ; the complicated evils which attend any war, hut 
 
10 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 
 
 especially a war between brethren, show, in a most affecting 
 light, the mercy which has prevented them. These evils 
 both political and moral, it would require a volume fully to 
 enumerate and to display. Nor, were it possible, would I 
 now undertake to unfold them. But horrid as foreign war 
 is, it is infinitely to be preferred to domestic discord. War 
 among brethren has peculiar miseries. Experience, that 
 faithful teacher, has shown that the wounds inflicted by 
 civil strife are far deeper, and of more difficult cure, than 
 any that can be received from the hand of foreign violence. 
 " A brother offended is harder to be loon than a strong city ; 
 and their contentions are like the bars of a castle." The 
 murderous tempers which, in other wars, are indulged, in 
 this, are wrought up to the height of fury. Resentments 
 are more keen, revenge more implacable, and hatred more 
 lasting. The aggressor is more injurious, and the injured 
 more unforgiving. Amidst mutual reproaches and accu- 
 sations of violating the most solemn compact, the most sa- 
 cred ties that can bind men together, they appear to each 
 other, wretches unworthy of esteem, and incapable of faith. 
 Reconciliation is hard to be effected, and when effected, is 
 scarcely ever sincere. The body politic may, indeed, re- 
 assume its healthful complexion, but the poison, rankling 
 within, is ready to burst out with renewed violence ; for 
 we find, in fact, that, when men have once broken the cords 
 of amity, they are easily impelled to repeat the sacrilege. 
 It is, moreover, a melancholy reflection, that it makes but 
 little diflerence to the community at large, how the quar- 
 rels of contending parties are decided. Whoever is victo- 
 rious, or whoever is vanquished, all suffer. While they 
 struggle against each other, they rend the vital system by 
 which all are nourished ; and the triumph of any over the 
 rest, is but the success of a mad conspiracy against them- 
 selves. Pregnant with these great futurities, the phenome- 
 na of God's providence bid us prepare for their awful de- 
 velopment ; and each succeeding day, bringing with it new 
 discouragements, led us to contemplate an issue as terrible 
 
THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 11 
 
 as it was near. But while at a distance the thunders mut- 
 tered ; while our heavens blackened, and the clouds fraught 
 with wo stretched over our heads ; while our citizens, the 
 most of them in utter carelessness — some in trembling 
 anxiety, — some in their closets on their knees, — some in 
 sullen suspense, were expecting their fate, God — ^for surely 
 it was the work of no created wisdom or power — God sent 
 help from his holy hill. The arm of vengeance raised by 
 brother against brother, to hurl the wrathful bolt, he has 
 arrested. Through the opening gloom, the light of his de- 
 liverance beamed, and so brilliant was the interposition, 
 that nothing but atheistic impiety could forbear exclaim- 
 ing : ''This salvation is from the Lord." That heart which 
 is not, in any degree, melted by such goodness, must lie 
 uuder the curse of triple hardness. " The Lord hath not 
 dealt so with any other nation." Other nations have per- 
 ished by the frown of the Eternal, and their memorial blot- 
 ted from under heaven. But we are spared, are pi'otected, 
 are prospered. This lenity is divine. Because the Lord 
 delighteth to do us good, is he thus indulgent. " Praise ye 
 the Lord." 
 
 And now, my Brethren, since " the Lord hath done great 
 things for us, whereof we are glad," how shall we express 
 our gratitude ? What shall we " render to Him for all his 
 benefits ?" Taking that " cup of salvation" which his own 
 hand hath tendered to us, let us " call upon his name." 
 This, beyond controversy, is an immediate and essential 
 part of our duty, — to pay Him explicit and public homage; 
 to recognise^ hy devout and marked acknowledgment, our 
 dependence on his favor, and the blessings we have reaped 
 from his protection. 
 
 There is a religion of society, as such ; a tribute of rev- 
 erence which it owes the living God. Formed under his 
 auspices, and nurtured by his care, preserved by his power, 
 and replenished with his bounty, he requires from us, on 
 these accounts, social worship and the social vow. The 
 honor of his sovereign rule he cannot relinquish, and the 
 
12 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 
 
 confession of it we may not withhold. It is true that our 
 excellent Chief Magistrate, in the critical circumstances in 
 which he was thrown, has displayed in a conspicuous man. 
 ner, those governmental virtues which are at once the duty 
 and glory of his official pre-eminence. The other Magis- 
 trates, too, both executive and judicial, who acted in con- 
 cert with him, have imbibed the spirit of their station, and 
 showed themselves a " terror to evil-doers." And the srreat 
 mass of our public men and fellow citizens, whose patriotic 
 efforts have aided in quieting the public agitation, and re- 
 storing good order, have brought into splendid action the 
 principles of men who enjoy true liberty, and know how 
 to value and defend it. They have all deserved well of 
 their country ; but their exertions, laborious, disinterested, 
 sublime as they are, would have been utterly fruitless, with- 
 out the countenance of Him, who is " Governor among; all 
 the nations." Let us not, therefore, rest in second causes, 
 nor limit our praises to human in struments. Let us not 
 disregard them, but look beyond them. Let us make our 
 boast in God, who, in the day of trouble, covered us with 
 the shield of his omnipotence. " If it had not been the 
 Lord who was on our side," — now may our countrymen 
 say, — " if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, 
 when men rose up against us, then they had swallowed us 
 up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us ; then 
 llie waters had overwhelmed us, the stream liad gone over 
 our soul : then the proud waves had gone over our soul. 
 Blessed be the name of the Lord, who hath not given us 
 a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of 
 the snare of the fowlers : the snare is broken, and we are 
 escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made 
 heaven and earth." Therefore, "give unto the Lord, O 
 ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and 
 strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name ; 
 bring an offering, and comjc into his courts with thanks- 
 giving. O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness j 
 fear before him, all ye people !' 
 
THANKSCIYINC DISCOURSE. ' 13 
 
 Another becoming expression of our gratitude to God, for 
 the goodness which he has shown is, to do all in our power 
 for the preservation and perpetuity of this glorious repuh' 
 lie, for ourselves, for our children, and for the world. 
 God has not given us this great inheritance, either to be 
 undervalued or thrown away. The history of our nation 
 from the earhest dawn of its existence to the present day, 
 is indicative of some great design to be accompUshed by 
 it. It is a history of perils and deliverances, and of strength 
 ordained out of weakness. No nation on earth, out of 
 weakness, ever became so strong, nor was ever guided 
 through so many perils to so lofty an eminence. But in 
 the whole history of the world, God has not been accus- 
 tomed to grant such signal deliverances, without ends of 
 corresponding magnitude to be answered by them. Indeed, 
 if it had been the design of heaven to establish a powerful 
 nation, in the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, 
 where all the energies of man might find scope and full de- 
 velopment, on purpose to show to the world by experiment, 
 of what man is capable ; and to shed light on the darkness, 
 which should awake the slumbering eye, rouse the 
 torpid mind, and nerve the palsied arm of millions ; — where 
 could such an experiment have been made, but in this 
 country, and by what means so well adapted to that end, 
 as by otir institutions ? Who can doubt, from the course 
 now adopted and prosecuted by Christians of every name* 
 to support and extend at home and abroad, religious and 
 moral influences, that it is the purpose of God to render this 
 nation, to a wide extent, the almoners of his bounty to the 
 world ? Behold the means which he has committed to us 
 for this purpose. He has given us a model government, — ^ 
 the envy and the admiration of mankind. He has given 
 us perfect liberty of conscience, — " freedom to worship 
 God." He has given us two great national institutions— 
 the one to disseminate his Word, — the other, to scatter the 
 messages of salvation like leaves of the forest, — the glory 
 of our land. Besides which, every denomination of Chris'» 
 
= 14 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. 
 
 tians has its own distinctive organizations, that make it 
 their business to see that every family has a Bible, and 
 every church a pastor, and every child a catechism, so 
 that our nation may not outgrow the means of religious 
 instruction. And while these means of moral culture are 
 supplied, this great nation, from her eminence, begins to 
 look abroad with compassion upon a world sitting in dark- 
 ness, and to put forth her mighty arm to disenthral the na- 
 tions, and elevate the family of man. And when we 
 contemplate the unexampled resources of this country in 
 men, soil, climate, sea-coast, rivers, lakes, canals, railroads, 
 agriculture, manufactures, commerce, arts and wealth, and 
 all these in connexion with the influence of republican and 
 religious institutions, is it too much to be hoped, that God 
 will accept this powerful instrumentality, and make it ef- 
 fectual for the renovation of the world ? 
 
 Nor is this all. The world is already looking to us, 
 and feeling the power of our example. There is now a 
 public opinion of the world — a moral sense of nations. 
 Our example is even now telling with mighty mfluence on 
 the destiny of the human race. If we consider the im- 
 mense extent of our territorial possessions, — the vastness 
 of our country, washed as it now is, by the two great 
 oceans on the east and west, and stretching from the lakes 
 of the north to the Gulf of the south, — if we consider, 
 also, our proximity to the South American Sta:es, and the 
 close imitation they are disposed to make of our civil and 
 literary institutions, who can doubt that the light of our 
 example will yet illumine this entire continent ? And when 
 the light of such a hemisphere shall go up to heaven, it 
 will throw its broad beams beyoud the waves, — it will 
 shine in the darkness there, and be comprehended, — it will 
 awaken desire, and hope, and effort, and produce revolu- 
 tions and overlurnings, until the world is free. Behold 
 what is already done ! From our revolutionary struggle, 
 proceeded the great revolution in France, and all which have 
 followed in Spain and Greece, and Sardinia, and Italy, and 
 
THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE. I5 
 
 Hungary. And what though the bolt of every chain has 
 been again riveted, and clenched ? They can no more 
 hold down the heaving mass, than the chains of Xerxes could 
 hold the Hellespont, vexed with storms. What though floods 
 have been poured upon the rising flame ? They can no 
 more extinguish it, than they can extinguish the fires o 
 iEtna. Still it burns, and still the mountain heaves and 
 murmurs ; and soon it will explode with voices, and thun- 
 derings and great earthquakes. Then will the trumpet of 
 jnbilee sound, and earth's down-trodden, debased millions 
 will leap from the dust, and shake off" their chains, and cry, 
 "Hosanna to the Son of David." 
 
 But to accomplish these changes in the civil and religious 
 condition of the world, revolutions and convulsions are in- 
 dispensable — nay, as man is, are inevitable. Tyrants will 
 not let go their hold of power, without a desperate effort to 
 retain it. The usurpation by the few, of the rights and 
 privileges of the many, will not be spontaneously or wil- 
 lingly relinquished, nor the chains knocked off" from ihe 
 body and the soul of man, by the hands which, for ages, 
 have done nothing but rivet them. " He that sitteth upon 
 the throne, must overturn, and overturn, and overturn," 
 before his rights and the rights of man will be restored. 
 Revolution must come, of course, and such, too, as shall 
 veil the sun, and turn the moon into blood, and shake the 
 earth with the violence of nation dashing against nation, — 
 until every despotic government shall be thrown down, and 
 chaos resume its pristine reign, — until the Spirit of God 
 shall move again upon the face of the deep, and bring out 
 a new creation. The day of vengeance is in his heart, and 
 is no doubt begun, and will no doubt continue, until " He 
 that sitteth upon the throne shall have made all things 
 new." 
 
 . My hearers ! we indulge in no idle visions of the future, — 
 we dare not presume to scan the purposes of Deity, We 
 can only speak of the future from the past ; but judging 
 from the past, are we not right in saying that God would 
 
16 THANKSGIVING DiacOURSE. 
 
 have us take courage from the events of his providence 
 we have been reviewing this day, and that he has taught 
 us by these events, and his signal interposition in our be- 
 half, to repose a more unreserved confidence in the purity 
 and stability of our institutions than ever before ? — and 
 that he has, as it were, re-committed them again to us, in 
 trust for the benefit of man ? But suppose we are mista- 
 ken ? — suppose the scenes through which we have passed, 
 are but the precursors of others still more terrible to come ? 
 — or suppose, that in the long lapse of ages, the pillars of 
 our glorious fabric shall fall and crumble in the dust ;— for, 
 remember, we cannot blunt the iron tooth of time, nor 
 break his leaden sceptre, under which all former States, and 
 all possible institutions have been broken and consumed, 
 and to which all that shall yet arise may be obliged to pay 
 the same fearful tribute. — What then? There is a 
 mighty influence which time itself cannot weaken — which 
 long ages, as they pass, hardly dilute. Generation sweeps 
 after generation in its brief career, as wave chases 
 wave on the bosom of the deep, and when each dashes 
 on the shore, it is lost forever. But the spirit that per- 
 vades these fleeting and nameless generations perishes 
 not in those whose breasts it ruled, nor passes away 
 with the monuments erected to illustrate and enlarge its 
 reign. Here our work for good is immense,— is almost im- 
 mortal. The laws of Solon are laws no longer ; his people 
 have for ages scarcely known his name, and for twenty 
 centuries the principles of his polity have been banished 
 from his native city. Yet the spirit of the Athenian peo- 
 ple, — of their laws, their liberty, their institutions, and 
 their literature, has influenced every succeeding genera- 
 tion, and at this hour, burns more brightly, and warms the 
 heart more intensely than in the freest and most glorious 
 days of Greece. So, too, shall it be with this great Repub- 
 lic. The names of its wise and virtuous citizens, except 
 a very few, must be forgotten ; the details of its thrilling 
 and romantic history may perish, leaving behind only the 
 
grand outline 01" its origin, ita struggles, and liz tiiurnpha ; 
 its simple and noble monuments may all decay — nay, even 
 its glory may be obscured, its strength depart, its sacred 
 principles be all subverted, and the plough-share of ruin bo 
 driven deep and wide through its sacred bosom. Alas ! 
 that were, indeed, a sad day for man. But supposing all 
 this — supposing the worst ; even then, we shall not have 
 lived in vain. There is one name which shall ever live. 
 The name of Washington will electrify all coming ages, 
 and in the shock of battle nerve the arm, and in the day ©f 
 triumph rule the evil passions of all who struggle for liberty. 
 The light oi our glorious career will forever illuminate the 
 path that leads the weak and the oppressed to freedom, 
 strength and boundless prosperity. The spirit of our laws 
 and institutions will abide upon earth, the redeeming spirit 
 ot succeeding times, resisting all the eiforts of ignorance, 
 barb;irism and tyranny — living in the very core of the 
 world's heart, and defying all attempts to extirpate it ; until 
 the whole mass shall be warmed and enlightened, and the 
 flame, like that the Ancients fabled, shall break forth at 
 once in ten thousand places, and fill the earth with bright- 
 ness. Our times, our country, our institutions alike call 
 us to this glorious destiny. Let us fulfil it. We are heredita- 
 ry freemen. The blood of the Angles, the Normans, the 
 unconquered Saxons before whom Caesar and Charlemagne 
 alike recoiled, mingle their heroic currents in our veins, 
 along with that great barbaric stream which Rome herself 
 could not withstand. These are our primeval sires. After 
 them, the founders of English liberty in the glorious Com- 
 nionwealih. And then the men of '76 — their immediate 
 sons. Heritage — descent — destiny, alike glorious. Yes, 
 we tell it thankfully, firmly, joyfully ; we are the great in- 
 heritors of hnman freedom, and we intend to transmit the 
 sacred treasure to our children's children, untarnished by 
 a single blot, undiminished by a single particle. We re- 
 vere our fathers' memory, we cherish the deeds of our great 
 ancestors, wq love this Ujvtow, the purchase of their toils 
 
 •> 
 
13 TUANKSGIVrNG DISCOURSE. 
 
 and praj'ers, and tears, and cemented by their blood ; wor 
 look upon it as the Sun in the Zodiac, or rather as " the 
 blue sky which bendelh over all ;" we know the day of our 
 visitation ; we thank God for his boundless mercies, and 
 by his grace, we mean to be faithful to our lot, just to tho 
 glorious past, true to the still more glorious future. This 
 is the deep, indwelling, unalterable purpose of twenty mil- 
 lions of souls. Thirty-one republics into which they are 
 scattered, are but so many dispersed centres to preserve 
 and perpetuate this high sentiment. The great nation 
 which these unitedly form, has for it mission the public ex- 
 hibition and illustration — in the presence and for the benfit 
 of universal man — of the excellence, the strength, and the 
 blessedness of freedom. And even now, one continent is 
 redeemed to suffering, struggling humanity ; redeemed from 
 the common lot of down-trodden man, and set forth in 
 impregnable strength and ravishing beauty, the first fruits 
 of a world rousing itself up from the stupor of sixty centu- 
 
li - 
 
 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT: 
 
 JL DISCOURSE 
 
 PEEAOHED IN THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NORFOLK, VA., 
 
 ON 
 
 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1856. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEO. D. ARMSTRONG, D.D., Pastor. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE CONGREGATION. 
 
 NORFOLK, Va. : 
 J. D. GHISELIN, Jr., BOOKSELLER. 
 
 1856. 
 
W. H. TinoH. Priater and Sttreotyper, 14 Beekman St., N. T. 
 
DISOOXJUSE. 
 
 -*►- 
 
 " I WILL WASH MT HANDS IN INNOOENOT : SO WILL I COMPASS 
 THINE ALTAE, O LOED : ThAT I MAT PUBLISH WITH THE TOIOE 
 OF THANKSGIVING, AND TELL OF ALL THY WONDROUS WOBKS." 
 
 Psalm xxvi. 6, 7. 
 
 We are gathered in God's house to-daj, that we 
 may render thanks to him for the mercies of the 
 passing year. 
 
 How widely different the circumstances in which 
 we assembled here, a year ago ; at the close of " the 
 summer of the Pestilence." The Chief Magistrate of 
 this good old Commonwealth had then recommended 
 the observance of a day of thanksgiving throughout 
 our borders. In every other part of the State, the 
 heart of man — the Christian man — was attuned for 
 the service. JSTo enemy at home, or abroad, thi-eat- 
 ened our peace. The seasonable alternation of 
 shower and sunshine had caused the earth to yield 
 abundantly, an increase of the seed sown. The 
 harvest had been gathered in, and the barns were 
 
4 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 full. Shielded by the good providence of God, and 
 blessed of him, the patriarch father might gather 
 around him, in the old homestead, his children and 
 his children's children : — and only here and there, 
 would there be a vacant seat, — only now and then, 
 would one return, with sad step and slow, to tell of 
 bereavement. 
 
 Such was not our lot. "We had occasion to thank 
 God that we were not consumed. In honesty, we 
 were constrained to confess, that even in our sore 
 chastisement, " God had not dealt with us after our 
 sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." 
 Tet the language of thanksgiving, in view of God's 
 dealings with us during the year, was not the lan- 
 guage of our hearts. Judah will not fail to praise 
 God, even in a strange land. As she sits down, in 
 her captivity, by the rivers of Babylon, she will 
 sing, — ^but not the glad songs of Zion. " How can 
 she sing the Lord's song in a strange land ?" She 
 will sing, — but not the jubilant psalm her lips were 
 wont to utter as she entered the Temple, at Jerusa- 
 lem, — 'tis a plaintive melody which falls upon the 
 ear. " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem," is the burden 
 of her song. In the strong and simple faith in God, 
 his goodness and his grace, which angels feel ; which 
 the spirits of just men made perfect feel, we may, 
 and doubtless will, " rejoice always." But here, on 
 
POLITICS AKD THE PULPIT. 5 
 
 earth, the song of thanksgiving grates upon the ear 
 of him who sits beside his desolate hearth-stone : — 
 Tears will fill even the eye of faith, as it rests upon 
 the new-made graves of the household. Abraham, 
 that mighty man of faith, " mourned for Sarah 
 and wept for her," as he stood at the cave of Mach- 
 pelah. 
 
 In what contrast with all this, the circumstances 
 in which we assemble to-day. Kot, that we have 
 forgotten, or would forget, those whose loss we 
 mourned a year ago. But, blessed be God ! it is a 
 law of our nature, that time shall assuage the poig- 
 nancy of mortal grief. It is a law of God's spiritual 
 kingdom too, that as tears wash out the natural eye, 
 and cleanse its vision, so shall they also cleanse the 
 vision of " the eye of faith." 
 
 The present, is a period of unexampled health in 
 this our city. In the three months last passed, I 
 have been called to bury no member of this 
 church : — And in all the families connected with the 
 congregation, there has been but one death, that of 
 a child seven years old. 'Never, before, since I have 
 been pastor of this church, have I been able to tell 
 of such mercy as this. 
 
 Our city, too, in its commercial interests, seems to 
 have recovered from the shock it received a year 
 ago. Our harbor, has been sought by as many 
 
b rOLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 sail, — our -wharves have been as crowded, — and, 
 our streets as thronged, as in former years. The 
 eje, sees but little if any difference between the 
 Norfolk of to-day, and the Norfolk of two years ago. 
 Whilst some foreboded ruin for us, ^ the inevitable 
 consequence of the ravages of the pestilence, — many 
 of us, more hopeful, had confidence in the recupera- 
 tive powers of our city : — But did any of us, as we 
 beheld the desolations made in our midst, anticipate 
 so rapid a recovery as that we see? The tornado 
 sweeps o'er a forest-land ; and a scene of wreck and 
 ruin marks its track. The tall oak, of a hundred 
 summers, lies, shattered, beside the shoot of a single 
 season, crushed in its fall. But the dews of heaven 
 descend, and God's showers are poured upon this 
 ruin. The riven trunk clothes itself in verdure 
 anew ; the undergrowth, bent and bruised, springs 
 back to its natural position again, — and in the 
 period of one short " circle of the seasons," so 
 changed is the scene, that the eye of the stranger 
 detects no trace of the tornado. In the memory of 
 the past, alone, does it live as a reality. The 
 scarred heart, alone, now, bears marks of the pesti- 
 lence. 
 
 In view of all these mercies — this good providence 
 of the Lord our God — should not we, his people, 
 " compass his altars " this day, and " publish with 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 7 
 
 the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all his won- 
 drous works ?" 
 
 The blessings bestowed upon us, as a city, are not 
 the only blessings, for which we have occasion to 
 render thanksgiving to God, to-day. During the 
 past summer, our country has passed safely through 
 a political struggle — perhaps the most threatening — ■ 
 certainly, the most bitter, any of us have ever 
 seen. 
 
 A threatening struggle, — threatening the Confede- 
 racy of these our States. It is not my purpose, 
 standing in the pulpit, to discuss the nature or the 
 value of that Confederacy. Such themes as these 
 befit not the place. Granting, as every reflecting 
 man must grant, that circumstances may arise, in 
 which ihQ patriot, and the Christian, as a choice 
 between evils, will rather give up our Union, than 
 encounter the yet greater evils at the cost of which 
 it may be possible, alone, to preserve it, — yet, I 
 speak, I know, the thought of every one of you, 
 when I say, that the severance of this Union, in 
 itself considered, is an evil which he must be infa- 
 tuated who would make light of. The ties which 
 bind us, North and South, together, God forbid that 
 we should ever learn their strength in the breaking ! 
 Our Confederation, the deep foimdations of which 
 were laid " in days of old," — the convulsions which 
 
8 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 will be mighty enough to overturn it, will shake this 
 land to its very centre. 
 
 The summer is passed — and the glorious old 
 banner of the Stars and Stripes, given to the breeze 
 amid the prayers and sacrifices of men who loved 
 their country well and wisely — blessed be God ! yet 
 floats before the eyes of the nations. No star has 
 been blotted from its azure field. 'No hostile shot 
 has torn a stripe of the old bunting. No foeman's 
 hand has trailed its glories in the dust. "We were 
 born under its shadow ; and under that shadow 
 would we die, and there would we be buried. It 
 sheltered our childhood's helplessness ; and we would 
 have our children, and our children's children shel- 
 tered there too. 
 
 Through this threatening struggle we have safely 
 passed : — perhaps, I ought rather to say, having an 
 eye to the possibilities of the future — through this 
 one act of a threatening struggle, we have safely 
 passed. Tliis one battle — it may be in a " thirty 
 years' war" — has been won. And when I speak 
 thus, I mean, won, not for this or that political party, 
 — but won for our country ; our whole country. And 
 we would gladly take it as an omen and earnest of 
 what is yet in store for us, in God's providence, in 
 the future. 
 
 A hitter struggle. — Ibe bitterest political struggle 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 9 
 
 we have ever known. llTo little of this bitterness 
 has arisen, from the mingling of religious elements 
 with the political issues involved. Religious ele- 
 ments — using that term religious in its widest sense 
 — when mingling with other elements in civil and 
 political strife, as all history testifies, have ever 
 given rise to the deadliest conflicts earth has wit- 
 nessed. Saul of Tarsus, takes the lead in the first 
 Christian persecution ; and whilst other Scribes 
 remain, reviling the name of Jesus, in Jerusalem, he 
 follows his victims unto strange cities. — And he 
 does so, as he himself tells us, because, with con- 
 science misinformed, " he verily thinks that he ought 
 to do many things against the name of Jesus." The 
 Inquisition, is the bloodiest and most merciless of 
 human tribunals, because, in its court, a fanatic 
 priest sits " at the top of judgment." 
 
 So, in our own land, and during the summer just 
 past, we have had one of the bitterest political strug- 
 gles ever known, in large part, because the religious 
 feelings of men have been evoked, — men have been 
 made to feel that in promoting the interest of a party, 
 they were, verily, doing God's service: — because, 
 not the Statesman or the Politician alone, but the 
 Preacher also, has become an active partisan, — in 
 some instances, " mounting the stump," — in others, 
 doing what is far worse, prostituting the pulpit and 
 
 1* 
 
10 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 profaning the Sabbath, by preaching politics instead 
 of the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 That all this is wrong, radically wrong, will be, I 
 believe, the conclusion of every ingenuous Christian 
 man, under the guidance of his religious instincts 
 alone ; even though he may not be able to give a 
 reason distinctly for this his conclusion. As already 
 intimated, that which we have witnessed, may be but 
 one act in a protracted strife, stretching far into the 
 future. Would it not be well for us then, as Chris- 
 tian men, to examine the ground on which we stand, 
 in repudiating and condemning all interference of the 
 Church and the Preacher in political strife ; not only, 
 that we may be able to give a reason for our faith to 
 him that asketh it ; but also, that in time to come, 
 we may " wash our hands in innocency ; and so com- 
 pass the altars of our God." 
 
 The nature of the Church, and the promise of 
 THE Preacher, as set forth in the Word of God, is 
 the subject to which I ask your attention to-day. 
 
 The church of God is not — as seems to be taken for 
 granted by many — an institution intended to do all 
 the good which needs to be done in the world, and 
 to wage war upon every form of human ill. There 
 are other institutions, intended to do good and alle- 
 viate the ills of life, to enable men to " live in all 
 
 -/ 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 11 
 
 godliness and honesty," that are as truly institutions 
 of God as the Church itself. For each of these, sev- 
 erally, God, their common author, has assigned its 
 proper sphere of operation, and beyond its limits, no 
 one of them may safely or rightfully go. 
 
 Civil government is one of these institutions. 
 " The powers that be are ordained of God. Whoso- 
 "ever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the 
 " ordinance of Ood. — He (i. e. the civil ruler) is the 
 '"''minister of Ood to thee for good." — (Kom. xiii. 
 " 1-4) " I exhort therefore, that first of all, suppli- 
 " cations, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks 
 " be made for all men ; For kings and for all that are 
 " in authority ; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable 
 " life, in all godliness and honesty. For this is good 
 " and accejptdble in the sight of God our Samiourr 
 —(1 Tim. ii. 1-4.) 
 
 According to the plain representation of Scripture, 
 the State is as truly an institution of God as the 
 Church : — And a great deal of the good which needs 
 to be done in the world, is, by God's appointment, to 
 be done through its agency ; and a great many of 
 the ills of life are to be alleviated in the same way. 
 Is " a quiet and peaceable life " to be secured for man, 
 it is the immediate business of the State to secure it. 
 Is the evil-doer to be terrified, the civil ruler "bear- 
 eth. not the sword in vain." In his own proper 
 
12 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT- 
 
 sphere, the civil ruler is as truly "the minister of 
 God to thee for good," as is the minister of the Gos- 
 pel. In securing to the Christian man, " a life in all 
 godliness and honesty," the civil ruler has a part 
 assigned him of God, as truly as has the minister of 
 the Church ; — And he who would " keep a conscience 
 void of oflence toward God and toward man" — 
 " would wash his hands in innocency, and so compass 
 God's altar," is bound to regard these appointments 
 of God. The Church may no more rightfully intrude 
 itself into the province of the State, than the State 
 may itself into the province of the Church. The 
 forum and the court, and all that properly appertain to 
 them, have been given of God to the civil ruler, — the 
 Church and the pulpit, to the minister of the Gospel. 
 
 The fact, if fact it be, that the State may not be 
 accomj)lishing all the good it ought, — that civil or 
 political evils are suffered under its administration, — 
 that it needs reforming, does not authorize the 
 Church to step in and supply these deficiencies, or 
 reform these abuses, any more than a similar state 
 of things in the Church, would authorize the State to 
 interfere. All human institutions — human, in that 
 they are administered by men, though ordained of 
 God — are imperfect in their operation: — and this, 
 not because the ordinance of God is imperfect; but, 
 because sin has introduced disorder into the working 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 13 
 
 of all earthly things ; has put man's nature out of 
 joint. The harp of David gives forth many a wailing 
 note, because sin, with rough hand, has swept the 
 strings. The rose of Sharon, will open with blasted 
 petals, if the hot winds of the desert breathe upon it in 
 the bud. The Church, the State, the Family, we dis- 
 cover evils in the practical working of them all. And 
 such, we believe, will be the case, so long as man, but 
 partially sanctified at best, is " God's minister " in 
 their administration. 
 
 "We freely grant, and sincerely rejoice in the 
 truth, that the healthful operations of the Church, in 
 its own appropriate sphere, re-act upon all the inter- 
 ests of man, and contribute to the progress and pros- 
 perity of society. But we are far from admitting, 
 either, that it is the purpose of God, that under this 
 present dispensation of religion, all evil shall be ban- 
 ished from this sublunary state, and earth be convert- 
 ed into a paradise; or, that the proper end of the 
 Church is the direct promotion of universal good." 
 — {Synod of South Carolina, 1848.) 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ, in so far as his conduct was 
 ministerial, appeared on earth, as a minister of the 
 Church. As the universal sovereign of all, he might, 
 had he seen fit so to do, have rightfully exercised 
 civil rule, as well as ecclesiastical authority, — have 
 appeared as a temporal king, as well as a spiritual 
 
 ruler. But such was not his choice : such was not the 
 
 # ' 
 
14 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 purpose of his life among men. Hence, when on a 
 certain occasion, he perceived that the multitude 
 " would come, and take him hj force to make him a 
 " king, he departed again into a mountain himself 
 " alone." — (John. vi. 15.) Hence also, when asked of 
 Pilate — " Art thou the King of the Jews ? — Jesus 
 " answered him, My kingdom is not of this world : if 
 " my kingdom were of this world, then would my 
 " servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the 
 " Jews : but now, is my kingdom not from hence." — 
 (John, xviii. 33, 36.) As a minister of the Church 
 the example of Christ is a perfect example, and of 
 binding authority upon the minister of the Church in 
 every age. 
 
 l^otice now — and I shall quote but two, from among 
 the instances which the gospel record presents — how 
 carefully Christ observed the distinction between 
 Church and State, — and as a minister of the Church, 
 avoided all interference with the civil government, 
 within its own proper sphere. 
 
 " And they (the chief priests and scribes) sent forth 
 " spies, which should feign themselves just men, that 
 " they might take hold of his words, that so they 
 " might deliver him unto the power and authority 
 " of the governor. And they asked him, saying, 
 " master, we know that thou sayest and teachest right- 
 "ly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but 
 " teachest the way of God truly : Is it lawful for ug 
 
POLmCS AND THE PULPIT. 15 
 
 " to give tribute unto Caesar or no ? But he perceived 
 "their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt 
 " ye me ? Shew me a penny. Whose image 
 "and superscription hath it? They answered and 
 "said, Caesar's. And he said unto them, Eender 
 " therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, 
 " and unto God the things which be God's." — (Luke 
 XX. 20-25). 
 
 To say, that our Lord, in this instance, avoided a 
 direct decision of the question proposed, through 
 fear of the Roman governor, is to do him greater 
 injustice than did these Jews who sought to entangle - 
 him in his speech. He who hurled at the hypo- 
 critical scribes and pharisees — rulers in the Church 
 — his terrible anathemas — " Woe unto you, scribes 
 and pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye devour widows' 
 houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: 
 therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. 
 — ^For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which 
 indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full 
 of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. — ^Ye 
 serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape 
 the damnation of hell?" — He who, at Jerusalem, 
 when " he found in the temple, those that sold oxen, 
 and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money 
 sitting; made a scourge of small cords, and drove 
 them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the 
 
 , c-^ 
 
16 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 oxen; and ponred out the changers' money, and 
 overthrew the tables ; and said unto them that sold 
 doves, Take these things hence ; make not my 
 Father's house a house of merchandise," — if we do 
 him common justice, judging of him as we would of 
 any man, cannot be supposed to have avoided a 
 decision of this question, through any fear of the 
 consequences. The course he pursued, was chosen 
 from higher motives than such as these. 
 
 The Jews, in our Lord's day, were a conquered 
 people. The government under which they lived 
 was in many respects an oppressive one. Their 
 rulers were often tyrannical, wicked men. In these 
 circumstances, they come to Jesus with the question 
 — " Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or 
 no ?" By " lawful," they did not mean — in accord- 
 ance with the existing law of the land : — but, is it 
 right in itself? Ought we to submit to such a govern- 
 ment ? Instead of directly answering this question, 
 Christ calls their attention to the fact, that in using 
 money bearing the image and superscription of 
 Caesar, they admitted that Caesar was the supreme 
 civil ruler, to whom God in his providence has sub- 
 jected them. And then, as a minister of the Church, 
 carefully avoiding all interference with the State, 
 and on the principle that " the powers that be are 
 ordained of God," he says — " Kender therefore unto 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 17 
 
 Caesar the things which be Caesar's " — ^he refuses to 
 take any notice of the question of civil right which 
 had been proposed to him — and adds — "and unto 
 God, the things which be God's." This our Lord 
 does, not upon the principles of " passive obedience," 
 as that doctrine has been taught in by-gone days ; 
 but as observing carefully the distinction which God 
 has established between the Church and the State. 
 
 On another occasion — " One of the company said 
 " unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he 
 " divide the inheritance with me. And he said 
 " unto him — Man, who made me a judge or divider 
 " over you. "—(Luke xii. 13, 14.) 
 
 Here was a case of alleged injustice, of wrong 
 done ; and probably a very clear case, or the appeal 
 would not have been made to Jesus in the manner 
 it was. A case too, in which the civil magistrate had 
 failed — at least, up to the time it was brought to 
 Jesus — to administer justice. How easy would it 
 have been for our Lord, knowing all things, as he 
 did, to have rendered an infallible decision in the 
 case. How easy would it have been for him, armed 
 with the power of a God, to have executed his right- 
 eous decree. Does he do this ? Not at all. He 
 who never sent away the ignorant — ignorant of God's 
 truth — without instruction ; the sick, the maimed, 
 the blind, without healing ; the possessed of the 
 
18 POLITICS AKD THE PULPIT. 
 
 devil, without deliverance, — refuses to entertain this 
 case even for a moment. His prompt reply is — 
 "Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?" 
 Your case is one which falls within the province of 
 the State. — To the civil court must you carry your 
 cause. " My kingdom is not of this world." 
 
 The conduct of Christ's inspired Apostles, was 
 always in conformity with the example he set them, 
 in this matter. Tliey lived, and preached, and 
 labored ; they planted the church and nurtured it, 
 in countries, where the civil government was oppres- 
 sive, and greatly needed reforming, — when the State 
 failed in the accomplishment of much of the good 
 which God designed the State to do, — when many of 
 the ills of life, which civil government is intended to 
 correct, were suffered to prevail unchecked, — where 
 person and property were insecure, — where the 
 administration of the jfinances was a very thrift- 
 less and often an iniquitous one, — where the judges 
 took bribes, and the rulers oppressed the people ; 
 and the Apostles suffered, in their own persons, in all 
 these various ways. Yet never do we find these 
 heaven-guided ministers of the Church, any more 
 than Christ himself, intermeddling with the affairs of 
 State. ISTever do we see them taking the lead in 
 political agitation. Never did they, on the Sabbath, 
 lay aside the Gospel, that they might preach civil, or 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 1& 
 
 even legal reform. True to their character of 
 " ambassadors for Christ," they know nothing among 
 those to whom they go " save Jesus Christ and him 
 crucified." — "They teach men publicly and from 
 house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also 
 to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith 
 toward our Lord Jesus Christ." — (1 Cor. ii. 2 ; Acts 
 XX. 20, 21.) Having received a specific commission 
 from the Lord Jesus, their Lord and ours, — " Go ye 
 " therefore and disciple all nations, — teaching them 
 " to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
 " 2/ot*," (Matt, xxviii.) they abide by their commis- 
 sion, to the letter ; never transgressing it, by adding 
 anything to, or taking anything from what Christ 
 hath commanded. 
 
 In the life of the inspired Apostles, the Church 
 appears, if possible, more clearly than in the general 
 declarations of God's word, a peculiar institution, — 
 and her ministers, a peculiar order of men. 
 
 As thus set forth, the Church appears as " a society, 
 voluntary, in the sense that all its members become 
 so, not by constraint, but willingly, but not in the 
 sense that its doctrines, discipline, and order, are the 
 creatures of human will, deriving their authority 
 and obligation from the consent of the members. 
 On the contrary ; it has a fixed and unalterable con- 
 stitution ; and that constitution is the word of God. 
 
20 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 The Church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 He is enthroned in it as sovereign. It can hear no 
 voice but His, obey no command but His, pursue no 
 end but His, Its officers are His servants, bound to 
 execute only His will. Its doctrines are His teach- 
 ings, which He, as a prophet, has given from God ; 
 its discipline. His law, which He as a king has 
 ordained. The power of the Church, accordingly, is 
 only ministerial and declarative. The Bible, and the 
 Bible alone, is her rule of faith and practice. She 
 can announce what it teaches ; enjoin what it com- 
 mands ; prohibit what it condemns ; and enforce her 
 testimonies by spiritual sanctions. Beyond the 
 Bible, she can never go ; and apart from the Bible, 
 she can never speak. ' To the law and to the testi- 
 mony,' and to them alone, she must always appeal ; 
 and when they are silent, it is her duty to put her 
 hand upon her lips." — {Synod of South Carolina^ 
 1848.) 
 
 Let us apply these principles, — Or, rather, Let us 
 see how Christ and his Apostles applied them — in the 
 matter which has involved the Church so largely, in 
 the bitter political contest we have been called upon 
 to witness during the summer just passed. It has 
 been through the agency of the " slavery question," 
 the preacher, in some instances, has quitted the 
 pulpit and "mounted the stump;" in others, has 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 21 
 
 desecrated the pulpit and profaned the Sabbath, by 
 preaching politics instead of the Gospel of Christ — 
 and in one instance, within God's house, a contribu- 
 tion has been taken up in " Sharp's rifles " — a Reve- 
 rend Marker standing up to keep the tally. 
 
 The institution of slavery is not something new 
 and peculiar to our day. We know not just when it 
 began to exist among men. As far back as the days 
 of Abraham, when " the Lord had blessed Abraham 
 in all things," we have an inventory of his posses- 
 sions, given by " the eldest servant in his house," in 
 the words — " And the Lord hath blessed my master 
 " greatly, and he is become great ; and he hath 
 " given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, 
 "and men-servants and maid-servants, and camels 
 " and asses." — (Gen. xxiv. 35.) And we know that 
 when God first gave his visible Church a distinct 
 and formal existence among men, He recognized 
 the relation as existing in Abraham's family, and 
 enforced the discharge of the duties growing out of 
 it, by church sanctions. " And he that is eight 
 " days old shall be circumcised among you, every 
 " man-child in your generations, he that is born in 
 " thy house, or he that is l)ought with money of any 
 " stranger, which is not of thy seed. He tliat is bom 
 " in thy house, and he that is hought with thy money, 
 " must needs be circumcised ; and my covenant shall 
 
22 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 " be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant." — 
 (Gen. xvii. 12, 13.) And we know farther, that when 
 on the top of Sinai, God, with his own finger, wrote 
 the moral law upon tables of stone, instead of 
 writing a prohibition of slavery, as he did of things 
 einful in themselves, he treats the relation of master 
 and servant as a lawful relation, and in one particu- 
 lar, regulates it accordingly. " Remember the Sab- 
 "bath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou 
 " labor, and do all thy work. But the seventh day 
 " is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; in it, thou 
 " shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy 
 " daughter, nor thy man-servant^ nor thy maid- 
 ^^ servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is 
 "within thy gates."— (Ex. xx. 8-10.) 
 • In the days of Christ and his Apostles, slavery 
 existed, not in Judea only, but in every country 
 in which they either preached the Gospel or founded 
 a Christian Church. In Judea, under the operation 
 of Moses' law, many of the incidental evils of slavery 
 were carefully provided against, and the condition 
 of the slaves was far better than among other 
 nations. Yet even among the Jews, almost every 
 one of the incidental evils of slavery existed, on the 
 ground of which so much objection is made to 
 slavery, at the present day, as it exists in our 
 southern States. Amongst the Greeks and Romans, 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 23 
 
 even the most prejudiced judges cannot but admit 
 that the condition of the slave was greatly worse, 
 than it now is, anywhere in the civilized world/ 
 
 * Among the Jews. — "Both the food and the clothing of those, 
 who, for any cause, whatever it might be, had lost their freedom, 
 were of the poorest description. All their earnings went to their 
 masters. They commonly had the consent of their masters to marry, 
 or rather to connect themselves with a woman, in the way which is 
 denominated by a Latin law-term contuhernium. (" The contuher- 
 nium was the matrimony of slaves, a permitted cohabitation; not 
 partaking of lawful marriage, which they could not contract." — 
 Cooper's Justinian, p. 420.) The children that proceeded from this 
 sort of marriage, were the property, not of the parents, but of their 
 owners. Slaves were expected to perform any labor which their 
 master deemed it expedient to require of them. The maid-servants 
 were generally employed in domestic concerns, though not unfre- 
 quently, they were compelled to engage in those duties, which, from 
 their nature, were more befitting the other sex." — {Jahn's Biblical 
 Archeology. Andover Ed. 1832, pp. 180, 181.) 
 
 Among the Romans. — " Slaves were held ^ro nullis: pro mortuis : 
 pro quadrupedibus : nay, were in a much worse state than any cattle 
 whatsoever. They had no head in the state, no name, title, or 
 register : they were not capable of being injured : nor could they 
 take by purchase or descent : they had no heirs, and therefore could 
 make no will : exclusive of what was called iheiv peciiliutn, whatever 
 they acquired was their master's : they could not plead nor be 
 pleaded for, but were excluded from all civil concerns whatever ; 
 they could not claim the indulgence of absence reipublicce causa : 
 they were not entitled to the rights and considerations of matrimony, 
 and therefore had no relief in case of adultery : nor were they proper 
 objects of cognation or affinity, but of quasi-cognatiou only : they 
 
24 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 With slavery, in one or other of these forms, the 
 Apostles met at every turn. How do they deal with 
 it ? Do they denounce slave-holding as a 8in, and 
 require the master to free his slave, before they 
 admit him to the Church, as a worthy member ? — 
 Never — There is not the most distant allusion to sla- 
 very, in all the preaching of Christ and his Apostles, 
 as recorded in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. 
 There is not one word that looks to the freeino' of the 
 slave, on the part of the master, as a condition of 
 that master's admission to the Church, in the whole 
 l^Qw Testament. 
 
 could be sold, transferred or pawned, as goods or personal estate ; 
 for goods they were, and as such they were esteemed : they might 
 be tortured for evidence : punished at the discretion of their lord, 
 or even put to death by his authority : together with many other 
 civil incapacities which I have not room to enumerate." — {Taylor's 
 Elem. of Civil Law, as quoted in the Notes to Cooper's Justinian, 
 p. 411.) In addition to this — " As the seller was bound to promise 
 for the soundness of his slaves, and not to conceal their faults, they 
 were commonly exposed to sale naked : and they carried a scroll 
 hanging at their necks, on which their good and bad qualities were 
 specified. — The lash was the common punishment ; but for certain 
 crimes they used to be burned in the forehead, and sometimes were 
 forced to carry a piece of wood around their necks, wherever they 
 ■vyent. — When slaves were beaten, they used to be suspended with a 
 weight tied to their feet, and when punished capitally, were com- 
 monly crucified." — {Adam^a Roman Antiquities. New York Ed, 
 1819. pp. 49, 61.) 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. ^S 
 
 But what do they? — when God has blessed their 
 preaching of his Gospel, and men are hopefully 
 converted, they receive them, master and servant, 
 into the same Church, baptizing them with the same 
 water, — -just as we are accustomed to do, at the 
 South, at the present day. And when the Church 
 is gathered at the Lord's table, masters and servants, 
 they eat of the same bread and drink of the same 
 cup, — just as you and I, Christian hearer, have done, 
 many a time, feeling that " in Christ Jesus, there is 
 neither bond nor free." 
 
 The scriptural proof of these statements is abun- 
 dant — "Let as many servants' as are under the yoke, 
 " count their own masters worth v of all honor, that 
 "the name of God and his doctrine be not blas- 
 " phemed. And they that have helievvng masters^ 
 " let them not despise them because they are hreth- 
 " ren / but rather do them service, because they are 
 '■^faithfuV {pisfoi, believers,) and '■'-'beloved, par- 
 " takers of the benefit. These things teach and 
 " exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent 
 
 * The Greek word here translated servant — and the same is true of 
 most other instances in which that word occurs in our English New 
 Testament — is doulos. Of this word Robinson in his N. T. Lexicon 
 gives this definition — "In a family, the doulos was one bound to 
 serve, a slave, and was the property of his master, ' a living posses- 
 sion,' as Aristotle calls him ; and never a hired servant, the latter 
 being called misthios or misthotos." 
 
 2 
 
26 POLITICS AND THE PtJLPIT. 
 
 "not to wholesome words, even the words of oar 
 "Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is 
 " according to godliness, he is proud." — (1 Tim. vi. 
 1-3.)' Here Paul not only directs the course to be 
 pursued, — but also, distinctly and explicitly affirms, 
 that such are "the wholesome words of our Lord 
 ' ■ Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to 
 • " godliness." For further proof, see Eph. vi. 5-9 ; Col. 
 iii. 22, 25 ; iv. 1 ; and the Epistle to Philemon. 
 
 Li the Apostolic Epistle, we have, in several in- 
 stances, extended catalogues of the sins of heathen- 
 dom given us, (see Rom. i. 29-31, and 1 Cor. vi. 
 
 ^ McKniglit's paraphrase of vrs. 3, 4, is, — and I quote McKnight, 
 in part, because of his acknowledged ability as a critical expositor 
 of Scripture ; but mainly, because, himself a Scotchman, and writing 
 before any angry controversy on the subject of slavery had arisen 
 in the Church, (his work on the Epistles was published in 1795,) he 
 cannot be suspected of pro-slavery prejudices — " And those Christian 
 slaves who have believing masters, let them not despise them, fancy- 
 ing that they are their equals, because they are their brethren in 
 Christ ; for though all Christians are equal as to I'ehgious privileges, 
 slaves are inferior to their masters in station. Wherefore let them 
 serve their masters the more dihgently, because they who enjoy the 
 benefit of their services, are believers and beloved of God. These 
 things teach, and exhort the brethren to practise them. If any teach 
 differently, by affirming that, under the Gospel, slaves are not bound 
 to serve their masters, but ought to be made free, and do not consent 
 to the wholesome commandments which are our Lord Jesus Christ's, 
 and to the doctrine of the Gospel, which in all points is conformable 
 to true morality, he is " {McKnight on the Epistles.) 
 
POLITICS A.JSID THE PULPIT. 27 
 
 9, 10,) and also catalogues of disciplinable offences, 
 (see 1 Cor. v. 11, and 1 Tim. i. 9, 10), and never, in 
 one single instance, extended as the catalogue may 
 be, does slaveholding appear among the sins which 
 they condemn. 
 
 The only statement which can be tortured into 
 anything of the kind, is the specification of "men- 
 stealers" in 1 Tim. i. 10. A moment's reflection 
 must satisfy every ingenuous person, that slave-hold- 
 ing, as practised among us now, is as different from 
 " men-stealing," as is land-holding, under the peace- 
 able tenure of law, from the land-getting by fraud 
 and violence, often practised in the early settlement 
 of all parts of the United States, New England 
 included.' - 
 
 The nearest that any statement in the ISTew Testa- 
 ment comes to modern abolition doctrine, is — "Let 
 " every man abide in the same calling wherein he was 
 " called. Art thou called being a servant {doulos), 
 " care not for it ; hut if thou may est he free use it 
 " rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a 
 " servant, is the Lord's freeman." — (1 Cor. vii. 
 
 * On 1 Tim. i. 10, McKnight has this note. " They who make war 
 for the inhuman purpose of selling the vanquished as slaves, as is the 
 practice of the African princes, are really men-stealers. And they, 
 who, like the African traders, encourage that unchristian traflBc, by 
 purchasing the slaves which they know to be unjustly acquired." 
 
28 , POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 20-22.') The doctrine of this text is held every- 
 where, by Christian men at the South, and on all 
 proper occasions preached from our pulpits. Would 
 that it were so in all parts of the country ! 
 
 This conduct of Christ, and the Apostles, invested 
 by him with authority, and endued with wisdom to 
 complete the organization of the Church, is irrecon- 
 cilable with the idea that slave-holding is a sin, and 
 the relation of a master, one which a Christian man 
 may not hold with a good conscience before God. 
 Any other view than that we take, involves the idea, 
 that Christ and his Apostles, in their uniform avoid- 
 ance of this subject, were guilty of an unholy truck- 
 ling to the prejudices of men, of a Jesuitical accom- 
 modation of the Church of God to the passions and 
 interests of wicked men. The State, by passing a 
 law, prohibiting slave-holding, may make it a civil 
 offence. The political economist may prove it to be 
 a political evil. But a sin no man, nor body of men, 
 
 * McKnight paraphrases this passage, — " Since the Gospel makes 
 no alteration in men's political state, let every Christian remain in 
 the same political state in which he was called. Agreeably to this 
 rule, Wast thou called, being a bondman ? Be not thou soHcitous to 
 be made free, fancying that a bondman is less the object of God's 
 favor than a freeman. Yet, if thou canst even be made free by any 
 lawful method, rather obtain thy freedom. But if disappointed, 
 grieve not : For a bondman who is called by the Lord, possesses the 
 greatest of all dignities ; he is the Lord's free-man." 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 29 
 
 can ever make it, so long as God's Word is the ulti- 
 mate authority in questions of right and wrong. 
 
 I may be asked — Does slavery so alter the relations 
 between a man and his fellow-man, that the one, 
 because he is a master, may, without sin, oppress, 
 or cruelly lash, or even take the life of the other, 
 because that other is a slave ? Certainly not. The 
 fact that civil government is an ordinance of God, 
 does not make it right for the civil Kuler, having 
 the power, to harass the subject, or to take bribes 
 in the administration of the law. These are abuses, 
 incidental evils, and not part and parcel of the insti- 
 tution itself, either in the one case or the other: — 
 And in both alike, in so far as they are violations of 
 the moral law, they are sins in God's account, and in 
 the account of his Church: — and so the Apostles 
 always treated them. 
 
 'No book defines more clearly, than the Bible, the 
 relative duties of master and servant ; or enforces the 
 faithful discharge of those duties by more solemn 
 sanctions — " Servants, obey in all things your masters 
 "according to the flesh: not with eye-service, as 
 " men-pleasers ; but in singleness of heart, fearing 
 " God : And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to 
 "the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the 
 " Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance ; 
 " for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth 
 
30 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT, v 
 
 " wrong, shall receive for the wrong which he had 
 " done : and there is no respect of persons. Masters, 
 "give unto your servants that which is just and 
 " equal ; knowing that ye also have a Master in 
 " Heaven."— (Col. iii. 22-25 ; iv. 1.) 
 
 " Servants, be obedient to them that are your mas- 
 "ters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, 
 " in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ ; Not 
 " with eye-service, as men-j)leasers ; but as the ser- 
 "vants of Christ, doing the will of God from the 
 " heart ; with good will doing service, as to the Lord 
 " and not to men : Knowing that whatsoever good 
 " thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the 
 " Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye mas- 
 " ters, do the same things unto them, forbearing 
 " threatening : knowing that your Master also is in 
 " Heaven, neither is there respect of persons with 
 "him."— (Eph. vi. 5-9.) 
 
 According to God's word, the Christian Minister 
 is bound to teach the relative duties of masters and 
 servants, just as he teaches the duties of Rulers and 
 Subjects, Husbands and "Wives, Parents and Children, 
 for this is a part of what Christ hath commanded : — 
 And if, in any instance, these obligations are violated 
 by members of the Church, he is bound to enforce 
 the discipline of the Church against the oflender. 
 This is just what the Apostles did. More than this 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 31 
 
 the Preacher has no commission to teacli. Beyond 
 this, the Minister has no authority to go. 
 
 What was the practical result of such a course, 
 in the days of the Apostles ? And what, have we 
 good reason to believe, will be the practical result 
 of such a course now ? E"ot to destroy the relation 
 of master and servant, — but to remedy the incidental 
 evils which attach to it, existing, as it does, among 
 sinful men. Su]3posing that the Church could suc- 
 ceed, universally, in enforcing what Christ hath 
 commanded in this case, — so that all servants become 
 " obedient to their masters — with good-will doing 
 service as to the Lord and not to men," and all mas- 
 ters " give unto their servants that which is just and 
 " equal," — All the incidental evils of slavery disap- 
 pear. The institution itself remains. But the servant, 
 placed in God's providence in the condition of a 
 servant, can as completely .fulfill all the conditions 
 of his being on earth; can as M'^ell, and thoroughly 
 prepare himself for heaven, as he could if he sustain- 
 ed no such relation to another, as is implied in his 
 being a servant. Christianity, has never yet had full 
 control of the hearts of all men, in any country : and 
 hence, we see less or more of incidental evil attach- 
 ing to all the relations of life. But that the conclu- 
 sion just stated is not a mere speculation, is proven, 
 by the fact, that the Church has, at this time, a 
 
32 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 larger proportion of the laboring population among 
 its members, in the slave-holding, than it has in the 
 non-slaveholding States of our Union. 
 
 Wherever the religion of Jesus has gone, it has 
 always corrected, just as far as it has had power, the 
 incidental evils attaching to all the relations of life. 
 It has ameliorated the condition of the Wife — in 
 heathen lands, the condition of the Wife is that of a 
 menial ; the condition of the Child — ^in Old Eome, 
 the father might take the life of his child as well as 
 his slave ; and the condition of the slave also. By 
 teaching the true natm*e of the relation in which the 
 parties, severally, stand one to another, and enforcing 
 the discharge of then* relative duties one to another, 
 it has done all, of substantial benefit, that ever has 
 been done, towards raising the down-trodden, or 
 relieving the oppressed. 
 
 But will not Christianity, eventually, put an end to 
 the existence of Slavery among men ? I may be 
 asked. On this point, I have an opinion ; as I sup- 
 pose every reflecting man must have : — and that 
 opinion, on a proper occasion, and in a proper place, 
 I hold myself ready to express ; and if need be, 
 give my reasons, therefor. In the pulpit, the only 
 answer I can give, is — On this point I can teach 
 nothing, for here, Christ hath given me no com- 
 mand : — " My hand is upon my lips." 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 33 
 
 Notice, now, the position inwhichthe conduct and 
 teaching of Christ and his Apostles, places this sub- 
 ject of Slaveiy. They decide, positively, that slave- 
 holding is not a sin. They decide further ; that this, 
 like all other civil institutions, is' liable to abuse, on 
 the part both of the slave and of the master ; that in 
 their day, there were incidental evils attaching to it, 
 in its practical working among men, and that it is 
 the province of the Preacher, in so far as his teaching 
 will go ; and of the Church, in so far as her autho- 
 rity over her members will go, to reform these 
 abuses and correct these incidental evils. And there 
 the duty of the Preacher and the authority of the 
 Church, ends. 
 
 Slavery itself, they treat as a civil institution ; and 
 they never meddle with it. The question of the con- 
 tinuance of slavery, as a political question ; and they 
 never discuss it — they never utter one word on the 
 subject. The moment you decide that slave-holding 
 is not a sin, all pretext for the Preacher or the Church 
 intermedling with such questions as those which 
 have agitated our country during the summer past, 
 is taken away. The Kansas question, the question 
 respecting the extension of slavery, is a purely politi- 
 cal question ; and the discussion of it, in the pulpit 
 and on the Sabbath, is as much a desecration of holy 
 place and holy time, as would be a discussion of the 
 
 2* 
 
34 rOLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 "tariff question," or " the distribution of the public 
 land." 
 
 I may be told — slavery is a civil evil, and a po- 
 litical curse. Yery well — supposing this be so? 
 "What then ? Let the State remedy the evil ; Let the 
 Civil Ruler remove the curse : And as in this our land 
 — the freest under heaven — the ultimate authority 
 is with the people — Let the people see to it that their 
 Civil Kulers do their duty : — And let all this be done 
 in the same way, and by means of the same lawful 
 agencies, used in other cases of like nature. 
 
 But, the Preacher in our country is a Citizen in 
 the State^ as well as a Minister in the Church. May 
 he not, in his character of a citizen, discuss civil and 
 politicals question, like other men ? Tlie answer to 
 be given to this question, will be determined by the 
 views we take of the nature and extent of a minister's 
 ordination vows. All, I presume, will admit that the 
 hetter course for the minister, having been set apart 
 for holy things, is, to follow Paul's advice, and " give 
 " himself wholly to them." — (1. Tim. iv. 15.) Put if 
 any minister, decide for himself, that it is right for 
 him in his character of a Citizen, to enter the arena 
 of political strife — let him remember, that it is as a 
 Citizen he enters that arena, and let him act accord- 
 ingly. Does he feel called to fight Caesar's battles, 
 let him put Caesar's livery on, — and not wear the 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 35 
 
 livery of the Court of Heaven, to do Csesnr service 
 m. 
 
 For the Minister of the Church, to lay aside, for 
 the time, his character of a Minister, and, acting sim- 
 ply as a Citizen, to engage in political discussion, is 
 one thing. For him, retaining the position of a Min- 
 ister of Christ, to occupy the pulpit, on the Lord's 
 day, preaohing politics, is a very different thing. 
 The one, may he right in certain circumstances. The 
 other, never can he right in any circumstances : — It is 
 a desecration of the pulpit, a profanation of the holy 
 Sabbath. 
 
 The anti-slavery Preacher, is not a peculiarity of 
 this our age, a ".new thing under the sun," as some 
 seem to imagine. As far back as the days of Paul, 
 such preachers existed, and they troubled the Church 
 then as now : — And with the authority of an Apostle 
 of Jesus, and under inspiration of God, Paul gives 
 Timothy instruction as to the course he ought to pur- 
 sue with them. " Let as many servants as are under 
 " the yoke count their own masters worthy of all 
 " honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be 
 "not blasphemed. And they that have believing 
 " masters, let them not despise them, because they 
 " are brethren ; but rather do them service, because 
 " they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the be- 
 " nefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man 
 
36 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 " teach otherwise^ and consent not to wholesome words, 
 " even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the 
 " doctrine which is according to godliness, be is proud, 
 " knowing nothing, but doting about questions and 
 " strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, rail- 
 " ings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of 
 " corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing 
 " that gain is godliness : From such withdraw thy- 
 "5eZ/."— (I.Tim, vi. 1-5.) 
 
 !Notice, the character of this preacher, as Paul 
 gives it — " He is jproud " — literally puffed up with 
 pride — wiser in his own conceit than seven men who 
 can render a reason — " knowing nothing " — although 
 he dogmatizes as if he knew everything — '■'•})ut doting'^'' 
 — i. e., like an old man when second childhood has 
 come upon him, repeating again and again, the stale 
 sophisms which have been exposed a hundred times 
 — " doting about questions and strifes of words " — 
 such, I suppose, as " taking service without compen- 
 " sation," * " property in human flesh," &c. — 
 
 ' " The slave does all the work, the master takes all the pay P^ 
 Does he, indeed? " Whence, then, another plea? viz.: that free 
 " labor is more profitable than slave labor — because, forsooth, the 
 " slave gets a greater share of the pay than the freeman — more pay 
 " for less labor : his own maintenance, with that of his children and 
 " parents, and security for the future to boot. In truth, if the needs 
 " of the slave are duly cared for, the master does not * withhold the 
 *• earnings of the slave.'' " — (Samuel Nott.) In every Southern State, 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 37 
 
 " Whereof cometh envy, strife, railings — hlasphamiai, 
 i. e., malicious railings — ^^ evil surmisings " — uj)ono- 
 iai jponarai, i. e., wicked suspicions — ^^ perverse dis- 
 '■'' puling s {fallings one of another, marginal), of men 
 " of corrupt minds and destitute of the truthP Can 
 ■we not find, now, those wlio, had they been living 
 then, might have sat for this portrait, painted 1800 
 years ago ? 
 
 Do Paul's words — "railings, wicked suspicions, 
 " gallings one of another — destitute of the truth," 
 seem sharp and harsh ? Let me read you a part of an 
 article, published a few weeks ago, in the " N. T. In- 
 dependent," a paper — religious, they call it — edited 
 by three Rev'd D. D.'s. " The mass of the popula- 
 " tion of the Atlantic coast of the slave-region of the 
 " South, are descended from the transported convicts 
 "and outcasts of Great Britain. For a century pre- 
 " vious to the Revolution, thousands of those ofFscour- 
 " ings of the jails and hulks of England, were poured 
 " out on the shores of Maryland and Yirginia, the 
 " Carolinas and Georgia — and nowhere else. Those 
 " WEEE THE Penal Colonies of Gkeat Britain. O 
 " glorious chivalry and hereditary aristocracy of the 
 " South ! Peerless first families of Yirginia and Ca- 
 " rolina ! ' Look unto the rock whence ye were 
 
 the law compels the master to provide for his slave, not in health 
 only, but in sickness and old age. 
 
38 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT.- 
 
 "hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were 
 " digged.' Progeny of the highwayman, and horse- 
 " thieves, and sheep-stealers, and pick-pockets of old 
 " England ! ' Go, vilest of the vile,' out of all union 
 " with communities of decent origin, and following 
 '* your true natural and moral affinities, seek your 
 " real kindred and political fraternities with those 
 " whose ancestors were turned from the ocean-path 
 "which yours took, and founded their ' chivalrous ' 
 " colonies in JSTew South "Wales and Van Dieman's 
 "Land." 
 
 In copying this, for the purposes of exhibiting " the 
 " spirit of the press," the Editors of the " I^. Y. Ob- 
 server " remark : " The annals of scurrility may be 
 " searched in vain, to find language more unbecom- 
 " ing a decent press, not to say, a religious newspaper, 
 " conducted by ministers of Him who when he was 
 " reviled, reviled not again." " Scurrilous, unhecomr 
 ing a decent i^ress'''' — true — but not half so discrimi- 
 nating — not half so true to the life as Paul's words — 
 " railings, wicked suspicions, gallings one of another 
 — destitute of the truth.'''' 
 
 What shall we do in such a case as this ? — Indig- 
 nantly hurl back the denunciations uttered against 
 us?— "fight the Devil with lire?"— God forbid! 
 "Michael the archangel contended with the Devil" 
 once ; but he fought not with fire, — his lips uttered no 
 
POLITICS AND THE PULPIT, 89 
 
 "railing accusation." — (Jude 9.) 'Twill be an evil 
 day for the Church when the tongue of David learns 
 to rival that of cursing Shimei. Far wiser, the direc- 
 tion of Paul : ^^ Frorn such withdraw thyself.''^ Art 
 thou a minister of Christ? — "From such withdraw 
 thyself." Stand not thou in the company of the 
 "railing" Priest, lest the judgment of God come 
 upon thee, and " thou pierce thyself with many sor- 
 rows." — (1 Tim. vi, 10.) Art thou a member of the 
 Church of Christ — " From such withdraw thyself." 
 Be not thou a partaker in their sins. 
 
 '•'•From such loithdraw thyself. Let them alone. 
 It is God's command they are disobeying. And 
 God's Priest may not long disobey God's command, 
 without being known by all as " a raging wave of the 
 sea, foaming out his own shame." The "railing" 
 priest of fifteen years ago, " who would not consent to 
 wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and the doctrine which is according to god- 
 liness," is the ranting, open-mouthed Infidel and 
 Atheist of to-day. The Bible, and the popular isms 
 of the day — the progeny of a jDseudo-science and 
 pseudo-religion — are so irreconcilably at variance, 
 that the latter can no more tolerate the former, thau 
 the former the latter. Though they may be hatched 
 and brooded within the walls of the Church, they can- 
 
40 POLITICS AND THE PULPIT. 
 
 not long stand the blaze of truth which the Word of 
 God sheds around it. 
 
 The strife and political agitation of the day — with 
 these the Church, by God's appointment, has nothing 
 to do : — And if she will but follow Heaven's direc- 
 tion, they can never injure her. Her range of oper- 
 ation is higher ; far above the storms which gather 
 and rage on earth surface, " of the earth, earthy." 
 They ' cannot cast even a shadow upon the sun-lit 
 field which God has assigned her as her portion. 
 'Tis one of the marks of the divine parentage of the 
 Church, .that the inheritance assigned her, is so near 
 Heaven. 
 
 Man of God — " From all such withdraw thyself," 
 — " Wash thine hands in innocency and so compass 
 God's altar," and it shall ever be thy blessed privi- 
 ledge "to publish" God's good" providence "with 
 the voice of thanksgiving, and'tb tell of all his won- 
 drous works." 
 
/^ 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. HENRY C. LAY, 
 
 A FBESBYTBB OF ALABAMA. 
 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 The old 18 better. — luke v, S9. 
 Uudcrstandest thou what thou rendest? And he said, How can I, except some mftn Bhould guido 
 
 me '.—Acts viii. 30, 31. 
 
 Nero fork: 
 
 GEN. PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION, 
 
 DANIEL DAKA, JE., AGENT, 
 DEPOSITORY No. 20 JOHN STREET. 
 
 1853. 
 
EoUrtd aetordtng to Act of Congreu, In the year 18(8, by 
 
 JOHN W. MITCHELL, 
 
 (a« TreMurer of tie Gl«neral Proteitant Episcopal Sunday School tJnion,) 
 
 Id tba Clark't Offioa of the Diitrict Court of tlia United Statet for the Southtm Diitriet of ITaw York. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 A NEW edition of this Tract having been called for, 
 the Author has carefully revised it, and has, he would 
 fain hope, rendered it more complete, by the intro- 
 duction of two additional Letters. 
 
 He acknowledges his indebtedness for many of the 
 most valuable thoughts in the Letters now added, to 
 one set over him in the Lord ; whose judgment, at 
 least in matters of experimental religion, no Church- 
 man will fail to respect. This circumstance encourages 
 the Author to hope that his humble effort to set the 
 great doctrines of the Gospel in a clear and distinct 
 point of view, may not be altogether unavailing. 
 
 HuNTSViLLK, Alabama. 
 Advent, 1852. 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 My Good Friend, 
 
 We often hear it said, " It makes no difference what a man 
 believes, so Ms heart is right." Your case most forcibly re- 
 minds me how false that maxim is. How can I doubt your 
 sincerity when you tell me that you are anxious to do what is 
 right ? that whenever you can find out the truth, you are 
 ready to embrace it; whenever you can see your duty, you 
 will perform it at every hazard ? But you are tossed upon 
 the sea of conflicting opinions, and cannot for the life of you 
 tell which way to go. 
 
 Now see what a difference it does make with you. You 
 have never become a regular member of any denomination of 
 Christians. You have no particular religious attachments, 
 and of course have no regular habits of worship; you are all 
 things by turns, and nothing long. You feel no special in- 
 terest in any one congregation or religious society; so that it 
 is the business of no one in particular to look after you; and 
 your contributions to good objects are too much scattered to 
 produce any decided effect, or to let you see the good fruit 
 thereof. Your children are growing up around you without 
 any decided religious views, or any intelligent understanding 
 
6 LETTER I. 
 
 of the Gospel, and its privileges and obligations. You are 
 restless, uncomfortable, and turned about by every wind of 
 doctrine. You are a mechanic without a trade, a soldier in 
 the army, belonging to no regiment or company, with no uni- 
 form on, without special claim on any one in particular for 
 guidance, rations, or medical attendance 
 
 Yerily, my friend, I believe the worst choice you could 
 make is better than no choice at all, and I dare not conceal 
 my fears, that if you try to get to heaven all alone, you will 
 starve to death, or break down by the way, and so meet with 
 bitter disappointment. " The journey is too great for thee," 
 my brother. God himself tells you so, and has provided a 
 variety of helps and means to keep up your strength and to 
 prevent you from going astray. 
 
 Believing that your comfort, your usefulness in life, and 
 your safety too, depend greatly upon your taking a decided 
 stand, and that very shortly, " I also will show my opinion," 
 and beg that you wUl give it value just so far as it commends 
 itself to your own good judgment and sober reflection. I 
 must remind you too, that God must help us, or we cannot 
 even see the truth, and beseech you to lay aside for a moment 
 what you have in hand, that you may ask for his Holy Spirit to 
 clear away the mists of error and prejudice from your eyes, 
 and to enable you to say most heartily, " That which I see 
 not, teach Thou me." 
 
 I proceed then to state as distinctly as I can, what I un- 
 derstand to be the difficulties which lie in your way. 
 
 You say, that you have been reading the Bible all your life, 
 and understand it no better than you did at Jirst ; that almost 
 
LETTER I. 7 
 
 every doctrine has some text to support it; that the last man you 
 talk to, puts you to silence if he does not convince you ; that it 
 is a hopeless task for a plain man like you to compare the merits 
 of all the various religious denominations ; and that you have 
 tried your very best to become converted, and have never been 
 able to succeed. And your conclusion is, that one way is as 
 good as another ; that you will wish well to all, do the best you 
 know how, and entreat the Lord Jesus to be very merciful to a 
 bewildered and frail creature, 
 
 Now, if I undertake to guide you out of this tangled wil- 
 derness, I must be allowed to do it in my own way. I must 
 ask you to have patience with me, and to hear me out before 
 you say my opinion is worth no more than any other man's. 
 As mi7ie, it is worth just nothing at all ; but if it be supported 
 by plain, sensible reasons, it may be worth a good deal. Let 
 us then look at this matter of denominational controversies. 
 
 Suppose I were to tell you that you, even you, not a 
 book-learned man, ought to acquaint yourself with the dis- 
 puted points, and to draw a conclusion of your own, you 
 would, doubtless, think me very extravagant in my require- 
 ments. But let me ask, can you tell, without putting yourself 
 to some little pains, that success is so hopeless ? You remem- 
 ber that case which excited so much attention at our last 
 Circuit Court. You were on the jury. There were some 
 thirty or forty witnesses examined. Some told the truth as 
 they believed it, others plainly leaned to one side ; and 
 others again were generally believed to have lied outright. 
 They contradicted each other about the facts of the case, 
 and as for their opinions, who could reconcile them ? Half 
 
8 LETTERI. 
 
 a dozen lawyers wi'anglecl over the merits, and thick was the 
 dust of controversy. At one time it appeared to me hopeless 
 to see through the mist. But you were sworn, with eleven 
 other plain men, to decide the matter justly; and in the end 
 you did very confidently render a verdict, affecting in no small 
 degree the character and interest of the parties. And how 
 did you come to your conclusion ? Why, first of all, you 
 perceived that a great deal that was said was without special 
 importance, and you threw all that on one side as rubbish. 
 You found something agreed to on all hands, and you put 
 that in a safe place as true. When the case came to be ar- 
 gued, you saw, by the help of the lawyers, that its merits 
 hinged upon two or three questions ; and to these you gave 
 your chief attention. Although no lawyer, your own good 
 sense, and the Judge's charge, supplied you with some sound 
 rules of judging, by which you could be guided. And thus 
 you made up your mind. 
 
 Now, all the conflicting parties in religion have their 
 representatives ; the chief arguments are contained in books 
 or tracts that are cheap, accessible, and that do not require 
 a very long time to read. And upon examination you would 
 find that there are many points of agreement, and that the 
 controversy is capable of being narrowed down far more than 
 one might suppose. 
 
 Indeed, you plain men are too modest ; too diffident of 
 your abilities. I see you constantly examining and deciding 
 questions that are very profound, while you do but peep into 
 this and draw back in alarm. You, for instance, are very 
 decided in your political opinions ; and although some of the 
 
LETTER I. 9 
 
 most eminent men in our country have held the opposite opin- 
 ion, you do yet stoutly deny the constitutionality of a United 
 States Bank; you do not scruple to bring your neighbors to 
 your way of thinking, and you act upon it at the polls by 
 your vote. 
 
 Are we not in danger, then, of making too much of the diffi- 
 culties in the way of 'religious inquiry ? May it not be that 
 if men would bring to these inquiries just that honest, atten- 
 tive, candid spirit which they carry into the jury-box, they 
 would arrive at just and satisfactory conclusions ? 
 
 Indeed, I do not fear to affirm, that the time spent in one 
 year in reading the political newspapers, if devoted to the 
 serious and attentive perusal of but a few standard authors, 
 would put a man of ordinary intelligence, in possession of 
 clear and distinct views as to the points usually controverted, 
 and enable him to form a judgment thereon. Religion, like 
 other things, must be studied in order to be understood. 
 Time, patience, and a willing mind must be brought to its in- 
 vestigation. Men must take trouble, if they would find out 
 any thing worth knowing. 
 
 " He that by the plough -would thiive, 
 Himself must either hold or diive." 
 1* 
 
LETTER n. 
 
 Mt Worthy Friend, 
 
 I NOW proceed to consider what you urge about the diffi- 
 culty of understanding the Scriptures, and about the ease 
 with which very opposite doctrines are proved out of the 
 same books and passages ; and here let us take care not to 
 state these points too strongly, nor to leave out those limita- 
 tions necessary to make your positions strictly true. I will 
 grant most freely that an ingenious and plausible man can 
 make any thing out of any thing, whether in politics, law, or 
 religion ; for the difficulty is in no way peculiar to religion ; 
 provided, however, that you permit him to select his own 
 points, to put his own meaning upo7i words, and to put his 
 01071 notions into other peopWs mouths. But if you require 
 him to give you reasons, instead of assertions, and try what 
 he says by certain common-sense principles, which are in every- 
 day use, he may puzzle you a little, bpt you can plainly see 
 that the case is not proved. In other words, if you do, be- 
 sides listening, turn things over in your mind, and take the 
 trouble to measure and weigh what is said to you, you will be 
 able to find good and substantial reasons why some things 
 are to be believed and some to be rejected. 
 
LETTER II. 11 
 
 Let me mention some of these principles by which you 
 may try what you hear. One text must not be explained so 
 as flatly to contradict another text ; it must not be taken out 
 of its proper connection ; nor must we forget the times when 
 and the circumstances under which it was written. We must 
 not build up an important doctrine upon one single text, and 
 that of obscure meaning ; and if a man propounds a new 
 doctrine, — one that all the fathers and martyrs and wise and 
 holy men of past ages knew nothing of, — we need pay him 
 no attention, unless he presents the most powerful and con- 
 vincing reasons to show that all the world has been wrong, 
 and that he is the man to whom wisdom appertains. You 
 are not bound to follow every man through the fog in which 
 he has involved himself. Tor instance, you sit down and 
 read, in your Bible, how Cornelius, a Gentile, prayed to God; 
 that God said, his prayers and alms had come up before him ; 
 that he sent Peter to him, who acquainted him with the Gos- 
 pel and baptized him. Now, should your neighbor ply you 
 for hours with his new doctrine, that an unbaptized man must 
 not pray, and bring up the finest arguments in the world, 
 your own good sense should lead you to say, Your arguments 
 must be wrong ; for here is a plain case in which an unbap- 
 tized man prayed, and God heard his prayers. I do insist 
 that if you will think as well as read — -judge as well as hear 
 — ^make men give you good reasons why you should suppose 
 that a text means something entirely different from what it 
 seems to say — you would not be so perplexed, and with some 
 security could reach the conclusion, — ^this man speaks truth, 
 and that one is mistaken. 
 
iS LETTER II. 
 
 In truth, laziness is a besetting sin of nearly all of us ; 
 we do not like to take trouble, especially in the way of think- 
 ing. To hear a man talk, and to fall in with what he says, 
 is easy ; to reflect upon it is labor. And I must remind you, 
 vejy seriously, that you are just as much responsible to God 
 for your opinions as for your practice. Nobody's judgment 
 'can excuse you for not using your own. 
 
 And now let me ask, Is it strictly true that you have 
 learned nothing certain and definite from reading the Bible ? 
 I candidly admit that it contains many things hard to be 
 understood, and capable of being perverted ; that it is not 
 easy to derive from it a scheme of Divinity ; and that many 
 of its topics are so mysterious that men will always differ 
 about them. When we remember that the Bible is a collec- 
 tion of books written by many individuals, at various periods 
 of the world, and in languages now disused ; when we con- 
 sider how many allusions there are to things and customs 
 unknown in our day, and that it treats of the sublimest and 
 most awful subjects known to man ; it would be strange that 
 a man could understand it thoroughly by merely reading it. 
 You need a teacher; and I shall endeavor to show, by and 
 by, that God has appointed you a teacher, and that it is 
 a dangerous thing for a man to think that any notion or 
 impression which he may have got by reading the Bible, as 
 people generally read it, is what the Bible teaches us, as 
 God's truth. 
 
 Besides mysterious doctrines, however, the Bible relates 
 facts, and enjoins duties ; and I do not hesitate to affirm 
 that, in relation to these, you need be at very Uttle loss; and 
 
LETTER II. 13 
 
 moreover, that you have already tolerably distinct and clear 
 views about them. You have no doubt upon your mind that 
 the Bible reveals to you God, the Father Almighty, Maker 
 of heaven and earth. It declares, as distinctly as human 
 language can express the truth, that Jesus Christ, his Son, 
 and our Lord, was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of 
 the Virgin Mary ; suffered under Pontius Pilate ; was cruci- 
 fied, dead and buried ; that the third day he rose from the 
 dead, and ascended into heaven ; that he sitteth on the right 
 hand of God, and from thence shall come to judge the quick 
 and dead. You do not doubt that there is a Holy Ghost ; 
 that Christ established a Holy Universal Church; that he 
 revealed to us the Remission of sin, the Resurrection of our 
 bodies, and Life everlasting. 
 
 There is not one of these propositions but what is capable 
 of being proved beyond all doubt or controversy. Of this 
 much, at least, you yourself, I believe, are thoroughly per- 
 suaded. And these very propositions were collected together 
 before there was any division between the Eastern and West- 
 em branches of the Church, fifteen hundred years or more 
 ago, into what is called the Creed, and were declared by the 
 Church to constitute all that is absolutely necessary for a 
 Christian man to beheve. Bear this Creed in mind, for we 
 must come back to it after a while. 
 
 I think we have found this much, at least, that is not to 
 be disputed. Let us turn our thoughts to the precepts. Do 
 you doubt at all that the Bible teaches the necessity of Re- 
 pentance, Faith, Charity, and Holiness ? I do not see how 
 you can entertain even a suspicion on these points. The Ten 
 
14 LETTERII. 
 
 Commandments are not hard to understand. The duties of 
 being baptized and of receiving the Holy Communion are 
 most expressly enjoined, and are not mentioned in any dark 
 or mysterious way. 
 
 If you cannot understand all of a man's speech, you can 
 hardly misunderstand the general purport of it, unless he is 
 trying on purpose to bewilder you. And so you can hardly 
 have failed to catch the one great idea of Scripture, the gen- 
 eral strain and spirit and design of it ; viz., that man is very 
 guilty and very sinful; that Christ, to remove our guilt, stood 
 in our place and suffered in our stead ; that to remove our 
 sinfulness and make us holy, he sent his Holy Spirit to con- 
 vert us and change our sinful natures ; that we must own 
 our guilt and be sorry for it, must put our case into the 
 hands of Christ and trust in him for pardon ; that we must 
 pray for the help of his Spirit, walk in his laws, and forsake 
 our sins. 
 
 Is the Bible, then, a book of riddles, when you can see in 
 it a uniform and glorious plan for saving sinners ? When its 
 historical outline, its great facts, are told with the utmost 
 simplicity, and precepts given which apply to every circum- 
 stance of life ? 
 
 My good friend, you see that you have learned a great 
 deal, you believe a great deal. You already know enough 
 to make it your plain duty to live soberly, righteously, and 
 godly ; to be diligent in prayer ; to restrain your sinful appe- 
 tites ; to guard against the love of money ; and, in fine, to 
 make it your chief study to find out the will of God, and 
 your great business to perform it. Acknowledge then frankly 
 
LETTER II. 15 
 
 to yourself that you have learned much from your Bible ; and 
 continue diligently and prayerfully to read in it by day and 
 meditate therein by night ; nor let the difficulty of under- 
 standing what is darkly spoken, be an excuse for neglecting 
 that which is written as with a sunbeam. Scripture has 
 shallows in which a lamb may wade, as well as depths in 
 which an elephant may swim. An earnest spirit can readily 
 learn enough to place itself within the limits of pardon ; for 
 " if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and 
 believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the' 
 dead, thou shalt be saved ;" rescued from the condemnation 
 and the power of sin. To find out all the duties binding 
 upon you hi the new relation of God's child and friend, is, 
 indeed, a life-long business, a matter requiring thought and 
 effort and anxiety. Do first what you know you ought to 
 do, and what you know how to do, and having thus been 
 faithful even in a very little, more light and knowledge shall 
 be given you. ^ 
 
LETTER in. 
 
 My Dear Friend, • . ■ 
 
 I FEAR that by this time you are ready to consider me 
 one of Job's comforters ; and to conclude that I do not ap- 
 preciate your honest difficulties. But indeed I do appreciate 
 them, and having showed wherein they were overrated, I 
 shaU now acknowledge that, to a certain extent, they are 
 real grounds of complaint. 
 
 The general spirit of the Bible, and a knowledge of the 
 chief facts and duties therein contained, are not enough to 
 satisfy a sincere inquirer after eternal life ; he desires most 
 naturally an acquaintance mth all its holy teachings ; and in 
 order to secure his religious peace and progress, he must 
 leave the first j)rinciples and go on to perfection, exchanging 
 the sincere milk of the word for its more substantial nourish- 
 ment. The question about the Church must be settled, and 
 he must have his place in it, and reasons to repose confidence 
 in it, or he cannot be a contented, useful, growing Christian. 
 Indeed, he cannot fulfil one of the great terms of pardon, 
 confessing Christ before men, without being baptized, and so 
 becoming a member of the Church. 
 
 I have said heretofore that you needed a reliable teacher, 
 
LETTER III. 17 
 
 and now renew the assertion. Lock up a smart, good boy 
 with a Latin grammar, a dictionary, and a few Roman 
 authors. He may learn Latin ; some have done so under 
 these circumstances ; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hun- 
 dred the experiment would fail ; even if success followed in 
 the hundredth case, it would be under great disadvantages, 
 and the child would be months in finding out what a good 
 teacher could have told him in five minutes. So a man may 
 make hunself a lawyer, by studying without any comment 
 the volumes containing the law of his country, but it would 
 be a very painful, laborious, and uncertain undertaking. 
 
 Now we have no reason to think that God ever designed 
 that the world should be converted only, or chiefly, by read- 
 ing the Bible. And I cannot agree with my neighbors who 
 say, that all a man need do in order to be saved, is to read 
 his Bible and pray. I would tell him to read and pray, and 
 lay great stress upon those duties, but I could not let my 
 advice stop there. Some think that to scatter Bibles is the 
 greatest and most urgent business of Christians ; and indeed 
 it is a glorious thing to place the word of life in the hands 
 of man ; it does not follow, however, that because men have 
 a Bible, they will read it ; nor because they read it, that 
 they will understand it, and obey its teachings. I repeat, 
 man wants not only a Bible, but a reliable teacher to explain 
 it, to enforce it, and to keep it before his mind. And while 
 I do not know of any infallible teacher, who will not only in- 
 struct you, but do all your thinking for yon, I do know a 
 safe one, and shall, before I end, direct you to her. 
 
 When our Lord Jesus Christ went away into heaven, he 
 
18 LETTER III. 
 
 left to us his tx'uth to make us free. Now, I think you may 
 plainly see that three great means were devised in order that 
 this truth may avail to our salvation. First of all, it was 
 committed to writing, that there might be no mistake about 
 it ; in the next place, a ministry was appointed to hold it up 
 before the eyes of men, that it might not be forgotten ; and 
 lastly, the Holy Spirit was sent to open our hearts, so that 
 we may love it and embrace it. When the Ethiopian Eunuch 
 was reading his Bible and trying hard to understand a 
 difficult part of it, he felt that he needed some man to guide 
 him, and God did send him a guide. I trust you will find 
 your case like his. 
 
 Your general acquaintance with Holy Scripture assures 
 you that Christ did establish a society called the Church, and 
 set officers over it, and required every man to become a mem- 
 ber of it. Let me ask you to notice some plain statements 
 about this matter. 
 
 We do find Christian people exhorted to search the Scrip- 
 tures ; it was called "noble" to do so ; they were told to 
 prove all things ; to count all Scripture profitable ; and not 
 to believe an angel from heaven who should contradict the 
 word revealed. But the idea of converting men by putting 
 in their hands copies of the Bible is no where found. Preach- 
 ing was to be the great instrument of convincing and teach- 
 ing men : " It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to 
 save them that believe." The living voice was to utter the 
 words of life, and mortal hands to dispense its benefits. 
 
 And who was to preach ? Every body ? Our Saviour 
 appeared to more than five hundred brethren at once, after 
 
LETTER III. 19 
 
 his resurrection, but did not tell them to preach. No ; he 
 assembled the Eleven Apostles, and said, " Goye and preach 
 the Gospel to all nations." "As my Father hath sent me, 
 even so send I you." So that preaching is a privilege and a 
 duty assigned, not to all, but to a certain class of men. 
 These Apostles were not only to teach men, but to baptize 
 them, and thus receive them into God's family ; they were to 
 feed them, and admonish them, and to watch for their souls. 
 "We are directly told " God hath set some (officers) in his 
 Church — first Apostles, secondarily Prophets, thirdly Teach- 
 ers ;" and the people are enjoined, " Now we beseech you, 
 brethren, know them that are over you in the Lord, and ad- 
 monish you, and esteem them very highly in love for their 
 work's sake ;" " Obey them that have the rule over you, and 
 submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as they that 
 must give account." Thus, there are, you see, rehgious 
 teachers to whose advice you must listen, and whose lawful 
 admonitions you are even bound to obey. 
 
 I would have you observe, again, that the Scripture has 
 not a word to make us think that there was to be any other 
 than this one Church of Christ. The Apostles were told to 
 teach all nations ; and they did teach them by nations, and 
 gave to each nation the Church in its integrity. There was 
 in the Apostles' days no division in the Church, except this 
 necessary one of place. In one sense of the word, there 
 were many Churches — the Church at Rome, the Church at 
 Corinth, the Church at Jerusalem. But in the strict and 
 proper sense, there was only one Church — the Catholic or 
 Universal Church of Christ — and he who was a member of 
 
20 LETTERIII. 
 
 it at Rome was a member of it at Corintli. Rival sects and 
 names, like those we now have, were unknown in those holy 
 days, and those who would make divisions and name them- 
 selves after men, were most sternly reproved. 
 
 Now, if you can find that Church which was planted by 
 the Apostles among your nation, and which has stood in her 
 place age after age, is it not, in the highest degree, probable 
 that she is your teacher ? And unless you have some reason 
 to suspect her goodness, ought you not to listen first of aU to 
 what she has to say ? 
 
 And now, methinks you are almost disposed to give me 
 up ; but bear with me a while. I promise, as an honest man, 
 not to puzzle you, or to entice you into water deep enough to 
 drown you. Let us look boldly at this question — ^What so- 
 . ciety of Christians is to me the true and lawful descendant 
 of that Church spoken of in the Bible ? 
 
 Do not say to me here, as sufficient to make me forbear 
 any further speech, that there are two hundred denominations 
 of Christians in the United States, and that it is hopeless to 
 examine the merits of each. I am well aware that our 
 country is divided up into a large number of sects and 
 parties in religion, and were we to attempt to examine each 
 and every one by itself, it would be an endless task. I pro- 
 pose, therefore, to simplify the matter by arranging them in 
 what may be called groups, so that out of the two hundred 
 some one hundred and ninety-seven or eight shall stand to- 
 gether. I do this without intending any disparagement to 
 any body of Christians, and without meaning in any wise to 
 confound them all together, as if all were equally near or 
 
LETTER III. , 21 
 
 equally far off from primitive truth and order. That would 
 be not only unjust but ungenerous and unchristian to a high 
 degree. The truth is, that some of these many denomina- 
 tions are very near the truth, as held by the early Church ; 
 very many are heretical in several points ; and some are sunk 
 in the grossest and vilest heresies and denials of the faith of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. For some of the manifold denomi- 
 nations about us, I have, then, great respect ; for others, none 
 whatever. 
 
 Let us arrange them thus, if you will : 1st, the Roman 
 Catholic Church ; 2d, the Protestant Episcopal Church ; and 
 3d, the numerous Protestant sects or denominations. There ' 
 are a few principles by which the Church, of Rome is very 
 plainly distinguished from the Episcopal Church, and a few 
 others by which the Episcopal Church is distinguished from 
 Rome and from all the Protestant denominations. This at- 
 titude of our Church is expressed in the name she has 
 adopted to suit the state of things in our country. As Prot- 
 estant, she is widely removed from Rome ; as Episcopal, she 
 differs essentially from all the societies with which you are ac- 
 quainted. 
 
 I do not find that you, or those persons generally among 
 whom my duty calls me, are much embarrassed by the claims 
 of the Church of Rome ; so that I need not dwell long upon 
 them. I will, however, suggest a few reasons why we may 
 suffer her pretensions to pass, for the present at least, un- 
 noticed, 
 
 1. She is the Roman or Latin Church. Let Romans 
 listen to her if they will. She is their mother, but none of 
 
22 LETTERIII. 
 
 ours ; and though she boasts that she is the Catholic Church, 
 she has no more claim on us than the Greek Church or the 
 Nestorian. ' ' 
 
 2. She does not, to say the least, encourage the reading 
 or studying of the Bible, and so justly incurs the suspicion 
 that her teachings are not conformed to it. It is all right 
 for a Judge to say, " Gentlemen of the Jury — in deciding 
 what this statute means, pray give attention to what I say, 
 and mark well these decisions and authorities ;" but I should 
 much suspect that Judge who should forbid the Jury to take 
 the law with them, and look at it for themselves. 
 
 3. She requires me to discredit the evidence of my eyes, 
 my ears, my taste and smell, whereas Christ has expressly 
 authorized me to trust my senses. Said he to the doubting 
 disciples, " Handle me, and see that it is I myself." If han- 
 dUng Christ's body proved it to be his body, the same evidence 
 proves that a piece of consecrated bread is not his body. 
 
 4. Her religious system does not accord with the general 
 strain and purport of Scripture, of which at least we are 
 competent judges. 
 
 5. Poverty, ignorance, and degradation, such as prevail in 
 Italy and Spain, where Rome has had uninterrupted sway for 
 centuries, cannot result from that pure form of godliness 
 which has the promise of the life which now is, as well as of 
 that which is to come. 
 
 Passing by these claims, then, let us contrast the Protes- 
 tant Episcopal Church with the Presbyterians, Methodists, 
 Baptists, and other denominations, and see why she has the 
 first claim on your reverence. I shall endeavor to do this 
 
LETTER III. • 23 
 
 with entire courtesy, and with unaffected good will to the 
 persons of those whose opinions I deem, however sound in 
 some things, to be wide of the truth in others. 
 
 Now, as you are not a Roman, or a Greek by nation, but 
 an Anglo-Saxon, let us ask. Where is the old Anglo-Saxon 
 Church? 
 
 The Church of England alone claims to have preserved 
 an unbroken constitution from the days of the Apostles down 
 to the present hour. The birth-day of all these other societies 
 is fresh in the memory of man. Not one of them pretends to 
 be the mother who nourished and brought up for ages upon 
 ages successive generations of Englishmen. . 
 
 The Church of England was founded, some say, by St. 
 Paul himself; certainly by apostolic men. It has never 
 changed its constitution ; it has never died out ; it has never 
 lost its name and place in England. And the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in this country is a shoot planted here by 
 her hands, to take care of her children who crossed the 
 mighty deep. 
 
 It is true that, for a season, she was forced, not without 
 earnest remonstrance, into submission to the Pope, and, in 
 common with the rest of the Church, soiled her white robes ; 
 but it is equally true that in God's good time she was led to 
 renounce the Pope, and she washed her vestments in the pure 
 waters of truth. She was sick awhile, but never died. Sam- 
 son slumbered, and the Philistines bound him, and sported 
 with him ; but he was Samson yet ; and when his locks grew 
 out again, he possessed all his former might. The Church of 
 England is now, in form and constitution, what she always 
 
24 LETTER III. 
 
 was. She has been reformed, but never revolutionized ; she 
 has cast off Romish corruptions and errors, but has never lost 
 her essential connection with the great Head of the Church ; 
 and her authority has been handed down, in regular order, 
 from the very earliest days, without any break or violation of 
 her essential and constituent principles. If, indeed, the 
 " old is better," why leave that which has been the Church 
 of youi' fathers, for sixty generations it may be, to try a new 
 society ? ■ ' 
 
 The Providence then which caused us to be bom of an 
 Anglo-Saxon race, does also invest the Anglo-Saxon Church 
 with the character and rights of our natural Guardian ; and 
 unless she has done something to forfeit that claim, we need 
 go no further, but here stop and offer up our sacrifice. 
 
 I acknowledge, however, that if our mother Church be- 
 comes in name a Church, but in fact a synagogue of Satan, 
 then a man's situation is one of serious embarrassment ; and 
 a Church which bears the symbols of authority, and has na- 
 tural claims upon us, can no longer be confided in, when she 
 either 
 
 1. Throws the Scriptures aside ; 
 
 2. Ceases, in her teachings, to breathe the spirit of the 
 Gospel ; . 
 
 3. Fails to bring forth the fruits of piety; 
 
 4. Abridges the true liberty of her children ; or 
 
 5. Imposes unlawful or unreasonable terms of communion. 
 Let us examine these several points. 
 
 1. Is ours a Scripture-loving Church ? 
 
 Church articles have been well compared to bank notes ; 
 
LETTER III. 25 
 
 they are perfectly good so long as she pays cash on demand.' 
 Now, w-hile the Church of Rome expects her notes to pass 
 upon her sole credit, our Church is always ready with the 
 pure gold. Listen to her doctrine ; " Holy Scripture con- 
 taineth all things necessary to salvation ; so that whatsoever 
 is not read therein, nxjr may be proved thereby, is not to be 
 required of any man that it should be believed as an article 
 of the Faith." When a priest is ordained, he must answer aye 
 to this question : " Are you persuaded that the Holy Scrip- 
 tures contain all doctrine required as necessary for eternal 
 salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ ? And are you de- 
 termined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people 
 committed to your charge, and to teach nothing as necessary 
 to eternal salvation but that which you are persuaded may 
 be concluded and proved by the Scripture ?" 
 
 Moreover, so much love has the Church for the Bible, 
 and so much confidence in the power of the Divine Word, 
 that none of us, not even a Bishop, can preach upon a Sun- 
 day morning without there being read, first of all, several of 
 the Psalms, two full chapters, one from either Testament, and 
 a portion of one of the Epistles and of one of the Gospels. In 
 fine, she uses every means to acquaint the people with the 
 Bible, and distinctly avows her willingness for all her teach- 
 ings to be tried by it. 
 
 2. Does she carry out the Gospel in her Teachings ? 
 
 Just listen to that service. Adam Clarke, the Methodist, 
 said that the Prayer-Book was, next to the Bible, " the 
 book of his understanding and of his heart." I could quote 
 
 numerous such testimonies. Take that Prayer-Book, and 
 
 2 
 
26 * LETTER III, 
 
 show me the sentence which will not stand the three great 
 tests of Gospel truth : viz., does it humble the sinner ? exalt 
 the Saviour ? promote holiness ? Is not the service full of 
 heart religion ? "0 God, make clean our hearts within us." 
 " Create and make in us new and contrite hearts." " May it 
 please thee to give us true repentance ; to forgive us all our 
 sins, negligences, and ignorances, and to endue us with the 
 grace of thy Holy Spirit, to amend our lives according to thy 
 holy laws." The Prayer-Book is full of Christ ; everywhere 
 it says to sinners, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
 away the sins of the world." 
 
 3. Has the Church brought forth the Fruits of Piety ? 
 
 Mr. Barnes, a Presbyterian clergyman, shall answer this 
 question for us. I quote his words : — 
 
 " We remember the name of Cranmer — Cranmer, first in 
 many respects among the reformers ; that it was by his steady 
 and unerring hand, that, under God, the pure Church of 
 the Saviour was conducted through the agitating and dis- 
 tressing times of Henry VIII. "We remember that God 
 watched over that wonderful man ; that he gave this distin- 
 guished prelate access to the heart of one of the most capri- 
 cious, cruel, inexorable, bloodthirsty, licentious monarchs that 
 has disgraced the world ; that God, for the sake of Cranmer, 
 and his Church, conducted Henry, as ' by a hook in the 
 nose,' and made him faithful to the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, when faithful to none else ; so that, perhaps, the only 
 redeeming trait in the character of Henry, is his fidelity to 
 this first British prelate under the Reformation. The world 
 will not soon forget the names of Latimer, and Ridley, and 
 
LETTER III. 27 
 
 Rogers, and Bradford ; names associated in the feelings of 
 Christians with the long list of ancient confessors, ' of whom 
 the world was not worthy,' and who did honor to entire ages 
 of mankind, by sealing their attachment to the Son of God 
 on the rack, or amid the flames. 
 
 , " Nor can we forget that we owe to episcopacy, that which 
 fills our minds with gratitude and praise, when we look for 
 examples of consecrated talent, and elegant literature, and 
 humble devoted piety. While men honor elevated Christian 
 feeling ; while they revere sound learning ; while they render 
 tribute to clear and profound reasoning, they will not forget 
 the names of Barrow and Taylor, of Tillotson, and Hooker, 
 and Butler ; and when they think of humble, pure, sweet, 
 heavenly piety, their minds will recur instantly to the name 
 of Leighton. Such names, with a host of others, do honor to 
 the world. "When we think of them, we have it not in bur 
 hearts to utter one word against a Church which has thus 
 done honor to our race, and to our common Christianity. 
 !(;*** yIq have never doubted that many of the 
 purest flames of devotion that rise from the earth, ascend 
 from the altars of the Episcopal Church, and that many of 
 the purest spirits that the earth contains, minister at those 
 altars, or breathe forth their prayers and praises in language 
 consecrated by the use of piety for centuries." 
 
 4. Does the Church protect the Rights of her Children? 
 
 In this respect she is far more careful than any religigus 
 society known to you. In the parish, the vestry (elected 
 every year by the people) have entire control in all that re- 
 lates to the property of the Church and the affairs of the 
 
28 LETTERIIl. 
 
 congregation. The people thus elect their own minister. 
 They can appeal from bis decision to the Bishop in cases of 
 difficulty. In making laws and in electing officers, the peo- 
 ple, by their chosen representatives from the various parishes, 
 have exactly the same voice as the ministry ; and that, in 
 the State Conventions, and in the General Convention of the 
 whole Church. In these bodies private Christians are often 
 the most influential men ; and without the concurrence of the 
 laity, all the Bishops, and all the Clergy together, cannot 
 pass any measure. 
 
 5. Is the Church Liberal, or has she imposed Unreason- 
 able terms of Communion ? 
 
 Listen to her own language : " What is required of those 
 who come to the Lord's Supper ? To examine themselves 
 whether they repent them truly of their former sins, stead- 
 fastly purposing to lead a new life ; have a lively faith in 
 God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance 
 of his death, and be in charity with all men." Again : 
 " Dearly Beloved, on Sunday next I purpose, through God's 
 assistance, to administer to all such as shall be religiously 
 and devoutly disposed, the most comfortable Sacrament of 
 tbe Body and Blood of Christ ;" &c. And agam : "Ye 
 who truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in 
 love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a 
 new life, following the commandments of God, and walking 
 from henceforth in his holy ways, draw near with faith," &c. 
 
 Is any truly converted man excluded here ? any sincerely 
 pious man refused a participation in the holy Sacrament ? 
 
 Suppose now you are persuaded that you are a poor 
 
LETTER III. 29 
 
 simier, with no hope but in the mercy of Christ, and desire to 
 give yourself up to him in baptism. You wish to know what 
 will satisfy me in point of doctrine. You suppose, probably, 
 that I would ask you whether you believe all that is in the 
 Prayer-Book ; what your notions are about election, free- 
 agency, and such deep matters. But I am not at liberty to 
 do any thing of the kind. " Dost thou believe the articles 
 of the Christian Faith, as contained in the Apostles' Creed ?" 
 This is the question to which you must answer. You have 
 seen before that this Creed is a summary of the chief truths 
 of the Gospel, used in the Church from the earliest days. If 
 you believe thus much, and come forward with a simple trust 
 in Christ, you are at once entitled to the privileges of the 
 Church, and she will teach you day by day all else you ought 
 to know. 
 
 Let us dwell upon this for a moment, and we may see 
 why it is, that our Church occupies the ground on which all 
 must stand when our present divisions cease. Our Saviour 
 knew that men would differ much in their opinions. We 
 see that this difference happened at the very beginning of 
 the Church. But men need not part because they differ. So 
 our Saviour said, " Baptize all nations in the name of the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." He made belief in the doc- 
 trine of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the only condition 
 (conversion, being, of course, supposed,) of baptism. The 
 early Church set out this doctrine in the Creed, and said aU 
 men may come in who believe thus much. But now the 
 Church of Rome says, this will not suffice ; you must avow 
 your faith in Transubstantiation, for instance. Our friends 
 
30 ^ LETTERIII. 
 
 of various names require you to acknowledge your faith in 
 Calvinism, in Immersion, or in some peculiar set of opinions. 
 Now, if we ever are to get together again, it must be by 
 giving up all these and similar tests, allowing liberty of opin- 
 ion about them, and allowing all to embrace the privileges of 
 the Church who hold the fundamental truths of the Gospel, 
 as set forth in the Creed. 
 
 Let me in this connection call your attention to the star 
 bility of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 
 It is a very remarkable fact that this Church has never 
 been divided, either in England or in this country. Our 
 other friends divide on questions of expediency and of pol- 
 itics, as well as of religion. They even dig a deep trench all 
 along Mason and Dixon's line. Episcopalians, however, re- 
 gard that man as a traitor and an enemy who would attempt 
 to rend the Church in twain. Is it a mere chance, that 
 while one religious body after another has been convulsed 
 and rent asunder, threatening even the perpetuity of the so- 
 cial compact, this Church, notwithstanding differences of 
 opinion within her pale, is quiet and at rest, upon the great 
 and essential doctrines of the Gospel ? Is it an accident, 
 that while every other society, within a brief period, has been 
 split into fragments, this Church preserves her integrity, and 
 presents from age to age an unbroken and unshaken front to 
 the hosts of Satan ? 
 
 Now, my good friend, I have set before you a venerable 
 Apostolic Church : the Church of your fathers, and of your 
 race, from which the sects have from time to time severed 
 themselves. A Church that loves the Bible, reads more of 
 
LETTER III. 81 
 
 it at one service than our other friends do in six, and that 
 authorizes you to try all her teachings by Scripture. A 
 steadfast Church, that holds together, and whose constant 
 aim is to cultivate love and brotherly kindness when the 
 fiercest passions are raging around her ; and that never has 
 been split. A Church that utters no other language than 
 the earnest, gentle, soul-subduing language of the Grospel; 
 that offers the privilege of her courts to all humble-minded 
 believers without any exacting demands about deep and dis- 
 puted points. A Church that has been adorned with Martyrs 
 and Saints whose praise is known in heaven and on earth. A 
 Church that is so arranged in its government as most care- 
 fully to guard her children from oppression. Is hot she the 
 Mother whom you seek ? May you not with safety nestle by 
 her altar, and rear your young children in her courts ? I do 
 not abuse those who differ from me, and love new things, but 
 while I live will I maintain, The old is better. 
 
LETTEK IV. 
 
 My Dear Friend, _ 
 
 Supposing that your mind is at rest upon the subjects thus 
 far discussed, another difficulty is in your way. You say 
 that you see no prospect of being able to come into the 
 Church, because you have tried most honestly, and so far 
 with no success whatever, to get through *^ Your case is not 
 peculiar : I find very many persons who agree in saying, that 
 they are anxious to be Christians ; that they have attended 
 on many " revivals," were the very first to go up to be 
 prayed for, saw others converted by their side, but failed to 
 obtain a hope. 
 
 I must here profess my solemn and abiding conviction of 
 the truth, that " except ye be converted and become as little 
 children, ye can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." 
 And by conversion I understand, not a mere improvement 
 in morals, not a mere outward conformity to the duties of 
 religion, but a decided change of heart, life and character, 
 
 * This expression is peculiai" to the south and southwest, amongst 
 those who favor what ai'e popularly known as " revivals." It is equiva- 
 lent to what is meant by getting religion, sudden, instantaneous conver- 
 sion, or the like, in other sections of oui' countiy. 
 
LETTER IV. 83 
 
 effected by the Holy Spirit, under the infiuence of divine truth 
 and Gospel ordinances. Whenever I deny, forget, conceal, 
 or disparage this great doctrine ; whenever I cease to assert 
 its necessity with zeal and distinctness ; then may the Lord 
 in mercy to his people make my tongue cleave to the roof of 
 my mouth. But as for this phrase which is now in every 
 body's mouth, in these parts, and the thing intended by it, I 
 do enter my most earnest protest against them, and main- 
 tain that they are productive of the most serious and lasting 
 evils. 
 
 I protest against the phrase because it is unscriptural ; 
 not one such expression is to be found anywhere in the 
 Bible ; because it is indefinite. " Father," said a little boy 
 to a friend of mine, " what is it that they get through ?" and 
 who shall answer the child's question ? because it is unbe- 
 coming and inconsistent with the respect we owe to holy 
 things : how intolerable t^ describe a man's rescue from death 
 to life as getting through ! 
 
 Nor is the idea intended to be conveyed less false, un- 
 scriptural, and dishonorable to God. The process intended 
 is just this : a man awakened to the importance of religion, 
 must come forward before a large audience, and kneel or sit 
 in a conspicuous place ; the good people gather around him, 
 -some exhort, some pray, some sing. He is now a mourner, 
 and if all is right, presently becomes very miserable : his 
 friends now redouble their efforts : Don't you see a ray of 
 light ? don't you feel better ? they inquire. After a certain 
 lapse of time, if all goes well, the mourner begins to take 
 
 comfort ; he experiences the natural relief of tears, his heart 
 
 2* 
 
34 LETTEE IV. 
 
 feels lighter ; he rises to his feet aud gives glory to God, and 
 then he is said to have gotten religion, or to have got through ! 
 Is not this a fair picture of what commonly obtains in our 
 country ? and can any mark or trace of such a process be 
 found in the Bible, or in the early Church ? 
 
 There is here no serious deliberate choice ; for many who 
 have gone through this process assure me that reflection was 
 impossible : there are here no deliberate resolutions against 
 special sins, no opportunity to repair injuries, to become re- 
 conciled to enemies, and to do such other acts as are abso- 
 lutely essential before a man has a right to consider himself 
 pardoned. Bodily exercise is the most striking feature of 
 the whole proceeding ; the man seems to be endeavoring, 
 with the assistance of others, to carry himself through a 
 certain set of feelings, and to reach in the end a certain de- 
 gree of joy and gladness. 
 
 This system hides Christ ; foB a man loses sight of 
 Christ whenever he trusts in anything of his own ; and if a 
 man thinks he has to appease God, he had as well do so by 
 prayers, fastings, alms, and stripes, as by prayers, groans, 
 sighs, and lamentable exclamations. 
 
 A friend once asked me to converse with a servant who 
 was in great trouble. He was very honest and upright, and 
 for two years seemed to be absorbed in prayer all the time. 
 I said to him after a little, " I think I can explain what you 
 consider to be the way of being saved. You know you are 
 a great sinner, and deserve to meet the wrath of God, and 
 that he is now angry with you ; but if you try to mend your 
 ways and to do right, and keep on praying and striving, after 
 
LETTER IV. 85 
 
 a while God will say, This is a sinner indeed, but then he is 
 so sorry and so troubled, and tries so hard to do right, that 
 it will not do for me to stay angry with him." The poor 
 fellow's eyes sparkled as he said, " That is just what. I am 
 looking for ; and when the Lord sees that is the way with 
 me, he will let me through." . Are these notions peculiar to 
 the ignorant ? are they not commonly entertained ? And yet 
 there is no Christ here : the sinner pleads his own case, and 
 succeeds by his own efforts. 
 
 The consequences of this system are as bad as its theory. 
 Of these converts, it is notorious that a large proportion 
 soon sink into the mire ; and others remain in the society to 
 which they have attached themselves, while hypocrisy is at- 
 tributed to them by the world. Some, indeed many, are 
 sincere and do well, not because they got through ; that was 
 a disadvantage ; but because they were led, by God's Spirit, 
 to make in secret that serious, deliberate surrender of them- 
 selves to Christ, in which consists the reality of religion. 
 
 As a man put in charge of the Gospel, and deeply real- 
 izing the strict account I must render to the Judge of quick 
 and dead, I earnestly advise you not to get through ; not 
 to fall in for one moment with these human inventions, but 
 to be converted in the scriptural sense of that word. 
 
 In order to bring out this matter, I will ask you to con- 
 sider three things, - . 
 
 1. What is it that hinders a sinner from being at peace 
 with God? 
 
 2. What must he do to overcome that hindrance, and so 
 to be at peace with him ? 
 
86 LETTER IV. 
 
 3. How shall lie kuow that his peace is made with God ? 
 
 These questions comprehend the whole matter. 
 
 1. Now, as to the first, there was once a fearful difficulty. 
 Man was guilty; the law demanded his life; and God was 
 angry with him. But look you ; Christ has come to stand 
 in our place. He has atoned for our sin, suffered death in 
 our stead, fulfilled and satisfied the law, and reconciled God 
 to the whole world. If this were all, there would be no 
 more to do ; for God has not now to be appeased ; no new 
 sacrifice is demanded ; there is not a shadow of unwillingness 
 on the part of God to be at peace with us all. 
 
 Where is the difficulty then ? We answer, in the shiner's 
 will. The trouble is, not that he has done wrong, but that 
 he justifies his wrong, and intends to renew it ; that he 
 despises mercy, and asks for justice ; that he hates the Judge 
 and Law, will not accept a pardon, and, even were he par- 
 doned, would go forth only to incur a greater condemnation. 
 Now, as Christ, by his death, removed every difficulty that 
 existed on the part of God, so the Holy Spirit comes to re- 
 move those which are entirely our own. And if we can only 
 be so persuaded of our guilt and danger, and of God's good- 
 will in Christ, that we will agree to accept pardon upon his 
 terms and to do his will, the controversy is at an end, and 
 we are reconciled to God. But this we would never be dis- 
 posed to do, without the Spmt working in us and with us 
 from first to last. 
 
 2. What, then, must a sinner do, in order to make his 
 peace with God ? 
 
 In a word, I would answer that he must accept freely the 
 
LETTER IV. 37 
 
 offer of mercy made to him in Christ, embracing its provisions, 
 and acceding to its conditions. 
 
 He must acknowledge the guilt of whicli he stands 
 charged, and sincerely deplore it and repent of it. He must 
 own his weakness, and, with humble prayers for help, set 
 himself to amend his life. He must accept Christ as his 
 only and all-sufficient Saviour, and plead nothing save his 
 merits as a reason why he should be spared punishment. He 
 must profess the faith of Christ, and make to him a solemn 
 vow of love and service in th^ sacrament of Baptism, which 
 is, besides, a means of imparting heavenly grace to his soul, 
 and the appointed ordinance in which God pronounces his 
 sins forgiven. In other words, religion consists not in emo- 
 tion or excitement, however these may attend upon it ; but 
 it is, in the main, a choice- — a solemn, grave, and deliberate 
 choice — of mercy as our portion, and God's favor as alone 
 able to make us happy. It is a change of views, affections, 
 hopes, purposes, and desires. , , - 
 
 If you will take the pains to examine the different in- 
 stances of conversion recorded in the New Testament, you 
 will find they all agree in this. Faith, an honest acceptance 
 of Christ, preceded and . accompanied by godly sorrow, and 
 issuing in a religious profession and a holy life, is the great 
 condition ever insisted on. Thus we find Paul suddenly ar- 
 rested ; for conviction is often sudden, and this was a miracle 
 besides. First, arrested ; secondly, inquiring Who art thou, ' 
 Lord ? and what wilt thou have me to do ? thirdly, sorrowing 
 for sin, for he was three days blind and fasting ; and 
 fourthly, he gives himself to Christ, and washes away his 
 
38 LETTERIV. 
 
 sins in holy Baptism. Not one word is here about exhila- 
 ration or any getting through, but all is calm, deliberate, and 
 serious. 
 
 Look at the case of the Ethiopian : 1st, inquiring the 
 way of safety ; 2d, hearing of Christ crucified ; 3d, desiring 
 to accept him as his Saviour ; and 4th, baptized by Philip. 
 What doth hinder me to be baptized ? said he. Philip does 
 not ask, in reply. Whether he "felt comfortable," or "was 
 happy." If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest, 
 was his answer ; and that answer is as good now as it ever 
 was. 
 
 Look at Lydia : 1st, her heart is opened, and she attends 
 to the preached word ; 2d, she beheves, " was judged faith- 
 ful ;" 3d, she is baptized and her family ; 4th, she begins to 
 work for Christ, and help his servants. 
 
 From all this, I conclude that the Bible does not require 
 any extravagant emotions or experience ; but requires, chiefly, 
 faith, an honest, serious, humble, and cheerful acceptance of 
 the offer of mercy made us in Christ. 
 
 3. The third inquiry is, what is the evidence of conver- 
 sion ? • 
 
 I answer, the change itself is a witness. There is all the 
 difference in the world between a dead and a living man. 
 If you are born again, you may know it by the spiritual life 
 imparted to you. The question is, in my view, a simple one. 
 You are, at this moment, either a carnal man or a spiritual 
 man ; you cannot be any thing between these characters. If 
 you have a carnal mind, you may know it in this way : the 
 carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to his 
 
LETTER IV. 39 
 
 law ; and, therefore, if you set up your will against God's, 
 and do not honestly strive to keep his law, you are carnal. 
 
 On the contrary, the renewed or spiritual mind loves 
 God, and makes it its chief study to please him ; it lives for 
 God, and its affections go out after God. If this be your 
 character, you are not under the curse. 
 
 Again, if a converted man, you have the witness of the 
 Spirit ; not that he talks with you or tells you in words that 
 you are a Christian. How does God witness that he is in 
 the world ? By his works — ^by the wisdom, goodness, power, 
 and over-ruling providence he displays and exercises all 
 around us. And thus the Spirit bears witness within us, by 
 the fear of sin he cherishes ; the grateful thoughts of Christ 
 he gives us ; the earnest breathings after holiness he inspires ; 
 the strength, which we dare not call our own, and which we 
 yet feel and know is within us, by which we are enabled to 
 keep down sinful thoughts, to curb angry passions, to do and 
 to forbear, for Christ's sake, what we dislike to do or to 
 forbear. Thus the Spirit itself beareth witness with our 
 spirits that we are the sons of God. 
 
 I know how hard it is for you to break away from opin- 
 ions so generally maintained around you. But if I have 
 made clear my points, I beg you to dismiss for ever this idea 
 of getting through ; of manufacturing a glorious experience 
 wherewith to appease God, when already Christ is your 
 peace. And if you have these marks of conversion, a godly 
 sorrow for sin with a determination to forsake it ; a willing- - 
 ness to commit a lost and ruined soul into the hands of 
 Christ, making mention of his righteousness and his alone ; 
 
40 LETTEEIV. 
 
 a strong determination, though he slay you, yet you will trust 
 in him and keep his holy commandments ; then you need 
 no longer delay to seek a home in his Church ; to subscribe 
 yourself by his name, to avail yourself of his Holy Sacra- 
 ments, and to take to yourself the sweet assurance, " Be of 
 good comfort, thy sins are forgiven thee." 
 
 Thus, my dear friend and brother, have I tried to show 
 you, that God Is not unreasonable — that there is a plain 
 path, and a safe guide to aid you if you will return to him. 
 If you will be honest and earnest, you will find good in this 
 way. May God enable you soon to come to a decision, to 
 say first of all, " As for me and my house we will serve the 
 Lord," and then to say, " The Church of the Fathers shall 
 be my choice." 
 
LETTER y. 
 
 My Dear Friend, 
 
 It may be, that by this time you are satisfied in your 
 own mind, that it is high time for you to act : that every 
 consideration of duty and of interest does earnestly require 
 of you to take a decided and unequivocal stand upon the 
 side of God and of his Church. 
 
 But will you act out these solemn convictions ? Will 
 your present inquiries result in any thing ? Or will you act 
 the part of one, who examines carefully a business offer, 
 ascertains that his best course is to accede to it, and at last 
 gets out of heart when the writings are all drawn up, and 
 one tells him now sign the bond? I have not unfrequently 
 seen men act in this latter way, unwise as it is ; and I should 
 be distressed no httle, should you thus waver, and leave the 
 great question unsettled. Sometimes a man is held back by 
 the consciousness that he lacks honeaty of purpose. If he 
 accepts the offers of the Gospel, it must be Upon the terms 
 of the Gospel. If he takes Christ as his Master, he must 
 first renounce all that is unchristian. He feels that however 
 he may acquiesce in the general plan of redemption, and 
 however purposed he may be to lead what is called a religious 
 
42 LETTERV. 
 
 life, there is yet some one practice- or habit clearly forbidden 
 in God's law, which he is not willing to abandon : some one 
 duty plainly enjoined, which he is not willing to discharge — 
 observe, I do not say that he is unctble, but that he is 
 unwilling to do and to forbear. The thing disputed may be 
 the veriest trifle : something which he would blush to own : 
 but his hesitancy about it suffices to destroy all confidence in 
 his own sincerity, and forms an impenetrable barrier to his 
 further progress. Ah ! how we do see men stop, and talk, 
 and grumble ; pretending this trouble and that, when the 
 secret is that they feel they are not honest: they know in 
 themselves that there is some one particular in which they 
 are heeding the voice of inclination rather than that of duty. 
 The time would fail me were I to endeavor to show how 
 disingenuous is such a course — how ungrateful it is when 
 Christ gave you all, and shrank from no paiu or sacrifice for 
 you, that you should begrudge him a trifle — how hopeless it 
 is for a man thus to dispute, as if the Great God was to 
 yield to him, and to alter that unchangeable condition of 
 pardon, viz., obedience and submission, prompt, universal, 
 and without exception. The man who comes to the Sacra- 
 ments without this purpose of keeping all the commandments, 
 does but utter a solemn falsehood. And if there be any such 
 difficulty in your way, you must first of all pray for grace to 
 conquer your stubborn will in this particular. So that you 
 shall count it a privilege to take the thing that most you 
 love, the indulgence that most you cherish, and to oflfer it 
 upon the altar of God, as a poor and unworthy acknowledg- 
 ment of bis undeserved goodness and mercy. 
 
LETTER V. 43 
 
 If, however, your heart does not thus condemn you, and 
 you are not conscious of any such half-way purpose, you may 
 yet have difficulties. Let me mention two. 
 
 First. — I am not good enough to come into the Church. 
 
 If a holy character acquired were the condition of Church- 
 membership, I cannot imagine where any members could be 
 procured, l^ever yet have I seen any who thought them- . 
 selves good enough to be in the Church, save those whose 
 conduct sadly evidenced that their minds were unrenewed ; 
 and if we could find any who had this holy character, they 
 would have no need of a Church ; for sound men need no 
 physic. We send patients to a hospital because they are 
 sick, and desire to get well; we send children to school be- 
 cause they are ignorant, not because they are educated ; and 
 Christ calls poor sinners into his Church, because they are 
 sinners. The condition is not that they are holy, but that 
 they earnestly desire to be holy, and feel their need of . divine 
 grace, in order to escape the dominion of sin. 
 
 No man can coi5ae without profanation to the sacraments' 
 of our blessed religion, who is willingly indulging himself in 
 any known transgression. No religious convictions are gen- 
 uine which do not lead a man to contend with his evil nature, 
 and to commence in earnest the work of reformation; but if 
 one must be assured that he is a good and worthy man in the 
 sight of God before he is baptized, confirmed, or approaches 
 the holy table, then he can never come. You will say, how- 
 ever, that the Scripture uses very strong expressions to 
 denote the spiritual change, — " If any man be in Christ, he is 
 a new creature;" and such like. Perhaps «f all these ex- 
 
44 LETTER V. 
 
 pressions, none is more formidable than tliat which represents 
 the Christian as being " born again." It is asked, how can 
 I, poor, weak creature that I am, come forward to Baptism, 
 and hear the minister tell the people that I have been " born 
 again" of God's holy Spirit, while I am so painfully con- 
 scious of indwelling sin ? 
 
 So far from alarming you, this comparison of the spiritual 
 to the natural birth ought greatly to encourage you. What 
 is inan when first born into this material world ? A babe. 
 He has life indeed, but little else; he is feeble, helpless, de- 
 pendent. He can neither walk about nor feed himself; and 
 the flame of life burns so feebly, that a rude blast would at 
 once extinguish it, or if neglected, it would flicker and die of 
 itself. 
 
 For this helpless being God provides a mother. She 
 protects, and clothes, and feeds it. Away from the mother 
 it must die. God might sustain its life by other means, but 
 in the usual order of his providence, it must draw strength 
 from its mother's breast. 
 
 Now here is a little sickly babe ; its vitaUty is chiefly ex- 
 pressed by signs of suffering and cries of want. Shall we lay 
 it down to die ? Oh, no. A healthy child might bear neg- 
 lect for a brief season; but as for this one, pity demands that 
 we seek its mother. And, mother ! guard it with a special 
 care ; keep it from the wintry blast ; give it the support it 
 needs, and let it be most gently dealt with. 
 
 And are we to be born full-grown men into the spiritual 
 world, and to begin where St. Paul left off ? Are we to be 
 at once teachers, examples, giants in the faith ? Is there no 
 
LEtTER V. , 45 
 
 nursing-mother needed for us ? Think of it then in this 
 light ; — we can be born again only as bahes in Christ, and 
 the Church is our mother appointed to train us up to man- 
 hood. 
 
 If that soul of yours is dead indeed, if there appear no 
 pulsation of a heart alive with penitence and faith, no breath 
 of prayer, no hungering and thirsting after righteousness, it 
 were mockery indeed to lay it on the mother's breast. The 
 sacraments are worse than useless to a man unawakened to a 
 sense of sin and misery. 
 
 But if that soul be ahve, yet feeble,^ — ^if it cry, and cry 
 piteously for help — if it hunger and thirst after righteousness 
 — oh, cast it not out into the open field to die. Mother 
 Church opens wide her arms, and is anxious to feed it with 
 her word and sacraments ; to keep it safe within her sacred 
 pale ; to warm it with her prayers ; and to soothe its sor- 
 rows with the comfortable words of Christ. , 
 
 Our goodness is not the qualification God has laid down 
 for admission into his Church. Our sense of need — our con- 
 viction that we are lost without Christ — our desire to be 
 pardoned — our willingness to be reformed — our confidence in 
 the power and love of God in and through Christ — these, 
 and these alone, are God's conditions. I am to notice, how- 
 ever, another difficulty. . ' ' / ■ 
 
 Secondly. — You distrust your ability to maintain a 
 Christian walk and conversation. 
 
 "I am willing now," one says, "to accept God's mercy 
 upon his own terms ; so far as I know myself I think I want 
 to be a Christian. But then I may be mistaken : and if it 
 
46 LETTER V. 
 
 should so turn out, what an increased guilt and responsibility 
 I will have incurred ! what a scandal to the Chui'ch will have 
 been sustained ! Had I not better try myself a while longer, 
 before I take a stand from which I can retire only in shame 
 and dishonor ?" 
 
 I must here remind you, that willingness to do God's 
 will does not mean ability to do it. Our present willingness 
 is something which we may find out by prayerful self-exami- 
 nation — our future ability is altogether contingent upon God's 
 help and grace. It is the former of these that we alone 
 profess in Baptism — " I renounce them all, and will endeavor 
 by God's help not to follow nor be led by them" — is the 
 modest promise you must make as you turn away from the 
 world, the flesh and the devil. And more than this no man 
 dares promise who knows aright the plague of his heart, and 
 the power of temptation. 
 
 It well becomes fallible man to distrust his ovra. heart, by 
 which he has been so often deceived. But when we have 
 duly weighed the whole matter : when we have earnestly 
 sought heavenly direction and spiritual aid, and conscience 
 assures us that we are not trifling with God or endeavoring to 
 elude his just demands, then have we all the evidence of our 
 own sincerity we can ever hope to have. St. Paul tells us 
 that he " knew nothing of himself," that is, he was not aware 
 of any secret dishonesty towards God — but then adds with 
 singular modesty, " yet am I not hereby justified : he that 
 judgeth me is the Lord ;" and in another place, " we trust 
 we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live 
 honestly." May the time never come when you shall lay 
 
LETTER V. 47 
 
 claim to more sincerity than this blessed apostle. Remem- 
 ber that God is not laying traps and snares for us ; he is not 
 seeking excuses to condemn us. He has expressly promised 
 to assist our endeavors to know our own mind and purpose, 
 and authorizes us to believe that if, after invoking his aid, 
 our conscience affirms that we are honest, we may safely go 
 on. " If our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence 
 towards God." 
 
 The reputation and sanctity of his Church is dearer to 
 God than it is to us ; I may add, than it is to the devil, who 
 so often strives to make us repress our religious convictions, 
 by suggesting to us that in avowing our faith we shall do 
 an injury to the cause of religion. And if God sees fit 
 to invite sinners into his Church, and proposes to make 
 use of such poor creatures as we, I see not how we can 
 hang back. Let us do our duty, and Christ who loved the 
 Church and gave himself for it, will evermore protect its 
 interests. 
 
 But you wish to try yourself, and to have better evidence 
 of your ability to lead a godly life — one would think you had 
 tried yourself long enough already. All your experience 
 testifies that you cannot walk uprightly without the restraint 
 of a religious profession, and the help of Gospel ordinances. 
 Our Lord testifies the same thing ; for if men could do well 
 without a Church, he would have never established and 
 perpetuated such an institution. You may try yourself to 
 the end of all time, and the result will be still the same. 
 You cannot unassisted live up even to your own very defect- 
 ive and inadequate standard of Christian duty. 
 
48 LETTER V. 
 
 But suppose it otherwise : suppose that for the six months 
 next ensuing you satisfy yourself, and maintain a Christian 
 temper, what would then be your great reliance, your ground 
 of confidence, in promising to keep God's law ? Would it 
 be the promise of his grace, or would it be your own in- 
 tegrity ? 
 
 Suffer me to show by illustration, what is the spirit in 
 which every one should come to the ordinances and sacra- 
 ments of religion. 
 
 I would instance the case of an undutiful child, who has 
 despised his father's authority, and pained a mother's heart. 
 He has left his home, and pleased with the idea of inde- 
 pendence, flushed with the hope of gain, has sought that land 
 of California, whose glittering treasures have attracted so 
 many eyes. His associations there are low and debasing, 
 and he daily feels the contamination of the evil natures 
 around him — ^he experiences disappointment too — the gold 
 eludes his search — sickness lays hold upon him, and grim 
 famine seems to await him. Now conscience reproaches him 
 for his unfilial conduct, and the memory of happier days 
 stealing upon his soul embitters, by the contrast, the miseries 
 of the scene around him. 
 
 In his desolation there comes a letter : it is written by his 
 father's hand. It tells him : " Come back to us ; come back, 
 if you are truly sorry for the past, and disposed to do your 
 duty ; we will take you to our arms again, and do all we 
 can to make you happy." And' this letter moreover tells 
 him how to come, and says if he will come at once, he shall 
 find no difficulty ; and it adds, " Much as we love you, my 
 
LETTER V. 49 
 
 child, we are afraid to trust you with much money — we know 
 by experience that it is not good for you to be independent. 
 But your passage is provided for all along the way, and 
 with the little that we send you now, you can make your way 
 to the nearest sea-port, and thus beginning your journey, you 
 will find every necessary arrangement made at the successive 
 points along your route." 
 
 ' Now if that son were truly sorry for his fault — if he 
 really intended to go home — if he had full confidence in his 
 father's foresight, truth and kindness, I can hardly suppose 
 he would tarry for a moment ; he would commence his 
 journey in full confidence, although the particulars of its 
 arrangement might not be made known to him. 
 
 The son may answer his father's letter on this wise — he is 
 very penitent, very anxious to return, but he has no money ; 
 he is afraid to undertake such a journey without a larger 
 amount of means in his possession, and thinks he had better 
 tarry awhile, until, by patient industry, he has accumulated 
 something upon which he may fall back in case of accident. 
 Could his father fail to discern, beneath all this fair speech, a 
 lurking pride, a dissatisfaction at being thus treated like a 
 little child, a secret want of confidence in the prudence and 
 foresight of his parent ? 
 
 Perchance the son may take this view of the subject — 
 
 that it is but a short time since he has begun to have better 
 
 thoughts, and he is very much afraid his good impressions 
 
 may prove but transient ; that if he should now go home, 
 
 promising to cease from his evil ways, and to be a dutiful 
 
 son, and should afterwards break this promise and disappoint 
 
 3 
 
50 LETTER V. 
 
 the expectations he had excited, it would be a great injury 
 to him, and a lasting disgrace to his family. He thinks 
 it best to try himself awhile, and see whether he is a 
 truly reformed man, before he seeks again the parental 
 roof. 
 
 Now what does this amount to ? He hopes to be a 
 better son, and he begins by express disobedience to his 
 father's injunction, which was to return at once and without 
 the least delay. He wishes to reform, and, instead of 
 placing himself under the hallowing influences of home, 
 remains among rude, depraved, vicious men, the weight of 
 whose influence is altogether upon the side of self-mdulgence. 
 By failing to act when his heart is softened by the workings 
 of memory, and the dispensations of Providence, and the 
 effect of kindly words wafted to him from afar, he exposes 
 himself to the fearful danger of becoming once more indiffer- 
 ent to home, and of being bound by new and stronger ties to 
 his sinful habits, and to his debasing associations. 
 
 You, my friend, are just such a wanderer. You are thus 
 lovingly called and invited to return, and that without delay, 
 for there is no promise if you linger. In making an open 
 and formal profession of your faith, without any capital of 
 past experience to rely on, you do as that son would do, in 
 committing himself to a long and perilous journey, with no 
 money in his hands, and with no other dependence than what 
 he should find provided for him along the way. Christ bids 
 you promise to be a Christian ; he gives you just grace 
 enough to serve your present need, (for. according to 
 Flavel, " the desire for grace is grace begun,") and adds his 
 
LETTERV. 61 
 
 promise that, as occasion shall require, he will come to your 
 aid. And if, while men shall say that you have no religion, 
 and the devil whispers that you will disgrace the Church, and 
 your own experience testifies that you are not able to do 
 right, you prefer to believe God rather than all these, and 
 throw yourself on his promise ; you do then indeed exercise 
 faith ; you renounce your own righteousness ; you declare 
 most impressively, " In thy word is my trust." 
 
 It is a grave question for you to consider, whether you 
 are willing to trust God thus far ; to come when he calleth, 
 and not when you think you are ready. It is a grave ques- 
 tion, whether you will strike out into the wilderness without 
 chart or compass, without food or water, and with the cer- 
 tainty before you that you must perish, unless God be ever 
 near. I trust you may have the courage to do so, and may 
 build your hopes of perseverance and final victory, not on 
 any fancied attainments of your own, but on God's sole word 
 and promise. 
 
 If, when so lovingly called and invited by God himself, 
 while conscience declares you ought to go, you hesitate until 
 you have tried yourself, you will, first of all, disobey the 
 express injunction of your Lord, which is, not merely to 
 come, but to come without the least delay. Your work of 
 reformation, instead of being assisted by the kindly influences 
 of Christian sympathy and holy teachings and heavenly 
 grace, must be carried on in the chill atmosphere of worldli- 
 ness and frivolity. You repress and stifle the generous 
 emotions of a heart, softened by calamity, freshly impressed 
 with the lessons of adversity, just beginning to thaw beneath 
 
62 LETTERV. 
 
 the beams of God's love and goodness. Beware, lest while 
 you are lingering to try yourself, the heart become hard 
 again, the precious lessons be forgotten, and cold, icy indiffer- 
 ence shall prevail where once were contrition and gratitude 
 and holy aspiration. 
 
 I 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 My Dear Friend, 
 
 It has often been my duty to persuade men, that they 
 ought to profess the faith of Christ by commg forward to the 
 sacraments of his appointment ; men, whose fitness consisted 
 in this alone, — they felt themselves needy, helpless, perishing 
 sinners ; they believed that Jesus Christ is both able and 
 wiUing to save sinners ; and they were conscious of a serious 
 purpose and desire to become partakers of this salvation, and 
 to fulfil the conditions it imposes. I have encouraged them 
 to come to Baptism, to Confirmation, and to the Holy Com- 
 munion, albeit they were laden with infirmity, and felt that 
 even the sin against which they struggled, continually got 
 the mastery over them. 
 
 Not unfrequently I have noted in such persons a vague 
 fear and suspicion of this teaching. It was evident that they 
 suspected me of being led, through a mistaken kindness, to 
 accommodate the doctrine to their weakness ; to lower the 
 standard of duty, and to explain away that great truth of 
 Holy Writ, " Without hohness no man shall see the Lord." 
 
 It behoves me, then, in justice to you and to myself, to do 
 
54 LETTERVI. 
 
 away such suspicions ; to show that this system of the 
 Church promotes holiness in the largest sense of that word, 
 and that as members of Christ's Church we have singular 
 advantages for the attainment of this character. 
 
 The obscurity in this matter arises altogether from 
 confounding two things that should always be kept separate, 
 viz., the conditions on which we are pardoned, and our duty 
 after we are pardoned. The truly awakened man, the 
 earnest inquirer after eternal life, does indeed at once "cease 
 to do evil, and learn to do well." We distrust the sincerity 
 of any man who pretends to religious concern, without en- 
 deavoring to restrain his evil inclinations or practice the 
 virtues inculcated in the Gospel. 
 
 But still, perfection of Christian character is not among 
 the terms of pardon proposed to us in the Gospel. It is 
 proposed to us as our rule of life ; it is that after which we 
 must continually strive, and no man is safe, who, once par- 
 doned and adopted into God's family, does not honestly en- 
 deavor to keep the law in its letter and in its spirit, and to at- 
 tain " unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 
 
 When a man is first awakened to a sense of his danger, 
 and his mind is agitated by the agonies of remorse and 
 self-loathing and anxiety and dread, it will not do to tell him 
 a long story, or to set him upon any difficult investigation. 
 Our speech must be brief and to the point. We find, then, 
 the terms of pardon as proposed to us in the Gospel to be 
 few and simple. " He that believeth and is baptized shall 
 be saved ;" " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
 Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
 
LETTER VI. 55 
 
 him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." When the 
 jailer asked, " Sirs, what must I do to be saved ?" the 
 Apostles answer, " What must you do ? do nothing — believe, 
 and be saved." They do not send that man off to practice 
 reformation awhile, and to acquire a holy character. They 
 tell him to fall in with a salvation already worked out for 
 him : they take him untried as he was, and immediately 
 upon his profession of being vsdlling to trust his soul with 
 Christ, they officially assure him of God's good will and 
 pardon by baptizing him — so also with the thousands con- 
 verted upon the day of Pentecost : upon repentance and 
 faith, they were at once received into the Church. 
 
 But after the jailer's conversion and baptism, released 
 from his despair and full of gratitude for a pardon which he 
 had done nothing to deserve, another question must have 
 arisen in his mind — What is my duty now ? What course 
 must I pursue in order that I may not forfeit this blessed 
 pardon ? How shall I testify to God and man that I am 
 not insensible to the exceeding condescension and forbearance 
 of my Lord ? Now the Apostles could safely say, " Giving 
 all diligence, add to your faith virtue ; and to virtue, knowl- 
 edge ; and to knowledge, temperance ; and to temperance, 
 patience ; and to patience, godliness ; and to godliness, 
 brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, charity." 
 And that pardoned man thus instructed in his duty might 
 well resolve that by God's grace he would strive to gain all 
 these heavenly tempers. Suppose, however, that the Apostles 
 had thus answered his earnest question about the way of 
 pardon : that instead of asking him, Can you trust Christ ? 
 
56 LETTEEVI. 
 
 they had demanded whether he had virtue, and knowledge, 
 and temperance, and charity, and godhness ? The poor man 
 would then have sunk in despair, for he had none of these 
 graces and saw no way of acquiring them. 
 
 Now this provision of the Gospel is most reasonable. 
 Man must be assured of pardon before he can try to be really 
 holy. With Sinai's thunders in our ears, and God present 
 to our thoughts as an angry, vindictive judge alone, and an 
 amount of woe already accumulated sufficient to ensure our 
 misery, we have no heart to attempt amendment ; but when 
 God blots out the past and says, I forgive it all — when he 
 places us who were prone in the dust, at least upon our knees 
 and upon the palms of our hands, and says in kindly voice, 
 " My son, now try and do better — I intend to help you, and 
 you must try to imitate the justice and the mercy and the 
 purity which you see in me — if you do not this, it will be 
 a sign that you do not love me, and I must of necessity 
 disown you as a child," — ! what new motives are supplied 
 us ! how ashamed must we feel not to do our best ! how 
 pleasant to do for love's sake with his help what we could 
 never have done for fear without that help ! 
 
 I will now venture to affirm, that the omission of a holy 
 character acquired from the terms of pardon, raises, instead 
 of lowering the standard of Christian character : for if we 
 come to Christ empty, we receive of his fullness and magnify 
 his grace : if we come full-handed, we rob him of his honor. 
 
 One man has been the subject of a bright conversion. 
 He says, I am not afraid to come into the Church, because I 
 am a different man from what I used to be. I have had 
 
LETTER VI. 57 
 
 such precious evidences, such good feelings, and such power- 
 ful impressions made upon my mind, that I feel reasonably 
 certain I shall not change my purpose' 'Uor turn back to the 
 world. Here is self-righteousness ; self-complacency: here is 
 an evident reliance on something apart from God's grace and 
 promise. Is this man a better man than he who comes 
 oppressed by a sense of his unworthiness, with no good 
 feelings, but fairly driven to Christ by the clear conviction 
 that to stay away is to die ? who knows he cannot hold 
 out, who is afraid that he will relapse into vice and sin, and 
 says with fear and trembling. Lord, save me, I perish ? 
 
 If we must be holy before we are pardoned, then Chris- 
 tianity is not very different from the religions of the Pagan 
 world. They all said this, and because they said this, they • 
 ever failed to give comfort to the troubled conscience. 
 
 If we must be holy before we are pardoned, then the Ro- 
 manist is right, and we are not forgiven for the alone merits 
 and death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 If we must be holy before we are pardoned, then we reach 
 this very strange conclusion, that a man before he has saving 
 faith, can perform good works, pleasant and acceptable unto 
 God. 
 
 The peculiar excellence of our blessed religion, the great 
 principle therein, which has ever comforted the despondent 
 and raised the fallen, is simply this, — it first forgives^ and then 
 it sanctifies. It uttereth no such mocking words in the ears 
 of men as "Be holy, and you shall be forgiven;" but after 
 pardoning freely, "without money and without price," it 
 crieth to us who are thus saved, not by works of righteousness 
 
 3* 
 
58 LETTER VI. 
 
 which we have done, but according to God's mercy, by the 
 "washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost," " Now, be holy, because you are pardoned." 
 
 Holiness is not then a requisite for pardon, but it is the 
 high and indispensable duty of all those who have been par- 
 doned. It is the evidence that we have passed from death 
 unto life ; it is the condition on which depends the continu- 
 ance of God's favor and goodness. 
 
 If now you come to the ordinances and sacraments of the 
 Church, with the very humble qualifications which I have 
 mentioned, think not that your work is done. On the con- 
 trary, you are just beginning it. You undertake to lead a 
 sober, godly, and righteous life, and make a most solemn vow 
 to this effect ; you choose for yourself no lower standard than 
 that of our Lord's example ; and you must inevitably forfeit 
 your pardon itself if you do not honestly endeavor to grow 
 up from a babe to a full-grown man in Christ Jesus. 
 
 While the Church, following the teaching of Scripture, 
 makes the terms of pardon very few and very moderate, she 
 does also, according to the same Scripture, declare it to be 
 the bounden duty of every man to aim at a progressive, warm- 
 hearted, and consistent piety. 
 
 An adult is baptized. Before he is dismissed from the 
 font, the Church admonishes him that he is now " the child 
 of God and of the light ;" that he must " walk answerably to 
 his Christian calling, and as becometh the children of light;" 
 that he must " continually mortify all his evil and corrupt 
 affections, and daily proceed in all virtue and godliness of 
 living." 
 
LETTER VI. 69 
 
 In Confirmation she prays for her children, " that they 
 may daily increase in the Holy Spirit more and more." How 
 instructive this ! We must increase and grow, and that every 
 day ; and not only so, but more and more each day. In her 
 form of Family Prayer she teaches us each morning to 
 " dedicate both our souls and bodies to God in a sober, right- 
 eous, and godly life;" and then to pray him to "strengthen 
 and confirm" us in this resolution, " that as we grow in age, 
 we may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and 
 Saviour." Yet again, in Ordination, she solemnly warns her 
 Priests, " See that ye never cease your labor, your care and 
 diligence, until ye have done all that lieth in you, according 
 to your bounden duty, to bring all committed to your charge 
 to that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, and to 
 that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no 
 place left among you either for error in doctrine or for vi- 
 ciousness in life." 
 
 The Church is faithful. Oh, that her children lived up to 
 her teachings ! Over and over again, in her exhortations and 
 collects, does she press upon us the vast importance, the ab- 
 solute necessity for our safety, of cherishing a warm and 
 devotional spirit ; of faithfully endeavoring to follow the ex- 
 ample of the saints in all godly living, and of seeking after 
 that mind which was in Christ Jesus. 
 
 While, then, I urge you not to wait until you are holy, in 
 the full sense of that word, before you come into the Church, 
 understand me not to say that holiness is a matter of indif- 
 ference, or that you can be saved vnthout it. Far from it; 
 to attain that state, must be the great study of your life. All 
 
60 LETTER VI. 
 
 your sins and failures should mortify and distress you, and 
 lead you constantly to the throne of grace. And you are 
 never to rest satisfied and contented with what you have 
 done, but ever to press forward, and reach after completeness 
 and perfection of Christian character. 
 
 I have ever thought that of all woes, that incurred by the 
 formal, worldly-minded, ungodly Churchman, must be the 
 greatest. What singular privileges he enjoys ! On every 
 occasion of public service. Mother Church says to him. My 
 son, first of all bethink thyself ; kneel down and confess thy 
 sins, and do so with thine owti lips and tongue. On holy 
 days she, more than this, utters in his ear the precepts of the 
 law one by one, and bids him ask pardon for the past, and 
 grace for the future. She reads to him the Scripture, that 
 he may not be dependent on man's exposition for his knowl- 
 edge of God's will. She calls him at every Communion sea- 
 son to examine himself, to amend his ways, to reconsecrate 
 himself to God. She admonishes him, if in doubt and dis- 
 quietude, to seek his pastor and disclose his grief. She 
 proposes to his consideration, in regular order, every great 
 event of Gospel history, every grand mystery of the Gospel 
 revelation. 
 
 Her whole system is instinct with life and warmth and 
 glowing devotion; and it is with this spirit that she would 
 imbue her children. " Praise ye the Lord," she cries. " Lift 
 up your hearts." " Let us give thanks unto our Lord God." 
 And as though we could not but be warmed and animated 
 with the holy truths and the blessed hopes set before us in 
 her service, she pauses, as it were, ever and anon, that we 
 
LETTER VI. 61 
 
 may cry, " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to 
 the Holy Ghost." 
 
 In the Psalms of David she furnishes us with a standard 
 of religious experience, certified by Almighty God himself, as 
 safe, reliable, and genuine ; free alike from the coldness of the 
 mere formalist, and from the extravagance of the fanatic. 
 The Holy Communion, offered to us not at long and rare 
 intervals, as a thing of terror and a dangerous ordeal, but 
 frequently, and on every occasion of peculiar solemnity, be- 
 comes, in our estimation, a feast of love, a divine provision 
 to sustain us in our weary pilgrimage. " Draw near with 
 faith," she says, " and take this holy Sacrament to your 
 comfort." 
 
 She follows us to our homes; she comes to us when 
 stretched upon a bed of sickness, admonishing us to take our 
 troubles patiently. She has provided prayers for the troubled 
 in mind and conscience, and. blessed words in which the 
 parting spirit may be commended to the God from whom it 
 came. 
 
 And if a man thus taught, thus constantly reminded of 
 his duty, thus warned, encouraged, rebuked, and comforted ; 
 if he is unfaithful and unholy, idle, resentful, self-indulgent, 
 worldly-minded, lucre-loving, devoid of life and spirituality, a 
 dry and rotten branch upon the goodly tree, I shudder to 
 think how the privileges he has neglected and abused will 
 aggravate his final distress. 
 
 I have thus taken upon me, who am but dust and ashes, 
 to write to you of high and holy things. I think I have ut- 
 tered truth ; for I have but echoed, in the main positions of 
 
62 LETTER VI. 
 
 these letters, the distinct voice of Scripture, and of Mother 
 Church. 
 
 And now, poor wanderer upon the bleak common of the 
 world, ragged, weary, hungry, and diseased, come back to 
 your father's house. In it there is room enough, and bread 
 enough, and love enough for all. Wait not until you are 
 restored to soundness, stay not for better clothes, tarry not 
 until you have found something to bring with you, but come 
 as you are to Christ in his Church ; and then, clad and fed, 
 revived and restored by his kind hand, let gratitude impel 
 you to aim after (I will not say angelic, but) divine purity 
 and perfection. 
 
 1 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 By which one viay decide whether he is a truly converted^ and 
 
 a Christian man. 
 
 The Scriptures lay stress on these four principal things : 
 1. Repentance. 2. Faith. 3. Charity. 4. Holiness. No 
 unconverted man can possess these graces. 
 
 REPENTANCE. 
 
 1. Do I realize that my heart is by nature deceitful above 
 all things, and desperately wicked, averse to God, unable 
 and unwilling to keep his holy law ? 
 
 2. Do I feel that my transgressions are innumerable ? 
 that they have been perpetrated deliberately, knowingly, re- 
 peatedly, and that eternal punishment is no more than they 
 deserve ? 
 
 3. Am I truly grieved at their remembrance ? do I re- 
 alize their hatefulness, and specially deplore their ingratitude ? 
 Are they to me a grief, a burden and a thrall, from which I 
 would make any sacrifice to be delivered ? 
 
 4. Am I sincerely desirous to be delivered from the power 
 as well as from the punishment of them ? 
 
64 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 1. Do I steadfastly believe the Gospel narrative ? 
 
 2. Do I receive the whole Bible as God's own word ? 
 
 3. Do I acknowledge Christ, as my substitute smitten in 
 my stead — as my teacher whom I must heed — as my exam- 
 ple whom I must imitate ? 
 
 4. Owning myself a vile sinner, without a shadow of a 
 claim on God's justice, do I embrace the offer of his mercy 
 made me in Christ, and do I rest the undivided burden of 
 my soul, simply on the merits and intercession of my dear 
 Lord? 
 
 CHARITY. 
 
 1. Whereas I once loved not God, nor love him now but 
 poorly, do I yet prefer him to wife, children, land, fame, and 
 life itself ? Is his service my choice, his honor dear to me ; 
 and do my chief pleasures flow from his approbation ? 
 
 2. Do I remember with thankfulness the exceeding love 
 of my Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ in dying for me, 
 and sending the Spmt to sanctify me, in providing his word 
 to instruct me, and his Church to house me and feed me, and 
 in going to prepare me a place in heaven ? 
 
 3. Do I heartily forgive all who have injured me by word 
 or deed ? Do I pray for them, and desire to do them good ? 
 
 4. Do I count all men my brethren, and strive as I may to 
 promote their welfare in body and in soul ? Am I specially 
 drawn to all sincere and humble-minded followers of the Lord 
 Jesus, and do I find pleasure in cultivating intercourse and 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 65 
 
 in exchanging offices of love with those who are of the house- 
 hold of faith ? 
 
 HOLINESS. , 
 
 1. Do I honestly pray, meditate, search the Scriptures, 
 attend to the Church's voice and use the Gospel ordinances, 
 in order that I may discern my duty, and be enabled to dis- 
 charge it ? 
 
 2. Do I indulge in no acknowledged, presumptuous sin, 
 nor neglect any well-known duty ? Do I watch as well as 
 pray ; and while I make many mistakes and commit grievous 
 faults, can I appeal to God in sincerity that it is my earnest 
 desire and effort to do my whole duty as a Christian ? 
 
 3. Do I render to God the service of my affections, and 
 the reverence of my body ? Do I regard myself as his 
 steward in my estate, honoring him with the first fruits and 
 serving myself last, accounting it a privilege, not a hardship, 
 to feed his poor, and to set forward his Church ? 
 
 4. Have I been baptized and confirmed ? And do I with 
 reverence and self-examination, and with holy vows of amend- 
 ment, receive from time to time the emblems of Christ's body 
 and blood ? 
 
 Try yourself by these questions and such as these. Thus, 
 instead of "keeping the manna of old experience by you 
 until it corrupts in your hands," you shall have it fresh from 
 heaven each day. 
 
 %' 
 
REVIEW 
 
 OF ;^ ^ 
 
 Dr. R. J. BRECKINRIDGE'S LETTERS, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF RULING ELDERS. 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 PRINCETON REVIEW, 
 
 APRIli, 1844. 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN T. ROBINSO NA 
 
 1844, ' 
 
 i 
 
..if* 
 
 THE ELDER QUESTION. 
 
 It is truly mortifying that the Presbyterian Church, at 
 this period of her history, instead of "leaving the first prin- 
 ciples of the doctrine of Christ and going on unto perfec- 
 tion," should be employed in the juvenile task of laying 
 again the foundation of the "doctrine of laying on of 
 hands." We are utter disbelievers in the vaunted efficacy 
 of a perpetual recurrence in the spirit of sceptical inquiry, 
 to the first principles of our organization. The distinc- 
 tive features of the Presbyterian form of church govern- 
 ment have been known and settled for ages ; and yet there 
 are some who would persuade us that all who have hither- 
 to embraced this system have used it, as common people do 
 their watches, without comprehending at all the true prin- 
 ciples of its construction ; and who seek therefore to divert 
 the energy of the church from reaching forward unto those 
 things that are before, and waste it in the re-examination 
 of foundations that were long since well and securely laid. 
 
 It is a great evil, when a church, instead of acting with the 
 genial vigour of a well settled faith in the established prin- 
 ciples of her organization, is agitated with a perpetual in- 
 quiry as to what her principles really are. If the Pres- 
 byterian Church of this country after a century of well- 
 defined practice under a written constitution, needs to be 
 instructed in such elementary matters, as who ought to per- 
 form the work of ordination to the ministry, and what con- 
 stitutes a quorum of her ecclesiastical courts, v/e see no rea- 
 son to hope for any progress in all time to come. If these 
 matters have not been already settled beyond a rea- 
 sonable doubt, we see not how they can now be settled, 
 so as to prevent them from becoming the means of future 
 agitation. 
 
 It forms a part of the mortifying character of the present 
 agitation of our church, that it should touch upon ques- 
 tions that are in themselves of such little moment. How 
 many members shall be required to constitute a quorum of 
 a Presbytery, and whether among the designated number 
 there shall be one or more ruling elders are questions, that 
 
involving no principle of abstract truth or necessary order, 
 can be determined only by general considerations of expe- 
 diency. We know not what incessant and powerful ap- 
 peals to some of the worst principles of human nature 
 may effect in the end, but we are sure that no calm and 
 considerate argument will ever succeed in convincing the 
 sober judgment of the ministers and elders of the Presby- 
 terian church, that our fathers in establishing the quorum 
 clause in our constitution, or their successors in their uni- 
 form practice under it, had any intention to encroach upon 
 the rights of the elders, or diminish in any degree their im- 
 portance. The notion that the intent or the effect of the 
 rule, or of the practice under it, is to establish a hierarchy, 
 or to take the initial step towards so monstrous a conclu- 
 sion, is simply farcical ; or at least it would be so, if no other 
 means than dispassionate argument were employed in sup- 
 port of it. Nor do we suppose that an attempt to show 
 that our fathers or ourselves in maintaining that ordina- 
 tion to the office of preaching the word, and administer- 
 ing the sacraments should be performed by those who 
 have themselves been authorized to discharge these func- 
 tions, did really disclose an implicit belief that ordination 
 was a mystical charm, would be deemed worthy a serious 
 thought, were this attempt made in the simple sincerity of 
 honest argument. That the whole Presbyterian church of 
 this and other lands have been for ages devoted to a super- 
 stitious belief, and need now to have some one, in the plen- 
 itude of his gifts, declare unto them the true meaning of 
 that which they have ignorantly worshipped, is too pre- 
 posterous for grave argument. It will be impossible 
 by any ingenuity of argument to persuade the church, 
 that the belief that ruling elders ought not to impose 
 hands in ordination is a superstition, or that it involves 
 the injurious intents and consequences which are charged 
 upon it. The question is in itself of trifling moment. 
 It is a matter merely of fitness and propriety. If any 
 Presbytery had seen, fit quietly to depart from presby- 
 terian usage in this matter, no one we presume would 
 have thought it expedient to call their conduct into ques- 
 tion, for no one believes that the act of ordination is ren- 
 dered invalid by the supererogatory addition of the hands of 
 the ruling elders. But when it is claimed that all Presby- 
 teries ought to, and shall ordain in this manner, upon the 
 ground that there is no distinction of order between the 
 bishop and the ruling elder, the question becomes one of prin- 
 ciple, and wc are called upon to vindicate the ancient faith 
 
of the Presbyterian church when thus attacked through a 
 proposed change in one of its ceremonial usages. 
 
 It is also worthy of consideration that the present agita- 
 tion of these questions has arisen from no practical griev- 
 ance under the operation of our system. No church has 
 complained that its interests have been shghted at meetings 
 of Presbytery held without the presence of ruling elders ; 
 no elders have complained that at such meetings advan- 
 tage has been taken of their absence to encroach upon their 
 rights and privileges ; nor has any elder complained that 
 having offered to take part in the ceremony of ordination 
 he was hindered therein, and thus debarred from what he 
 deemed a rightful exercise of his authority. If the germ 
 of a hierarchical establishment is contained in the interpre- 
 tation which the church has always given to the quorum 
 clause in her constitution, it is strange that this germ should 
 have remained so long undeveloped. If the hierarchy of 
 this rule has continued to this day constructive only, it 
 might have been permitted to slumber in its potential form 
 until it had passed into actual existence. And if the con- 
 finement of the imposition of hands in the rite of ordina- 
 tion to preaching elders, has resulted as yet in no further 
 encroachments of the spirit of priestly domination from 
 which it is said to spring, it might, we think, be safely 
 trusted a little longer. From the days of the Reformation 
 until now, every Presbyterian church of which we have 
 any knovvledge has ordained its preachers by the hands 
 of preaching elders ; and though Milton, in the disordered 
 times of the English commonwealth, complained that 
 "new Presbyter was only old Priest writ large," it cer- 
 tainly is not among the Presbyterians of any age or land, 
 that we are to look for the reign of priestly usurpation. 
 The evils complained of in the practice of our church are 
 purely abstract. They have never yet taken on a concrete 
 form. Instead of the voice of complaint from parties who 
 feel themselves to be aggrieved, v/e have only the voices of 
 those who are endeavouring to make the ruling elders feel, 
 that in their ignorant simpUcity they have long been im- 
 posed upon without knowing it, and that this imposition is 
 but the prelude to further strides of priestly power if it be 
 not met with timely resistance. It is a singular feature in 
 the championship of the cause of the ruling elders, that 
 the most difficult part of the duty of the champion consists 
 in persuading the body to be defended that they have been 
 ill used and are likely to be still further trampled upon. 
 
It remains to be seen whether the valour exhibited in such 
 a cause will meet with its reward or not. 
 
 In the pamphlet, the title of which we have placed at the 
 head of this article, we have the substance of two argu- 
 ments upon the ordination and quorum question, delivered 
 before the Synod of Philadelphia by Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, 
 a conspicuous defender of what he deems the rights and 
 privileges of Ruling Elders. It will be remembered that 
 the General Assembly of 1842 decided by a unanimous vote 
 that it was not within the intent of our constitutional rule 
 upon that subject, that ruling elders should join in the im- 
 position of hands in the rite of ordination. This vote was 
 subsequently re-considered, and the subject was referred to 
 the next Assembly. The last Assembly after a full argu- 
 ment of the case decided by a vote of 138 to 9 that the 
 constitution of our church does not authorize ruling elders 
 to impose hands in the ordination of ministers. This was 
 the deliberate judgment of the church expressed through 
 its highest court, upon a question not hastily brought before 
 it, nor hastily decided. If the church is capable of forming 
 its mind upon the meaning of iis own elementary principles 
 and methods of proceeding, we have that mind distinctly 
 expressed in this decision. If the unanimous decision of 
 one Assembly, and the nearly unanimous decision of 
 another, after a year's reflection, ought not to be final, so 
 as to be an end of controversy, we can discern no means by 
 which such a question can ever be definitively settled ; and 
 for aught that we can see, our church must be reduced to 
 the humiliating attitude of ever learning what her own 
 simplest rudiments are, and never coming to the knowledge 
 of the truth. 
 
 By the same Assembly it was decided that any three 
 ministers regularly convened are a quorum competent to 
 the transaction of all business. A rcsolntion to this effect 
 was adopted by a vote of S3 to 35, nearly three fourths of 
 the body voting in the affirmative. Considering the true 
 insignificance of the question at issue, afiecting not in any 
 sense the constitution of a presbytery, but only the defini- 
 tion of a competent quorum of the body, this vote was suf- 
 ficiently decided to set the question at rest. We shall make 
 ourselves a by-word among the churches, if our General 
 Assembly is to consume its time year after year in discuss- 
 ing such minor points of order, and disgrace its character 
 as a right-judging and stable court by the utterance of con- 
 tradictory judgments concerning them. Should the next 
 Assembly reverse tlie decision of the last, we see not why 
 
the succeeding one may not be called upon again to review 
 and annul. The decision of our highest court upon a ques- 
 tion of the interpretation of the constitution, when calmly 
 and decisively pronounced, ought in all ordinary cases, to 
 be held final and conclusive. It were far better that they 
 who are dissatisfied should receive the interpretation as au- 
 thoritative, and seek to obtain such an amendment to the con- 
 stitution as would meet their wishes, than to impeach the 
 wisdom or probity of the Assembly that rendered the de- 
 cision, and attempt to move succeeding ones to set it aside. 
 How can this venerable body retain its hold upon the con- 
 fidence of the churches, how can its counsels be received 
 with respect, or its mandates obeyed Avith cheerful zeal, if 
 upon questions affecting the interpretation of the constitu- 
 tion, the decisions of one year are continually annulled by 
 those of the next ? 
 
 Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, dissenting from the decision of 
 these two questions by the last Assembly, moved the Sy- 
 nod of Philadelphia, at their meeting in October last, to 
 adopt two several minutes condemning the resolutions of 
 the Assembly, and proposing to the next Assembly to re- 
 peal these obnoxious resolutions and adopt others in their 
 stead of a contrary tenor. The Synod refused to adopt the 
 proposed minutes, whereupon Dr. Breckinridge gave notice 
 of an appeal or complamt to be taken to the next General 
 Assembly, in the trial of which appeal or complaint he 
 should insist upon the exclusion of the Synod from the 
 right of voting upon any question connected therewith. 
 There can be no doubt that if the General Assembly enter- 
 tain this protest against the decision of the Synod of Phila- 
 delphia under the character of an appeal or complaint, and 
 institute the proceedings directed in such cases, the inferior 
 judicatory must be debarred from the right to vote upon 
 any question connected with the issue of the matter. And 
 this of itself would be sufficient to show that this was not 
 a case in which either an appeal or complaint could with 
 propriety be taken, and that the proper course for the As- 
 sembly to pursue would be to dismiss it at once from consi- 
 deration as irrelevant. If this appeal is to be ^o construed as 
 to bring up the merits of the main questions for argument and 
 decision, then surely the Synod of Philadelphia ought to be 
 upon the floor. The questions at issue, not having relation 
 to the wise and just administration of law, but to the deter- 
 mination of what the law itself is, can with propriety be set- 
 tled only by the united voice of the whole church. The pre- 
 posterous character of this appeal may be sufiiciently illus- 
 
8 
 
 trated by a very siipposable case. The Synod of Kentucky 
 has within the past year passed a resokition to the effect 
 that in their judgment ruling elders ought to impose hands 
 in the ordination of ministers. Let us suppose that some 
 member of the minority had appealed from this decision to 
 the next Assembly, and that that body issue this appeal. 
 It is possible that the state of opinion in the next Assem- 
 bly might be such that whh the Synod of Kentucky off 
 the floor, as it must be in the trial of this appeal, the deci- 
 sion would be adverse to the claim set up on behalf of the 
 ruling elders, and with the Synod of Philadelphia excluded 
 upon the issue of Dr. Breckinridge's appeal, a contrary de- 
 cision might be rendered. We should thus have the church 
 perplexed by two contradictory decisions of the same ques- 
 tion by the same General Assembly. There can obviously 
 be no fixed law or settled constitution in a church, if its 
 highest court, in the exercise of its prerogative as an inter- 
 preter of the law and the constitution, may thus be broken 
 into fractions by the conversion of abstract questions into 
 personal wrongs. 
 
 The utter irrelevancy of Dr. Breckinridge's appeal will 
 be further apparent, upon a moment's consideration of the 
 nature of the decision appealed from. The Synod of Phila- 
 delphia passed no affirmative resolution. They neither 
 affirmed or denied the doctrines put forth by the last As- 
 sembly. They simply refused to adopt certain private 
 opinions held by Dr. Breckinridge, and by him embodied 
 in writing and presented for their acceptance. Was this 
 refusal a personal grievance of which Dr. Breckinridge has 
 a right to complain ? The Synod pronounced no judgment 
 on the soundness or unsoundness of his opinions, but for 
 reasons which they have not seen fit to assign, they de- 
 clined to entertain them. Who was injured or aggrieved by 
 this declared unwillingness of the Synod to take any action 
 in the matter ? A delay to act, may in some cases, where 
 personal rights and interests are involved, be unjust and in- 
 jurious, but in this matter we see not how any allegation of 
 wrong can be sustained except upon the ground that Dr. 
 Breckinridge has an inherent right to demand that any 
 Synod to which he may be attached, shall entertain what- 
 ever opinions he may see fit to offer. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive upon what ground other than 
 the existence of some such unqualified right, the Synod of 
 Philadelphia could have been expected to adopt all the 
 opinions that were on this occasion offered for their accep- 
 tance. In the minute touching the quorum question which 
 
9 
 
 Dr. Breckinridge, " with a profound conviction of its truth 
 and a deep sense of its timeliness" submitted to the Synod, 
 this body is called upon among other things, to express its 
 belief that " the principle here involved is practically the 
 question between an aristocratical hierarchy, and a free 
 Christian commonwealth." That Dr. Breckinridge should 
 believe this is not perhaps surprising, for nothing is more 
 common than for men who find themselves out of sympathy 
 with the community to which they belong, to manifest a 
 certain extravagant tendency of opinion as well as of feeling. 
 The calmness which measures the exact nature and precise 
 relations of the question at issue is not to be expected from a 
 man who feels himself to be in the position of Jeremiah, when 
 Jerusalem was beleaguered by the army of aliens, and he him- 
 self imprisoned, denounced as a traitor, and threatened with 
 death, unless with the prophet's doom he possesses also the 
 prophet's qualifications and supports. That Dr. Breckin- 
 ridge's convictions and feelings should run out into great 
 exaggeration, that matters in themselves of small import 
 should be magnified into vital principles, and things that 
 are totally dissimilar be confounded as identical, was no- 
 thing more than was to be expected from any uninspired 
 man occupying the position in which he feels himself to 
 stand. But if a complaint should be entertained against a 
 deliberative body, because they refused to express their 
 beUef, that an economical rule, which affirms nothing 
 respecting the constitution of a Presbytery, which debars 
 no one entitled to partake in its deliberations and votes 
 froth attendance upon its meetings, which restrains no right 
 and curtails no privilege, and which moreover has been in 
 practical operation for more than a century, without having 
 led to any evil, involves " practically the question between 
 an aristocratical hierarchy and a free commonwealth," — this 
 we confess would surprise us. 
 
 There are other methods than by appeal or complaint by 
 which these questions may be brought before the next As- 
 sembly, under such a form as may provide for the utterance 
 of the deliberate judgment of the entire body ; and in some 
 one of these methods we suppose they will be brought up 
 and discussed anew. We have therefore examined Dr. 
 Breckinridge's arguments to ascertain what new light they 
 have shed upon the subjects of which they treat. The many 
 imputations of bad motives and sinister designs to those 
 who are of a contrary opinion, which these speeches con- 
 tain, as well as their confident prophecies, we shall pass 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 without further remark. It is impossible to refute a sneer, 
 a vituperation, or a prophecy. Honest deeds are the only 
 fit answer to dishonest words, and time, in the absence of 
 miracles, is the only test of the prophet. But what they 
 oifer of argument or of fact, bearing upon the proper dis- 
 cussion of tiie subject, we propose briefly to examine. 
 
 In the discussion of the question, who ought to impose 
 hands in the ordination of ministers, we do not find that 
 Dr. Breckinridge has added anything to the argument as 
 delivered before the last Assembly. The whole stress of this 
 question turns, of course, upon the interpretation to be given 
 to the direction contained in our form of government, that 
 " the presiding minister shall by prayer, and with the laying 
 on of the hands of the Presbytery, according to the apostolic 
 example solemnly ordain him to the holy office of the gos- 
 pel ministry ;" and the whole force of the reasoning, upon 
 the side of those who would change our established customs, 
 resides in the assumption that the presbytery herein named 
 must of necessity, mean the Presbytery previously defined 
 as consisting of ministers and ruling elders. " Presbytery 
 imposes hands in ordination ; elders are of right members 
 of that body ; therefore they must necessarily impose 
 hands." This is the whole argument. To assert that the 
 Presbytery that imposes hands is not the entire Presbytery 
 Dr. Breckinridge declares to be '•' utter folly." " Why," he 
 asks, " would you stultify our fathers ? Did they first define 
 with the utmost clearness the term Presbytery ; then invest 
 the body so called with the power of ordaining ministers of 
 the word ; then in a long chapter treating of this ordination 
 in detail use the word a dozen times in its defined sense ; 
 and then without motive or notice, use the same word in 
 the same chapter and touching the same business, in a sense 
 not only inconsistent with their own definition and their con- 
 stant use of it, but in a sense flatly contrary to both ? The 
 thing is supremely absurd." Here is the whole case on the 
 other side. And we are willing to grant that the prima 
 facie meaning of the language is in favour of the interpre- 
 tation here given to it. But we find suflicient evidence that 
 this is not the true explanation, in the historical fact, altogeth- 
 er unexplained and inexplicable, upon the contrary hypothe- 
 sis, that in the actual practice of our church with few and un- 
 important exceptions, ministers have been ordained by the 
 imposition of the hands of ministers. The language of the 
 written constitution, it is affirmed, is clear and explicit ; it 
 can have but one meaning; to attempt to give it any other 
 is to stultify our fathers, is utter folly, is supremely absurd. 
 
11 
 
 How then came it to pass that our fathers stultified them- 
 selves, for it is undeniable that they ordained by the imposi- 
 tion of the hands of preaching elders ? If the language of 
 the constitution is so unequivocal and explicit that it can 
 bear but one meaning, how happens it that it was, as a 
 matter of fact, understood and applied in a different mean- 
 ing by our fathers and by all Avho have succeeded them, 
 even until the present day ? This fact is in truth decisive 
 of the controversy. It is perfectly futile for men to write 
 and speak, however plausibly or ably, to prove that certain 
 language can have butone meaning, when it isanotorious fact 
 that they who indited that language and the whole church 
 after them for a period of fifty years, have actually attached 
 to it a different meaning. No attempt has been made to 
 explain this fact. Our fathers, whom we are urged in filial 
 tenderness not to stultify, are left in the extraordinary pre- 
 dicament of having formally laid down a proposition in 
 terms too explicit to be misunderstood, and then instantly 
 reduced to action one that is not only inconsistent with it, 
 but flatly contrary thereto ; that is, through incredible ig- 
 norance they were incapable of comprehending their own 
 language, or through wilful dishonesty they perverted it. 
 We have said that no attempt has been made to explain this 
 fact, for we do not reckon as such Dr. Breckinridge's argu- 
 ment to show " the absurdit^r of talking about a practice that 
 elders should not impose hands." If there be any other 
 man than one of straw who has ever talked thus, we con- 
 gratulate Dr. Breckinridge upon his triumphant victory over 
 him. Nor do we consider the force of the argument drawn 
 from the practice of the fathers of our church as impaired in 
 any degree by Dr. Breckinridge's denial that the practice of 
 ordaining by the imposition of the hands of preaching elders 
 has been strictly universal. What may have been done in 
 one or two western Presbyteries, of late years, we know not, 
 but it is beyond all doubt, that at the establishment of our 
 church, the practice was universal, and that from that day 
 to this, the same practice has prevailed throughout the church. 
 Under such circumstances it is a truly desperate attempt, to 
 show that the framers of our constitution intended to estab- 
 lish a rule which was flatly contradicted by every act to 
 which that rule was applicable. The plain palpable force 
 of the concurrent practice of the church from its commence- 
 ment until now is not to be evaded. It is conclusive as to 
 the meaning which our fathers who established the constitu- 
 tion attached to the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery. 
 Whether these words can properly bear this meaning or not, 
 
12 
 
 it is certain that this was the meaning which they actually 
 affixed to them when they inserted them in the Form of 
 Government ; it was in this sense that the church received 
 them in adopting the constitution ; it is in this sense that 
 they have ever since been interpreted ; and it is in this sense 
 that we are bound by them. Of what avail is it, in dispar- 
 agement of this conclusion, to tell us of other practices of 
 this same church, such as the disuse of the office of deacon, 
 and the establishment and tolerance of the Plan of Union, 
 that were clearly unconstitutional? Who needs to be 
 taught the distinction between a corrupt practice that has 
 crept into the church, however insidiously, at some definite 
 period of her history, and one that is co-eval with its consti- 
 tution and necessarily interpretative of it ? 
 
 The conclusion to which we are thus forced by the lan- 
 guage of the constitution, as illustrated by the practice of 
 its founders, derives additional strength from every quarter. 
 The terms of the constitution are not only susceptible of the 
 interpretation for which we contend, but they do of them- 
 selves, when properly collated, compel us to adopt this as 
 their only consistent meaning. More than one instance 
 occurs in our Form of Government, in which the terms Pres- 
 bytery, and member of the Presbytery are used, where it is 
 apparent that ministers only are meant, the duties being 
 such as could be properly discharged only by them. Now 
 we maintain that in the ordination service itself, there is 
 evidence that the whole ceremonial part of the ordination 
 was judged to be a work which could be fitly performed 
 only by ministers. This is sufficiently clear from the direc- 
 tion given that " the minister who presides shall first, and 
 afterward all the other members of the Presbytery in their 
 order, take him by the right hand, saying, in words to this 
 purpose. We give you the right hand of fellowship to take 
 part of this ministry with us." Here the language, all the 
 other members of the Presbytery, is express and peremptory, 
 and yet it is obviously limited to those members who have 
 already partaken of the ministry to which the candidate is 
 ordained. Dr. Breckinridge indeed asserts that this argu- 
 ment is a sophism, which chiefly rests on an error of fact ; 
 and the error of fact which he elaborately overthrows 
 consists in an alleged misapprehension of the word 
 ministry, which restricts it to the ministry of the word. 
 He succeeds in proving what no one has ever denied, 
 that the word ministry, in its etymological sense, means 
 service, and minister a servant ; but he has not succeeded 
 in finding a single instance in our form of goverimient where 
 
13 
 
 these words are employed to denote any other kind of ser- 
 vice than that which is discharged by preaching elders. 
 And if he had found any number of such instances, this 
 sophism, as he is pleased to call it, would still remain a 
 strong and impregnable argument in the judgment of all 
 who can rightly appreciate the meaning of words. As if to 
 forestal the very objection raised, this salutation defines 
 with the utmost precision the kind of ministry, or service 
 intended. They who take the newly ordained minister by 
 the hand, receive him not to the ministry, but to this min- 
 istry. What ministry ? Beyond all dispute, that to which 
 the candidate is receiving his ordination, and which they 
 who take him by the hand share with him. And is this the 
 ministry of rule over the church, or the higher ministry in- 
 clusive of the other, of preaching the word and adminis- 
 tering the sacraments ? When, as has not unfrequently oc- 
 curred, a ruling elder has been ordained, as a preacher, to 
 what ministry did the right hand of fellowship welcome 
 him ? The theory of Dr. Breckinridge would demand that 
 ill this case there should be no second ordination ; and the- 
 contrary judgment of our constitution shows conclusively 
 that whatever may be in other respects the merits of his 
 system, it is not the presbyterianism of our standards. 
 When one who is already a ruling elder is ordained to the 
 ministry of the word, with what propriety can an elder of 
 the Presbytery, welcome him " to take part of this ministry 
 with us ?" It is clear that these words limit the perform- 
 ance of this act to the preaching members of the Presbytery ; 
 and it is equally clear that it was intended that they who 
 welcome the newly ordained minister to his office should 
 be they who induct him into it. 
 
 In reply to the question, why the unrestricted language, 
 laying on of the hands of the Presbytery, is employed, if 
 it was intended that it should be limited to preaching elders, 
 we answer that it was doubtless for the same reason that 
 when it is said that " a member of the Presbytery" shall 
 preach a sermon, it was not deemed necessary to qualify 
 the designation of the person any farther than was done by- 
 the nature of the duty assigned. There never was a Chris- 
 tian church upon the face of the earth, excepting the Ana- 
 baptists, the Brownists, and such like, which did not or- 
 dain its preachers by the hands of those who were them- 
 selves preachers. There is no account in the New Testa- 
 ment of an ordination that was not performed by those who 
 were themselves possessed of the office conferred. It was 
 thus that all ordinations had been performed in the Presby- 
 
14 
 
 terian church of our own country, prior to the adoption of 
 our present constitution. The Form of Government pre- 
 viously recognised as authority in the church, that drawn 
 up by the Westminster Assembly of Divines and adopted 
 by the Church of Scotland, expressly limits the imposition 
 of hands to the preaching elders, and yet it speaks familiar- 
 ly elsewhere of ordination as performed by the Presbytery, 
 the whole Presbytery, and by the laying on of the hands 
 of the Presbytery. It was to have been expected that, in 
 settling a Form of Government in opposition to one that 
 had previously prevailed, the Westminster Assembly would 
 be precise and full in their exposition of the minor details 
 of the organization established ; and on the other hand it 
 was not to be expected that in drawing up our briefer di- 
 rectory, its authors would be equally careful to define words 
 and phrases which had been settled in their meaning and 
 usage for a hundred and fifty years. At the time that our 
 standards were framed there was no doubt as to who ought 
 to lay on hands in ordination. There never had been any 
 question respecting this matter. It was altogether natural, 
 therefore, that in compiling the rule for ordination, the au- 
 thors of it should quote the scriptural phrase, "laying on of 
 the hands of the Presbytery," without dreaming of the 
 necessity of imposing a limit upon the general term Pres- 
 bytery, which had been already affixed to it by the univer- 
 sal consent of the church in all ages, and by the unbroken 
 and unquestioned practice of our own church in particular. 
 And had the danger of misapprehension occurred to them, 
 they doubtless would have supposed that they had suffi- 
 ciently guarded against it, by the direction subsequently 
 given that " all the members of the Presbytery in their 
 order" shall utter certain words, which words wonld be 
 perfect nonsense coming from the mouth of any other than 
 a preaching elder. If the ministry to which the preacher is 
 ordained is a difierent ministry from that exercised by the 
 ruling elder, then it is evident that " the Presbytery," and 
 " all the members of the Presbytery" refer exclusively to 
 preaching elders. 
 
 This is the law of our book, consistent with itself, with 
 the practice of the church, with right reason, with scriptural 
 authority, and with universal custom. Not one instance 
 has been produced, from apostolic example or from the 
 history of any Presbyterian church that has ever existed, 
 in which a man was ordained to the office of a preacher, 
 by the imposition of the hands of those who were not them- 
 selves preachers. It has always been recognised as fitting 
 
15 
 
 and right, that the distinction which exists between the 
 teacher and the ruler should be made apparent in the act 
 of ordination ; and it will accordingly be found that they 
 who have undertaken what they are pleased to call the 
 defence of the ruling elders, plead for their participation in 
 the act of ordination upon principles that are utterly sub- 
 versive of the true distinction between the preaching and 
 the ruling elder. 
 
 We do not enter at present more particularly into the 
 argument founded upon the use of the term presbyter in 
 the New Testament ; for this argument so far as it has any 
 bearing upon the question under discussion has no force 
 except as it tends to obliterate all distinction between the 
 two classes of elders. The same reasoning which proves 
 that ruling elders ought to impose hands in ordination, 
 proves also that they ought to teach. The ruling elder, it 
 is contended is a scriptural presbyter, a scriptural bishop, 
 and as presbyters and bishops ordain, by the impositon of 
 hands, therefore ruling elders must impose hands. So also 
 the scriptural presbyter or bishop must be apt to teach; 
 they that had the rule over the church were also they who 
 spoke unto them the word of God. It is easy therefore, by 
 the change of the middle term of the above syllogism, to 
 construct one which would prove that it was one of the 
 functions of the ruling elder to preach the word. When 
 they who are now seeking their ends through the distortion 
 of our standards, shall seek to change the standards them- 
 selves upon the ground that they are not consistent with 
 scriptural teaching, we shall be ready to enter with all mi- 
 nuteness into this discussion. In the mean time the single 
 question before us now is, what is the presbyterianism of 
 our constitution ? And the language of the instrument it- 
 self, interpreted by the collation of one part with another, 
 and illustrated by other formularies from which it was com- 
 piled, and by the undoubted practice of its founders, leaves 
 no room for doubt in an unprejudiced mind, that it was not 
 within the intent of the rule upon that subject, that ruling 
 elders should unite in the imposition of hands in the ordina- 
 tion of ministers. 
 
 Dr. Breckinridge has attempted to invalidate the histori- 
 cal argument, drawn from the practice of other churches, 
 and this, as might have been expected, is much the weakest 
 part of his essay. He who sets out to find in history that 
 which never existed, is very apt to lose his way. Dr. Breck- 
 inridge, " the course of whose studies," as he informs us, 
 " has not left him ignorant of the sentiments of God's pebple 
 
16 
 
 in past times," avows his belief that the teaching of other 
 reformed churches furnishes more in favour of his position 
 than against it. How well he has sustained this belief, our 
 readers may judge for themselves. 
 
 He refers, in the first instance to the Reformed churches 
 of France and Geneva. In these churches he admits that 
 ordination was performed by ministers, but attempts to 
 show, by an argument that may be safely left to do its 
 work unhindered, that the authority of this example is in 
 favour of the participation of ruling elders in this service 
 among us. 
 
 He then passes to what he terms " the most remarkable 
 confession to which the Reformation gave birth," the second 
 or latter Helvetic confession. In the eighteenth chapter of 
 this confession, which treats of the ministry of the church, it 
 is said that " they who are chosen shall be ordained by elders, 
 with public prayers and imposition of hands." But before 
 the meaning of this can be comprehended it must be under- 
 stood who are meant by elders. In a preceding paragraph, 
 after giving and defining the terms applied to the ministers 
 of the church in the New Testament, it adds, " licebit ergo 
 nunc ecclesiavum minislros nuncupare Episcopos, Pres- 
 byteros, Fastores, at que Doctor es f^ it is therefore proper 
 now to call the ministers of the churches, Bishops, Presby- 
 ters, Pastors, and Teachers. The term elders or presbyters 
 is, therefore, one of several terms that may be appropriately 
 employed to designate the ministers of the church. What 
 then were the peculiar functions of ministers? This is 
 made perfecdy apparent. In page 510 of the same chapter, 
 it is said: '■'■ Data est omnibus in ecclesia ministris una 
 et aequalis potestas sive functio,^' to all ministers of the 
 church, one and the same power or function is given. 
 And again, ^^officia ministorum sunt varia, quae tamen 
 plerique ad duo restringunt, in quibus omnia alia compre- 
 henduntur, ad doctrinam Christ i evangelicani ct ad legi- 
 timam sacramcntorum administrationem f' the duties of 
 ministers are various, though they are generally restricted 
 to two, in which all the rest are comprehended, namely, 
 teaching the evangelical doctrine of Christ, and the lawful 
 administration of the sacraments. Through the whole 
 chapter it is apparent that the ministers of the church, of 
 whom it treats, are such, and such only, as are authorized to 
 preach the word, and administer the sacraments. It says not 
 one word, directly or indirectly,'respecting any other class of 
 ministers or rulers. The existence of ruling elders is not 
 
17 
 
 once hinted at throughout the document. It affii-ms that 
 ordination shall be by the imposition of the hands of the 
 elders — that elders is one of the terms appropriately applied 
 to ministers — and that ministers are they whose chief func- 
 tions are to preach the evangelical doctrine of Christ and 
 administer the sacraments. It must require optics peculiarly 
 constituted, to discern in all this any evidence in favour of 
 the participation of ruling elders in the imposition of hands. 
 It teaches the same doctrine that is found in the standards 
 of our own, and of all other churches, that induction into the 
 office to preach and administer the sacraments, should be 
 performed by those who are themselves incumbents of the 
 same office. 
 
 We are next referred to the second book of discipline of 
 the Scottish church, which affirms that " ordination is the 
 separation and sanctifying of the person appointed to God, 
 and his kirk, after he is well tried and found qualified," and 
 that "the ceremonies of ordination, are fasting, earnest 
 prayer, and imposition of the hands of the eldership." 
 " Such," Dr. Breckinridge adds, " is ordination according to 
 the doctrine of that venerable church whose standards have 
 furnished so large a portion of our own ; and such it is, 
 essentially as held by all the Reformed churches — and I may 
 add by the primitive and apostolic church." And this is, 
 as we maintain, precisely the doctrine of our standards. 
 The same language in substance is employed, and the same 
 question arises here as in the interpretation of our own di- 
 rectory ; what does this language mean ? what is the doc- 
 trine taught ? It sheds less light upon the subject, than 
 upon the difficulties by which the reasoner feels himself to 
 be environed, when he attempts to fortify his interpretation 
 of an ambiguous phrase by reference to one of precisely 
 equivalent import. " The laying on of the hands of the 
 Presbytery," and " the imposition of the hands of the elder- 
 ship," inasmuch as they differ from each other only in 
 sound, undoubtedly mean the same thing : but what is this 
 one thing which they both mean ? What was intended by 
 the " hands of the eldership," in the second book of disci- 
 pline, is clearly made known by cotemporary writers who 
 treat expressly of the subject. Calderwood, in the Altare 
 Damascenum, published in 1623 says that the imposition of 
 hands "is confined to pastors or teaching elders only," and 
 expressly justifies the consistency of this usage with the lan- 
 guage of the directory. Samuel Rutherford in his " Peace- 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 able Plea for Paul's Presbytery in Scotland," published in 
 1642, says, "eveiy where, in the word, where pastors and 
 elders are created, there they are ordained by pastors. . . 
 
 . . Ordination of pastors is never given to people or 
 believers, or to ruling elders, but still to pastors." To the 
 same effect is the testimony of Alexander Henderson, and 
 of James Guthrie.* 
 
 There is no room left for doubt as to the doctrine of the 
 second Book of Discipline, that venerable standard which 
 " was drawn up by Andrew Melville, adopted by all the 
 civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the kingdom, and 
 made the basis of more numerous and solemn national 
 acts than any other paper, perhaps, of merely human ori- 
 gin." This book teaches the exact doctrine which we 
 maintain, that ordination is to be performed by the impo- 
 sition of the hands of the eldership, meaning thereby 
 preaching elders. We have thus, not only the example of 
 the Scottish Church, confirming us by the conclusions to 
 which the ablest men of the day arrived, at a period which 
 peculiarly called for a thorough sifting of the principles of 
 church organization ; but what is still more important in its 
 bearing upon the precise question before us, we find that in 
 the standards which are admitted to " have furnished a 
 large portion of our own," the phrase "imposition of the 
 hands of the eldership" had acquired a settled mean- 
 ing as early as the year 1578. 
 
 Dr. Breckinridge declares that it seems to him " the very 
 height of absurdity and an absolute contempt of common 
 sense, for any one to contend, that according to the princi- 
 ples and the very terms of this instrument, ruling elders 
 are not permitted to impose hands in the ordination of min- 
 isters of the word." And yet, in the light of the authori- 
 ties above cited, it would be so plain an affront to common 
 sense to deny that the principles and the terms of this in- 
 strument were intended to exclude ruling elders from taking 
 part in the act of ordination, that no one we suppose will 
 henceforth presume to call it in question. It was univer- 
 sally understood by the men who framed, adopted, and 
 used this instrument, that it confined the imposition of 
 hands to preaching elders. If men who use language are 
 not to be denied the privilege of explaining what sense 
 
 * See these authors cited in the appendix to Dr. Miller's Sermon on the 
 oflicc of the ruling elder, p. 126. 
 
19 
 
 they attach to their own terms, then the " imposition of the 
 hands of the eldership," in the Book of Discipline refers 
 exclusively to preaching elders. It was in this sense that 
 the church understood these words ; in this sense they 
 passed into the Westminster Directory, and into our own 
 standards. Through a period of two hundred and sixty- 
 live years, during which this language has been employed, 
 in the rite of ordination, no doubt has existed as to its true 
 meaning. And are we now to be told that during all this 
 time the men who compiled and used the church standards 
 which have prevailed, did not understand the meaning of 
 their own words ? Is a purely verbal argument, founded 
 upon nothing higher or deeper than a mere jingle of words, 
 to be considered as of weight in determining that the true 
 intent of language is one which they who employed that 
 language, have disavowed by all their writings and in all 
 their acts ? 
 
 Greater violence even, than in the cases already reviewed, 
 is needed so to torture the standards of the Westminster As- 
 sembly as to make them utter the desired response. There is 
 of course no doubt as to the judgment of the Westminster As- 
 sembly respecting the point in debate. They have expressly 
 decided that ordination shall be "by imposition of hands, and 
 prayer, with fasting, by those preaching presbyters to whom 
 it doth belong." They have made this matter so clear that 
 there is no room left for a play upon words. The Directory 
 for the ordination of ministers states, in general terms, an- 
 alogous to the language employed in our book, that " the 
 Presbytery, or the ministers sent from them for ordination, 
 shall solemnly set him apart to the office and work of the 
 ministry, by laying their hands on him," but this is else- 
 where and more than once, limited to preaching presbyters. 
 " The preaching presbyters orderly associated, either in 
 cities or neighbouring villages are those to whom the impo- 
 sition of hands doth appertain, for those congregations 
 within their bounds respectively." To evade the force of 
 this example. Dr. Breckinridge contends that this Directory 
 teaches an entirely different doctrine respecting ordination 
 from that which we maintain. Citing the declaration that 
 " every minister of the Avord is to be ordained by imposi- 
 tition of hands, and prayer, Avith fasting, by those preaching 
 presbyters to whom it doth belong," lie asserts that this re- 
 quires us to go much further than has yet been contended 
 for, for not only imposition of hands, but ordination itself 
 
20 
 
 is here explicitly declared to belong to preaching presbyters ; 
 and he adds the signiiicant hint, that it will not be long be- 
 fore this authority will be quoted to prove that preacliing 
 elders only, have any concern with the whole process of or- 
 dination. "■ Is that," he asks," the doctrine of our church." 
 Again he quotes the declaration of the Directory, that "the 
 power of ordering the whole work of ordination is in the 
 whole Presbytery," with the subsequent qualification that 
 " the preaching presbyters . . . are those to whom the 
 imposition of hands doth appertain ;" and from this he 
 infers that the business of the whole Presbytery is onli/ to 
 order the work of ordination, and that it is the preaching 
 presbyters who ordain. And again he demands, " is this 
 our system ?" We answer, that the system of the West- 
 minster Directory, according to the clear and palpable 
 meaning of the instrument itself, is undoubtedly our pre- 
 cise system, neither more nor less. The " ordering of the 
 whole work of ordination" which it gives to the whole 
 Presbytery, will not be lessened in its meaning by the dis- 
 paraging " 07i/j/" which Dr. Breckinridge has prefixed to 
 it. The whole Presbytery are to order or to determine 
 the entire work, to judge of the qualifications of the can- 
 didate, and decide whether he shall be ordained ; but the 
 executive acts by which their decision is actually carried 
 into effect, the prayers, the exhortations, the imposition of 
 hands, are to be performed by the preaching presbyters. 
 Such is the plain doctrine of this directory, and such pre- 
 cisely is the doctrine of our standards. The intent of the 
 instrument itself is so clear, that it needs no elucidation. 
 If any confirmation were necessary, it could be found abun- 
 dantly in the debates of the Assembly, attending the forma- 
 tion of the Directory ; and in contemporary expositions and 
 defences of the form of government which they established. 
 In the Jus Divimcm Ministeri Evangelici, or the divine 
 Tight of the gospel ministry, we find the whole matter of 
 ordination, in its substantive and formal part, treated at 
 length. This work was published in 1C54, by the Pro- 
 vincial Assembly of London ; it was subscribed, Novem- 
 ber 2, 1653, in the name and by the appointment of the 
 Assembly, by the Moderator, Assessors and Scribes, one of 
 the latter of whoiu was Matthew Pool. In the Xllllh 
 chapter of this work, entitled, '' Wherein the fourth asser- 
 tion about ordination is proved, viz., that ordination of 
 ministers ought to be by the laying on of the liands of the 
 Presbytery," we find the following question and answer : 
 
21 
 
 " Question 4. What part hath the ruhng elder in ordina- 
 tion. 
 
 ^^Jlnsv)er. Supposing that there is such an officer in the 
 church (for the proof of which we refer the reader to our 
 vindication) we answer, that the power of ordering of the 
 whole worli of ordination belongs to the whole Presbytery, 
 that is, to the teaching and ruling elders. But imposition of 
 hands is to be always by preaching presbyters, and the 
 rather because it is accompanied with prayer and exhorta- 
 tion, both before, in, and after, which is the proper work of 
 the teaching elder." Here is the same phraseology that is 
 employed in the Directory, and its meaning is placed be- 
 yond the reach of cavil. The system here taught is, we 
 repeat it, our system. The decision of every question con- 
 nected with each particular case of ordination is vested in 
 the whole Presbytery, and the formal act or acts by which 
 the decision is declared and carried into effect, is placed in 
 the hands of the teaching elders. 
 
 But, in the second place, Dr. Breckinridge attempts to in- 
 validate the authority of the Westminster Directory on the 
 ground that its provisions for ordination were extemporane- 
 ous, devised confessedly to meet the exigencies of a particu- 
 lar crisis and of course not adapted to a different state of 
 things. We prefer quoting his own words upon this head, 
 fearful that any paraphrase which we might make of them 
 would necessarily pass with the reader for a caricature. 
 After citing from the Directory the passages to which we 
 have already referred, he adds : " The two heads of Doc- 
 trine and Power under which the foregoing statements 
 occur, are then thrown together; and under the 11th and 
 12th sections of this united head we have these two impor- 
 tant propositions, ' In extraordinary cases something ex- 
 traordinary may be done There is at this 
 
 time, an extraordinary occasion for a ivay of ordination 
 for the present supply of ministers.^ True enough, sir ; 
 but it sets the whole matter on a new foundation. Are we 
 in a state of civil war ? Have we no church courts in Ame- 
 rica as there was not one in England, when this Directory 
 was drawn up ? Do our fifteen hundred ministers, and 
 two thousand churches furnish no present supply of minis- 
 ters to constitute a single Presbytery ?" This has no mean- 
 ing unless it be to disparage the directions, already quoted, 
 respecting ordination, on the ground that they were framed 
 to meet a special exigency, there being at that time no eccle- 
 
22 
 
 siastical court, regularly constituted in England. But were 
 there no courts, with ruling elders a constituent portion of 
 them, in Scotland, to which no less than to England, regard 
 was had in the compilation of these directions ? Do they 
 not in their own nature, and in express terms, contemplate 
 a Presbytery fully formed ? It is true that this instrument un- 
 der the Doctrinal joart of Ordination, which precedes the 
 Directory, after laying down ten principles or rules, among 
 which is one limiting the imposition of hands to teaching 
 elders, adds that, *'in extraordinary cases, something extra- 
 ordinary may be done, until a settled order may be had, yet 
 keeping as near the rule as possible." It is evident that 
 the rule befitting a settled order, and to which, in the mean 
 tune, as near an approximation as possible is to be made, is 
 that contained in the ten preceding principles. The Direc- 
 tory then follows, giving minute directions as to the manner 
 in which this rule is lo be carried out in practice, under a 
 settled order of things. At the close of this, it adds, — 
 " Thus far of ordinary rule and course of ordination, in the 
 ordinary way ; that which concerns the extraordinary way, 
 requisite to be now practised, followeth," — and it then pro- 
 ceeds to explain what it may be allowable to do under the 
 present exigency. Had the restriction of the imposition of 
 hands to teaching elders been found among these extraor- 
 dinary things, which were allowed on account of the pre- 
 sent distress, we should not of course cite the authority of 
 this venerable standard in favour of the interpretation 
 which has always been given to our constitution. We are 
 seeking realities, and not playing with the mere sounds and 
 shows of things. The only two points that have any con- 
 ceivable relation to the question under discussion with us, 
 that the power of ordering the work of ordination was en- 
 trusted to the whole Presbytery, and that the authority to 
 execute the work, when ordered, was committed exclusively 
 to teaching elders, are not alluded to among the extraordi- 
 nary allowances that were to be permitted because no Pres- 
 byteries "could be immediately formed up to their whole 
 power and work." This, on the contrary, was the perfect 
 theory and practice of ordination, the complete rule, which 
 might, in certain particulars, be varied to suit the necessities 
 of the times, " until a settled order might be had." 
 
 And yet Dr. Breckinridge, after specilying some of the 
 allowable departures from the rule, which arc all given 
 under the distinct head of the extraordinary way which may 
 
23 
 
 how be practised, asks, " Is it not equally manifest, that the 
 whole Directory contemplates the extraordinary posture of 
 affairs then actually existing around them?" We answer 
 that this is about as manifest, as that the Constitution of the 
 United States in prescribing the method now pursued in the 
 electionof President,contemplated theadopting actof theseve- 
 ral States and other provisional measures, which were neces- 
 sary to carry the constitution into operation. No man can 
 read the Directory without seeing at once, that upon the 
 points under discussion, and upon all other matters, except- 
 ing the few that are touched upon in the appendix upon 
 " the extraordinary way," it contains the matured and deli- 
 berate judgment of the body respecting what is orderly and 
 right under a perfect state of the church. 
 
 But in the third place, Dr. Breckinridge attempts a higher 
 strain. He aims not only to deprive the positive teaching 
 of the Assembly of its due weight, but to make them utter 
 a contrary doctrine. To effect this, must of course require 
 peculiar powers of ventriloquism. By a comparison of dates 
 he finds that the Directory for Church Government was 
 sent in to the Parliament seven months after the Directory 
 for Ordination. Hence he infers that this work contains 
 " the more matured decisions of the body — their advice for 
 a permanent and not for an extraordinary church state," 
 He then selects from this work certain general principles of 
 church government, such as, that the government of the 
 church is in the hand of Assemblies, that these Assemblies 
 are composed of teaching and ruling elders, and that many 
 congregations are under this presbyterial government ; and 
 from these he argues that the Westminster Assembly, in its 
 matured judgment, by deciding that ruling elders are of 
 divine right a constituent portion of the governing assem- 
 blies of the church, have decided " ex vi termini^ that they 
 must unite in ordinations." If by uniting in ordinations, 
 is meant, that ruling elders must have some share in the 
 work, then all this talk about the matured decisions of the 
 body, after seven months study, is devoid of meaning ; since 
 the Assembly had already decreed in their immature direc- 
 tory for ordination, that the power of ordering the whole 
 work was in the hands of teaching and ruling elders. If it 
 means that ruling elders must unite in executing, as well 
 as ordering, the whole work, then we say, that the Assem- 
 bly have decided no such thing, ex vi termini, unless ter- 
 mini means a determination to force upon their language 
 
24 
 
 a construction which it was never intended to bear, and 
 which it does not legitimately admit. The supposed ad- 
 vance in knowledge made by the Westminster Assembly 
 during the seven months which elapsed after the establish- 
 ment of the directory for ordination, upon which this argu- 
 ment rests, is of course destitute of the shadow of a founda- 
 tion. There is nothing in their later work, which contra- 
 dicts or supersedes any thing in the former. They were 
 combined together and adopted as the form of government, 
 in England and Scotland. The decision of the Assembly 
 that ruling elders are of right governors of the church, did 
 not, in their own judgment of it, decide that ruling elders 
 must therefore impose hands in ordination. Nor does it, 
 ex vi termini, include this, any more than the right which 
 every member of congress has to deliberate and vote upon 
 any question brought before them, includes the right to join 
 his signature to that of the speaker, in attestation of the 
 bills passed. This matter is really too plain for argument. 
 The doctrine which the Westminster Assembly intended to 
 teach respecting ordination, the doctrine which they do 
 teach, is as explicit and clear as it is within the compass of 
 language to make it ; and the alleged inconsistency between 
 placing the whole work of ordination in the hands of all the 
 governors of the church, and restricting certain formal 
 parts of the execution of the work to one class of those 
 governors, does not seem to us worth an argument. 
 
 By the process which Dr. Breckinridge employs to ex- 
 tract historical evidence in favour of his position, we could 
 prove any doctrine or practice whatever. He first deter- 
 mines that the work of ordination in all its parts and pro- 
 cesses, in its decision, declaration, and attestation, belongs 
 of necessity to the governors of the church. Hence if the 
 government of the church is vested in teaching and ruling 
 elders, he infers that ruling elders must impose hands in or- 
 dination. In whatever standards he finds that the work of 
 ordination in general is committed to the governing body 
 in the church, whatever that may be, he sees the proof of his 
 doctrine, even when those standards in other parts expressly 
 contradict it. History thus furnishes more that is for him 
 than against him, because he forces upon historical docu- 
 ments his own inconsequent reasoning, and determines 
 what the facts of history actually were I'rom his opinion of 
 what they ought to have been. 
 
 The discussion into which Dr. Breckinridge enters touch- 
 
25 
 
 ing tfie influence of the Westminster standards upon the 
 Church of Scotland, has no relation to the question in de- 
 bate. We have shown that the doctrine of the Scottish and 
 the Westminster standards respecting ordination was pre- 
 cisely the same. The second Book of Discipline, and the 
 Westminster Directory, alike place the power of ordination 
 in the Presbytery, and reserve the imposition of hands to the 
 preaching elders. It is of no avail therefore to depreciate 
 the modern Scottish church as compared with the ancient, 
 seeing that upon this point she has never varied her doc- 
 trine or her practice, since the establishment of the second 
 Book of Discipline. 
 
 Dr. Breckinridge asserts that, "it would be easy to estab- 
 lish the same doctrine from other confessions— for example, 
 those of the Bohemian churches of 1535 and 1575, and va- 
 rious professions of the Polish and Lithuanian churches of 
 the following century." Of the Bohemian Confessions 
 here referred to, the second contains not one word respect- 
 ing ordination ; and the first has only the following sen- 
 tence : " Praeterea vitae consuetudinem honestarn, atque 
 ut hi probentur prius, turn demum a senioribus facta 
 precatione, per manuum impositionem ad hoc munus in 
 caetu conjirmentur." There is nothing to inform us who 
 the seniores were, except that throughout the article in 
 which this occurs, entitled, De ordine ecelesiastico, sen 
 praefectis vel ministris ecclesiae, there is not one word 
 said of any other class of rulers or ministers of the church 
 than those whose duty it was to preach the word and ad- 
 minister the sacraments ; and the conclusion hence is irre- 
 sistible, that they were the seniores, who were to offer up 
 prayer and impose hands, in setting others apart to the same 
 office. 
 
 No other confession is specially designated as lending 
 aid to the new theory ; but we find, in the October number 
 of the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century, that Dr. Breckin- 
 ridge has pressed the Belgic confession into his service. 
 He says, "In Art. XXXI, De Vocatione Ministrorum 
 Ecclesiae, of the last-named confession, it is explicitly de- 
 clared that the work of holy ordination, as to manner and 
 form, is prescribed in God's word, and appertains ' verbi 
 ministris et senioribus ecclesiae,'' and that by it ministers, 
 elders and deacons ought to be, ' confirmari in muneribus 
 suis per impositionem manuum.^ ^^ There is nothing in 
 his article, or in the whole confession, which bears the re- 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 motest resemblance to the affirmation which Dr. Breckin- 
 ridge has extracted from it. The first sentence is as fol- 
 lows. Credimus Ministros, Seniores, et Diaconos dehere 
 ad functiones illas suas vocari et promoveri legitima ec- 
 clesiae vocatione, adhibita ad earn seria Dei invocatione, 
 atque adhibitis ecclesiae svffragiis, ac postea confirmari 
 in 'muneribus suis per impositionern manuum. eo ordine 
 et modo, qui nobis in Verbo Dei prescribitur. The only 
 other sentence in which the word seniores occurs, is that 
 from which Dr. Breckinridge has excerpted the phrase, t?er6i 
 mitiisiris et seniorihus ecclesiae. Porro ne saticta haec 
 Dei ordinatio, ant violetur aut aheat in contemptvm, de- 
 bent omnes de verbi ministris et seniorihus ecclesiae propter 
 opus cici ificumbimt, honorifice sentire : That this holy or- 
 dination of God tnay not benndervahied or contemned, all 
 Tnen ought to esteem highly the Tninisters of the word and 
 the elders of the church, on account of the work to which 
 they apply thetnselves. By what curious process this has 
 been transformed into an explicit declaration, that ordina- 
 tion appertains to the ministers of the word and the elders 
 or the church, we leave the reader to surmise. After this 
 exposition of the manner in which Dr. Breckinridge has 
 dealt with the historical documents which he has underta- 
 ken to expound, we need not fear to leave his assertion, 
 that he could easily sustain his position from certain other 
 Polish and Lithuanian confessions, to be rated at its just 
 weight. 
 
 The attempt to extract aught from history in favour of 
 the innovation urged upon us, is a signal failure. It re- 
 mains a fact, to which nothing contrary has been shown, 
 that through all time, in all countries, and by all Christian 
 churches, the ordination of ministers has ever been ratified 
 and attested by the imposition of the hands of ministers. 
 The Presbyterian churches of England and Scotland, from 
 whose formularies ours have been compiled, practised no 
 other mode of ordination. Our fathers, who drew up our 
 constitution, knew of no other; and the constitution itself, ac- 
 cording to the only consistent interpretation which can be 
 given to its language, admits of no other. 
 
 In maintaining what has always been believed to be the 
 doctrine of our standards, we have not felt it necessary to 
 interpolate any professions of our sense of the importance 
 of the office of ruling elder, or of high regard for the in- 
 telligence and worth of the present incumbents of this 
 
S7 
 
 office in our church. We feel that we shall best manifest 
 our true respect for the heads and hearts of the body of our 
 elders by believing them to be inaccessible to the arguments 
 and motives addressed to them, by some of those who claim 
 to be their peculiar friends. 
 
 We have but little to say in reply to Dr. Breckinridge's 
 argument in opposition to the decision of the last Assembly 
 respecting the constitutional quorum of a Presbytery.* 
 The constitution of the church declares, that " Any three 
 ministers, and as many elders as may be present belonging 
 to the Presbytery, being met at the time and place ap- 
 pointed, shall be a quorum competent to proceed to busi- 
 ness." The decision of the last Assembly was, " That any 
 three ministers of a Presbytery, being regularly convened, 
 are a quorum competent to the transaction of all business;" 
 and it is alleged that this decision is in direct conflict with 
 the constitutional provision. 
 
 It is argued, in the first place, that the language of the 
 book implies that at least one ruling elder must be present 
 to constitute a quorum; since as "many elders as may be 
 present" can never be construed to mean no elders. But 
 the advantage of the argument from the apparent meaning 
 of the terms in which the rule is expressed, is clearly in 
 favour of the construction given by the last Assembly. 
 « As many elders as may be present belonging to the Pres- 
 bytery," is a contingent expression, which leaves the num- 
 ber of elders unlimited in either direction, except by 
 their right to sit in that body. All belonging to it may be 
 present, which is the limit, in one direction ; and none may 
 be present, which is the limit, in the other direction ; and 
 in either case, if three ministers are present, there is 
 a quorum of the body. The quorum shall not be hindered 
 by the voluntary absence of all the elders in the one case ; 
 nor by their outnumbering the ministers in the other. This 
 is the apparent intent of the rule ; it is the natural, un- 
 forced meaning of its terms. In defining the quorum, it 
 makes it to consist of two parts, one constant and the other 
 variable ; and the variable element may evidently vary 
 from nothing to the entire number, who may lawfully be 
 present. This is to us, the obvious construction of the rule ; 
 
 * This question has been so largely discussed through the press, that it is the 
 less necessaiy to enter into at length. Dr. Maclean, in a number of essays in 
 the Presbyterian, has examined in detail, and refuted every position taken by 
 Dr. Breckinridge. 
 
28 
 
 and we are confirmed in it, because with this construction 
 we can see a reason why the language used was selected, 
 but none at all, if it was intended to express, that at least, 
 one elder must be present. The language, as it now stands, 
 leaves the number of elders to vary from zero upwards ; if 
 it had been intended to fix unity as the lower limit, it 
 would have been altogether easy and natural to have ex- 
 pressed this intent. The rule could have been stated so as 
 to express this with absolute precision, in as few or fewer 
 terms than it now contains. That the purpose of the rule 
 was as construed by the Assembly is further apparent from 
 the practice under it. Abundant evidence, such as cannot 
 be called into dispute, has been furnished from the records 
 of our Presbyteries, that meetings have been held and busi- 
 ness transacted, without the presence of any ruling elder. 
 But few such meetings can occur now in our old Presby- 
 teries. The facilities for attendance upon their meetings are 
 such that in all ordinary cases one or more ruling elders will 
 be present. The practical interests involved in the settle- 
 ment of this question, which are magnified by Dr. Breckin- 
 ridge into the wide difference " between an aristocratical 
 hierarchy and a free Christian commonwealth," are literally 
 nothing at all ; except that for our frontier settlements, and 
 for missionaries in foreign lands, the received construction 
 of the rule might often be convenient and sometimes neces- 
 sary, to enable them to obtain a meeting of the Presbytery. 
 If a change in the rule were sought, in the mode prescribed 
 by the constitution, except for the cases named, we do not 
 suppose that much, if any, practical inconvenience would 
 result from making it. But if the change is demanded on 
 such grounds as are urged in opposition to the Assembly's 
 decision, and if made, is to be considered as sanctioning the 
 principles contended for, then the question before us is 
 nothing less than a radical revolution in our whole system. 
 The free Christian commonwealth of Dr. Breckinridge 
 is nothing else than parochial presbyterianism — the go- 
 vernor or ruling elder of the church being the chief offi- 
 cer, the only one requiring ordination, who may also be 
 designated and employed as a teacher, if in addition to his 
 gifts for ruling, he be judged to possess also the gift of 
 teaching, — and the bench of ruling elders of each particular 
 church being fully empowered to license, ordain, and trans- 
 act all other business that a Presbytery may lawfully do. 
 Tliis is a distinct and intelligible system. It is that to which 
 
29 
 
 all the distinctive principles advocated by Dr. Breckinridge 
 plainly lead. But it is not our system; and the church, we 
 trust, will pause and deliberate long before she will be 
 ready to adopt it. 
 
 The necessary presence of ruling elders to constitute a 
 quorum is argued, in the second place, from the definition 
 of a Presbytery, which makes it to consist both of minis- 
 ters and ruling elders. Ruling elders are, therefore, held 
 an essential element, not only of a Presbytery, but of a le- 
 gal quorum of Presbytery. The only force of the reason- 
 ing under this head, resides in the confusion of these two 
 perfectly distinct things. If a meeting of Presbytery could 
 be held under the compulsory exclusion of ruling elders 
 commissioned to attend, if the received construction of the 
 rule involved this, there could be no doubt that it would be 
 in conflict with the principles of our constitution. And it 
 will be found that every plausible argument upon the other 
 side, and all the fanfaronade about hierarchy, and freedom, 
 and priestly usurpation, are founded upon the quiet assump- 
 tion that such is the effect of the interpretation given to this 
 rule. Ruling elders, if there be any within the district 
 covered by the Presbytery, constitute a portion of that body, 
 and no lawful meeting can be held, no business of what- 
 ever kind transacted, without an opportunity afforded, to 
 all who may lawfully partake in its deliberations and acts, 
 to be present and assist ; but if they choose voluntarily to 
 absent themselves, then, that the business of the church may 
 not suffer through their absence, it is provided that the 
 ministers who may be assembled may proceed to business 
 without them. It will be perceived at once that there is 
 here no restraint imposed, no subjection established, and, of 
 course, no power bestowed. Ruling elders, one from each 
 congregation, have a right to be present at every meeting 
 of the presbytery. That right is left untouched. And this 
 is a hierarchy ! These are slight materials out of which to 
 compose the horrid picture of the church, subjected to the 
 rule of " three ministers without charge, who, it may be, 
 have forsaken their covenanted calling." 
 
 If it could be shown that there was anything in our book, 
 in the nature of the case, or in reason, requiring that the 
 quorum of a body, which, when fully formed, was com- 
 posed of different classes, must of necessity embrace some 
 members of all those classes, the question would be decided 
 that our rule ought to have been made to mean what Dr. 
 
30 
 
 Breckinridge maintains that it does mean. But this has 
 not been shown. On the contrar^'^, oar book, in providing 
 for the action of a chuch session when no minister may be 
 present, and for a quornm of the General x^ssembly when 
 no ruling elders may be present, distinctly sanctions the 
 principle, that a quorum of a body composed of two classes 
 may be formed entirely of one of those classes. The ex- 
 pediency of the case furnishes no argument against our in- 
 terpretation, inasmuch as there never have been any diverse 
 interests betweeen the ministers and elders of our church, 
 nor is it easy to conceive how any such can legitimately 
 arise. They are not adverse parties, nor is there anything 
 in the practical working of our system which could ever 
 make them so. And if this were not so, if they were an- 
 tagonistic parties, the quorum rule would still be harmless, 
 as the elders would, in that case, take care to exercise the 
 privilege which they possess of being always present, and 
 thus prevent their priestly adversaries from taking advan- 
 tage over them. It has also been shown, that in the com- 
 mon judgment of men, as manifested in the constitution and 
 rules of other analogous bodies, it has never deemed 
 essential to the constitution of a quorum that it should em- 
 brace some of all the classes represented in the body ; as in 
 the English House of Lords, which can transact business 
 in the absence of all the spiritual Lords. 
 
 In the last place, it is argued that the authority of pre- 
 cedent is opposed to the authorized interpretation of the 
 quorum rule. Dr. Breckinridge quotes under this head the 
 authority of Steuart of Pardovan, who declares that nei- 
 ther the constitution of the church nor the law of the land, 
 " do authorize any other ecclesiastical judicatory but As- 
 semblies, Synods, Presbyteries, and Kirk Sessions, or their 
 committees, consisting of ministers and ruling elders." It 
 will be seen at once that this does not touch the question 
 in debate. This, and all the other authorities cited by Dr. 
 Breckinridge refer onlj'' to the proper constitution of church 
 courts, and we are all agreed that these must be composed 
 of ministers and ruling elders. They affirm nothing 
 respecting the formation of a quorum of these courts. This 
 is apparent from the language itself; and it is placed beyond 
 all doubt by the fact that Steuart himself quotes from the 
 Directory, " That to perform any classical act of govern- 
 ment or ordination, there nuist be present, at least, a major 
 part of the ministers of the whole classis." So that the 
 
31 
 
 quorum of a classis, or Presbytery of the Scottish church 
 did not require the presence of any ruHng elders. This fal- 
 lacy of confounding the composition of a body with the 
 quorum of that body, runs through the whole of Dr. Breck- 
 inridge's historical argument, and vitiates every one of his 
 conckisions. A proper regard to this distinction rescues 
 from him every instance which he has adduced, excepting 
 that of the condemnation, by the General Assembly of 
 I6188, of six preceding Assemblies. And every one ac- 
 quainted with the rudiments of the ecclesiastical history 
 of Scotland knows that the grounds of this condemnation 
 were utterly wide of the question which we are discussing. 
 It was not because there were no ruling elders present in 
 those Assemblies that they were set aside, but because there 
 were elders present and voting, who had no lawful com- 
 missions. This case is too irrelevant to waste words upon. 
 If anything can be established by testimony, it is clear that 
 the doctrine and practice of the Scottish church are in agree- 
 ment with the decision of our last Assembly. In addition 
 to other authorities which have been abundantly given to 
 this effect, we refer to the correspondence of Robert Wodrow, 
 the celebrated historian of the kirk, Vol. I. p. 181. lu a 
 letter, dated Nov. 29, 1710, we find the following passage. 
 " Thirdly, The rule of the church, though elders have a 
 share in it, is principally committed to pastors. The 
 keys of the kingdom are given to them. They are 
 such as rule over the people, and speak the word, Heb. xiii. 
 7, and watch for souls as they that must give account, ver. 
 17; none of which places to me have any relation to the 
 ruling elder; and therefore they can act in absence or 
 under the want of elders, though I cannot see how elders 
 can act without pastors." 
 
 We have thus in favour of the Assembly's decision, the 
 obvious meaning ofthe language of the rule ; the sanction 
 by our book, of the principle involved, by its provision 
 for the action of a church session, and of the General As- 
 sembly, in the entire absence of one of the classes that com- 
 pose these courts ;the practice of our own church in times past; 
 the concurrent practice of the Scottich church ; and the 
 analogies of other bodies constituted in like manner. We 
 have opposed to it, certain abstract notions about the rights of 
 ruling elders, which, if fairly carried out, are destructive of 
 our whole system ; and certain exaggerated fears about the 
 establishment of a hierarchy, by means of a harmless rule 
 
32 
 
 of convenience, which, restraining no right, confers no power. 
 We cannot doubt that the next Assembly will, if need be, 
 affirm the decisions of the last. There are some thmgs 
 which the church ought to be presumed to know, and among 
 these surely should be numbered her first principles of truth 
 and order. 
 
A DISCOURSE 
 
 OH 
 
 THE ORiaiisr 
 
 ANt> 
 
 INCREASE OFDEYILS, 
 
 ON ALL PAETS OF EAKTII, 
 
 BY ELDER J. P. NEVILL. 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 
 WILLIAM H. CLEMMITT, PRINTER, MAIN SIREEj. 
 
 1856. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 " And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottom- 
 less pit, and a great chain in his hand; and he laid hold on the dragon^ 
 that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand 
 years." — Rev. xx: 1,2. 
 
 My Christian Friends : 
 
 We have read this portion of the 
 divine testimony from the twentieth chapter of the hook of 
 Revelation, for the purpose of inviting your attention on 
 this lovely Lord's day morning, to the origin of the devil, 
 called the old serpent — the mystery of all past ages, and 
 the wonder of the nineteenth century. 
 
 No subject, perhaps in all past time, has been more 
 abused by religionists than the one now under investigation. 
 Who has asked for permission to slander and misrepresent 
 this aged and wonderful thing called the dragon? No 
 one. The most of men suppose they possess the right to 
 say what they please of the devil. Yes, even some religion- 
 ists suppose they have this right vouclisafed to them and 
 their children, by the God of all truth and grace. Did any 
 one of you ever know any one reproved by men for abusing 
 the poor old devil? No, you never did. But in this, none 
 regard age or anything besides. But all stand in readiness 
 to charge home on him their numerous sayings and doings. 
 But in my opinion, weak as it may be, a little fib is the 
 same, whether told on man, angel, or devil ; or even on the 
 smallest bird of this mundane of singers. It is the same 
 — a fib. Many persons, as we suppose, have been rained 
 
4 DISCOURSE. 
 
 for all time — have lied all of the way to the tomh, from 
 having been permitted to saddle the old horse, the devil, 
 with their first and youthful tricks and lies. Just permit 
 a child to tell a lie to-day, and charge it to the devil, and 
 peradventure on the next day, he will have one to tell on 
 one of Eve's family ! 
 
 "Mothers, do not, I beseech you this day, permit j'our 
 children to lie on the devil, lest they turn on you and rend 
 you," said an aged man not long since, in the region of 
 Pleasant Grove meeting-house. "■ Let us all deal honestly 
 with the devil, for," said he, "we do not know whose hands 
 we are to foil into, for/' said he, " the devil is b}^ no means 
 a iorgetful hearer." Think of this old man's words, for 
 they will do you no harm, if they do you no good. 
 
 What I am about to say in this discourse about the devil, 
 I do not wish you to understand as being the views of the 
 Church of Christ., so called, but tlie notions of the sj)eaker, 
 and who takes great pleasure in saviuijj to vou all, that vou 
 are at liberty to receive or reject all, or any jiart of what 
 I may say to-day of the niaii of sin, — that great big i)uzzle 
 fool of the age in which we live. We hope, however, that 
 the dragon of former times will not be offended witli us 
 for this unscriptural appellation of himself And now, 
 having been so liberal with you, ray respected congregation, 
 as regards the reception of these my remarks on the old 
 *'swine-choaker of the country of the Gadarenes," we most 
 confidently expect you to hear us patiently, as novel as the 
 subject may appear at first view. 
 
 My friends, but few of us, comparatively speaking, have 
 altogether recovered from the superstitious flashes of primi- 
 tive days and nights — when it was expected of all to keep 
 a sharp look out for ghosts, hobgoblins, witches, and devils. 
 The children of those early days and ghostly nights were, 
 by nature, superstitious. A poor gift, indeed, and yet it 
 has lived through all of the revolutions of the ])ast. Yes, 
 it lives to-duy. See it in yonder church. See it in the par- 
 lor of yonder wealthy nabob. Yes, even behold it in the 
 actions of the learned of the age. And do yon not read it 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 in the very countenance of hira who stands in the rostrnra ? 
 May I be permitted to relate to you this quite ridiculous 
 little harangue, which is said to have been played off on 
 the community by quite a number of religious people, show- 
 ing that they had not departed with the parents' iuheri- 
 ance — superstition : 
 
 "O shout! shout! shout! 
 The devil is about ! 
 
 Shut the door. 
 And keep him out!" 
 
 Now, in this case, we suppose that the devil was about 
 Yes, perhaps he was in the harangue, and shutting the 
 door was the means of keeping hira in the house, and not 
 out of it. But, if tlie devil was about, as stated in tlie 
 harangue, how did those good, shouting people know it? 
 Inasmuch as he is invisible, they must have felt him, and 
 he was doubtless in the hearts of those who gave the alarm, 
 and wished the door shut. It is impossible, as I suppose, to 
 see the devil separate and apai't from some person or ani- 
 mal. The devil works by means, and not without them. 
 He operates on man by man, or, through some human in- 
 strumentality or agency of some kind. The devil has al- 
 ways been fond of company ; he is intimately acquainted 
 with the human family ; he keeps the company of many 
 of both sexes, but doubtless prefers the company of the 
 ladies. Such was the case with him when young, as will 
 appear by reading the first part of the Old Testament scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 The races of men have, from time immemorial, met with ob- 
 stacles in all attempt to find the alpha of this wonderful and 
 highly mysterious thing, called the devil ! Is he a native 
 of heaven, earth, or hell ? From whence did he come, and 
 whither is he going ? We are frequently told in this en- 
 lightened age of Christendom, that the devil is a native of 
 the glorious kingdom of our God and his Christ. The Rev. 
 James Covel, author of the Bible Dictionary, says, that 
 "the devil was a fallen angel, and chief of those who were 
 
6 DISCOURSE. 
 
 expelled from heaven, for rebelling against God." Now, 
 this is either false or true ; and that it is false we have no 
 donht ; although it has been preached in a thousand places, 
 and is, at this time, the received opinion of the church on 
 the green earth. But we do not differ with so many, both 
 living and dead, without due regard for their opinions. 
 Man has no positive proof that the devil was a fallen angel, 
 since neither Moses nor the prophets, Christ nor the apos- 
 tles have so informed us. As such, we can say in the lan- 
 guage of the poet — 
 
 " No clouds these blissful regions know — 
 Forever bright and fair. 
 For sin, the source of every woe. 
 Can never enter there." 
 
 Now, is it not, I ask, unreasonable to suppose that God 
 permitted a wicked and fallen angel to be banished to our 
 world, and that, too, for the purpose of imposing himself 
 on women, the noblest work of creation ? — yes. Eve, the 
 mother of us all, was indeed the belle of all her children. 
 And can we suppose that God did permit the fallen angel 
 to fly from the high and shining battlements of heaven to 
 deprive an innocent woman of the likeness of her God, 
 which was more precious than the friendship of an angel, 
 or all the world besides? To deprive her of lovely Eden, 
 woman's first and best home — a home of a thousand lovely 
 flowers. To fill a heart so lovely, so innocent, with innu- 
 merable sorrows. To fill her brilliant eyes with an ocean of 
 tears of grief; and finally, to lead her in old age through 
 the valley and shadow of death down to some lonely and 
 awful hell, in some distant world, unseen and unknown to 
 her in life. 
 
 My friends, I tell you, most positivel}'', that this is a 
 strange pill, and I do not like its looks, for it has an oflen- 
 sive smell. I cannot down with it. It will choak me. If 
 you think you can dispose of it to j'our spiiitual welfare, 
 you may have it. If sin originated in tlie house of God, 
 and with the family of heaven in the beginning, it may 
 
DISCOURSE. 7 
 
 return in the ages to come, and thus our anticipated felicity- 
 would be, in all probability, greatly molested, if not alto- 
 gether annihilated. Sin, and the devil, and all kinds of 
 wickedness had their origin in this world, in the house of 
 man, and not in the edifice of Him who is invisible, immor- 
 tal, and eternal. This is a broad position. One that con- 
 flicts with the opinions of eminent men, living and dead. 
 Sin having originated on earth, its effects must be confined 
 to the earth. And, as sin originated through an act of the 
 human family on the one part, and as the devil is said to be 
 the author of sin and all wickedness, therefore, we have 
 supposed that Adam and Eve had a hand in making the 
 devil. And that their posterity have kept him in employ- 
 ment. The effects of sin being confined to this world, can- 
 not be transferred from earth to heaven. The crimes of 
 wicked men on the earth cannot in any way molest or dis- 
 turb the inmates of heaven. Nor can the acts committed 
 in heaven by angels molest the people of this mundane 
 world. There is in heaven no sympathy, nor hatred, nor 
 jealousy, nor fear, nor spirit of rivalry. All these had their 
 origin and are having their progress on the green earth, 
 and not in the starry world. The greatest collision of 
 the railroad cars, the most fearful earthquake, the most 
 bloody battle-fields, with all famines and pestilence do not 
 effect the inhabitants of the celestial world. Why not? you 
 ask. I answer, because they attend to their own business, 
 and not to that of others. Their muse is of a heavenly 
 nature, not of an earthly. 
 
 I saw a man, not many years ago, fishing from the ros- 
 trum, on Sunday, for a compliment ; and in his great ex- 
 citement in speaking of the last day, he just stabbed the 
 sun at noonday with his tongue, and caused it to be turned 
 into blood. Then he went to work on the moon, the lovely 
 queen of night, and soon blew her out. And not satisfied 
 with all this, he went to striking at the stars, and soon 
 beat them all down ; and by this time, was just about out 
 of breath. This is awful preaching; and is it not a wonder 
 that the inhabitants of those orbs do not have them insured f 
 
8 DISCOURSE, 
 
 The doctrine of banishment originated from an earthly 
 cause, and not from a lieavenly one, as some liave supposed. 
 And it is also true, tliat the practice of trying men, of exe- 
 cuting men, of excommunicating, and of banishing from 
 one to some other country, originated through the actions 
 of men on the earth. And it is also true, that the free and 
 independent s})irit of emigrating from one dominion to an- 
 other, originated with the people of this earth. Now, if 
 this is true, then their doctrine of the banishment of a fallen 
 angel from heaven to earth is false. 
 
 Adam and Eve were banished from Eden, man's first and 
 best home, to a land of thorns and thistles. Why were 
 they driven away? Because they did wrong. They par- 
 took of the wrong thing. Cain, the unfortunate son and 
 first born, was banished. What for? I answer, for doing 
 wrong; for murder. But in after ages, it was the lot of 
 St. John, the beloved disciple, to he banished, during the 
 reign of Domitian, to the island of Patmos. And why was 
 he banished? I answer, for doing right. Yes, for the tes- 
 timomy of God. Ages after this, the great Napoleon Bona- 
 parte was banished to St. Helena. 
 
 Thus we have seen the origin of banishment, with in- 
 stances of its perpetuation on the earth. Now, as regards 
 Cain's banishment to the land of Nod, we will su}ipose that 
 that land had no devil before his arrival there. Now, how 
 did the devil get to that country ? I answer, through 
 Cain's instrumentality. And it has been in this way, that 
 he has emigrated to all parts of the inhabited earth ; and 
 in no case, known to man, has he been the first occupant 
 of any state or territory. In this particular, he is no squat- 
 ter. This Asiatic devil that was in Cain's hearty is no 
 apostate angel with golden wings, descending from some 
 heavenly sphere to excite the community, and then fly up 
 and perch on the bright stai's of heaven, to smile at man's 
 foibles. The devil had a beginning of days, and, like man, 
 must have an end. That the devil is an immortal being, 
 without beginning of days or the end of time, we do not 
 nor cannot believe. That our first parents had a little to 
 
DISCOURSE. if 
 
 do in making this devil of the garden of Eden, is, to my 
 mind, as plain as tlie sun in the heavens at higli meridian. 
 The serpent was a devil, but the olFeuce of our first parents 
 was as had, if not a worse one. It is a fact, that the races 
 of men, from time immemorial, have added to the success 
 of the man of sin, on all parts of the earth. And as the 
 day of the election Is at hand_, we wish to say, that the suc- 
 cess of the devil is, to some extent, like that of the politi- 
 cians of the day, dependent on the choice of the people ; 
 who can make, and who can destroy. The devil works 
 by means, and but seldom, if ever, without them. The 
 devil, through the instrumentality of man, has more 
 means now to work with, than he had in the days of Adam 
 and Eve. It may, indeed, be said of him, that his re- 
 sources are amply sufficient for the age in which we live ! 
 Notwithstanding tliis, he has not always tlie same amount 
 of capital on hand, and as such, is, of course, better ])re- 
 pared for his work, when in possession of a good stock of 
 capital,, than when his stock is much diminished. The 
 devil is, as I have supposed, dependent on the pe()[)le, in 
 part, for the implements of his warfare. All persons are 
 not of the same worth that arc in his employment. This 
 is as true as that all persons are not of the same worth to 
 the state, and to the government in which they reside. 
 And thus it is that the devil does more through so menme 
 than through some otliers. But he has not the power to 
 influence the intellectual man contrary to his wishes. Not 
 only are the friends of the man of sin to die, but even the 
 devil himself is to suffer great loss, and perhaps annihila- 
 tion. 
 
 We read in the Scriptures, that the serpent was to go on 
 his belly, and eat dust all the days of his life. And from 
 this expression we may prove the death of the serpent, and 
 that the serpent that talked with Eve is dead I have no 
 doubt. But still, I will not say that his spirit is not liv- 
 ing in some other serpent or animal. We read in the 
 Scriptures that the devils fear and tremble. And why do 
 they ? I answer, because they fear an approaching annihi- 
 
10 DISCOURSE. 
 
 lation, "The position of the devil in the world is to be 
 changed in the future ages." Said John the divine, '^I saw 
 an angel come down from heaven ; and he caught the old 
 serpent and chained him, and cast him into the bottomless 
 pit, and shut him up for a thousand years." And other 
 Scriptures go to prove his destruction. 
 
 The devil is not, in his present state, an immortal and 
 never-dying being, from the fact that immortal beings do 
 not fear and tremble. And from this fact in the history of 
 the dragon's long and wicked life, we come to the conclu- 
 sion that he is in some way related to wicked and sinful 
 man. Yes, for the Scriptures inform us that some persons 
 are the children of the devil, and take pleasure in doing 
 the works of their father, the devil. We may fitly com- 
 pare the man of sin — that is the devil — to a pump-handle, 
 which goes up and comes down as best suits the choice of 
 the people. The trade of the devil in this world is some- 
 what like that of merchants, fluctuating. The works of the 
 devil have, at different periods of his long history, been 
 curtailed, as well as increased by the hands of men. Alco- 
 hol is the invention of man ; and its introduction into our 
 world has been a source of evil, and that continually. Yes, 
 it may correctly be styled the young devil of this age. It is a 
 dirty, sickly, vomiting, and contageous devil ; always fill- 
 ing the world with broils, and the prisons with criminals. 
 But after all this, King Alcohol devil is more universally 
 beloved by men, than was the devil of the garden of Eden. 
 It is not uncommon to see men courting and kissing this 
 young devil, who has juicy lips, but an offensive breath. 
 But few devils have done more harm than this young, but 
 strong alcoholic devil. This is one of the devils that men 
 see and feel, and should shun at all times. A still-house in 
 operation is in some respects like a certain pulpit orator's 
 hell, who said with a loud voice that " hell was swinging 
 hot ;" said he, "^'you had better believe it, I tell you so; and 
 O, think of the rich man's tongue in hell-fire ! Oh listen ! 
 He is now asking for one drop of water to fall on his 
 tongue 1" 
 
DISCOURSE. 11 
 
 When a small boy, I was perfectly disgusted with still- 
 houses, from a knowledge of a painful occurrence that took 
 place at one of them. It was this : A school-mate of mine 
 happened to be at his father's still-house one night, and be- 
 ing fatigued, went to sleep ; and the father, whilst engaged 
 in the business of the still, happened to step on the boy ; 
 and, supposing him to be the devil, or the spirit of some 
 poor dead drunkard, he struck him with the still-bucket, 
 •which spoiled the poor little sleeper's countenance in a mo- 
 ment of time. This took place more than twenty years 
 ago, yet it is fresh in my memory to-day. Yes, it has made 
 an impression on my mind that will go with me to the 
 shades of the tomb. 
 
 We often think of the great injury that this alcoholic 
 devil has done our friends, our relatives, and our beloved 
 country. He has turned many houses of plenty into pov- 
 erty and shame. He has destroyed the lover's happiness. 
 Yes, he has cut him off from the land of the living, and lo ! 
 he sleeps in the grave. ! see that young man in the rae- 
 redian of his day. He was a graduate ; he sprang from 
 ' a good family ; he had many friends, who loved him and 
 " -wished him well. But this alcoholic devil has blasted all 
 'of his fond hopes for years to come. He is sinking low in 
 "' the inebriate's grave; he is dead. Could I only preach this 
 alcoholic devil out of the church, and out of the world, I 
 ■ could then say, in my last and departing moments, that I 
 had " fought a good fight, that I had kept the faith, and 
 that the Lord would give me a crown of righteousnes that 
 fades not away." 
 
 Whatever has a tendency to remove superstition and evil 
 habits from the community, may justly be classed with 
 good works. Nor does it matter by whom it is performed. 
 It is a good deed, and the doer of it is entitled to his re- 
 ward. Morality is good in its place in society, and doubt- 
 less is a friend to the Christian religion ; although it has 
 been said, and that, too, from the sacred desk, that moralists 
 are doing more to injure the Christian religion, than the 
 ^ worst of sinners. Now, is it not a pity that men will talk 
 
12 DISCOURSE. 
 
 in this way ? But poor fellows ! they are to be pitied ; and 
 tlieir saying so, does not make it so. A man who, by na- 
 ture, is strictly moi-al and honest, will always be a better 
 man than the one who, by nature and jn-actice, is immoral 
 and dishonest. Brint? them both into the church, and you 
 will always see a difference in tlieir i-eligious deportment, 
 althougli botli may have been benefitted by the gospel. 
 And I am sometimes almost ready to say tliat some men are, 
 by nature, so dishonest and wicked, that they cannot be 
 made perfectly honest by the gospel, no matter by whom it 
 is preached. This is, to some extent, owing to the choice 
 that men and women make in selecting companions for life. 
 
 Now, suj)pose that two consumptive persons form a union 
 for life. The presumption is, that their children would be 
 diseased. And suppose, again, tliat two dislionest persons 
 with a thousand faults, form a union for life. The pre- 
 sumption is, that their children would inherit their faults ; 
 and would, in all probability, be perfect devils, going about 
 seeking whom to devour. The fathers of past ages were ap- 
 prised of this fact, and thus chose proper persons for their 
 children. And our heavenly Father chose the tribe, from 
 which the Lord Messiah was to descend. But a hint to the 
 wise is, or should be sufficient. But before dismissing this 
 part of the subject, we would recommend the advice of a 
 wise man of former times, who said, "Train up a child in 
 the way he should go, and when he is old he will not de- 
 part from it." 
 
 It is a fact, that some of the inventions and discove- 
 ries of the j)ast and present age, have operated to the 
 discomfiture of the man of sin. The press with her nu- 
 merous types have, to a good degree, been tlie means of 
 advancing the cause of the Christian religion on the earth. 
 And, although this, as well as some other things, have 
 been, on some occasions, abused, yet it is a great blessing 
 to state and church, and doubtless has done more for God 
 and his Christ, than it has for the devil and his imps. In- 
 ternal improvements have, doubtless, in some instances been 
 brought to bear on the success of the wicked one. Perhaps 
 
DISCOURSE. 13 
 
 the telegraph has been the means of arresting some of the 
 workers of darkness. Already has the devil made war 
 against the wires, having_, in some instances, cut them 
 down, and thus causing the intelligence to fall powerless at 
 his feet. Tlie origin of tliis wire-working must have greatly 
 confused the devil on its first introduction along our great 
 thoroughfares. Many of our cities have been greatly bene- 
 fitted by the discovery and use of gas-lights on their streets, 
 thus shining devils away from their lurking places. War, 
 famine, and pestilence, have, in some instances, operated 
 against the old dragon. The gospel — the laws of nations, 
 and benevolent societies — have all, in various instances op- 
 erated against the works of the man of sin. Yes, the devil 
 would sell whiskey on the Lord's day, at our church doors, 
 save for the law of the land. 
 
 The death of some men in political power, have operated 
 against the works of the devil. Yes, in the death of Herod 
 we see an example of the correctness of this position. 
 About the time of this wicked man's death, the voice of the 
 messenger of the most high Grod was heard in the land of 
 Egypt, saying, "Arise and take the young child and hia 
 mother, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead 
 which sought the young child's life." After which the 
 people talked of his death and wicked reign, and of the 
 sorrow that he had caused, saying, " In Eama was there a 
 voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourn- 
 ing, Kachel weeping for her children, and would not be 
 comforted, because they are not." It was also through this 
 man's instrumentality, that John the Baptist was beheaded. 
 Just such two-legged devils are to be dreaded, as will appear 
 from an examination of their history for ages past. Many 
 devils have been made on this continent since it was dis- 
 covered b}' Columbus ; and but few men live to be old, 
 without learning to make devils. 
 
 Our world has her political as well as her religious de- 
 vils; some of which are longlivcd. It has not been long 
 since a political stick devil was born in the capital of 
 the United States of America, which was admired and 
 
14 DISCOURSE. 
 
 worsliiped hy many. Some have attended at called 
 meetings, to bestow gifts of gold, witli superscriptions;, oa 
 this political infant stick devil. In the northern portion 
 of the United States are mad devils, with great big, black, 
 woolly heads. Some years ago the church made a devil, 
 and the clergy, with some little help, just stretched the 
 llacJc snake all the way across the United States, as 1 have 
 been informed; not that I know this to be so of my own 
 knowledge. It is confidently believed that some hot-headed 
 politicians are in favor of making a disunionist devil, of the 
 same length of the church devil, that the preachers helped 
 to make and stretch from shore to shore. But let me en- 
 treat of you this day, my congregation, to have nothing to 
 do, either in the making or stretching of this black adder. 
 For, of all anticipated political devils, this is most to be 
 feared by the American people. • 
 
 If our Union wishes to be inundated with blood, she 
 only has to stretch this long devil ; and then it will be, as 
 was said by a preacher in a discourse not many years ago, 
 when speaking of the political state of things in our coun- 
 try. Said he, ^' some persons wish to unite church and 
 state, but," said he, " if they do this, I say it will be good 
 by bright eyes. Your days are numbered. The Scriptures 
 are perfectly plain on this subject. They speak as plainly 
 to this nation as they did to past and fallen ones." Said 
 Christ, that great Teacher of the Christian system, '' A 
 house divided against itself cannot stand ; and a nation di- 
 vided against itself cannot stand." So, we see what will be 
 the result of a dissolution of this our much beloved Union. 
 
 It is anticipated that the people of Kansas will soon 
 make a political devil in that part of the country. And we 
 have good reasons to suppose that some members of the 
 church are skilled in the work of making church devils. 
 Others are skilled in the art of making family devils. 
 Some others follow the pitiful occupation of making neigh- 
 borhood devils, and in addition to this list, we have some 
 mob devils. Yes, it has not been long since the city of 
 Louisville, Ky., was visited with an awful mob devil, which 
 
DISCOURSE. 15 
 
 overran portions of the beloved city. These mob devihs are 
 of long standing. We may follow them back to the time of 
 the apostles. Yes, Stephen^ one of the deacons of the 
 church in Jerusalem, was stoned by a mob of devils^ who 
 cried with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran 
 wpon him with one accord, and killed him. Yes, and the 
 church, too, like the world, has had her mob devils. 
 
 Only think of a church having men, women, and children 
 arrested on account of religious notions. Go and read the 
 books of martyrology. See men and women in the midst 
 of flames of fire, and then see men professing to know the 
 Ood of love and goodness, smiling over suffering and dy- 
 ing humanity. Yes, preachers professing to be in the ser- 
 vice of the God of the Bible, engaged in this awful work. 
 May I be permitted to say, that all such are the ivorst of 
 •devils. ! my congregation, they are to be feared. ! 
 Lord God! save the people from all such hellish pulpit 
 imps ! 
 
 I once heard a minister call on God, in his prayer, to 
 come down from his holy throne, and take the devil, and 
 lead him out of the meeting-house, and chain him hard and 
 fast. Now, had the Lord come down in answer to this min- 
 ister's request, it is probable, at least, that the devil 
 would have been found in the pulpit, and led out and 
 chained, — and thus the people would have been disap- 
 pointed, and left without preaching. That the pulpits of 
 the land have, in some instances, been occupied by minis- 
 terial devils, is quite manifest, from the number already 
 caught, and published in the common newspapers of the 
 day. But by this, we only wish to state, that God has his 
 good preachers, and the devil has his bad ones. 
 
 I was informed once by a young gentleman, that he saw 
 one of the old devil's preachers take one of the largest 
 drinks of whiskey that he ever saw a man take in his life. 
 Said he, " I saw him cover the glass with one of his hands, 
 and with the other he poured out so much from a black 
 bottle into the glass, that when he drank it, it caused him 
 to drip from his eyes." 
 
16 DISCOURSE. 
 
 It is the opinion of some persons with whom I have con- 
 versed, that the devil takes possession of the spirits of the 
 wicked at the time they die, and goes off with them to the 
 unseen world, where he confines them, and, if necessary, 
 punishes them, tooth for tooth, for offences done in, as well 
 as out of the hody. But this will admit of douht, since it is 
 said that we are to he judged for the deeds done in the 
 body, and not out of it ; and that tlie judgment is to he in 
 this world ; and that the spirit must re-enter into the hody, 
 in order to he judged. This, however is not to interfere 
 with the doctrine, that the spirit can, and does suffer in the 
 disembodied state. The devil being a native of the earth, 
 and having remained on it from time immemorial, engaged 
 in his work, — as such, we have concluded that he has not 
 the power to molest any one out of this world. Now^ if 
 the spirit goes out of the world at death, then the devil 
 cannot molest it, as his power is confined to this world. It 
 is the deeds of a man that go with him to that distant 
 world, not the old serpent. Men have the power to resist 
 the devil, and it is their duty to do so. Kesist the devil and 
 he will flee from you. You shall not be tempted above that 
 you are able to bear ; and in all of your temptations he 
 will make a way for your escape. This is sufficient, and 
 from which we learn, that man possesses the power over 
 the devil; so that he cannot touch him_, but flees from him. 
 Such, are the friends of God, doing his will in tliis world. 
 ! for a world of just such intelligence. We should learn 
 to be more liberal toward each other on all religious mat- 
 ters, especially such as pertain to the other world. Let us 
 not fall out with each other on the way to a better world. 
 Let us think for ourselves, and let all others do likewise. 
 Let us LIVE, and let others do likewise. But what is the 
 cause of so much jealousy and hatred in the churches in 
 this enlightened age of our Christendom. Manv are the 
 causes leading to this unpleasant state of things. The 
 devils have something to do in bringing about this state of 
 things both in church and state. The love of money is one 
 cause, for we are informed that the love of money is the 
 
DISCOURSE. 17 
 
 root of all evil. A desire to get number.s, — that is, to have 
 the largest church in Christeiiclom, is another cause. Jeal- 
 ousy may be called another cause leading to this unpleas- 
 ant state of things ; and a desire to he called great, is 
 another. 
 
 It has been more than twenty years ago since I heard 
 this little anecdote, and which I will, with your permission, 
 relate : A young preacher attended a meeting in company 
 with an aged and learned minister, who addressed the con- 
 gregation first, and the young preacher followed with the 
 voice of thunder. As soon as the meeting was dismissed 
 the young preacher said to some of the members of the 
 church, " do you not think that I beat the old man preach- 
 ing to-day?" " Yes," said they in reply, "you beat him 
 out of all hollow. You brought the heavens near the earth. 
 You roared like a strong lion. You have made old scratch 
 quake this time I" Now, this, in part at least, was un- 
 christian ; and was well calculated to spoil the young cler- 
 gyman, and also to wound the old one ; for old ministers 
 have feelings as well as young ones. But in all probability 
 this young man's father or mother Avas possessed with the 
 spirit of excelling others in all things. Yes_, perhaps the 
 father was a braggadocio, and the son inherited it from him. 
 If so, it was a defect in his nature, and in all j)robability 
 the gospel had made but little change, as regards this de- 
 fect of his nature. Yet, he may have been benefitted in 
 other respects, by the power of the gospel. 
 
 About ten years ago, two young preachers had an ap- 
 pointment to preach ; and just about the time for preach- 
 ing, an eloquent clergyman of another order, walked in and 
 took a seat in front of the rostrum ; and just at that time, 
 one of the preachers recognized him ; and turning to his 
 young brother preacher, who was in the act of rising to ad- 
 dress the congregation, informed him that an eloquent 
 minister had just come in. And said he, " do your best." 
 The other, however, replied to him, saying, " brother, do 
 not be alarmed, for I will soon saw off his horns." Now, 
 this was wrong in the young saiuyer, and perhaps he would 
 
18 DISCOURSE. 
 
 have been better employed at some saw-mill ! Bat perhaps 
 he had been reading the eleventh cha[)ter of Heb. — ^' They 
 were sawn asunder." Or, peradveiitiue, his father's cattle 
 had been troubled with the holloio-honi, and he learned ta 
 saw oif horns first in a cow-pen ! Now, may we not suppose 
 that the devil was acquainted with this young preacher? 
 Yes, he knew him like a book. 
 
 The rush to tlie rostrum is great, indeed. And think 
 you, that some in the crowd have come after tlie loaves and 
 fishes, — have come to fleece the flock, — to lord it over the 
 people of God ? ! how easy it is to see maniii))i ascending 
 to the sacred stand, and even to the cross, on which the 
 Lord Messiah died, — to see the formality of the age in 
 the seats of the sanctuary of the living God, — to see men, 
 unlike the prophets and apostles, standing in that holy 
 place ! ! how few of ns can say, as did the apostle Paul, 
 when speaking of himself Said he, "These hands have 
 ministered to my necessities." But St. Paul lived before 
 the introduction of fixed and extravagant salaries into the 
 churches. In this age of religious extravagance, you can 
 scarcely go into a meeting-house without having a hat, 
 plate, or bag poked at you. A man unacquainted with 
 such, would naturally suppose that he was in the bank, and 
 not in the church. 
 
 The world has a great deal of influence in the churches 
 of the nineteenth century. Yes, even France has a yearly 
 fiishionable influence in all of the churches in America. 
 The customs of apostles and primitive saints have been lost 
 sight of But few spend much time now, in looking after 
 the lost sheep. Think of the churches long since gone 
 down, and of that saying so common with ministers of the 
 gospel, who say that nothing can now be done at Broken 
 ]3ank church, nor at Little Stingy cha])el; for, say they, "we 
 had as well sing psalms to a dead mule, as to preach to 
 such people." Poor fcHows ! they never give, and as such, 
 never receive." Oh yes, you are about to let the cat out of 
 the bag at last ! You get no money at Broken Bank, and 
 Little Stingy Chai)el. Is it money that inakcs (he mare go? 
 
DISCOURSE. 19 
 
 — and is it monej^ that makes tlie gospel go, too? — ! Yes, 
 that which was without money and witliout price, is now of 
 great price, — say, from hundreds to thousands of dollars. 
 It is now, as was said by an eminent man of our own he- 
 loved country, " get what you can, and what you get hold, 
 for this is the stone that will turn all your lead into gold." 
 But we do not design hy this to say, that peeachers should 
 not he compensated. But we do say^ that the Scriptures do 
 not make a difference as to what each shall receive. One 
 of the Lord's preachers is entitled to just as much as an- 
 other. So, if the learned and eloquent speaker is to have 
 one thousand dollars, all others are to have the same 
 amount. The Lord has no half preachers. All of his 
 preachers are of the same worth. Those that come in- 
 to the vineyard at the last hour, received as much as those 
 that went in at the first hour. The custom of fixing sal- 
 aries for preachers, plainly shows to the man of biblical 
 information, that the spirit of the world has crept into the 
 church. Some churches have been so industrious in the 
 accumulation of church mammon, that it is to be feared 
 that their bank, with other inducements, are actually at- 
 tracting the attention of poor^ lazy young men. But we 
 see it now, as it was seen in the days of the unjust steward, 
 who wasted his lord's money, and said, "■ I cannot dig."" 
 Oh yes, some of just such unfortunate, lazy devils have 
 walked on this green earth for the last eighteen hundred 
 years, crying, "0! I cannot dig!" But whilst some are 
 like the poor, unjust steward in that of digging, they are 
 altogether unlike him in that of begging. 
 
 That the church has, in some instances, acted impru- 
 dently in the way of getting money, all will doubtless admit. 
 Perhaps the wicked are giving as much, if not more, than 
 the church is giving for the support of the gospel. The 
 gospel should stand or fall on its own merits. Now^ if the 
 church is dependent on the dimes of sinners, then sinners 
 have an influence in the church. Do you not all see it? 
 Is it not so ? The polite, fashionable gambler has an in- 
 fluence in the church, not only by his dimes, but by his 
 
20 DISCOURSE. 
 
 moustaches. Yoii may ask, in what way? I answer, by in- 
 fluencing the minister to leave liis ; and, in this way, he 
 grows on clerical lips, chins, and throats. I do not speak 
 of this to deprive any one of liis comforts, hut only to show 
 how the author of fiishion gets into the church. The fid- 
 dler, as well as the gambler^ may be said to have an influ- 
 ence in the churcli, although he did not seek for it. How, 
 you may ask, can this be? Listen, and I will tell you how 
 it is. The fiddler played a tune at the frolic, and the peo- 
 ple danced it. It was not a spiritual tune. But on church 
 day, one of the members of the church fixed it to a song, 
 and the church sung it ! Yes, praised Grod with it ! Now, 
 as the fiddler was the author of it, and it went from his 
 fiddle into the church, he must have had an influence in 
 the church as long as the song lasted. 
 
 Some years ago, at one of my appointments, a tune was 
 set to a song by a member of the church, and the singing 
 was quite animating. But after meeting, an aged lady, a 
 member of the church, said that she danced that tune when 
 a girl, in a ball-room. " And," said slie, " it was a sin to 
 sing it in church. I am sorry that I went to the meeting- 
 house." But^ not only the singing in church is at times 
 objectionable, but even the preaching. I remember, when a 
 small school-boy, to have heard a minister preach on the 
 end of the loorld. And, although I was young at the time 
 I heard him, I still recollect some of the sermon. He had 
 a tremendous voice, and was well calculated to alarm boys. 
 Said he, ^' This world will all be destroyed, and it may be, 
 for what I know, before tlie setting of tlie sun." Said he, 
 "Suppose Gabriel should snatch one of the golden caudle- 
 sticks from the altar, and fly with tlie speed of electricity, 
 and touch it to the nortli star!" Said he^ "all would be 
 over in a moment ; and the sun, moon, and stars all con- 
 sumed, and the earth with them !" 
 
 Now, my congregation, is not such preaching calculated 
 to do more harm than good? Many do not understand this 
 subject. ! I cannot think that a fire will break out in 
 that beautiful and starry world, and consume all the bright 
 
DISCOURSE. 21 
 
 and lovely abodes of the inmates of the sky. No I — the 
 everlasting gates that David saw, will stand forever. 
 
 Some years ago, in the west, a great many people were 
 alarmed at what was imperfectly called the falling of the 
 stars. I saw it ; but at that time did not understand it, — 
 being young and inexperienced. But I now look back un- 
 derstandingly to that frightful morn, and think of the many 
 that have fallen into the grave since that night. But when 
 I raise my eyes to heaven, I see that all is as it was in the 
 beginning; and so will it ever be. Men can set this world 
 on fire, but cannot fire the celestial. I know that the Scrip- 
 tures speak of the heavens being on fire, and the passing 
 away of the earth, but I only have time to say, that these 
 things are not correctly understood. No, not even by the 
 wisest of ministers of the gospel. 
 
 Men and devils pass away ; they fade as the visions of 
 night ; but the heavens remaineth forever. Judas Iscariot 
 was a devil, about eighteen hundred years ago. But where 
 is he to-day, — and where is the sun that illuminated his 
 horizen ? Yonder he is, just as bright as he was then ; and 
 so will he ever be. The sons of men die, — they grow dim ; 
 but the sun of the firmament abideth forever, and look- 
 eth down alike on all the races of men. 
 
 We have no doubt that many have sinned in fixing the 
 day of the world's annihilation. But time, that great re- 
 vealer of things^ both small and great, has branded many 
 with the mark of the false prophet. Let us all think a lit- 
 tle better of our world, and live so as to better the condi- 
 tion of the human family. If the devil is in this world, it 
 is no good reason why we should desire to quit the world. 
 Since your parents were in the world a little while before 
 the devil was, and have an older and better title to it than 
 he has, let us agree that we will say less about the destruc- 
 tion of the world, and more about the improvement of it. 
 Let us not be in such haste about going from this world. 
 No doubt but many are doing quite well, but do not know 
 it ; and are always talking about going to heaven. Per- 
 haps they would do as well to remain a little longer with 
 
22 DISCOURSE. 
 
 US, and try and find out a little more about that country, 
 and get a little better prepared to go to it. Heaven is said 
 to be at a great distance from the earth ; but still, we are 
 informed by some of our friends, that Ave can go it in a mo- 
 ment of time. But as it requires time to perform a journey 
 to the capital of the United States of America, or even to 
 go one mile to see those we love best, we have thought it 
 best to allow a little time, at least, to perform this great 
 journey from earth to heaven. It is frequentl}'- said at the 
 time of a good man's death, that he is in heaven. Now, 
 would it not be the better way, to say that he is on his way 
 to heaven ? Why should we wish to go charging into the 
 spirit laud? Is it because there is nothing pleasing and 
 attractive on the way? This notion of darting into the 
 heavenly world in a moment of time, reminds me of the lady 
 on the railroad cars, who said that she " did not approve 
 of this way of flying through the state, without giving a 
 person time to see, eat, or sleep ; for," said she, " I am 
 only traveling to see the country !" 
 
 It is a fact, that no one in, or out of the church, has ever 
 seen the devil separate and apart from some visible person 
 or animal. Of all the known devils on the earth, those 
 that go on legs are the most to be feared. And a large por- 
 tion of the crimes charged to the devil, should have been 
 charged to men. That the devil has been in good, as well 
 as in bad company, no one w\\\ doubt. He has been with the 
 noble sons of earth. He was with Job, the Arabian chief 
 of Uz. He was also ^\'\t\\ the apostle Peter. And the 
 Scriptures say that he was Avith the Messiah, on an exceed- 
 ing high mountain, and showed unto him all the kingdoms 
 of the Avorld, in a moment. ! wonderful exhibition this! 
 Who has done more in a moment of time? But tlie Lord 
 knew hoAv to treat even a devil ? And is it not a pity that 
 we are so deficient in this respect? It is one thing to be 
 with the devil, but another, and a difierent thing to be 
 influenced by him. Tlie Son of God Avas not seriously in- 
 jured by being witli the devil ; although he sat liim doAvn 
 on the top of the pinnacle of the temple. I once heard a 
 
DISCOURSE. 23 
 
 minister say, that the devil sat the Messiah on the top of 
 that high pinnacle, with the expectation that he would fall 
 and kill himself. Now, perhaps, I shall not make a greater 
 mistake than this, by saying, that it is not altogether un- 
 likely that the devil that took our Lord on the mountain^ 
 and on the pinnacle, was the spirit of some of the earthly 
 potentates, who had been in authority, and who had jaos- 
 sessed or governed those kingdoms that were shown on the 
 mountain's top. The Lord was tempted in all points, as we 
 are, yet without sin. 
 
 ]S[ow_, if demons did tempt men in that age of the world, 
 then, the position in this case may be true ; since it would 
 be as easy for the Messiah to dispossess a demon from him- 
 self as from the nobleman's son. That demons are called 
 devils in king James' translation of the Bible, no one, it is 
 presumed, will deny. Nor is it unreasonable to suppose, 
 that the spirits of dead persons would seek to molest the 
 Son of Man, since it was so frequent with the spirits of 
 the living. And^ if a spirit would do so in the body of tho 
 living person, it is reasonable to suppose, that it would 
 do so in the disembodied state. 
 
 In the early ages of the world, it is supposed that the 
 spirits of the dead remained for ages in this world. Such 
 was the case in the days of Christ and the apostles ; and 
 thus the Son of God gave the apostles power over devils 
 and unclean spirits, so as to enable them to cast them out 
 of the people. 
 
 I thought, when a small boy^ I saw the devil, and never 
 was I worse alarmed. I screamed as loud as I could, and 
 every nerve in my body was excited. But I was mistaken 
 in the thing that I saw ; it Avas the shadow of an old drunk- 
 ard on the door of the house. And ever since that time, 
 whenever I see anything, or hear of anything that looks 
 like the devil, I am almost certain to look around for some 
 person ; and have generally been successful in striking hu- 
 man tracks. 
 
 We frequently hear people say, that the devil is in the 
 
24 DISCOURSE. 
 
 church. But how, suppose you, that he got into it? "0!" 
 says one, "he is omnipresent ; and just steps in and out as 
 best suits him." But, my good friend, permit me to inform 
 you^ that you are mistaken ; for the devil can only enter 
 into the church tlirough some person. And whenever the 
 devil is supposed to he in the churchy you may examine the 
 members, for he is in some of them ; and should you not 
 find him among the members, then go into the rostrum ; 
 and should you not find him there, then you only have to 
 examine yourself, and you will have him, no mistake. 
 
 My friends, let us examine ourselves, for many have devils 
 and are not apprised of it. A small fault in a man may 
 be indulged in, until it will grow to be a fearful and dan- 
 gerous devil. Think of the thoughts of Simon's heart; and 
 remember that even an evil thought will soon grow to be as 
 large as the devil. Said Paul, "I verily thought that I 
 ought to do many things contrary to Jesus of Nazareth." 
 Eemember that Ananias and his wife thought they could 
 keep back a part of the price of the land. But this thought 
 caused them to die. Yes, the thoughts of the devil con- 
 sealed in the hearts of men and women, have terminated in 
 shame and everlasting infamy. ! think of the many 
 who have been ruined for all time, and excluded from all 
 refined society, by giving way to evil thoughts. Let us all 
 remember that the devil is in our wicked thoughts, as 
 well as in our wicked deeds. Let us be careful how we talk 
 after all sly devils, Avho only im])art unto us information on 
 the ground that we will not tell it to any one living. 
 
 I once heard a man say to another, that he knew some- 
 thing that he did not know. And^ said he, " I will tell it 
 to you, if you will give me your word and honor that you 
 will never tell it to any living soul." ''No," said the man 
 to him, " I will not hear it; for if it is not worth telling, 
 it is not worth having!" We would recommend to all 
 such news-pedlars, the advice of a wise king, who has said, 
 that "a still tongue makes a wise head." A tongne devil 
 is a dangerous and fearful devil. It is a little member, but 
 
DISCOURSE. 25 
 
 a big devil. The apostle of former times, speaking on this 
 little tongue devil, says, that '''men have tamed wild beasts, 
 but no man hath tamed the unruly member." 
 
 The devil cannot injure us, save through some agent; 
 therefore, he is powerless when no one will act for him, or 
 permit him to act through them. Christ was not betrayed 
 until Judas agreed to sell hira, nor until he had carried out 
 his agreement. Stephen could not be stoned by the devil, 
 but was by his agents. Christ was not crucified by the de- 
 devil ; but his agents, with wicked hands, put him to 
 death. So said St. Peter, in the city of Jerusalem. And 
 so say we in the Old North State. The old devil, of him- 
 self has injured no man living — in, or out of the church, 
 for the last thousand years. That is to say, he does not 
 work without means. The naked spirit of the devil, does 
 not operate on the naked spirit of man, save through words, 
 or signs, or some kind of instrumentalities. The devil en- 
 ters into our earthly house through, or b}'' some fixed prin- 
 ciples, and goes out by other means. The apostles did not, 
 as I have supposed, cast out the devil from the hearts of 
 men by the same means that gave him admittance. He en- 
 ters by permission, but goes out by resistance. 
 
 It is the duty of all men to resist the devil ; but as he is 
 quite popular in some sections, and has many winning 
 ways, it will require much firmness and self-denial. We 
 would earnestly recommend you to read the advice of the 
 man of God, as it is presented in the sixth chapter of the 
 Ephesians ; for it cannot fail to benefit you in your passage 
 through this world. 
 
 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the 
 
 power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, 
 
 that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; 
 
 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood only, but against 
 
 principalities, against powers, against the rulers' of the 
 
 darkness of this world ; against spiritual wickedness in 
 
 high places. A devil in political or religious power, is an 
 
 awful thing ; it is, indeed, an exciting and fearful thing_, 
 
 as will appear from the history of past ages. But our lots 
 4 
 
26 DISCOURSE. 
 
 have been cast in a land of j^olitical and religions liberty; 
 for which all sliould feel grateful to Hitn that liveth and 
 abideth forever. And, above all, to strive to do bis will 
 dnring this short and fleeting life; which is, at best, like 
 the flower of the field, tliat withers and decays. Let us, 
 as Christians, live in peace with all men; and pursue that 
 in life, that will give ease in the hour of death. And thus, 
 we shall go hence with a consciousness of having benefitted 
 the world. 
 
 Many great and good men and women have lived and died 
 in all parts of our country, leaving us an example for our 
 future sojourn among the children of men. 0! let us fondly 
 think of tlie many loved ones, who have worshiped with us 
 here in this sanctuary, in the beauty of holiness, and in 
 the bonds of brothei'ly affection. And_, should we differ as 
 regards the "fallen angel/' on the remarks of this dis- 
 course, yet, such need not i^revent us from living and see- 
 ing Him who is invisible, eternal, and immortal. 
 
 And now, in the conclusion of this, my discourse on the 
 origin of the " man of sin," I tender my thanks to you all 
 for your unwearied attention, and for the many favors be- 
 stowed on me during ray sojourn in your midst, for the last 
 seven years. My attachment for you all is lasting ; and it 
 will aftord me the greatest pleasure to remember you, and 
 to speak of your hospitalities and Christian virtues at all 
 times. I shall ever look back with pleasure to those shady 
 and heavenly jjlaces, where so many saints, living and 
 dead, have worshiped together in the beauty of holiness, 
 having their spiritual strength renewed, and their pros- 
 pects brightened for a blessed immortality in the ages to 
 come. May you, my congregation, live for happiness, and 
 for the good of your much beloved country ; and, liaving 
 so done, may you, at a proper time, go hence with pleas- 
 ure, and not with regret. Amen. 
 
IS- 
 
 At a special meetinjj of the Vestry of Christ's Church.Raleigh, held 
 on the 18th day of June I840,a letter of resignation from the Rev. Dr. 
 Freeman.the Rector of the church, was read in the following words- 
 Dear Brethren, 
 
 Believing that the tin:ie has fully come when I can no 
 longer^ hope to be substantially useful to the people of my charge, I 
 feel it t'o be my duty to tender to you, as I hereby do, my resignation 
 as Rector of Christ's Church : and I beg that you will accept the same, 
 as it is offered in the spirit of good will and brotherly love. 
 
 With many thanks for past'_^kindnesses, and with heartfelt wishes 
 and earnest prayers for the future prosperity both temporal and spiri- 
 tual of yourselves and the congregation which you represent, 
 I am Brethren, 
 
 Respectfully and affectionately 
 ' Your friend and servant, 
 
 Geo. W. Frebman, 
 To 
 
 The Wardens and Vestry 
 of Christ's Church Raleigh, 
 
 June 18th, 1840. 
 And accompanying the said letter of resignation (to be read in case 
 the Vestry should ask for the reasons which had induced the resigna- 
 tion) was a paper in the following words — 
 
 Should it be inquired by the Wardens and Vestry of Christ's Church, 
 on what grounds the Rector has come to the conclusion that he can 
 no longer hope to be generally useful to the congregation comprising 
 his present charge, he would in all kindness, but frankly, submit the 
 following reply : 
 
 That it is essential to the usefulness of one sustaining the relation of 
 Pastor to a christian flock, that the members of his communion as a 
 body, and himself should "be of one mind" in regard, at least, to the 
 more important matters of faith and practice, the Rector supposes will 
 not be denied. The pastor and his flock, maintaining and acting un- 
 der different, especially o^jjosiile views of christian doctrine and chris- 
 tian duty. It is easy to see that the respect entertained for him, and con' 
 sequently his influence for good, must be greatly circumscribed. In- 
 
awc^wi>..., .-^.--., .^...i.ijj upon those points on wuicu mey uiuoi wuL 
 be thrown away — nay will probably be trampled under foot; and he 
 who offers them may soon become an object of dislike, if not of scorn 
 and insult. Nor will there be hope of better success in his ministra- 
 tions to that interesting class which the christian minister habitually 
 regards as "the hope of thefiock" — the young and rising generation. 
 The prevailing sentiments and practice of their seniors in the churchy 
 will, with them, almost always outweigh the precept of their minister, 
 and be can never open his lips in instruction to them upon any of 
 those contested points, however important he may view them, with the 
 least hope of effect. His ofEce.as an authoritative instructor injighte- 
 ousness.has virtually come to an end. 
 
 And it is much in this situation that the Rector of Christ's Church 
 finds himself placed now at the close of the eleventh year of his minis- 
 try in that Church. He and a large portion of the communicants of 
 his charge, including a large majority of the Wardens and Vestry,ar« 
 directly at issue upon a subject which he sincerely believes to be inti- 
 mately connected wiLh the interests of vital religion among them — 
 that of christians indulging in worldly amusements. 
 
 When he first took charge of the congregation, and for several, per- 
 haps FIVE years afterwards, such a thing as a communicant's attending 
 a theatre, a publick ball, or even a private dancing party, was scarcely 
 known among them, nor was there a voice heard in approbation of 
 such a practice. Indeed it is believed that the sense of the great ma- 
 jority.if not of the whole communion, was strong and decisive against it. 
 That the Rector was of the same opinion with his flock upon the sub- 
 ject, the whole tenor tf his teachings both public and private, from the 
 beginning of his ministrations has abundantly borne witness, and for 
 »IVE years he was happy in the belief that he and his brethren of the 
 communion were, in respect to the matter in question, "of one heart 
 and one soul." 
 
 Since that period, however, a change has come over the congrega- 
 tion, a new spirit has arisen, and the Pastor and his flock are no longer 
 "of one mind." Successively, the questions have been virtually raised 
 and more or less discussed between the congregation and their minis- 
 ter; 1st, Whether communicants of the church, consistently with the 
 solemn vows which are upon them, and their sacred character as 
 ••temples of the Holy Ghost," as "members of Christ, children of God, 
 and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven," may give at their own hou- 
 ses, or attend nt the houses of others, those worldly entertainments, 
 commonly calUd dancing parties; and 2d, whether they may wuli 
 
3 
 
 like consistency attend public places of worldly amusements, such a* 
 Theatres, Circuses, and Balls. 
 
 On both these questions the Rector has constantly, and he trusts 
 conscientiously, yet affectionately maintained the negative. Notwith- 
 standing his frequently expressed opinions, however, and in spite of 
 his most strenuous effurts to procure from his people what he deem- 
 ed a right decision, and to establish a wholesome practice upon these 
 points, the /ormer question, it would seem, and he supposes will be ad- 
 mitted, has for some time past been by i\ic general voice, as indicated 
 by the general practice, decided in the affirmative. While the latter, 
 although pending the former, it seemed to be conceded that it was by 
 no means to be sustained, has since found numerous practical suppor- 
 ters, and more recently has in like manner with the other seemed to 
 be affirmatively settled. 
 
 Thus are these two questions decided, at least by the general prac- 
 tice of the communicants,in direct contrariety to the known opinions,and 
 the solemn public and private teaching of their minister. 
 
 Under these circumstances, there having been no change of senti- 
 ment on the part of the Rector, it still being his honest and decided be- 
 lief that the practice thus established, if persevered in, will be ultimate- 
 ly destructive of all vital religion in the congregation, and being de- 
 prived by these decisions.as he thinks.of all reasonable hope of further 
 benefiting materially the people of his charge, especially the young to 
 whom he has been accustomed to look with most confidence of hope, 
 he has felt it to be his duty, and indeed the only consistent course left 
 for him to pursue, to retire if permitted, from his most difficult post,and 
 give place to some other person who by the blessing of God may be 
 more successful in engaging the affections of the congregation, ind in- 
 spiring them with respect and confidence in him, as a wise and judi- 
 cious pastor, and a safe spiritual guide. 
 
 GEO. W. FREEMAN. 
 
 Raleigh, June 18th, 1840. 
 
 And thereiweon motion it was resolved, that the said resignation 
 be accepted, to take effect at the expiration of the current year of the 
 pastor's engagement. 
 
 And it was also resolved, that a committee be appointed by the sen- 
 ior warden to consider of and report proper resolutions, &c.on the oc- 
 casion, to the vestry at an adjourned meetmg, to be held on the 25th of 
 said month. 
 
 And at the adjourned meeting Messrs. Badger and Bryan, thecom- 
 jTjitiao e-^ "^r.ointed, submitted the following; renoife— '^^-"^ —■*'- '■'- v 
 
preamble and resolutions accompanying the same, was adopted by the 
 
 Vestry. 
 
 The Committee hnving read the paper drawn up by the Rev. Dr. 
 Freeman, and containinq; the reasons whicli induced his resignation, 
 tendered and accepted at ihe last meeting of the vestry, think it due to 
 themselves, to the Yestrj', and to the congren^ation, to submit some ob- 
 servations thereupon, before oftering the resolutions which accompany 
 this report. 
 
 The Committee believe that there are many things in the conduct 
 of life, about which religion gives us "no positive precept," in reference 
 to which there is "room for diflference of opinion," and on which every 
 member of the church has a right to form his own judgment, and is 
 not justly liable to condemnation for it by them who embrace an oppo- 
 site opinion. Amongst these things ''are certain diversions and a 
 certam degree of intercourse vi'ith general society, about the lawful- 
 ness or unlawfulness of which, there not only does, but may reasonably 
 exist that sort of difTerence in opinion which prevailed among the 
 Jewish converts as to the Mosaic rites, or amongst the Gentiles a? to 
 meat offered to idols," In regard to these he that parfaketh hath no 
 Dght^to despise him that scruples to partake; nor halh he that entertains 
 the scruple a right to judge him that partaketh. Every man, indeed 
 should be /wZ/y pcrs?^flierZ in his own mind lest his conscience con- 
 demn him in that which his practice alloweth — bt.t beyond this, in re- 
 gard to these things, there is, in our view, no positive and obligatory 
 precept. In regard to them therefore no man has a right to require 
 of another, as a point of religious duty, conformity with his opinion or 
 his practice. If he can establish by argument the justness of his opin. 
 ion, or reasonableness of his practice, he will have achieved the viclo. 
 ry of truth over error, but he can have no right to supply by authority 
 the defectiveness of his proof. We believe that "to inveigh in gene- 
 ral terms against public assemblies, and amusements sanctioned by so- 
 ciety, as if all toleration of them were positive evidence of a worldly 
 spirit" and "as if a practice necessarily became unchristian because it 
 had public opinion in its favor," "is neither just nor practically useful ;" 
 that it is "to confound things indifferent in themselves, with things 
 wrong in themselves," and to erect out of an allowable difference of 
 opinion on subjects left unsettled by positive precept, "a sort of party 
 distinction" in the Church, whereby "the union among brethren who 
 have one common interest is dissolved, and the friendly collision which 
 Avould be beneficial to "both parties is exchanged for an injurious op- 
 position." 
 
With these views (held we believe by a large majority of the con- 
 gregation) we and others exercising an undoubted right to decide for 
 ourselves, those matters which have not been settled for us, have adop- 
 ted the opinion that "those entertainments commonly called dancing 
 parties" are in themselves innocent and allowable, and hence we 
 have attended them at the houses of our friends, and have given 
 them at our own. We have thought that if Christians in St. Paul's 
 lime were at liberty when bidden, to attend feasts at the houKes of 
 avowed Idolaters, it cannot be in itself wrong, in our day, to attend or 
 give feasts, with or to, friends and acquaintances who are at the least 
 nominal christians, and certainly neither professed idolaters nor athe- 
 ists. As this privilege of attending such feasts in the apostle's day 
 was not restricted to those from which dancirg was banished, so wc 
 conceive that their lawfulness now is not affected by the presence or 
 absence of ihat amusement. 
 
 We have been aware that our Rector entertained different views, we 
 have regretted that he did, but we freely accorded to him the same 
 right of judgment which we claimed for ourselves.and never for a mo- 
 ment supposed that such difference of opinion formed any barrier a- 
 gainst Christian communion, or kindly intercourse,or mutual respect. 
 We felt sure thai no man had a right to demand uniformity of opin- 
 ion or practice in matters not determined by Christianity ; and that the 
 relation of pastor and people did not involve the surrender on the part 
 of the latter of all freedom of thought, and the adoption of any rule of 
 conduct, merely because he deemed it proper and necessary to pre- 
 scribe it. If we are wrong in this, then the gospel so far from havino- 
 delivered us from that body of ceremonial observances which the Jews 
 found intolerable.and given us some freedom of thought and action in 
 regard to matters of mere expediency (that is of matters not deter- 
 mined by the gospel) has in effect left us liable to the imposition of a 
 ritual for all the intercourse of life as strict, minute and burdensome as 
 that of the Jews without its permanence, its limitations, its uniformity, 
 or its divine original. To submit to divine appointments with implic- 
 it obedience is the part of true wisdom, for of them we are sure the 
 reason is the highest and best whether it be known to us or not ; but 
 the opinions of men can justly command assent only so far as they ap- 
 pear to be supported by adequate reasons. To give to these opinions 
 the for(pf.of laws would have an effect upon the pastor no less injurious 
 than upon the congregation, and if all right of inquiry, of private judg- 
 ment, be denied to the congregation, it seems a very useless proceed- 
 ing to put the scriptures into their hands with directions to examine 
 
6 
 
 — to try the doctrines they hear — to search the scriptures for their 
 guidance in the path of duty. Yielding to others the same freedom 
 we claim for ourselves, we had supposed the difference of opinioa 
 which has obtained between the Rector and the congregation furnish- 
 ed no ground of separation, and we were greatly surprised when we 
 first learned that he thought otherwise. 
 
 With regard to "Public Balls. Circuses and Theatres," we are not 
 aware that the congregation generally, has determined any thing as to 
 their propriety or expediency, at least any thing in favor of the two 
 last named, but whatever may be our individual opinion respecting 
 them, wo claim no right to enforce its adoption on others. These, 
 with the dancing parties, we conceive to belong to a debateable subject, 
 on which difference of opinion by no means argues difference of prin- 
 ciple. That abstaining cannot be justly viewed as betokening "affecta- 
 tion of righteousness ovt-r much" nor participation as proof of "slavery 
 to the world and a love of pleasure in place of love to God." 
 If therefore the decision by generaljpractice be.as the Rector supposes, 
 it would furnish no necessary ground of separation, unless it can be 
 shown that no opinion or practice of the congregation should ever be 
 avowed or followed, when in opposition to "the known opinion and sol- 
 emn public and private teaching of their minister ;" or in other words, 
 that any matter on which the Rector deems it his duty to deliver a sol- 
 emn and official opinion, at once ceases to be a subject of discussion 
 and enquiry,-and by force of his opinion becomes a point of faith, or 
 an obligatory rule of conduct. 
 
 This proposition, we are sure that the Rector will not in terms 
 maintain, and yet it seems to us that the reasons given for resigning 
 his situation do necessarily presuppose a duty no less extensive, of 
 submission to and conformity of opinion and practice with the Rector, 
 on the part of the congregation ; to this we can never yield ; to this we 
 do not think the congregation will, or ought to yield. 
 
 Shortly then we think the matters referred to in Dr. Freeman's pa- 
 per, are not things determined by the founder of our faith, that they 
 belong to a large class of objects indifferent in themselves, involving 
 mere questions of expediency, in regard to which it is an error "to at- 
 tempt to fix a definite limit of universal obligation," and by consequence 
 that the differences adverted to by the Rector, furnish in themselves 
 no just ground of interruption to'full, affectionate, mutual, christian in- 
 tercourse and communion, and are only just cause of separation oa 
 account ofthe mistaken views (as we think) of tho Rector in relatioa 
 ihereto. 
 
But we claim no right to pass judgment on the Rector's opiiiiv^.i^ 
 on these matters, nor to think hardly of him because he does not agree 
 in opinion with us; we doubt not his sincerity — we respect his mo- 
 tues, we remember his virtues and his services, and having frankly 
 stated the views we entertain in common with the great body of the 
 congregation, we recommended to the vestry the adoption of the ac- 
 companying resolutions. 
 
 G. E. BADGER. 
 J. H. BRYAN. 
 
 June25tb, 1840. 
 
 The pastoral connexion of the Rev. Dr. Freeman, with the congre- 
 gation of Christ Church, which has now subsisted for eleven years, 
 having been dissolved by his resignation, tlie wardens and^ vestry 
 deem it proper on the occf sion to declare, that, in their judgment, Dr. 
 Freeman during that whole period, has discharged the duties of his 
 station with eminent ability and faithfulness; that he has been great- 
 ly instrumental in enlarging the number/fand elevating the character 
 of the members of the church ; that for his understanding and attain- 
 ments as a Divine, and his performances as a preacher, the congrega- 
 tion generally up to the very moment of his resignation felt great re- 
 spect, for his person a warm attachment, and in his piety entire confi- 
 dence; and that the vestry have no doubt these sentiments were fully 
 merited by the personal conduct and christian character of Dr. Free- 
 man. 5 
 
 Therefore, Resolved, That when the resignation of the Rev. Dr. 
 Freeman was presented, we felt the deepest regret that he should for 
 any cause have deemed it necessary to resign the charge of the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 Resolved, That Dr. Freeman has presided over this parish with 
 great ability and uniform Zealand fidelity, and that his ministrations 
 have been blessed with signal and very unusual success. 
 
I (J?- 
 
 A SERIOI^ 
 
 i>KEACHED TO THE STUDENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNITED BAPTIST INSTITUTE, 
 
 AT TAYLORSVILLE, N. C, 
 
 JUNE 4th, 18S7, 
 
 BY REV. J. McDANIEL, 
 
 iT THE REQUEST OF THE CICERONIAN SOCIETY OF THE INSTITUTE. 
 
 "KUK, SPEAK TO THIS YOtJNG MAN/' 
 
 ZeCH., II CHAP., 4 V. 
 
 S-ATETTEVILLE : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE OBSERVER OFFICE. 
 
 1857. 
 
CICERONIAN HALL, 
 TJ. B. Institute, June 5th, 1857. 
 Rev. James McDaniel: 
 
 Dear Sik: 
 
 At a meeting of the members of the 
 "Ciceronian Society" of the United Baptist Institute, held to-day, 
 the undersigned Committee were appointed to solicit for publication, a 
 copy of your very able and eloquent Sermon delivered on yesterday, 
 before the Students and friends of the Institute. The Committee add 
 their most earnest solicitation that you will comply with this request, 
 and gratify the wishes of all. 
 
 With sentiments of the highest esteem and respect, 
 We have the honor to be, 
 
 W. H. PEEBLES, 
 E. MARTIN, 
 W. C. THOMAS, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 June 5th, 1857. 
 
 Dear Young Gentlemen: 
 
 I have the honor to acknowledge the 
 receipt of your Note of this date, requesting for publication, a copy of 
 my Sermon delivered on yesterday. I have hitherto invariably de- 
 clined compliance with such requests, conscious that my Discourses 
 cannot appear to as much advantage in print, as in the delivery of them. 
 But my timidity is, in this instance, greatly overcome by the very 
 gentlemanly and courteous attention you have bestowed on me during 
 my visit, — by the warm acceptance of my Discourse, you have mani- 
 fested, and by the expressed desire of many of your friends with you, 
 to have it published. I therefore yield and give it to you, hoping that 
 when the head that composed it shall lie low in the grave — when the 
 heart that conceived it shall beat no more — when the tongue that uttered 
 it shall be hushed in everlasting silence, this Sermon may be to you, 
 and The Platonic Society, and others, as my affectionate memento. 
 
 With sentiments of very high esteem, 
 
 I am your ob't servant, 
 
 J. McDANIEL. 
 Messrs. W. H. Peebles, E. Martin, W. C. Thomas. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Zechabiah, li chap., 4tli t. 
 "Run, speak to this young man." 
 
 Man, the greatest visible work of Jehovah's hands, was 
 obviously designed for usefulness and happiness. This 
 divinely purposed state is an attainment, the way and 
 means to which, is the construction of proper character. 
 It is a fact manifest to all, and experienced by many, 
 that wicked character is the hane alike of usefulness and 
 happiness. "Evil communications corrupt good man- 
 ners," is a truth demonstrated before our eyes every day. 
 And while, like "the pestilence that walketh in dark- 
 ness," vice strews its pathway with injuries to others, it 
 renders its possessor unhappy. A heathen philosopher, 
 guided only by the light of reason and the impress of ex- 
 perience, once said. Nemo malus felix — no wicked man 
 is happy. And the voice from heaven confirms that sen- 
 timent, saying "There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto 
 the wicked. The way of transgressors is hard.''^ On the 
 other hand, virtuous, pious character insures both useful- 
 ness and happiness. "The fruit of the righteous is a tree 
 of /i/e." "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." 
 While virtuous character benefits others, it blesses the 
 possessor himself A sage of the world long ago uttered 
 the truth, that ''''virtue is its own reward.''^ Solomon, the 
 greatest king and wisest man that ever lived, (our Sa- 
 viour excepted,) and who had fully tried every accessi- 
 ble prospective, source and means of happiness, to be 
 found in all the sphere of irreligion — having testified that 
 "all is vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit," — after 
 
a due trial of the way of virtue, said, "Her ways are 
 ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." Je- 
 sus, the Great Teacher from God, says "My yoke is 
 easy — my burden light: Learn of me, and ye shall find 
 rest imto your souls." 
 
 Now, that character which is the foundation, way and 
 means of usefulness and happiness, is not a natural or he- 
 reditary possession, neither a fortuitous accident, nor yet 
 a merely sovereign bestowment by the Great Creator; 
 but a structure, in which are brought into requisition the 
 volition and agency of man, under the favoring aid of 
 God. It is not an instantaneous work, achieved by a 
 wish or a solitary effort, but a progressive work, requir- 
 ing the proper and habitual exercise of those noble fa- 
 culties with which we are endowed, and because of which 
 we are but a little lower than the Angels. The funda- 
 mental principles of character are, for the most part, 
 wrought out in early life, in the season of youth. The 
 sagacious Bard has truthfully sung — 
 
 "Just as the twig is bent, 
 The tree's inclined:" 
 
 And a voice, still more reliable, sounds from heaven, 
 saying "Train up a child in the way he should go, and 
 when he is old he will not depart from it." Education, 
 by a Divine arrangement, holds a grand position and plas- 
 tic office in the formation and structure of character. 
 Inasmuch, therefore, as this work commences in early 
 life, and Education fills such an important office in it, 
 haste should be exercised to impart to the young, appro- 
 priate instruction. ^^Run, speak to this young man." 
 My theme is. The instruction appropriate to a 
 
 YOUNG MAN. 
 
 I. Adopt the Bible supremely as the Text Book of 
 life and character. On going forth to the work of life, 
 
every youth ought to heed the kindly voice which ad- 
 dresses him from heaven, saying, "See that thou make 
 all things according to the pattern showed thee in the 
 mount.'''' "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his 
 way? By taking heed thereto, according to Thy Word?^ 
 *'To the Law and to the Testimony; if they speak not 
 according to this Word, it is because there is no light 
 in them." I might construct a Babel of Scriptural evi- 
 dence, that the Bible is the great Text Book of life and 
 character, given by God in His grace to man. These 
 quotations, already submitted, are deemed sufficient to 
 establish this point. 
 
 We are accustomed to value a text book according to 
 the celebrity of its author. Here then is one, that chal- 
 lenges universal and supreme regard. 
 
 "Thifi is the Judge that ends the strife, 
 
 Where wit and reason fail; 
 This 18 a safe, unerring guide, 
 
 Through all thi« gloomy vale." 
 
 On its excellences and merits I might descant, until the 
 •sun might hide himself behind the western hills, and yet 
 the half would not be told. This is a theme under which 
 an Angel's tongue would falter: it is as high as heaven, 
 and boundless as infinit}'^! The best, the most noble, the 
 most desirable constituents of character, are to be derived 
 from a conformity to the teachings of the Bible, This 
 will impart to the mind an elevation and expansion, far 
 superior to all human productions. The reason is two- 
 fold: First, it brings the mind into contact with the most 
 stupendous and sublime truths and things, in association 
 with which it partakes of their nature. And secondly, 
 there is, by the Almighty, deposited in Scriptural truths 
 and duties, a mysterious, hidden virtue and power, pecu- 
 liar to them alone. There is in them something like a 
 Divinity, in habitual association with which, the individ- 
 im\ will partake of the excellence, as Moses caught the 
 
8 
 
 Divine glory on his countenance, when in converse with 
 God on Mount Sinai. 
 
 Pubhc opinion and popular example may, and will, vie 
 with the Bible for your preference. Each will set forth 
 a form of character, which may be commended as suffi- 
 cient for your aspiration. But, though public opinion and 
 popular example may be considerably under the plastic in- 
 fluence of Biblical teaching, yet you will no where find 
 them in sufficient harmony with it, to justify you in re- 
 garding them as text books of hfe and character. On 
 the contrary, very much that is "highly esteemed among 
 men is an abomination in the sight of God." Multitudes 
 require no other commendation of a thing, than the sim- 
 ple sanction o^ public opinion or popular example; yet let 
 it be remembered, that this is no law or standard of cha- 
 racter, however received and honored as such it may be. 
 "The friendship of the world is enmity with God! Who- 
 soever, therefore, will be the friend of the world, is the 
 enemy of God." The sentiment of the Poet should be 
 yours — 
 
 "Happy, if Thou, my God, approve, 
 Though all beside eondemni" 
 
 And ever bear in mind, that the Bible never accommot- 
 dates men. It is no respecter of persons. Its form or 
 pattern is immutable — its requisitions are established — 
 they are never compromised to the tastes, inclinations^ 
 wishes or circumstances of men. Any attempt to compro- 
 mise these requirements, is fraught with tremendous dan- 
 ger. God has placed around His Word, a cherubic guard, 
 to prevent any, and every attempt to change it. "If any 
 man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him 
 the plogurs that are written in this Book: if any man 
 shall take away from the words of the Book of this 
 prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book 
 of life." "The word that I have spoken, the same shall 
 
judge him in the last day." The Bible therefore is, and 
 ever will remain, while the world stands, the great Text 
 Book of life and character. "Run, speak to this young 
 man," that he adopt the teaching of the Bible supremely^ 
 
 II. Adopt as a fundamental principle, the recognition 
 of %ionr dependence on God. It is "in him that we live 
 and move and have our being." All our springs are in 
 him. "F2xcept the Lord build the house, they labor in 
 vain that huild it: Except the Lord keep the City, the 
 watchman waketh in vain." No man is independent of 
 God in the very least particular. Whatever capacities 
 the Creator has given to man, — whatever freedom in 
 agency, still every where, and in every thing, he is de- 
 pendent on God. He cannot create for himself one 
 breath — he cannot add one cubit to his stature — he can- 
 not form or control one event without God. Say not 
 that there are many men who accumulate wealthy make 
 great advances in science, attain unto high worldly dis' 
 tinctions, and yet do not recognise their dependence on 
 God. All this may be true, but it does not prove that 
 they are not dependent on God; neither does it prove, 
 that the ouUt involved in this forgetfulness and disregard 
 of God is not fe'ir/ul, ;md in many instances, ruinous to 
 those by whom it is indulged. GoJ is slow to anger, and 
 of much long suffering, not willing that any should perish; 
 and he deals kindly with men even while they are treasur- 
 ing up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath! 
 And should this goodness be presumptuously perverted 
 into a reason and a cause of contempt of him? Is such a 
 character to be coveted by rational beings, lovers of hap- 
 piness, and expectants of a future retribution? The very 
 thought of possessing a character, branded with the dis^ 
 regard of our dep'^ndence on God, ought to cause pale- 
 ness to gather on the cheek, and trembling to seize the 
 
10 
 
 limbs, such as the sight of the mysterious hand on the 
 wall of the palace, produced on the impious King! Wl^ 
 
 Engrave on your mind, then, young gentlemen, as with 
 a diamond-pen, a recognition of your dependence on 
 God. Even in the dark ages of the world, the recogni- 
 tion of dependence on Divine agency, was regarded as 
 one of the highest virtues, and most excellent principles. 
 As evidence of this fact, a distinguished Scholar has fur- 
 nished a corresponding sentiment, uttered, as he tells us, 
 by Pliny in his panegyric on Trajan*. Both Greeks and 
 Romans held the sentiment in such high admiration, that 
 frequent allusion to it is found in their most valued 
 writings. And let it never be said that young gentlemen, 
 collecting materials for the construction of noble and 
 excellent character, in the 19th century, and under ad- 
 vantages far surpassing those of any former age of the 
 world, overlooked or disregarded this one, so great and 
 so important! Ever remember, that a hundred, a thou- 
 sand, or ten thousand years hence, you will be as de- 
 pendent on God, as at the present moment. To what- 
 ever part of God's empire you may go, your dependence 
 will never be diminished. The treatment you may ex- 
 pect at the hands of your Creator, will depend on the 
 agreement or disagreement, which may exist between 
 your character and his commands! "Run, speak to this 
 young man," that he duly regard his dependence on God. 
 
 III. Adopt a manly, magnanimous ^ prompt, determined 
 performance of what is right. Men often know the right 
 and approve it too; yet have not the moral courage to do 
 it. Pilate was convinced of the Saviour's innocence, yet 
 he dared not to release him. Agrippa knew the superior 
 excellence of the Christian religion, but he had not the 
 
 * Nihil rite, nibilque provideuter homines, sine Deorum imraortalium ope, 
 consilio, honore, auspicarcnter. [This and other Latin Notes were not spoken 
 in the delivery of the Sermon.] 
 
11 
 
 courage to embrace it. Many of the Scribes and Pha- 
 risees knew that Jesus was the promised Messiah, but 
 they were afraid to confess him. A cowardly^ vacillat- 
 ing spirit, that crouches to the known wrong, and hesi- 
 tates to do right in the face of danger, is as great a re- 
 proach to any person's character, as it is criminal and 
 hateful in the sight of God. This has been, in every 
 age, the enemy of virtue and piety. It ought to be 
 abominated wherever seen. A vain adulation may be 
 its present reward, as in the case of Pilate, Agrippa, 
 Herod, and many others; but this, like ihQ feHivities and 
 honors, bestowed by the Persians on a conquered General, 
 for three successive days prior to his execution, is only 
 a pompous prelude to ruin. But for this hateful coward- 
 ice of spirit, that shrinks from confronting error, and turns 
 traitor against the truth, never would our world have 
 been cursed with multitudes of those evils which have 
 obtained dominion, and are producing effects over which, 
 the pious heart heaves a pensive sigh. 
 
 But, while to this detestable cowardice is attributable 
 the successful establishment of many of the greatest evils 
 that afflict society, and mar the true glory and happiness 
 of man, to that noble, magnanimous spirit, which dares 
 to do right, cost what it may, is attributable the intro- 
 duction, perpetuation and diffusion of those principles, 
 which give to the world what moral glory it possesses, 
 and to communities, whatever of loveliness they exhibit. 
 As illustrious examples of it, for your imitation, I point 
 you to the history of Joseph, who, when allured to do 
 wrong, in a very powerful manner, said, "How then can 
 I do this great wickedness, and sin against God": to Mi- 
 cah the prophet, who dared to prophesy the truth to the 
 king, though it cost him imprisonment and suffering: to 
 Daniel, who would not swerve from duty, though it 
 caused him to be cast into the lions' den: to the three 
 
12 
 
 Hebrews, who refused to bow down to the image which 
 the king had set up, though, as the consequence of their 
 refusal, they were cast into a fiery furnace, heated seven 
 times hotter than it was wont to be heated: to Moses, 
 the illustrious leader of Israel, who chose rather to suffer 
 affliction with the people of God, than to possess the 
 Egyptian monarch's crown: to Paul, and the Apostles 
 of our Lord, who, when they suffered for the truth, re- 
 joiced that they were counted worthy to suffer in such 
 a cause. These, and many others who adorn the pages 
 of history, possessed and exhibited that noble courage, 
 which has encircled their character with a glory untar- 
 nished by time, and enriched the world, in all coming 
 ages, by the principles they have transmitted, and the cx- 
 ample they have presented. "Run, speak to this young 
 man," that he be bold to embrace, vindicate and prac- 
 tice, at all hazards, what is right. 
 
 IV. Dare to think with personal independence — to 
 make deductions and form conclusions for yourselves. It 
 is an evil of wide-spreading influence and much to be 
 deplored, that so few venture to think for themselves. A 
 few do the thinking for the mass, in reference to almost 
 all important matters. And it is to be apprehended that 
 this is a growing, rather than declining evil. In propor- 
 tion to the facilities of information possessed by any peo- 
 ple, ought they to think for themselves. We object not, 
 to all due deference being paid to the opinions of others; 
 but we do protest against the too prevalent custom, of 
 taking the opinions of others without due investigation. 
 A few leading minds, in State and Church, exert over the 
 mass, the same moulding power, that the potter exerts 
 over the clay, to form such a vessel as he pleases. There 
 are thousands of clamorous partisans, who have not one 
 idea or reason for the system they embrace and advocate. 
 
13 
 
 except such as has been formed and presented to them 
 by their admired leaders. They have no distinct know- 
 ledge whether their system is right or wrongs never hav- 
 ing duly investigated the subject. There are nominal 
 Literati, who cannot solve a problem, that is not in the 
 text book they have studied: parrot-like Linguists, who 
 cannot translate any sentence involving difficulty, except 
 it be in the book they have well nigh worn out by long 
 usage. There are multitudes of religionists, who have 
 no reason for the system they adopt, except that their 
 teachers, in whose judgment they have implicit confi- 
 dence, declare it to be correct. Opinions on almost all 
 important subjects, are received by very many, from some 
 leading spirits, with as little hesitation as the young bird 
 receives the food offered by the dam, whether it be a 
 spider or a worm. This is a sore evil under the sun, 
 and tends to multiply and perpetuate unhappy diversity, 
 against which the Saviour so fervently prayed, just before 
 His death. 
 
 The common idea of Education entertained among 
 men, is, that it is a putting into. And there are many, 
 said to be educated men, who only have the little He- 
 brew, Greek, Latin, French, &c., together with the few 
 scraps of Mathematics and Sciences, which have been 
 infused or put into their memories, by their teachers or 
 class-mates. No doubt there are those who could not 
 correctly translate their Diploma, never having seen, or 
 heard a translation of it, given by their teachers, or by 
 some other person. But the correct idea of Education 
 is, that it is a drawing out. The word Educo, from 
 which it is derived, means to draw out. By education 
 the powers of the mind are disciplined, and the individu- 
 al is prepared to think and reason independently. The 
 Bereans were commended by God for thinking for them- 
 selves, and for investigating what was submitted to them 
 
14 
 
 for their adoption. And they stand as noble models for 
 your imitation. "Run, speak to this young man," to 
 think and reason with proper independence. 
 
 V. Adopt a principle oi modesty and courtesy. There 
 is in the human mind naturally a disposition to vanity^ 
 pomposity and arrogance. Too many, alas! on the attain- 
 ment of some considerable distinction in wealth or learn- 
 ing, &:c. betray the possession of this disposition. Every 
 department of pubUc life is affected by this evil. The 
 happiness of social intercourse in society is often spoiled 
 by it. One vain, pompous, arrogant person, in the social 
 circle, like the dead fly in the box of ointment, destroys, 
 to a great extent, the fragrance of enjoyment through all 
 the circle. The dignity of the Legislative Council, or of 
 the Bar, is often injured by a display of pomposity. The 
 very end to which the actors in the fulsome scene aspire, 
 is defeated by their own vanity or arrogance. The glory 
 of the pulpit ministrations is often destroyed, and they 
 are made the ministrations of Death, instead of Life, by 
 a detestable show of pomposity or vanity. This has no 
 more business in the sphere of Learning, or Piety, than 
 Satan had in Paradise. It is a perversion of both, and 
 ought to be abominated wherever seen; and it ought to 
 subject, to general disgust, the infatuated creature who 
 figures in its exhibition. Ever exhibit modesty, whatever 
 the position you may occupy. 
 
 And remember that without courtesy, there can be no 
 proper character. This is a cheap excellence, though so 
 great and important. It costs a man but little to be 
 courteous; and yet its rewards are far richer than is gene- 
 rally imagined. Those widely err in their judgment, who 
 suppose that a man compromises his dignity or excel- 
 lence by being courteous, even towards those who are 
 obviously his inferiors in the circumstances of life. 
 
15 
 
 Jesus, our Great Exemplar, was courteous — so much so, 
 that he was called the Friend of sinners. There is a 
 Pharisaical self-importance and bigotry possessed by 
 many, which constitutes them cold, impolite, austere and 
 unsociable towards any and all, except a certain few, to- 
 wards whom, they think it a little honor to be polite. 
 Such persons possess a very meagre share of general es- 
 teem while they live, and when they end their course on 
 earth, they descend to their graves generally, "unwept 
 and unsung." "Run, speak to this young man," that he 
 be modest and courteous. 
 
 VI. See that the influence which you exert on others, 
 be salutary. Man is a social Being. We are suscep- 
 tible of influence from one another. Mind acts on mind. 
 Solomon says "One sinner destroy eth much good." Your 
 influence will be a mighty agent for good or evil. Learn- 
 ing is power, and will impart that power to your influ- 
 ence. If it be seen that you, who have such facilities of 
 knowing what is ri^ht, and wrong, — ^what is commen- 
 dable, and what is reprehensible; and who, because of 
 these advantages of knowledge, are expected to be 
 models of propriety, and criterions of what may, or may 
 not be adopted: — if it be seen that you act according to 
 very latitudinarian principles, and with but little scrupu- 
 lousness about the right, or the wrong, it will have a 
 powerful effect on the judgment and conduct of others. 
 Whether you design it so or not, your influence will im- 
 part a power, that will tell mightily for virtue or vice, on 
 the character of others. You are held responsible by 
 God, for the effects of your influence. This responsi- 
 bility is entirely overlooked by many. In estimating 
 their life and character, they have too little regard to its 
 effects on others. 
 
 But this is indeed, a momentous particular for your 
 
16 
 
 consideration. Your influence will go far beyond your 
 individual self — it will enter circles of society, and per- 
 meate spheres of mind, of which you will have no ade-' 
 quate knowledge, until in eternity, the whole panoramic 
 scene will pass before your astonished vision. You are 
 not like the Flower, which springs and blooms on some 
 desert wild, unseen by human eye, — whose fragrance 
 wastes and dies, on the lonely, passing breeze: — no, your 
 life and character will be seen, — the influence emitted 
 from it, will be inhaled by others, and will become in 
 them, elements of good or evil. You are to live, not with 
 reference to yourselves alone, but also with reference to 
 others. 
 
 Give diligence then, that your influence on others, be 
 like that stream which the Prophet saw, which "ran down 
 into the Desert and into the sea, and being brought forth 
 into the sea," the waters of the sea were thereby healed. 
 Or, hke that wonderous Tree, which, Moses, by Divine 
 instruction, cast into the bitter waters of Marah, and 
 they were thereby "made sweet." Thus will you be 
 honored and loved; and when the memory of those who 
 have been only walking pestilences in society, shall rot 
 in infamy, yours will be embalmed in perpetual esteem. 
 "Run, speak to this young man," that he regard the in- 
 fluence he exerts on others. 
 
 VII. Determine on the attainment of true and eminent 
 Piety. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wis- 
 dom: a good understanding have all they that do his com- 
 mandments. Remember now thy Creator in the days of 
 thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years 
 draw nigh, T<%en thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in 
 them. Seek ye, first the kingdom of God, and his 
 righteousness. Blessed are they that do his command- 
 ments, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life, 
 
17 
 
 and may enter in through the gates into the City." Thus 
 you are addressed by the voice from heaven. All the in- 
 struction I have already given you, may, to a considerable 
 extent, be adopted, and a character may thereby be con- 
 structed, that will excite the admiration of all virtuous 
 persons, and on which an Angel, as he looks, may love; 
 and yet the crowning excellence be lacking. True, emi- 
 nent Piety is the perfection of character. But, beware 
 oi modern, nominal Piety, which, in very many instances, 
 is like the figure of a person, well-proportioned, hand- 
 somely dressed, in all the comehness of religious drapery, 
 yet without a soul or life. Let not theybrm of godliness 
 suffice for you. See that the Religion on which you 
 rely for safety and happiness, demonstrates its real ex- 
 istence and power in the soul, by a life of strict obedience 
 to God's Law. The Great Teacher from God says, "If 
 any man love me, he will keep my sayings. Ye are my 
 friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." And the 
 inspired Apostle says, "This is the love of God, that we 
 keep his commandments. Show me thy faith without 
 thy works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 
 Faith without works is dead." 
 
 A person is to know himself to be a christian, only so 
 far as his religion exerts in him, a sufficient power to 
 lead him to ohey God's requirements. "Why call ye me, 
 Lord, Lord, and do not the things I command you? Not 
 every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of 
 my Father which is in heaven." Give therefore, no heed 
 to that fabulous Theology, which teaches that there are 
 non-essentials in the requirements of God's word. O 
 what presumption it is, to arraign the wisdom and good- 
 ness of God, by supposing that he has appointed or com- 
 manded any thing, that is not of very grave and great 
 importance! Hear the Great Law-giver saying, "Who- 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 soever therefore shall break one of tJiese least command- 
 ments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in 
 the kingdom of heaven." Does it appear from this dec- 
 laration of him, in whose lips there was no guile, that 
 there are any non-essentials in God's requirements; when 
 the violation of the least one of them, if deliberately per- 
 petrated, will entail on the transgressor such an awful 
 disadvantage, that the compassionate Saviour has warned 
 men of it, that they may avoid it? Ah, remember that 
 the least commandment of God, will, in eternity, be seen 
 possessed of an importance, towering to an infinite 
 height, and of dimensions, which will stagger the soul of 
 the neglector, so that he will covet concealment from the 
 dread responsibilities of such neglect, in some everlasting 
 sepulchre, not obsequious to the Judgment summons! 
 Be sure that you seek and embrace true Religion, pro- 
 ducing scriptural fruits, as evidences of its reality and 
 power. 
 
 This will be protective in the present life. It institutes 
 restraints, which keep the possessor from those pursuits 
 and indulgences, that soon or late, would inevitably bring 
 distress and anguish on the soul. It likewise insures 
 Angehc guardian-ship; for it is written, "The Angel of 
 the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and 
 delivereth them." Moreover, Jesus has pledged himself 
 to their safety: — "My Father which gave them me, is 
 greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of 
 my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." "My 
 sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow 
 me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never 
 perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." 
 In true Religion therefore, you will realize the best safe- 
 guard through all this perilous state! 
 
 It is likewise, the source of the greatest, present en- 
 joyment. Men dream of richer pleasure, elsewhere, than 
 
19 
 
 in the service of God. The Prodigal son had brilHant 
 anticipations of greater advantages, and better enter- 
 tainment, than were to be found in his Father's house. 
 He went forth in pursuit of these vain shadows — he tra- 
 versed this dream to satisfy his soul's desires, until at 
 length, he awoke in wretched disappointment, far, far 
 away from the good he craved! "When he came to 
 himself he said, how many hired servants of my Father, 
 have bread enough, and to spare, and I perish with hun- 
 ger. I will arise and go to my Father." He returned — 
 his Father saw him coming home, he ran, embraced, and 
 kissed his long lost son. His tattered garments were ex- 
 changed for the best robe— a sumptuous feast was spread 
 to relieve his hunger — and friends rejoiced over his re- 
 turn. Never, never, was he so happy in any state, in 
 any place, in all the circle of his prodigality, as when he 
 had arrived at home, and was settled in his Father's 
 family! So it will ever be found, that the highest, the 
 richest enjoyment to be found in this life, is in the ser- 
 vice and ways of God. "Godliness is profitable unto all 
 things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that 
 which is to come." 
 
 But, the chief blessedness and advantage of true, and 
 eminent Piety will be reahzed in eternity. The end 
 crowns the action. The present scene of things will at 
 length terminate. The Arch-angel with the judgment- 
 trump in hand, will appear on the wing, descending from 
 heaven to this world! As he comes, he will blow the 
 tremendous blast, which will pubhsh the Decree of the 
 Great God, — the end of all things is come! At the dread 
 sound, the curtain of Time will drop, and Nature stand 
 aghast! The sun in the heavens — stop his course and 
 drop his beams in endless night! The moon, wrapped 
 in a crimson shroud — shine no more! The stars, ex- 
 tinguished — fall from their orbits, as the ripe figs from the 
 
20 
 
 tree when shaken by a mighty wind! The sea — roar a 
 solemn dirge, of wild death march waves, upheaving, and 
 bearing on the foaming billows, its drowned milhons to 
 the wave-lashed shore! The Earth, reeling and quak- 
 ing, convulsed by rending earth-quakes, — uncover her 
 entombed myriads, and from Battle-fields and Grave 
 Yards, swarms of resuscitated persons, awoke from the 
 slumber of ages, — start into life, and hasten to the awful 
 Judgment! The world draped in the sombre garments 
 of mourning — utter forth its last, and death-like shriek! 
 The stupendous Fabric of Nature, at whose birth, the 
 morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
 shouted for joy, — whose wonders have engaged the study, 
 and kindled the admiration of men in all generations, — 
 fall into dissolution! Fire descending from God out of 
 heaven — ignite, and enwrap the prostrate ruins! O what 
 a catastrophe! What a sight to behold! 
 
 Where then will be that vain show — those honors, 
 riches, pleasures, which allured so many from the claims 
 of God? Gone — all gone forever — not a vestige of them 
 left, except the consequences of the inordinate love, pur- 
 suit, and embrace of them! Man will remain, with the 
 character he has constructed, whatever that may be! 
 Then will be seen and realized, the grand difference be- 
 tween the righteous and the wicked — between him that 
 feared God, and him that feared him not. Then will the 
 righteous receive their Diploma, with this brilliant in- 
 scription, "Well done, thou good and faithful ser- 
 vant: Thou hast been faithful over a few things, 
 
 I WILL make thee ruler OVER MANY THINGS: ENTER 
 
 THOU INTO THE JOY OF THY Lord!"* Escortcd by An- 
 gels, with Jesus, their Great Teacher and Lord at the 
 head of the majestic procession, they will enter upon the 
 everlasting felicities of heaven! 
 
 *Eugc! serve bone et fidelis; super pauga fuisti fidelis; super multa te con- 
 stituam: intra in gaudium domioi tui. 
 
21 
 
 But, the wicked who would not heed instruction*0 
 voice, will be driven away into everlasting sorrow — ex- 
 pelled forever from the society of the just, to be the vic- 
 tims of unending woe! When they have passed the 
 awful gate, and entered the prison of despair, the Angel 
 of God will turn the key, — the sound of the bolt as it 
 locks, will roll hke the thunder of Death through the 
 soul — then with his mighty arm, he will cast that key, 
 far, far into the*abyss of oblivion, there to lie and rust, 
 while endless ages roll away! Dark columns of smoke, 
 ascending from the miserable abode, will be the Diploma 
 of the accursed, bearing in letters of flame, this fearful 
 inscription, "The wages of sin is Death!"! These 
 dismal scrolls, as they rise and unfold, emit the dread 
 sound of despair, the deep wailings of woe, incessantly 
 uttered by the sufferers, ^^Lost! Lost! Lost! O, forever 
 lost!" "Run, speak to this young man," that he, by all 
 means, become a true christian. 
 
 Dear young Gentlemen! I have almost finished the 
 work, which your preference has assigned me. Many 
 of us have met for the first time, aad when I reflect, that 
 in all probability after we part, at the close of this oc- 
 casion, we shall never all meet again in this life, I feel 
 my bosom swell with emotion. Wherever you go — ■ 
 wherever you dwell — whatever the position in life you 
 may occupy, you will have my tender regard, my warm 
 desire for your usefulness, prosperity, and happiness; and 
 when Life's educational course and labors shall have 
 with us terminated, that we may all meet at God's right 
 hand in heaven, where there is fulness of joy, and where 
 there are pleasures forever more! 
 
 "0, the hope, the blissful hope. 
 Which Jesus' grace has given; 
 The hope, "when days and years are past, 
 We all may meet in heaven!" 
 
 _ ii ■ .■..-■—— ... 1 ^ ^^-. ,. r— ^ - ■■ --r i --■ -■- — II -- -■•' 
 
 f Stipendia peccati, mors! 
 
22 
 
 Think of the sohcitude of your Parents, Teachers, 
 and Friends, for your usefulness and happiness. Dis- 
 appoint not their fond hopes and expectations — wither 
 not, by any improper course, these budding flowers, on 
 which they gaze, in hope to see them open soon in at- 
 tractive bloom! This vast assembly, by their presence 
 on this occasion, show to you the interest they feel in 
 your success. Ever let them see that you are worthy of 
 such esteem. 
 
 Dear Instructors of these young men! I congratulate 
 you on the success which has thus far crowned your 
 labors. I gaze with pleasure, on the luminous prospect 
 of still greater success, which shines on the future of 
 your work. Go on then, with cheerful hearts and ani- 
 mated spirits, in your noble toils. "Run, speak to this 
 young man." 
 
 And my respected and strange audience! many of you, 
 I doubt not already love the Saviour. You are my 
 kindred, whoever you are — whatever your name — where- 
 ever your home. Pray for the peace of this Jerusalem! 
 Foster this Institution, for it will richly reward all your 
 labors and expenditures for it. I know that you feel 
 emotions of pleasure in its present, great prosperity. 
 "Tully acknowledged the transports which he felt, when 
 he saw the Laurel groves where Cicero held his dis- 
 putations, and the Porticoes at Athens, where Socrates 
 taught." Sharing with you, in your present enjoyment, 
 which is similar to his, I can exclaim in the language of 
 the Classic Bard, — "O fortunati, quorum jam moenia 
 surgunt!" — Thrice happy ye, whose walls already rise! 
 
I 1^- 
 
 THE OLD PATHS: 
 
 j^ SEEM:o]sr, 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 ST. LUKE'S CHUECH:, SALISBURY^ 
 % the Right Reverend THOx^AS ATKINSON, D. D., 
 
 JStSHOP OF NOETH CAKOLINA> 
 
 AT THE OSDINATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD 
 
 03? TEE 
 
 B€v. Messrs. BEMJAMIN SWAN BRONSON, GEORGE BADGER WBTMORE) 
 WILLIAM MURPHY, and THOMAS GOELET HAUGHTON, 
 
 0]Si WHIT-SUNDAY 1857j 
 
 DURING THE SESSION OF THE DIOCESAN CONVENTION OF N{)RTH CAROLINA, 
 AND PUBLISHED BY THE REQUEST OF THE CONVENTION. 
 
 PAYETTEVILLE : 
 
 PRINTED BY EDWARD J. HALE & SON. 
 
 185T. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Jekemiah, 6tli chap., 16th verse. 
 <'Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye ia the ways, and see, and ask for the old 
 paths, wherein is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for 
 your souls." 
 
 Ill the latter days of the Jewish Commonwealth, just anterior 
 to tlie Babylonish Captivity, among the numberless confusions 
 and miseries that gathered like a black cloud over both Church, 
 and State, this was not the least, that the path of duty and of 
 safety had become difficult to discern, even by those who were 
 willing to follow it. 
 
 There were men, indeed, claiming to be the Prophets of God, 
 and to speak in His l^ame, but they denied each other's preten- 
 sions and contradicted each other's messages. Some cried Peace, 
 Peace, while others said there was no Peace. There were 
 Priests also, the ordinarj- stated Teachers of the Peoj)le, (for 
 "the Priests' lips should keep knowledge,") but instead of union 
 among these, violent discord and mutual denunciation drove 
 them asunder. It is under these circumstances that God coun- 
 sels and indeed commands His people, to stand in the ways, 
 and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and 
 walk tlierein, and thus find rest for their souls. 
 
 This, then, is the sentence of Divine Wisdom: Since present 
 teachers differ, but it is confessed that the past were right, in- 
 quire diligently what the ]3ast taught, and follow their guidance. 
 
 'Novj- there is a principle in Human ITature which makes us 
 revere Antiquity as such, and cling to ancient opinions and 
 usages merely because they are ancient. And even this prin- 
 ciple has its value, as giving more consistency to our opinions, 
 and steadfastness to our conduct, and consequently even this 
 ought not to be eradicated from our nature, were such eradi- 
 cation possible. But yet this mere abhorrence of innovation is 
 scarcely better than a blind instinct, and may array itself in 
 opposition to Truth, as well as to error; may resist improve- 
 ments, as well as withstand corruptions; may assist in keeping 
 the worshipper of Juggernaut prostrate in the dust, while it 
 strengthens the follower of Jesus in holding on to "the Faith 
 once delivered to the saints." It is not then on this principle 
 
4 
 that tlie counsel of the Most High to His creatnres rests, hut 
 on one not so ambiguous, not so liable to mislead us in its ap- 
 plication, — on one which is as safe as it is plain. It is on the 
 necessary consistency and harmony of Divine Truth. Since it 
 was universally acknowledged in the time of Jeremiah, that 
 the Patriarchs, and the early Prophets of Israel, sj)oke as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost, the Prophets of later date who 
 agreed with these undoubted messengers of Almighty God, 
 must be received as true, while they who gave inconsistent 
 testimony must be rejected, because God cannot contradict 
 Himself, and what He speaks by one man, He wiU not deny 
 by another. 
 
 Now it is clear, that we of the present day need the salutary 
 guidance of this Divine Counsel, just as much as the Israelites 
 of old. We too live in a day of perplexity. The Prophets and 
 the Priests throughout Christendom contradict one another. 
 The Pomanist maintains that his is the only true Catholic 
 Church, and that all beyond its pale are schismatics or here- 
 tics, or both. The Greek believes no less firmly that Ms is the 
 only true oxthodox Conlmunion, and that wdiosoever adds the 
 Filioque to his creed, and lejects the communion of Infants, 
 has accepted the principle of Pationalism, whether it carry 
 him a shorter or a longer distance. The Anglican contenta 
 himself with maintaining that his is the purest hrancTi of the 
 Catholic Church. The Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Bap- 
 tist, the Quaker, the Socinian, each claims to teach exact Chris- 
 tian Truth, which others, as things seem to him, either mutilate 
 or alloy. Since then the trumpet gives so uncertain a sound, 
 who in the Christian Host shall know how to prepare for the 
 battle? How shall a sincere Christian, who seeks to know the 
 will of God that he may do it, ascertain that Holy will, amid 
 the strife of tongues and rage of controversy? To such an one 
 God speaks now, as of old in Jerusalem, saying, "Stand in the 
 ways, and see, and ask for the old Paths." 
 
 And this counsel meets our case even better than that of the 
 men of Judah; for their book of Revelation was confessedly in- 
 complete. They rightly expected a greater Prophet than had 
 ever yet visited them; new messages from God more weighty, 
 more august, than they or their lathers had received. When, 
 then, a Prophet propounded to them a doctrine, the only way 
 in which they could apply to it the test of Anticpiity was to 
 
5 
 
 ask, was it consistent and Jiarmonious witli what they had al- 
 ready received? It might be different, and yet true. It could 
 not be inconsistent, and yet true. But with ns, the test of An- 
 tiquity is more exclusive. We must reject any doctrine which 
 is either inconsistent with, or different from, that which has 
 come to us once for all. Because, except on the supposition of 
 Development — a supposition to which I shall hereafter allude, 
 — our Kevelation is full. The Church has no Truth revealed to 
 it, which was not revealed in the Apostolic age. No Divine 
 Utterance has reached it, since the aged exile at Patmos closed 
 the volume of Inspiration, and by the authority of God an- 
 nounced, that if any man should add to the words of the pro- 
 phecy he had been uttering, God would add to him the plagues 
 written in that book. Our Revelation then is, and long has 
 been, entire, absolute, complete. What is true in Religion this 
 day was just as true seventeen centuries ago. It is, of course, 
 peculiarly incumbent on us to ask for the old ways. In Chris- 
 tianity none can be the right way, but the old way. And it is 
 to this test that our Church submits her doctrines, her govern- 
 ment, and the framework of her worship. In the preface to 
 the Ordinal she refers us to Holy Scripture and ancient Authors. 
 In the preface to the Prayer Book she tells us, that "she is far 
 from intending to depart from the Church of England, to which 
 she acknowledges that she is indebted under God for her first 
 foundation and a long continuance of nursing care and protec- 
 tion, — to depart, I say, in any essential point of doctrine, dis- 
 cipline, or worship, or further than local circumstances require. 
 Now the Church of England, by the Canon of 1571 concerning 
 Preachers, requires them not to teach any thing to be religious- 
 ly held and believed by the people but what is agreeable to 
 the doctrine of the Old or New Testament, and collected out 
 of that very doctrine by the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bish- 
 ops. To the same effect speak the great Authorities in the 
 Church, Jewell, Hooker, Jackson, Bromhall, Hammond, Bull, 
 and the like. 
 
 But some may say, it ill becomes the Anglican Church, or 
 our own, which is derived from her, to hold this language, since 
 that Anglican Church dates her very origin only from the mid- 
 dle of the 16th century, and owes the dew of her birth, the very 
 breath of her life, to a wicked King, a slavish people, and a 
 rebellious clergy. This is one of the most frequent reproaches 
 
6 
 
 of the Romanist in liis denunciations of that Church which he 
 most abhors, because it most efi'ectnally obstructs his progress. 
 And this too is the language of the Latitudinariaii, who, like 
 Gallio, cares for none of these things, and only regards the po- 
 litical, su23erficial aspect of religious interests. He speaks of 
 the Church of England as founded by Cranmer and Ridley and 
 Latimer. The Romanist speaks of it rather as the creation of 
 the hateful Henry 8th. 
 
 Is this a just view of the origin of the Church of England, 
 from which our own has sprung? If it be, I admit that we, at 
 least, have no right to say to others, "stand in the ways and 
 see, and ask for the old Paths," until we ourselves have turned 
 from the paths in which we have been walking, 
 
 IsTow one thing is very certain: that if the Anglican Church 
 be a creature of the 16th century, her apologists and champions 
 are very unwise, for their favorite appeal, after Scripture, is to 
 Antiquity. They seek then to be tried by a method of proof 
 which must condemn them. Yet as a body they certainly are 
 not deficient in acuteness or in learning. Hooker was neither 
 stupid nor ignorant; on the contrary, his intellect shines forth 
 to the eyes of mankind as one of their guiding lights in their 
 onward and upward progress. Yet in the third Book of his 
 Polity he quotes with approbation from Ireneus, saying that 
 "the Church, though scattered through the whole world, hath 
 from the Apostles and their Discij^les received belief. Which 
 Faith, the Church, spread far and wide, preserveth as if one 
 house did contain them; these things it equally embraceth, as 
 though it had one soul, one heart, and no more. It publisheth, 
 teacheth, and delivereth these things with uniform consent, as 
 if God had given it but one tongue. He which among the 
 guides of the Church is best able to speak, uttereth no more 
 than this, and less than this the most sim^jle doth not utter." 
 Such is Hooker's view of the unchanging nature of the true 
 Faith. If then he conceived his to be new, how plainly he 
 condemned himself. 
 
 Bishop Jewell, one of the most eminent Theologians that Eng- 
 land ever bred, said in his famous Cluillenge Sermon, that if 
 the adversaries of the Church were able to bring any sufficient 
 sentence out of any old Catholic Doctor or Father, or out of 
 any old General Council, or out of the Holy Scriptures, or any 
 example of the Primitive Church, in their behalf and against 
 
• 7 
 tlie principles of the Church, in a number of particulars -which 
 he names, that then he would give over and subscribe to them. 
 Again, Bishop Bull, whose Defence of the Nicene Creed is 
 held by the Universal Church as a possession forever, and who 
 has evinced therein such immense learning and such discrimi- 
 nating accuracy, avers that whatever Theological doctrines are 
 sanctioned by the consent of Catholic Fathers and ancient Bish- 
 ops, he embraces with all reverence. It is to Antiquity, in 
 short, as the most authoritative expounder of Scripture, that 
 the trusted and honored advocates of the Church of England 
 ever gladly appeal. And at the same time, it is observable 
 that no other body of Christians seems fond of that appeal to 
 Antiquity. The Presbyterians and the Methodists seem to 
 think that from the days of St. Paul to those of Luther and 
 Calvin, the Christian Church was hardly better than a desert 
 without fruit or flower; that from Dan to Beersheba all was 
 barrenness. Their standard of orthodoxy is the naked text of 
 Scripture, theoretically as understood by themselves, practical- 
 ly as understood by their leaders and favorite commentators. 
 For there is a class of persons with whom Thomas Scott is as 
 authoritative as Thomas Aquinas is with others. 
 
 The Pomanists did, for some time after the Reformation, con- 
 tend strenuously that the voice of Antiquity was on their side. 
 But the labor bestowed on them has not been in vain. They 
 have been taught better, and now their favorite Theory is that 
 of Development, that is, that the doctrines of the Church not 
 only are not the same now as formerly, but that they ought not to 
 be, that they are meant to enlarge and improve from Age to 
 Age. In opposition to these, the Anglican Church claims to 
 hold and teach that very Christian Faith which was held and 
 taught by the Church of Christ in the first and purest ages. 
 Now a Church with advocates so able and so well-learned, 
 which thus seeks to be tried by Antiquit}'-, must have good 
 grounds for believing that Antiquity is not opposed to her. 
 
 But to go more minutely into the inquiry, let us ask, in what 
 does the continuity of the Church consist, what makes an ex- 
 isting Church to be identical with that which Christ established? 
 Certainly its Identity does not consist in maintaining un- 
 changed its various rites and ceremonies. These are but its 
 vestments, and to alter them no more impairs the identity of 
 the Church, tlian to change one's clothes affects the identity 
 
8 
 
 • 
 
 of the person who wears those clothes. Indeed it is obvious 
 that as times and circumstances change, rites, ceremonies^ 
 usages, 7)iust also change. That mode of worship which was 
 appropriate when Christians met in upper chambers and in 
 catacombs, must have been discontinued when their assemblies 
 were gathered together in the stately Basilica of Saint Sophia 
 at Constantinople, or under the lofty dome of St. Peter in the 
 elder Metropolis. Indeed, uniformity in such things never be- 
 longed to the Church. At Jerusalem, after Pentecost, believers 
 had all things common, but it is clear from St. Paul's Epistles 
 that even in his day, there were distinctions of rich and poor 
 in the Church, and consequently separate property. Some- 
 times he practised immersion, as with Timothy, at other times, 
 resisted it, as with Titus. His maxim as to rites and usages 
 was, let there be liberty, but only let all things be done decently 
 and in order. And so has it been universally held, and no 
 Church, no communion of Christians^ pretends that its rites and 
 usages are, point by point, exactly the same with those of the 
 Apostolic Age. By what characteristics then is the identity 
 of the Church to be ascertained? As the Church is a Society, 
 Divinely instituted, for teaching and transmitting religious 
 Truth, and for the rightful worship of the most High, these 
 things would seem to constitute its Identity: its preservation of 
 its original authority, its maintenance of the same essential doc- 
 trine, its observance of the same essential worship. To begin 
 then with Doctrine. All of the teachings of Christianity are 
 true and profitable, but of some of them, it is essential to sal- 
 vation tliat thev be received, of others it is not. Faith in the 
 proposition that Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, was sent by 
 the Father to be the Saviour of the world, is essential to salva- 
 tion. He that believeth not this will be damned. But faith in 
 the proposition that Mary Magdalene is the same with Mary of 
 Bethany is not essential to salvation. 
 
 In"ow one office of the Church of Christ is to collect and em- 
 body those doctrines of the Gospel, whicli are essential to sal- 
 vation, that she may effectually teach her children what they 
 nmst believe in order to be saved. This she has done from the 
 earliest age, and incorporated those essential doctrines in her 
 creeds. Of these, the Apostles' is the more brief, the Nicene 
 the more full expression of the same Faith. The Athanasian 
 Creed is, as Luther expressed it, rather a Bulwai'k of the 
 
Apostles' Creed, than itself a Creed. If, however, any prefer 
 to regard it in the latter light, it is a more minute and detailed 
 statement of what is contained in the Apostles', as the Nicene 
 also is. 
 
 ]Srow these Creeds, early existing in the Church, propound- 
 ing the Faith ever held by the Church, and used regularly in 
 her worship, were for many centuries all that were required as 
 the essential Faith of a Christian man. At the Reformation 
 the Church of England retained these old Creeds, adding no- 
 thing, diminishing nothing. Surely then she has not changed 
 the essential Faith. In her Faith she is not a new Church. 
 
 Our own Church is in the same position, for she holds the 
 same doctrine with that of England. On the other hand, the 
 Church of Home, after the Reformation, did add the Creed of 
 Pope Pius the Fourth, containing twelve new Articles, to the 
 ISTicene Creed, and declare this amalgam to be the true Catho- 
 lic Faith, without which no one can be saved; and within the 
 last five years she has added still another under the same 
 penalty. "Which then of these bodies can be most justly 
 charged with changing the Faith? But it may be said that 
 these various doctrines, thus stamped with authority, such as 
 Image- Worship, Invocation of Saints, Communion in one kind, 
 and Transubstantiation, and the like, though not incorporated 
 into the Creeds, were yet generally held in the Church before 
 the Reformation, and that their being discarded by the Church 
 of England at that time, did of itself make her doctrine new. 
 To this there are two sufficient answers. 1st, that as these 
 opinions were not incorporated into the Creeds, the Church 
 thereby declared her judgment that they were, at the best, 
 not essential. 2dly and principally, that these notions were 
 themselves new, and that when discarded, the Church only re- 
 asserted her primitive Faith. As Bishop Bull strongly but 
 justly observes, nothing but impudence itself dare affirm, that 
 the Holy Scriptures teach, or the Primitive Church practised 
 Image- Worship, Invocation of Saints, half communion, or 
 Prayers in a tongue not understood by the People. . I consider 
 this question however in efiect settled by the position the 
 Church of Rome has lately taken on the subject of Develop- 
 ment. Dr. Newman, in his essay on that subject, struck a 
 chord which has vibrated throughout the whole Papal Domin- 
 ion, He teaches that there are Christian doctrines not reveal- 
 
10 
 
 ed in one age, wliick are revealed in another, e. g. the TVor- 
 sliip of the Virgin. He traces this to the Arian controversy in 
 the 4th century. The Arians acknowledged Christ to be be- 
 gotten before all worlds, and exalted above all creatures, but 
 yet insisted that He was Himself still but a creature. The 
 Church held that no honor paid to Christ, no office, dignity, 
 authority, ascribed to Him, reached that which was due to 
 Him, until He was acknowledged to be very God. What was 
 the consequence? This, of course, we all know, that the Arians 
 were declared Heretics, But there was another of great im- 
 port, and of singular nature, that Dr. Newman has himself the 
 merit of having discovered. Then, says he, "there was a won- 
 der in Heaven, a Throne was seen far above all created powers, 
 mediatorial, intercessory, a Title archetypal, a Crown bright as 
 the morning star, a Glory issuing from the Eternal Tlirone, 
 robes pure as the Heavens, and a Sceptre over all. And who," 
 he asks, "was the Predestined Heir of that Majesty?" And his 
 answer is, that "the Church decreed it to be the Yirgin Mary," 
 You may ask what is the meaning of this rhapsody? The mean- 
 ing is, that because certain Heretics imagined a Creature with 
 many of the attributes of the Creator, and the Church dis- 
 claimed this position for Her Lord, that it was indispensable 
 some one should fill it, and it was assigned to the Yirgin Mary. 
 It would seem to follow from this, that whenever a heretic 
 imagines an anomaly, it is to be converted into a reality by the 
 plastic power of the Church. But without stopping to analyze 
 this idea, one thing is certain, that it acknowdedges, and is an 
 attempt to account for, the fact that the Divine, or quasi- 
 Divine honors now paid to the Yirgin Mary in the Church of 
 Home, were not known among Christians till the 4th century, 
 after the contest with Arianisra. Then, of necessity, it follows 
 that the doctrine of the present Church of Home is not the doc- 
 trine of the Primitive Church, on that vital subject. But it 
 may be said that these are the views of one man. The reply 
 is, that they have been endorsed by the Church to which he 
 now beloE^gs. Tliat man published the Book containing these 
 views when he gave in his adhesion to the Church of Rome, as 
 a sufficient expLanation and justification of his course, and he 
 submitted liis work to the judgment of that Church. She 
 knows how to stigmatize Books, that do not appeal to her for 
 judgment, and much more, of course, those which do, wlien she 
 
11 
 
 condemns tlieir doctrine; and she is not slow or sparing in the 
 exercise of this function. But no word of official disapprobation 
 has gone Hfrth against this work. On the contrary, the Author, 
 immediately after its publication, went to Rome, as it were, in 
 triumphal procession. He immediately received offices of 
 high honor and trust, and is now at the head of that University, 
 which the Church of Rome has established for the very pur- 
 pose of moulding the minds of all who speak the English tongue. 
 That the Church of Rome then does not now hold Primitive 
 Doctrine, is in effect confessed, and has lately been most fla- 
 grantly exhibited in act, a dogma having been enjoined as mat- 
 ter of Faith, without belief in which there is no salvation, 
 which was not only unknown to Scripture and Antiquity, but 
 denounced by St. Bernard in the 12th century, and treated as 
 an open question until our own day. On the other hand, that 
 the Ano-lican Church and our own do hold the Primitive Doc- 
 trine, is manifest from their preserving the Creeds intact, and 
 ever appealing to Scri23ture and Antiquity. 
 
 As regards Doctrine then, there was no new Church estab- 
 lished in England at the time of the Reformation. How then 
 has it been with regard to Government? ISTow it is clear that 
 nothing is essential to the government of the Church of Christ, 
 which she can subsist without, for the essence of a thing is 
 that which causes it to be, and that which is essential is conse- 
 quently indispensable to its very existence. 
 
 An ecclesiastical society may subsist without something 
 which is essential to the Church of Christ, because it may not 
 be the Church of Christ, but the Church of Christ cannot sub- 
 sist, a single moment, without any thing which is essential to 
 it. If then our Church possesses a government which is the 
 same with that under which the Church of Christ once sub- 
 sisted, it has all that is essential in Church Government. ISTow 
 what is the Government of our Church? It is an Hierarchy of 
 Bishops, Priests and Deacons, claiming to derive their au- 
 thority from the Apostles by unbroken succession. The nature 
 of this succession is that each Bishop has his office conferred on 
 Lim by others holding that office. One Bishop is sufficient to 
 confer the office on another, but from abundant caution the 
 Council of Nice required that three BishojDS should unite in the 
 consecration of another, so as to exclude, as far as might be, 
 any possibility of the chain being broken. ISTow no one doubts 
 
12 
 
 that this method of consecration has been preserved in our 
 Church since the American Episcopate was established. It is 
 equally certain that the English Bishops since the sSbond year 
 of Queen Elizabeth's reign have been consecrated in like man- 
 ner. Romanists will of course agree with us in affirming what 
 no instructed person can truthfully deny, that this succession 
 had been preserved from the time of the Apostles to the Refor- 
 mation. Was it then lost at the Reformation? They who say 
 60, must rely either on the position that no consecration of a 
 Bishop is valid without the assent of the Pope, which is a mere 
 assumption, or rather much worse, for it is an assumption op- 
 posite to Scripture, contradicted by the principles and practice 
 of the Primitive Church, contradicted by the view which Rome 
 herself takes of the Greek and other Oriental Churches, and 
 contradicted by her own conduct when there have been Popes 
 and Anti-Popes. Either, then, it is on this unsupported and 
 even disowned Theory, that the denial of the transmission of 
 the Episcopal office at the Reformation must rest, or it must be 
 on the Nags-Head Story — that is, that Arch-Bishop Parker 
 chose to be consecrated at a Tavern, rather than any Church or 
 Chapel in England, all being at his command, and that he 
 chose to have a Bible laid on his head as the act of consecra- 
 tion, instead of using the service established by Edward the 
 6th, or any other that was decorous and authoritative. This 
 foolish story, originating forty years after the occurrence, has 
 been abundantly disproved by Roman Catholic as well as 
 Protestant writers, and is treated with contempt even by Lin- 
 gard, the Roman Catholic historian of England, who cannot be 
 accused of any tenderness to her Reformed Church. 
 
 The Anglican Church, then, and our own, have a government 
 of Bishops, Priests and Deacons, enjoying their office by suc- 
 cession from the Apostles. Is any thing more necessary to the 
 government of the Church? It cannot be, because for many 
 years the whole Church of Christ was thus governed. The power 
 of the Pope was not developed for several centuries after the 
 death of the Apostles. When St. Paul resisted St. Peter to the 
 face, when St. Polycarp resisted Victor, when St. Hyppolytos 
 denounced the successive Popes Zephyrinus and Callistus as 
 heretics, when St. Cyprian resisted Stephen, when St. Hilary 
 anathematized Pope Liberius, it must be acknowledged that the 
 power of the Popes was 7iot developed. And so thinks Dr. 
 
13 
 
 Kewman, and so must they think who make him the Iiighest 
 instructor of youth. Since, then, the primitive Church conti- 
 nued to subsist under the government of Bishops, without a 
 Pope, it is certain that the authority of the Pope is not indis- 
 pensable to the Church. And since the Church was at that 
 time most pure and most vigorous, it would seem to follow that 
 the authority of the Pope is not merely not essential, but even 
 injurious. And furthermore, the Church subsisted in England 
 itself, before, as well as since, the Reformation, without any 
 subjection to the Pope. For it is matter of history that the Brit- 
 ish Church, before the mission of Augustine, was not Papal, 
 and that when he demanded of the British Bishops a recogni- 
 tion of the Pope's authority, they explicitly refused it. Such 
 is the testimony of venerable Bede, himself warmly attached to 
 the Poman See. The supremacy of the Pope, then, as it was 
 no essential part of Church government in Christendom gene- 
 rally, so especially was it not in England, but was every where 
 an innovation, and there an innovation which provoked protest 
 and resistance. To discard this innovation, then, was certainly 
 not to destroy the continuity of the Church. 
 
 And now as to Worship. I am not concerned either to main- 
 tain or to deny that a Liturgy is essential to the preservation of 
 the identity of the Church. It is indeed a purely speculative 
 question; for in point of fact, every Church that has retained 
 the Apostolic Succession, has 'also, by a sort of inviolable in- 
 stinct, retained the use of a Liturgy. And our own Liturgy, as 
 well as the English, retains the leading features of the Primi- 
 tive Formularies. This has been abundantly shown by Palmer 
 in his Origines Liturgicas. Changes were indeed made at the 
 time of the Reformation, and others of less importance have 
 been since made; but tlie Liturgy of the Church of Rome has 
 also repeatedly been altered, and even now the Galilean is about 
 being superseded in France, where it has so long embodied the 
 devotions of the people. 
 
 This, then, is the state of the question: The Church of Eng- 
 land, and by consequence our own, is accused of being a new, 
 a merely human society, originating in the 16th century. What 
 are the facts? That the Church at that era, with the concur- 
 rence of the entire Laity, (for, during twelve years, the whole 
 body of the Laity of England accepted the reformed Church,) 
 with the concurrence of all of nine thousand four hundred Cler- 
 
14 
 
 gymen except oneliiindred and eightj-nine, continuing tolive un- 
 der a government essentially the same with that of tbeir fore- 
 fathers, holding doctrines essentially the same, using a Liturgy 
 essentially the same, did yet reform some grievous corruptions, 
 put an end to some dangerous innovations, and return, as far as 
 might be, to that very model of doctrine, discipline, and wor- 
 ship, which had been enjoined by the Apostles, and followed 
 b}'' the first Christians. If this destroys the Church, then the 
 Church is designed to be a cage of unclean birds; then any op- 
 position to evil in the Church, any reformation of corruptions, 
 any resolute and effectual purpose to obey God rather than man, 
 any such Christianlike and faithful conduct, tends to destroy 
 the Church, and establish a schismatical institution in its stead. 
 But we have not so learned Christ as to believe this. If this 
 were so, then the best of the Poj)es were themselves enemies of 
 the Cliurch, and the worst were its true friends. Gregorv the 
 Seventh and Clement the Fourteenth must be stigmatized as 
 innovators and schismatics, for they too sought to be reformers, 
 while it is such wretches as John the Twelfth and Alexander 
 the Sixth who are to be regarded as the true friends of the 
 Church, for tliey abhorred reform, protected all old abuses, and 
 introduced new. In short, if reformation be schism, then good 
 is evil, and evil good. E-eformation is not destruction: reform- 
 ation is preservation. And therefore it is that we rejoice in it. 
 
 The Old Church is the True Church. A new Church is as 
 repugnant to my convictions as to those of any person whatso- 
 ever. A human Church, a Church which derives its origin 
 from any man, however wise and good, — for such a Church to 
 be the Pillar and ground of God^s Truth, to give authority to 
 Ministers who are God''s Ambassadors, to assure validity to 
 sacraments whereby faith is confirmed, and grace increased, 
 and God''s promises sealed, — this seems to be a contradiction in 
 thought. Tiie incongruity needs no jiroof; it is manifest in the 
 very statement. 
 
 Such a Church I do for my part utterly reject and disclaim. 
 If I were compelled to choose between a new Church and a 
 new Gospel, I should feel that in effect no choice had been al- 
 lowed me, for tliat a new Church is, to some extent, a new 
 Gospel, for the Church is a part of the Gospel. 
 
 Were our Church a new Church, there would not be such a 
 multitude of wise and good men coming out of other religious 
 
15 
 
 bodies to seek in her bosom stability of Faith and assurance of 
 Hope. "Were she proved to be a new Church, she would at once 
 lose the affection and the reverence of many, who are now among 
 her most devoted children. 'No; we venerate her authority be- 
 cause it has been transmitted from Christ and his Apostles; we 
 love her doctrines because they have purified the lives of saints 
 of old, and nerved the hearts of martyrs; because "no man hav- 
 ing drunk old wine, straightway desireth new, for he saith 
 the old is better." 
 
 It is because the Church to which we belong is the old 
 Church, preaching the old Gospel, because she. abhors inno- 
 vation, and knows nothing of Developments, and cries to all 
 her children to walk in the old paths, wherein is the good way, 
 — it is for these reasons that we love that Church, and confide 
 in her mission, and believe that the gates of Hell shall not pre- 
 vail against her, but that she will arise and shine, and that 
 Gentiles will come to her Light, and Kings to the brightness of 
 her shining. 
 
 Of this Church, you, beloved brethren, are about to receive 
 another grant of Authority, and another mark of confidence. 
 No longer her mere Ministers, she is about to make you her 
 Priests, thereby enabling you to perform the highest and most 
 sacred offices of religion, and thereby clothing your words 
 with a new sanction. 
 
 I^eed I exhort you to be faithful to this high trust? To be 
 worthy of the confidence of the Church, you must diligently 
 teach her principles, and faithfully illustrate them by your own 
 example. Tou too must call upon men to walk in the old paths, 
 and thus to find rest for their souls. 
 
 That old path is laid down in Scripture, for there is no re- 
 ligious teaching so old, or so true, as that of Scripture, so that 
 the Church, reverencing the voice of Her Lord, says whatsoever 
 is not read in Scripture, nor may be proved thereby, is not to 
 be required of any man to be believed as an Article of the 
 Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. And 
 in the mighty work of interpreting Scripture, again the old is 
 the best. Cherish candor and openness of mind, and welcome 
 Truth from whatever quarter it comes, but in tracing out for 
 yourselves and your people the way of salvation, expect no new 
 lights, but follow that which flows to us, down the long tract of 
 the Ages through which Christianity has already passed in its 
 
16 
 
 splendid and beneficent progress, that light which has hereto- 
 fore guided the steps of devout men, and comforted the hearts 
 of the weary and heavy-laden, the Light of Gospel Trutli, of 
 which the Church is the appointed Pillar and Ground, Holy 
 Scripture as the Rule of Faith, Ancient Authors as the best 
 Interpreters of that Rule. This it is, to which you are remitted 
 for your guidance, by the Church whose higher orders you this 
 day take on yourselves. 
 
 But those old paths lead not only to sound Doctrine, but to 
 the acceptable service of God. The old way of salvation, as 
 pointed out by the Apostles and as travelled by the early 
 Christians, was not a wide, smooth, primrose path, but straight 
 and narrow, over the mountains of difSiculty, and across the 
 valley of humiliation. A man who sets himself to follow Christy 
 must prepare for trouble, A man who sets himself earnestly 
 to bring others to the obedience of Christ, must prepare for a 
 double measure of trouble. Tlie o-reat Ens-lish moralist said 
 with his accustomed wisdom, that he did not envy that man to 
 whom tlie Ministry was an easy life. He to whom it has been 
 an easy life, will find it a heavy burden in Death, and a woful 
 stewardship in the Day of Judgment. 
 
 A faithful Minister must, until the Millennium comes, be 
 sometimes considered singular, narrow-minded, impracticable; 
 and that not by the world only, but by even his flock. He must 
 often oppose popular ^opinion and common practice. Nevei* 
 should he do this for oppfosition's sake, but on the contrary seel^ ' 
 to please men for their ^od to edification; but if he b£ faithful 
 to his Master, he must be sometimes opposed to that world which 
 crucified his Master, and would again were He again on earth. 
 If, then, a Minister find his path arduous and painful, let him 
 not on this account alone be discouraged. If he bring trouble 
 on himself by sin or folly, he has more cause than any otiier 
 man to be distressed; but if sincerely and carefully seeking to 
 do his duty, he yet find himself thwarted, opposed and traduced, 
 perhaps if he examine the thorny patli in which lie is traveling, 
 he will find it the old path of obedience to God rather tlian to 
 man, in which lie will recognize the footprints of Wilson and of 
 Ken, of Hooker and of Ridley, of Chrysostom and of Ambrose, 
 yea of the Great Captain of our Salvation Himself. May these 
 old paths be your paths, my beloved brethren, both as to life 
 and doctrine, and walking therein may you find rest for your 
 souls. And now, &c. 
 
lif- 
 
 THE 
 
 SACEEDNESS OF HUMAN LIFE, 
 
 AXD 
 
 BtoeHe^r) Jr}Siffe^6S]ee to li§ S^^ti^iietloo : 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF WAKE FOREST COLLEGE, 
 
 June 10th, 1857, 
 (Being the day before tlie Annual Commencement.) 
 
 BY 
 
 PwEv. WILLIAM HOOPEE, L.L. B. 
 
 RALEIGH: 
 
 HOLDEN & "WILSON, "STANDARD" OFFICE. 
 
 1857. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Young Gentlemen of the 
 
 EUZELIAN AND PhILOMATHESIAN SOCIETIES: ' 
 
 Having arrived at and past the grand climacteric of human 
 life, I might reasonably hold myself excused from being called 
 upon for any of those annual addresses which it is now the 
 fashion for all literary institutions to provide as an allurement 
 and as a reward to the audiences who may honor their com- 
 mencements with their presence. When, therefore, I re- 
 ceived your strongly urged request to be your speaker on 
 this occasion, my immediate resolution was to decline the 
 honor. "ISTo," I said, "these Collegiate Rostra are arenas for 
 the young and aspiring, who want an opportunity of recom- 
 mending themselves to the public, by an intellectual effort ; 
 or, at least, they are fields for those who are still in the vigor 
 of life — still partners and leaders in the busy scenes of the 
 world, and to whom excitement and a crowd are yet dearer 
 than repose and seclusion, the chosen lot of the aged." But 
 upon second thought, that age which, in one view, seemed a 
 plea for exemption, in another view appeared an argument 
 for compliance. "What head so fit to give counsel as one 
 hoary with the experience of more than three score years ! 
 "What heart so apt to feel a deep interest in the young as one 
 that has been warmed with the domestic sensibilities of two 
 generations, and has listened to the tender tones of children 
 and children's children ! And again : What younger man 
 can there be, standing on such a vantage ground for observa- 
 tion — for foretelling the future from the past — for descrying 
 at a distance the shadows that foreshow coming events — and 
 for giving affectionate monitions how to avert the evil, and 
 secure the good ! 
 
 It was such considerations as these that overruled my first 
 
inclination to be excused, and made me willing to avail my- 
 self of this, perhaps my last public opportunity of bearing 
 my testimony, before my country, on some important subject, 
 touching the public happiness, and appropriate to the ears of 
 our educated youth. These annual addresses meet a public 
 want. There is wanting, in our country, some periodical of 
 such pre-eminent reputation as to be the chosen depository of 
 the thoughts of our wisest and best men, and the channel of 
 communication between them. If a man of vigorous and 
 liberal thought wishes to reach the thought of kindred spirits 
 through the periodical press, he can find no journal of general 
 circulation. All are circumscribed to narrow limits, either 
 by the want of commanding talent or by being the organs of 
 parties, political or religious. But the enlightened and far- 
 gathered audiences of our collegiate commencements furnish 
 perhaps the best substitute for such a wide-spread periodical ; 
 and present favorable opportunities for laying before the 
 public our views on some subject of present and living inter- 
 est. This then may be taken as my last public secular ad- 
 dress — would that it might be my cycnea vox — like the swan's 
 dying song — its best, as it is its last. 
 
 And the theme that I have chosen is one which has long 
 brooded with painful weight upon my mind, as involving the 
 moral standing of our beloved country, and threatening to 
 bring down heaven's withering curse upon the Buena Yista 
 of this Elysian land. My theme is : The Sackedness of Hu- 
 man Life, and Amekican Indiffeeence to its Destkuction. 
 
 When I consider the preciousness of that ethereal spark 
 which burns within the frail casement of the human frame — 
 when I reflect upon its endless destinies — its keen conscious- 
 ness of its own infinite susceptibilities of happiness or misery — 
 its horror of being suddenl}^ struck from its throne within, 
 and sent out, a terrified stranger, into an unknown world, 
 
 " Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying ;" 
 
 when I consider under what careful and jealous custody its 
 Maker has placed this inestimable, yet most perishable trea- 
 sure, denouncing upon the man that touches it a bloody death 
 
in this world and exclusion from heaven in the next,* I am 
 ready to wonder at its perilous exposure. I am amazed that 
 it is not defended with bars of steel and walls of adamant, 
 but that its slight fortress can be pierced and the tenant de- 
 stroyed "with a bare bodkin." I see the Deity's tender care 
 of his creatures from the least to the greatest. I see him 
 taking care for the unfledged birdling, that it shall always be 
 born in the Spring, and never feel any thing more rude than 
 the vernal airs that wave the branch of the tree where it is 
 nestling. I see him " tempering the wind to the shorn lamb." 
 I see that exquisite tenderness still more beautifully exhibited 
 in the implantation of maternal love in all animated nature, 
 from the timid hen that will fight the powerful bird of prey, 
 as soon as it becomes a mother, to the woman that will waste 
 away her life over her sick infant's cradle. I hear the voice 
 of God's tenderness in that mother's wail, when that babe 
 breathes its last : " Kachel weeping for her children and 
 would not be comforted because they were not." I recognize 
 God's jealous protection of man's life in that severe inquisi- 
 tion for blood in the Mosaic law, which commands every city 
 in whose vicinity a man was found slain by an unknown 
 hand, to expurgate itself by solemn sacrifice ; and by procla- 
 mation of herald to disclaim any agency in the homicide : 
 " And all the elders of that city, that are next unto the slain 
 man, shall wash their hands over the sacrifice that shall be 
 beheaded — and they shall answer and say : our hands have 
 not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be mer- 
 ciful, O Lord, unto thy people, and lay not this innocent blood 
 to their charge. So shalt thou put away the guilt of inno- 
 cent blood from among you."f 
 
 Compare with this jealous, severe guardianship of human 
 life, the recklessness with which blood is shed and left una- 
 
 * I conjure every young man who carries a Revolver, and who may cast his eye on 
 these pages, to revolve these solemn declarations of God's word : " Whosoever hateth 
 his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in 
 him." 1 John, 3 15. " Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these : — 
 hatred, variance, wrath, strife, envyings, murders, and such like — of which I tell 
 you that those who do such things shall^not inherit the kingdom of God." Gala- 
 TIANS 5, 19 21. < 
 
 + Dedt. 21, 6 9. 
 
venged on the face of our land ; and well may a patriot fear, 
 lest, ere long, the cup of trembling shall be put to our lips, 
 and we shall be made to drink blood, because we have loved 
 blood. 
 
 " Oh Britain !" exclaims Dr. Young, " oh Britain, infamous 
 for suicide !" 
 
 "Oh America!" I respond, "infamous for inventions of 
 murderous weapons, infamous for bloody rencounters, for 
 blood-defending lawyers — for blood-acquitting juries, but 
 above all, for blood-stained steamboats and railroads." The 
 prosecution of our subject will lead us to speak of these sev- 
 eral methods of destroying man's life, in which our country 
 has risen to a " bad eminence " among the nations. 
 
 I. — ^THE BLOODSHED OF THE PUBLIC HIGHWAYS. 
 
 Europe, hardened as she is by perpetual wars, and crim- 
 soned with battle-fields, looks with wonder and horror upon 
 our lavish slaughter of our citizens in time of peace. Such 
 is the atrocious waste of human life among us, that it would 
 really seem as if our legislatures, our courts of justice, our 
 steamboats, our railroads, and our citizens generally, had em- 
 braced the Malthusian system of population : " That the in- 
 crease ot the species is greatly too rapid for the production of 
 food — and hence wars, pestilences, and other modes of thin- 
 ning out the redundant population, are absolutely necessary 
 for the good of the world ; and thus, what we commonly call 
 calamities, are no more calamities than a farmer's thinning 
 out his coi'n, or a vine-dresser's cutting away the hurtful lux- 
 uriance of his vineyard." And if Malthus's theory be a sound 
 one, it must be acknowledged that the steamboats and rail- 
 roads have done good service to their country in this respect; 
 and as long as they go on at their present commendable 
 speed, we need not go to war to rid ourselves of loafers and 
 to save our loaves. I seriously recommend to the legislature 
 to amend the law relating to the qualilications of jurors, in 
 capital trials, and to make the presidents and other function- 
 aries of railroad companies ineligible to sit on juries, as well 
 as butchera, because of their familiarity with blood. And as 
 
the butclier's trade is a very useful one, I recommend that 
 no railroad company shall be liable to prosecution for injuries 
 to life ; I will not say to " life or limb," because they should 
 be punished unless they do their work effectually, and put 
 the wounded out of their misery. It would be no favor to 
 the community to turn out from the shattered cars a mass of 
 helpless cripples for the public to feed and nurse. I recom- 
 mend, further, to the grand jury, that the Ealeigh and Gas- 
 ton Railroad Company be presented for not having rid their 
 country of more than five or six lives during the whole time 
 of their existence ; and thereby having been guilty of raising 
 the price of provisions to the present alarming rate. Be it 
 understood, however, that said company shall not be subject 
 to prosecution for failing in their butcher's work, during those 
 years when the cars had the rheumatism, it being unreasona- 
 ble to expect of them much effective service in their then 
 disabled condition. 
 
 But if it be a matter of national policy, in these times of 
 short crops, to increase the quantity of food and diminish the 
 number of consumers, there is a plan which we may adopt, 
 as a last resort, in case the railroads should fall off in the due 
 amount of killed. It is a plan once recommended by the 
 celebrated Dean Swift, on occasion of a great scarcity in 
 Ireland. He proposed that all the fat, well-looking children 
 should be prepared for the table. Tliis, he said, would have 
 the double advantage of increasing the supply of food, and 
 diminishing the demand. JSTow, should the crops of the pre- 
 sent year fall short, as they did during the last, and great 
 scarcity ensue, the Governor of the State has only to make 
 secret arrangements with Barnum to get up a " baby show " 
 in Raleigh, advertising premiums for the fattest and rosiest 
 children, (none so old as to be tough.) At the same time Hisf 
 Excellency should send out private instructions to all the 
 starving paupers of the land, to be ready at the metropolis, 
 on the appointed day ; and when the market-house is full of 
 babies, to give the signal for a general onslaught, when the 
 famished wretches should " hie on " and carry off as many 
 prizes as they could manage. But this is a matter we should 
 
8' 
 
 be a little secret about, lest the mothers sliould get bold 'of it. 
 But I rather think the railroads will save us from the necessity 
 of so extreme a measure as this. I recollect, a year or two 
 since, some hundreds of children got on board the cars at 
 Philadelphia, to spend a holiday, and have a merry-making 
 in the country. When they got the poor little things safely 
 in the trap, down came another car upon them, like a great 
 dead-fall, and crushed the little sparrows all in a mass ! Some 
 hopped and fluttered a while, but soon died. Now, what 
 better provider of fresh meat can we have than a railroad 
 which does its business in this style ! In this fast age people 
 must travel thirty or forty miles per hour, and while this is 
 the case, there is little danger of a failure of supply from 
 these winged shambles. 
 
 This is line work to go on in a christian land, and in the 
 most civilized country in the world ! And what was done to 
 the Herods who were guilty of this massacre of the innocents ? 
 Why, nothing; and the souls of these slaughtered innocents 
 are crying to God from under the altar, saying : " How long, 
 
 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our 
 blood on them that dwell on the earth." 
 
 Does any one take the part of the railroad companies and 
 say : These accidents are inevitable — that they necessarily re- 
 suit from the use of so great power — that you can't use great 
 power to achieve great public benefits without great risks ! 
 
 1 answer : That great risks are not necessary, as is proved by 
 railroad statistics in Europe, where deaths from this cause are 
 in a proportion vastly below our average. The only necessity 
 for the excessive risk among us is, the unprincipled and 
 uncontrollable love of gam, overleaping all concern for mur- 
 derous consequences: and this is not a refutation, but a cmi- 
 fession of the charge which I am now making upon the 
 
 American people of a recMess indifference to the destruction 
 of hmnan life. 
 
 After reading the details of one of these murderous railroad 
 oolhsions, in which a hundred human beings, some of them 
 the life and flower of the land, are hurried, without a mo- 
 ment's warning, into eternity, and many more left so shock- 
 
ingly wounded that the poor remains of life are not worth 
 having, I am ready to wonder that the pubhc indignation 
 does not rise to such a pitch as to execute immediate " Ijmch 
 law " upon all the engineers and superintendents. We might 
 almost imagine that some frantic father, hearing that wife 
 and children were all destroyed by the carelessness or mur- 
 derous rashness of some conductor or engineer, should take 
 up the words of Macduff in the play, when the heavy tidings 
 reached his ears : 
 
 "Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes 
 Savagely slaughtered ; to relate the manner. 
 Would — add the death of ycnt." 
 
 Macduff. " My wife killed too ? 
 My children too? All my pretty ones? 
 Did you say all? hell-kite! All? 
 What, all my pretty chickens and their dam^ 
 At one fell swoop ? 
 Oh I could play the woman with mine eyes t 
 
 but gentle heaven 
 
 Cut short all intermission— front to front, 
 Bring this man and myself— 
 Within my sword's length set him ; if he 'scape,^ 
 Then heaven forgive him too." 
 
 If the public feeling and the public conscience were pro- 
 perly awake on this subject^ railroads would be subjected by 
 law to such enormous forfeitures that they would take good 
 heed against such horrible perpetration of wholesale murder. 
 But " Young America " cares little for " dash, smash, crash," 
 provided he can " go ahead." 
 
 It is a common saying that " corporations have no souls ;" 
 but it is a mistake, and the reason of the mistake has been 
 that people looked for the soul in the wrong place, supposing 
 they must find it in the head or the breast ; whereas, the 
 seat of a corporation's soul is the pocket, and I am glad to 
 find that the friends of slaughtered travellers have at last 
 found out the locality by frequent stabs into these souls ; are 
 making them bleed as freely as they have made to bleed the 
 hearts and veins of our once happy families. As a further 
 safeguard, I recommend that the law oblige every engineer 
 and captain of the road to be chained by one foot to the floor 
 
10 
 
 of the locomotive. Then, in case of a collision, the authors 
 of the massacre would be the foremost victims. In these 
 remarks I have paid my respects chiefly to the railroads ; for 
 vi^hich I hope the steamboats will forgive me, inasmuch as 
 they have been so far surpassed, of late, by the railroads, in 
 thinning our surplus population, that we have almost forgotten 
 their former meritorious services in that line. 
 
 II. — THE BLOOD OF SUDDEN EENCOITNTEKS. 
 
 The immense fortunes which the patentees of improved 
 fire-arms are acquiring, indicate the horrid greediness of men 
 to be provided with implements of social murder, and prove 
 the direful, retrogradation of the American republic towards 
 barbarism. Time was when desperadoes could carry but one, 
 or, at most, two deaths in their pockets. Kow they can carry 
 twelve ! Hitherto Guttenburg, and Franklin, and Jenner, 
 and Watt, and Arkwright, and Davy, and Fulton, and Morse, 
 have occupied the temple of inventive genius and discovery, 
 and received the homage of mankind for their beneficent 
 inventions and discoveries ; but now Colt, and Sharpe, and 
 Bowie, and Paixhan, and Minie, have hurled those worthies 
 from their pedestals and set themselves up as Molochs to be 
 worshipped ! Gibbon, the great historian, has remarked that 
 the earth will always be overrun with the pernicious race of 
 conquerors as long as men pay more honor to the destroyers 
 than to the benefactors of the species. So we may say, that 
 the wit of man will always be more prolific of evil inventions 
 than of good, while the engines of destruction are more in 
 demand than the implements of useful industry. 
 
 The wearing of arms in time of peace is an indication that 
 a nation is in a semi-barbarous state; and one of the first 
 steps towards civilization is the banishing of deadly weapons 
 from the persons of tlie citizens. Sudden passion ought 
 never to have at hand the means of instant vengeance ; and 
 as no man can feel himself safe in the social circle, if he sus- 
 pects his neighbor to be armed, the practice in some will 
 lead to the practice in all^ and society will, every now and 
 
11 
 
 then, be shocked by some bloody affray occurring in our 
 streets, or even on the domestic hearth. I hope, young gen- 
 tlemen, you will lay it down as one of the principles of your 
 future life, never to follow the example of these rowdies of 
 our frontiers. Act on the principle that the man who is con- 
 scious of virtue and uprightness, wants no shield, no weapon 
 but his integrity : 
 
 " Integer vitse, scelerisque purus, 
 Non eget Mauris jaculis neque arcu." 
 
 Expose not yourselves to the awful calamity and the immedi- 
 cable grief of shedding a fellow-creature's blood, in sudden 
 anger or alarm. Better fall a victim to another's violence, 
 than yourself bring death upon a brother-man. He who car- 
 ries arms, has deliberately resolved to kill his fellow-man 
 whenever sudden passion or fear may impel him ; and must 
 he not, then, be written down in God's book, as a murderer 
 in purpose and intention, whether he ever carries his purpose 
 into execution or not ? And indeed it will be well for him, if 
 his violent dealings do not come down upon his own head, 
 even in the present world. The man who is known to carry 
 arms is in greater danger than others of being assassinated. 
 " They that take the sword shall perish by the sword." Like 
 begets like. Dreading his desperate character, others will 
 be apt to be beforehand with him, and shoot him before he is 
 aware, from apprehension of being shot themselves. 
 
 But alas ! what avails my feeble voice to dissuade the youth 
 of our country from violent personal rencounters, when the 
 representatives of the nation, in the very halls destined for 
 calm and high debate on the momentous interests of this 
 great country, set examples of ruffian assault, and when half 
 the nation applaud the^ deed ! In pursuing my present line 
 of thought, I can hardly omit, without being faithless to my 
 cause, that instance of personal violence which has shaken 
 the feelings of this nation from the centre to the circumfer- 
 ence. I know 1 am treading on dangerous ground, because 
 I venture upon a collision with sectional and party spirit. 
 
12 
 
 But that noble sentiment of Churchill, which long ago won 
 mv admiration, I trust will ever animate me : 
 
 " Rather stand up, assured with conscious pride, 
 Alone, than err with millions on your side." 
 
 The assault upon a Senator of the United States while sitting 
 at his desk in the Senate House, defenceless and unsuspect- 
 ing, and the pouring down upon his naked head a shower of 
 violent blows with a cane, until he was felled down, in a 
 senseless condition, was an act so outrageous, that it ought to 
 find no apologist — no extenuator. It has increased, to an in- 
 calculable degree, the strength and fury of abolitionism. It 
 has injured the character of the southern States, first, as 
 being perpetrated by one of their representatives, and then 
 as tempting all the south to vindicate and even to applaud 
 an act, which has tarnished the glory of republican govern- 
 ment to the utmost boundaries of civilization. And what is 
 the plea of defense set np by the assailant and his backers? 
 It is : " That the party attacked used, in debate, violent and 
 contemptuous language respecting the State of which the as- 
 sailant was the representative." I do not pretend to vindicate 
 the language which provoked the assault. Even moderate 
 northern men saw and acknowledged it to be shameful and 
 unjustifiable. But I hold that such a method of restraining 
 or chastising the license of the tongue, is utterly at war with 
 the conditions and rights of social life, and the principles of, 
 representative government. The maxim : " J)e nwr'tuie nil 
 nisi honuni^"^ would have restrained me from this animad- 
 version on the conduct of one who has since been called to 
 a more solemn bar than that of this world, had not con- 
 cern for the living demanded it of me ; and did I not think 
 it my duty, as a minister of the Prince of Peace, to bear my 
 unflinching testimony against an act of a pvhlic man, which, 
 through the influence of accidental, political considerations, 
 is defended and applauded by half the Union, M^ith a few in- 
 dividual exceptions. I fear we have not seen the end of this 
 transaction. As once, of old, crystal streams flowed at the 
 stroke of the staff" of Moses, and followed the Israelites 
 
13 
 
 throngli all their journey ; so crimson streams may burst forth 
 at the stroke of this unhallowed staff, which shall follow our 
 American tribes during all the train of their political history. 
 I, for one, protest against the South's assuming the responsi- 
 bility for this act. Ko independent, no unfettered, fearless 
 discussion of national interests could be carried on, if club 
 law, the argumentum lacuUnum^ were the order of the day. 
 In a deliberative assembly, the attacks of the tongue should 
 be met by the same weapon. The philippics of Cicero were 
 avenged by cutting off his head, and by boring with a bod- 
 kin the tongue that pronounced them. And, although the 
 smitten Senator of Massachusetts is no Cicero, but only one 
 who " has the venom of his shaft without the vigor of his 
 bow," yet, I hope we shall not sanction Mark Anthony and 
 his wife's method of punishing a sharp tongue, with still 
 sharper steel. To do this, is to confess an inability to repel 
 insolent charges with intellectual weapons ; and I hope the 
 south is not ready to admit such inability. 
 
 III. THE BLOOD OF THE DUEL. 
 
 But these sudden, fortuitous, bloody rencounters, in which 
 human life is unscrupulously smitten down, as if it were no 
 more than the life of an ox, are not the only forms of private 
 slaughter which we have to dread, and against which, young 
 -gentlemen, I am bound to seize this public opportunity of 
 warning you. These savage fights, the results of sudden 
 passion, armed with deadly weapons, are a feature oi frontier 
 life, where rude adventurers throng, and where the law is 
 not yet strong enough, nor society sufficiently sober and mild 
 to make the wearing of arms criminal and disreputable. But 
 there still remains, in undiminished credit, the old-fashioned, 
 time-honored duel, associated with great and gallant names, 
 such as those of Hamilton and Decatur, in this country, not 
 to mention the nobility and gentry of all Europe, who bow 
 to the " code of honor " as their binding law. 
 
 I am not going to enter upon the hackneyed arguments 
 against this practice. I am not going to move your pity and 
 
14 
 
 inflame your indignation by painting a wife, a mother, a 
 sister, wild with grief over the freshly slain corpse of a hus- 
 band, a son, or a brother. I know the duellist can parry all 
 your arguments, and drown all your lamentations, by this 
 short defence : " I 'tnust live in society. I can't live in society 
 unless I defend my honor. If I am insulted, however reluc- 
 tant I may be to take or lose life, I Tnust fight, or I lose 
 caste. That I cannot bear. Better die honored than live 
 dishonored. My reputation is dearer to me than my life. I 
 have a right, you will admit, to defend my life^ much more 
 have I a right to defend my TionorP ISTow, what have you 
 to reply to such a plea as this? Nothing that will have 
 weight with the duelling world. You may bring powerful 
 considerations, founded on the awful danger of being sent, in 
 a moment, into the presence of God with the crime of inten- 
 ded, perhaps actual, murder on the soul. You may expose 
 most graphically the absurdity, the cruelty, the political and 
 social mischiefs of such a practice ; but these do not prevail 
 with the minds of the young and ardent, whose ruling passion 
 is pride of character, and a keen sensibility to their position 
 in society. This is a feeling not to be despised. If it is an 
 infirmity, it is one which Milton has almost justified and 
 canonized by calling it : " The last infirmity of noble minds." 
 It is not right that high-minded young men should be put to 
 the excruiating alternative of forfeiting their place in society, 
 or running the dreadful risk of killing or being killed in a 
 duel. They ought not to be reduced to this cruel choice. 
 Kather, this high regard to reputation — this sensitive concern 
 for a position in society, ought to throw its weight and force 
 against the duel, and not in its favor. As soon as you bring 
 society into such a state of sentiment and principle, that the 
 duel will be the I'uin rather than the pi'eservation of character, 
 then, and not till then, will you put an end to the practice. 
 And never will society stamp this stigma upon duelling, until 
 it shall imbibe, in full measure, that estimate of the awful 
 sanctity of human life, which it is my object, this da}', to 
 impress upon your minds. Yes, I repeat it, the awful 
 sanctity of human life^ and the dire atrocity of striking at 
 
15 
 
 that sacred thing, without a sad necessity of doing so. Long 
 ago I learned from Mr. Locke that "uneasiness determines 
 the will." Whenever, in any question of conduct, a man 
 feels greater uneasiness in letting an action alone than in 
 committing it, he will infallibly commit it. Whenever he 
 feels greater uneasiness at the thought of committing it than 
 of abstaining from it, he will abstain from it. If, then, you 
 want to govern men, you must enlist their strongest feelings 
 on your side, and make the violation of your will more pain- 
 ful to them, (fchat is, occasion them more uneasiness,) than 
 obedience to your will. With duellists, nothing makes them 
 so uneasy, nothing is so intolerable to them, as scorn — as 
 losing their place among the first classes of society. It fol- 
 lows, that if duelling can be made, not a passport to favor, 
 but a sure prelude to disgrace, and a ground of exclusion 
 from the society of the great, the elegant, the rich, the fash- 
 ionable, the beautiful and the refined, you take away the 
 chief motive to it, and cut it up by the roots. 
 
 I stand here, then, as the apologist of the duellist, against 
 the upbraidings of society. I thus speak in his behalf: " You 
 declaim," he may say to society, " in the most eloquent and 
 the most piteous terms against the folly, the stupidity, the 
 inhumanity of duelling. All this folly, stupidity and inhu- 
 manity I am guilty of in order to please you. I love my 
 own life, of course ; I abhor to shed the blood of my fellow- 
 man. But if he insults me the opinions of society require 
 me to call him to the field. I yield reluctantly to their im- 
 perious demand. I consent to risk my own life and the im- 
 bruing of my hands in the blood of my fellow man rather 
 than forfeit your favor. I live upon your smiles. Death and 
 homicide are, either of them, easier to bear than your intol- 
 erable frowns, and still more intolerable sneers. Your esteem 
 drives me to the field, charges the deadly tube, sends the 
 mortal bullet! How then can 3^ou consistently blame and 
 upbraid the man who values your high opinion so much as to 
 risk the life of himself, and that even of his dearest friend, 
 to preserve your smile ?" 
 
 Thus might the duellist defend himself against the re- 
 
16 
 
 proaclies of society, and fasten the guilt of duelling upon 
 society itself. Suppose now a revolution in the opinions and 
 manners of society. Suppose the man that has fought a duel 
 cuts himself off from all offices of honor or profit. Suppose 
 society treat him as they treat a thief, a cheating gambler, a 
 vulgar, beastly drunkard. Suppose the ladies to shun him. 
 "When he calls they refuse to see him in the parlor. If he 
 appears in the ball-room the ladies refuse to dance vv^itli him ; 
 nay, they even retire from the room, and complain of the 
 managers as admitting improper company into polite assem- 
 blies. Suppose no lady would think of marrying him ; if she 
 did, society would forsake her. Suppose no father would 
 allow him to visit his family. And all this because he had 
 shown, by fighting a duel, that he could be guilty of the deep 
 crime of attacking the citadel of human life. Who believes 
 that duelling would long survive such treatment as this ? 
 
 But you will say : How can we treat thus, a young man^ 
 gallant in spirit, generous, kind, warm-hearted, honest, hon- 
 orable, amiable, elegant in manners, cultivated in intellect? 
 I admit it is hard, but this is the only way in which you can 
 get rid of duelling. And you will not have to do it long. 
 The first generation must be sacrificed, but the second gener- 
 ation, and all succeeding generations, will be saved. Duel- 
 ling, which lives upon the smiles, M'ill die under the slights 
 and sneers of society. Society, then, has the control of the 
 practice. It will flourish at her bidding, it will wither at her 
 rebuke. And I fear there is no hope of its extinction until 
 the popular sentiment shall sympathise with the law of God, 
 which commands the magistrate to shed the blood of the 
 wilful homicide. The arm of the magistrate must take the 
 lead in directing the opinions and giving force to the senti- 
 ments of the community. If they treat the duellist as the 
 enemy of social life, the magistrate must pursue and arrest 
 him as a culj^rit. He must advertise him, and offer a reward 
 for his apprehension. He must apply to the governor of the 
 adjacent State, whose soil has been violated, to deliver up 
 the homicide. How preposterous to pass laws making duel- 
 ling felony, and then to allow all the parties and accessories 
 
17 
 
 to walk at large, stained with blood as they may be, perfectly 
 fearless and untouched, and society to treat the hero as a 
 favorite ! But this will always be the case where the senti- 
 ments of society do not accord with the severity of the 
 statute. The magistrates will connive at the breach of the 
 law, while the public consider the law as " more honored in 
 the breach than in the observance." Let society insist on 
 the execution of the law. Let governors and other executive 
 officers be forced, by the voice of society, to arrest, prosecute 
 and punish the duellist and his accessories; and society will 
 not long have to mourn the fall of fine young men in single 
 combat. Until this be done, I see not how the public them- 
 selves and their magistrates can be exculpated from the 
 charge of encouraging the duel, or clear their skirts of the 
 guilt of all its tragical consequences. God writes down, in 
 his book, the community that countenances the blood-shed- 
 ding duellist, as accessories to his crime. 
 
 IV. — THE BLOOD OF THE BAE AISB THE JURY-BOX. 
 
 But how can we expect that the mass of the citizens will 
 be very scrupulous of shedding human blood, when the tri- 
 bunals of justice, the very sanctuary and palladium of our 
 safety, betray us into the hands of murderers ! Yes, I utter 
 it deliberately and solemnly : the very machinery which our 
 ancestors set up to shield our lives, does, by abuse and per- 
 version, entangle us within its crushing wheels, and prove 
 our destruction. 
 
 It must make the heart of every feeling man bleed, and it 
 must make the face of every patriot burn with shame for his 
 country, to think that there is no protection in the law — that 
 when the lawless passions which run riot in our land, have 
 smitten down, in their blood, our dearest and our best — the 
 beloved father, brother, or son, — the mourning relations cry 
 in vain to their country for relief. The country is deaf to 
 their wailings. She delivers up the innocent and the helpless 
 to the dagger and the pistol, and throws the shield of her 
 defence about the rufl&an and the assassin. Her tribunals of 
 2 
 
18 
 
 justice, so called, are a mockery. Little offenders may be 
 convicted and punished, but the pow^erful and the wealthy 
 escape ; thus making good the saying of one of the ancients, 
 that "laws are like cobwebs, they catch the flies, but the 
 wasps and hornets break through." These complaints and 
 reproaches are amply sustained by the present practice of 
 the courts. We prepare, at great expense, and with great 
 formality, all the insignia of justice ; the court-house, the 
 prison, the pillory, the judge, the prosecuting oflicer, the 
 sheriff, the jury. The judges are sent over all the face of 
 the land to punish the violators of the law, and to protect the 
 lives and property of the citizens. But if, by this means, 
 jp7vperty is generally secured to its right owners, it must be 
 confessed and deplored that what is so much more valuable 
 and sacred than property, even the life of man is left unpro- 
 tected, I had almost said is betrayed and derided by the 
 machinery and forms of the law itself. Our present system 
 of criminal trials was invented and framed under a monarchy 
 as a defence of the subject against the power and tyranny of 
 the crown — of the vassal, against the oppression of the baron. 
 It was thought that no barriers were too high, no precautions 
 too jealous, to shield the weak from the violence of the strong. 
 Hence the boasted trial of the accused by a jury of his peei*s, 
 an wpostoUo twelve — chosen by himself, excluding every one 
 who was likely to condemn him unjustly. Hence the right 
 of being advised and defended by the ablest counsel. Hence 
 the right of that counsel to cross-examine, puzzle and brow- 
 beat witnesses; and hence the glory of the bar when the 
 client was snatched from the talons of arbitrary power. 
 Every such acquittal was hailed with pride, as a proof of the 
 noble independence and courage of an English jury, in defy- 
 ing the terrors of a court thirsting for blood. Every such 
 acquittal clothed the brow of the victorious advocate with the 
 double glory of eloquence and of heroic devotion to the cause 
 of the innocent. But this boasted feature of the English law, 
 the trial by jury, worthy as it may have been of its praises, 
 in the circumstances where it originated, is by no means so 
 worthy of our love and adoption, perverted as it is, in this 
 
■ ' 19 
 
 republican land. Here the tables are turned. Here the State 
 is the weak party and the criminal is the strong party. In 
 some very aggravated cases of murder, where the victim has 
 powerful friends, or was a favorite of the community, there 
 may be a public sentiment running strongly for the condem- 
 nation of the prisoner. But in most cases, where the killer 
 is rich, and of an influential family, his conviction is next to 
 an impossibility. The State prosecutor is almost always in- 
 ferior in legal ability and age and reputation to the counsel 
 for the defendant. The very first act of the criminal, when 
 he has imbued his hands in blood, is to secure the services of 
 the greatest lawyers in the country, which, if he has money, 
 he can always do. ISTo lawyer can or will refuse the task, 
 however bad. The worse the cause, the finer chance it pre- 
 sents to the barristei^ to fleece the villain well, for obliging 
 them to pollute their hands with his filthy cause, and for 
 saving his worthless neck from the halter. The more desper- 
 ate the case, and the more odious the offender, the greater is 
 the harvest of renown and wealth to the successful pleader. 
 He may expect, after such a triumph, to be sent for from 
 neighboring States, and that every rich criminal who hears 
 of him from a distance, as the villain^s refuge in time of need,- 
 will summon him to the rescue and say : " Ask what thou 
 wilt, and I will give it thee, even to the half of my kingdom." 
 Under such temptations of ambition and cupidity no wonder 
 that human genius, art and passion should be strained to the 
 utmost intensity of effort, and that the splendor of ingenuity 
 and eloquence, stricken forth on such occasions, should com- 
 pletely dazzle the mind, and conceal the hideous enormity of 
 thus moving earth and hell to defeat justice, to let innocent 
 blood cry to heaven for vengeance, and cry in vain, to snatch 
 an outlaw from the ignominious death that he richly deserves, 
 and turn him loose again upon society, proclaiming to all the 
 desperadoes from the Atlantic to the Pacific, that they may 
 shoot and stab their fellow-citizens with impunity. Every 
 great criminal lawyer ought to have this sign over his ofiice 
 door : 
 " Life insurance office for murderers and other felonsP 
 
20 
 
 Such is the power given to the advocate by packing the jury, 
 worrying the witnesses almost to death, artfully wresting and 
 perverting the merits of the case, not to mention the secret, 
 magical sway of a lawyer of commanding character over the 
 feelings of a jury, that it need not surprise us when acquittals 
 take place in cases of such atrocity that all society receives 
 the verdict with astonishment and abhorrence. Let it not be 
 said that these are the mere chimeras of a theorist, who has 
 no practical knowledge of the matter in question. I am 
 confirmed in my belief by the declaration of distinguished 
 barristers themselves, one of whom said to me, that our 
 criminal trials were a mere farce ; that a man indicted for 
 murder, who had numerous friends, could easily contrive to 
 have his friends upon the jury : and another told me, that 
 he had heard jurymen, in their visits to town shortly after a 
 trial, remind the advocate that they had given him a verdict 
 lately, and hinting very broadly that " one good turn de- 
 served another ! ! ! " The country has not forgotten, and I 
 trust will never forget, the atrocious crime and the almost 
 equally atrocious defense and acquittal of Matt. Ward, of 
 Kentucky, the murderer of Prof. Butler. A man universally 
 esteemed and beloved — in the fulfilment of his duty as an 
 educator of youth, administers a moderate and reasonable 
 chastisement to a little boy, one of his pupils. For this the 
 elder brother arms himself with a revolver, goes to meet his 
 unprepared and unsuspecting victim, and shoots him down 
 as a butcher would an ox ! The public is at first petrified 
 with horror ; and as soon as it recovers from the stupor of its 
 faculties, the universal burst of virtuous indignation cries, 
 that if justice ever claimed a victim, it must claim one now ; 
 that if God's outraged law, enforcing the death of a wilful 
 homicide, was ever binding on the conscience of a jury or of 
 a community, this, this was the flagrant case that demanded 
 its execution. But a lawyer of the first ability and influence 
 was soon enlisted in the defence of the murderer ; and soon 
 the ears of an insulted country heard the astounding intelli- 
 gence that Ward was acquitted ; thus proving to all the rich 
 ruffians in the country that there was no danger in bloodshed 
 
21 
 
 — and proclaiming to the widow and the fatherless that there 
 was no protection in the laws of their country, and to the 
 respectable and conscientious fraternity of teachers that to 
 touch a boy with a rod deserved death, and that the only 
 safety to their lives, in this nation, was in allowing all their 
 pupils to do as they pleased ! Unhappy widow and thine 
 orphan babe! Ye thought that that beloved husband and 
 sire was safe in his legitimate and honorable vocation, under 
 the ample shield of his country's protection. But it was not 
 enough to have the light of your eyes taken from you in a 
 moment, by the hand of violence. The further sting must 
 be inflicted of impeaching his fair name, in order to extenu- 
 ate the man-slayer's criminality. The blameless must be 
 blackened, that the bloody may be bleached ! and the poor 
 mute victim, weltering in his blood, must have it sounded " in 
 the dull, cold ear of death : " Thou wast thyself the aggressor 
 and deservedst thy fate. A Ward could not have been 
 made out worthy of life but by making out a Butler worthy 
 of death, and to a Crittenden belongs tlie honor of shifting 
 the bloody raiment of Ward ujDon the shoulders of Butler by 
 so masterly a feat of legerdemain as to deceive the optics of 
 a jury ; an honor in which I trust he will never be equalled ; 
 an honor and an office which the great poet has assigned to 
 one of the chiefs of Pandemoniun : 
 
 "He seemed 
 For dignity composed and high exploit; 
 But all was false and hollow, tho' his tongue 
 Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear 
 The better reason, to perplex and dash 
 Maturest counsels ." 
 
 This, I am sorry to say, is not a solitary case. It may be 
 the most flagrant that has disgraced our country, but there 
 are many others which are near akin to it, and some which 
 have occurred in this our very State. These are the cases 
 that give birth to " lynch law " and " vigilance committees." 
 Man has within him an instinct that authorises him to defend 
 himself while he is living in a state of nature. This right he 
 parts with, when he becomes a member of civilized society, 
 
22 
 
 for the reason and on the condition that the State will protect 
 him better than he can protect himself. The covenant be- 
 tween him and the State is virtually this. He says to her : 
 " ]^ow, my country, I throw away my arms and my armour. 
 I leave my bosom bare to my enemies. I walk the streets in 
 conscious security, relying on thy might and thy majesty and 
 thy plighted faith, to shield me from violence. By the faith- 
 ful enforcement of the law, I trust that evil-doers will be im- 
 pressed with terror, and not dare to assail my life." Now, 
 if that country proves false to this high and sacred contract — 
 if she, by her legal machinery, defeats justice — surrenders 
 the harmless and the defenseless a prey to the lawless and 
 violent, what wonder if the citizen should throw himself back 
 upon his natural rights and say : " 1 find the law is impotent 
 and worthless. Such is the delay of the courts, so many 
 tricks can counsel make use of, to postpone and evade trials, 
 and so many tricks to extricate murderers when brought to 
 the bar, that I dare not trust my life to such a feeble protec- 
 tor. Henceforth I take care of myself. Come revolver ! 
 Come bowie knife ! Be ye, henceforth, my gods ! Te shall 
 be to me in place of courts, and judge and jury! Ye will 
 speedily rid me of mine enemies, and will not give them time 
 to take my life and then employ ingenious counsel to save 
 their necks. Besides, in killing, I am only a little faster than 
 my adversary. Had I pulled my trigger a second later the 
 State would have equally lost a citizen, perhaps a better one, 
 and my family would have been the mourners instead of liis. 
 And now, () my country, I demand impunity from thy 
 courts. The inefficacy of those courts drove me to my crime, 
 let the same inefficacy sanction my escape." This language 
 would come with peculiar force and justice from a Californi- 
 au, in vindication of his " vigilance committee." In new 
 countries, where society is just in its forming state, the pub- 
 lic arm is weak and the private arm is strong. If you want 
 a people to be quiet and law-abiding give them safety by the 
 courts, and vigilance committees will vanish like the shades 
 of night before the morning sun. But such a reformation in 
 the courts, such a protection of human life by our tribunals 
 
23 
 
 of justice, I despair of, as long as the present system of legal 
 counsel prevails. The theory is fair and promising, as a 
 security that the accused should have justice done to him, 
 and not be illegally condemned. But in actual practice it 
 works most perniciously. I seriously doubt whether the ends 
 of justice would not be better and more speedily attained in 
 criminal cases, if the lawyers, except the prosecutor, were 
 dispensed with altogether, and the protection of the accused 
 confided to the judge and the jury. The wrangling of the 
 bar is the cause of the most vexatious delay, and the most 
 disgusting exhibition of sophistry and dissimulation. It is a 
 scandal that the legal profession should educate men in such 
 a manner as to make it their highest glory to do that upon 
 which God has pronounced his special curse : " Wo nnto 
 them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for 
 light and light for darkness, that justify the wicked for re- 
 ward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from 
 him." This every lawyer is bound to do by the necessities 
 of his profession. He must identify himself with his client, 
 and all the art, and industry and zeal which the client would 
 exert, if he pleaded his own cause, his counsel must display, 
 if they would be faithful or successful advocates. The great 
 criminal lawyer, when he has undertaken a desperate cause, 
 knows that every thing with him depends on the issue. All 
 the powers of the man, all the arts and subterfuges of the 
 profession, are brought into requisition. He resolves like 
 Juno in the poet : 
 
 " If Jove and heaven my just desires deny, 
 Hell shall the power of heaven and Jove supply." 
 " Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo ! " 
 
 It is perfectly wonderful that any lawyer can be an honest 
 and honorable man. It is perfectly wonderful that any in- 
 tegrity, candor, or sincerity can survive the moral trials of 
 such an employment as the lawyers are daily engaged in. 
 If we were to form conjectures a priori, and guess, previous- 
 ly to experience, what kind of characters such a profession 
 would form, we should predict with confidence that every 
 
24 
 
 lawyer must have his principles ruined by the inevitable 
 tendencies of his professional work ; and that if he were 
 saved from moral ruin, it must be " as by fire." The bar can 
 be very ingenious in defending their calling ; but after all 
 that can be said, this is the common-sense view of the case, 
 and every man in the world, not familiarised with the specta- 
 cle, and every angel in heaven would confidently assert that 
 the practice of the law, as now carried on, is an experiment 
 how much ill-usage the conscience can bear without expiring 
 under the torture. The common defense set up is : that 
 every man is entitled to justice, and that all that the lawyer 
 undertakes, is to see that his client has justice done him I 
 This looks very plausible, but every practitioner at the bar 
 knows that if he were to attempt no more than this, he would 
 get but few fees, and that if he were to say to his clients : 
 Til see that you have justice done yoii^ most of them would 
 put their hands back into their pockets and say : " I'ou are 
 not the man for me, sir, I want a lawyer who will see that 
 justice is not done to me." * 
 
 *Let any lawyer put it to himself whether he would like to see the principles on 
 which he practices law brought home to his own family and carried out by his 
 children and servants. Let us suppose a case : His two sons, John and James, have 
 been strictly charged not to take the fruit from a certain choice tree in the garden. 
 The fruit tree is robbed, and John, who knows that James is the plunderer, is ques- 
 tioned by his father about it : "John did you take that fruit?" "No sir." "Well, did 
 James do it ? " "Why father there are many circumstances to lead to the belief that 
 James is innocent. In the tirst place, James' character pleads in his behalf. He 
 loves you and would not willingly offend yon. In the next place, the tree must have 
 been robbed at night, and James is too great a coward to go out to that distance in 
 the dark. In the third place" — "hush you little rascal, you know James stole the 
 apples, and if you don't tell the truth about it I'll flog you both." John: Then, father, 
 I confess he did, and I ate some of them ; but as I am going to be a lawyer I thought 
 I might try what I could make of a bad cause, as you did when you defended Jack 
 Sly, who stole Mr. Kennedy's corn, and got him clear. Father didn't I hear you 
 whisper to Jack Sly atter you came out of the court house : " Now. you rogue, I've 
 got you oflF this time, [f you ever do the like again I'll let them give you thirty- 
 nine!" 
 
 Another case : The lawyer lives on a farm and finds one of his hogs missing. It 
 has been stolen by his servant, Ephraim, who has sold it to a thievish neighbor for 
 $5; and, as he knows his master suspects him, he begs his young master to try to 
 get "old master" off the scent. Accordingly John, keeping in mind his legal ap. 
 prcnticeship, and anxious to redeem his late failure, ambitious withal of the glory of 
 beating his father with his own weapons, undertakes the cause ; Ephraim promising 
 him, at the same time, half the price of the hog \i he gets him off clear. The lawyer 
 
25 
 
 You will recollect, joiing gentlemen, that your books of 
 rhetoric caution you when you are training yourselves up to 
 be public speakers, against choosing the wrong side of ques- 
 tions in your debates, lest it should confound your notions of 
 right and wrong, and accustom you to the hazardous experi- 
 ment of enlisting your feelings on the side of error, and of 
 inventing sophistries in defense of falsehood. You will re- 
 ' collect, also, that in the study of moral philosophy, you are 
 taught to cultivate sensibility of conscience ; not to trifle with 
 truth and sincerity ; not to simulate conviction when you do 
 not feel it; not to rack your ingenuity to hide the truth, not 
 to put on the air of sincere zeal in defence of a man whom 
 you know to be a villain. To act thus, you are taught from 
 the professor's cathedra, would be to sap the vitals of moral 
 principle. These moral and prudential maxims, intended to 
 save you from poisoning your moral constitution, the lawyer 
 is obliged habitually to transgress, and to yield himself up a 
 passive mouth-piece to every villain in the land who oifers 
 him a fee ! I say again, that it is a miracle — an anomaly in 
 moral science, that human integrit}'- can survive such an 
 ordeal. 
 
 Are there any lawyers among my audience, and are they 
 saying to themselves, " this is a hard saying, who can bear 
 it ?" Are they indignantly charging me with a calumny on 
 their fraternity, as if they were all corrupt men ? I answer : 
 
 examines Jeff., another servant. JeS". testifies that on a certain night he heard a hog 
 squealing down in the hollow near Ephraim's house, and the next day he saw the 
 offal and the feet of a hog in a barrel in Ephraim's cabin. John assists his father in 
 the investigation and cross-examines Jeff. "What time o'night was it, Jeff, when 
 you heard the hog: squealing." *' About midnight, sir." " Was the moon shining, 
 Jeff?" "No sir — she didn't rise that night till way along towards two in the morn" 
 mg, I reckon." " That'll do." Exit Jeff. John now takes down the almanac and 
 shows his father that the moon, on the night of the theft, rose before midnight — in- 
 sinuates that Jeff is a tricky fellow, has a dislike to Ephraim, and in all probability 
 stole the hog himself and laid the offal in Ephraim's house when he was absent. 
 Ephriam is acquitted, and Jeff is punished for the theft. 
 
 John's father is much pleased with his son's presages of legal ability — thinks no 
 old lawyer could have ferreted out the truth more successfully — exhorts John to 
 make haste and get ready for the bar, and promises him that the first cause he gains, 
 and the first fee he pockets, he will make him a present of $500. John then informs 
 him that he was Ephraim's counsel, had gained the cause and is entitled to the $500. 
 The report is that the lawyer soon after retired from practice. 
 
26 
 
 I mean not 8o. I jnclge no man. But I confess that I look 
 at the bar witli astonishment. I see them, as a body, highly 
 honorable and public spirited, and I give them credit for 
 cominc: out of the fire, I will not sav with unscathed virtue, 
 but with any virtue at all. They are salamanders that can 
 live in the fire. The habitual and indiscriminate defense of 
 right and wrong, from day to day, would seem enough to 
 disturb and subvert, in any man's mind, the foundations of 
 truth, and damage his intellectual soundness. But there is a 
 deeper injury than the clouding of his mental perceptions. 
 To act this theatrical part habitually — to be constrained to 
 make daily use of all the doublings of the fox, to escape the 
 hounds that are in pursuit of him, would seem enough to 
 obliterate, in any man's mind, the line of demarcation be- 
 tween good and evil, and cause him to glory in the faculty of 
 " making the worse appear the better reason." I, therefore, 
 look upon a moral, honest lawyer as I would look upon some 
 iioble man-of-war, " which long has braved the battle and the 
 breeze," now come into port, after a long cruise, mutilated, 
 it may be, and damaged in some of its timbers, and perhaps 
 a little leaky in its bottom, but still above water, and still 
 capable of repair. But if I did not personally know this 
 veteran of the forum, I should regard him with some appre- 
 hension, on account of the infected atmosphere which he had 
 been breathing. I should meet him as I would meet a phy- 
 sician just from the wards of a hospital where the small pox 
 was ])revailing. " What ! are you afraid of me, sir," says he, 
 seeing me a little sh}^ of his approach. " Do you see any 
 pimples on my face ?" " No sir," I rei:)ly, " I am in hopes 
 you have been vaccinated, and have not taken the infection." 
 I honor the lawj'ers as I would have honored the three fire- 
 proof young Hebrews in the court of Babylon, who came 
 out, undevoured, from the seven-fold heated furnace, protect- 
 ed by some lieaven-sent guardian. Tluis I Avould make my 
 peace with the lawyers. If any indignant son of Themis 
 should frowningly enquire : "Do you mean me, sir, by your 
 reflections on tlie bar?" I reply, "No sir." King Mithri- 
 
27 
 
 dates, we are told,* in order to guard against being poisoned, 
 was in tlie habit of swallowing a little of various sorts of 
 poison every day, and thus made himself poison-proof. So I 
 trust, sir, you have swallowed some antidote, some moral 
 Mithridate which has kept alive your principles and your 
 honor in spite of the dangerous doses you have so often 
 taken, t 
 
 My audience may wonder at my audacity in making these 
 free remarks upon a profession which holds the first position 
 in the countiy — and they may suppose I am relying for my 
 protection from the wrath of the lawyers upon my age, and 
 my sacred office, together. But, in truth, I am trusting to 
 the good nature and sang froid of the lawyers themselves, 
 who feel themselves so strong in public favor that they will 
 regard viy puny attack as the fii-ing of a pistol against Gib- 
 raltar, and will make me no harsher reply than was once 
 made by the French ambassador at Washington to a lady 
 who poured out a torrent of invective against Kapoleon: 
 "Madame, my master, the Emperor, would be very much 
 troubled if he knew your ladyship had so bad an opinion of 
 him." 
 
 The lawyers are so much accustomed to hard knocks from 
 one another, that they laugh at these passes-at-arms. It is 
 nothing but an intellectual digladiation with which they have 
 amused themselves all their lives. A contest which would 
 set two clergymen or two physicians at loggerheads will only 
 serve the members of the bar as a joke to laugh at over the 
 dinner table. But anxious as I am to think that the practice 
 of the bar is not productive of those disastrous moral influ- 
 ences which my theory supposes necessary and inevitable, 
 and ready as I am to acquit of corruption those who appear 
 honorable, still, keeping my theme in view, the sacredness 
 of kuraan life, I never can forgive the active agency of the 
 
 * I am confirmed in the correctness of these opinions on the tendency of the 
 legal profession, by the suffrage of the late Dr. Thomas Arnold, one of the greatest 
 minds and best hearts that England has produced in many an age. See his life 
 and correspondence by Stanly. 
 
 t Profecit poto Mithridates saepe veneno ;^ 
 
 Torica ne possent saeva nocere sibi. — Martial 5: 77. 
 
28 
 
 lawyers in rescuing arraigned manslayers from the just venge- 
 ance of the law and thus emboldening others to follow their 
 example. I shall hold them responsible for many of the fero- 
 cious, deadly rencounters by which our land is signalized 
 and disgraced. AVho can deny that crime is encouraged by 
 the hope of escape and impunity ? Who can help believing 
 that among the throngs who witness our capital trials, and 
 the ingenuity, and zeal, and success of our great barristers 
 in snatching blood-red murderers from the halter, who can 
 help believing, I say, that many a spectator of such scenes 
 imbibes a secret hope of a similar escape, should tie ever be 
 involved in like jeopardy? It is highly probable that in that 
 critical, delicate moment, when his mind is on the balance 
 whether he shall pull the trigger of his pistol or not, his will 
 is determined on the side of killing by the confidence that he 
 can fee a lawyer to pack or deceive a jury which shall acquit 
 him. Rejoice not, then, oh victorious advocate, in thy might, 
 Vhen thou hearest thy praises blown upon the four winds. 
 Th}' brightest laurels, like those of the warrior, are often 
 stained with blood, and bedewed with the tears of the widow 
 and the orphan ! I hold thee responsible for rendering the 
 JURY, once the impregnable fortress of our lives, now a mere 
 quicksand, which invites the tread of the trusting victim only 
 to swallow him up ! 
 
 Oh YE EMPA^'XELED 12 ! — swom, like your apostolic mod- 
 els, to save men's lives and not to destroy them — boasted 
 monument of the wisdom of our Saxon ancestors ! " How 
 is the gold become dim ! How is the most fine gold chang- 
 ed !" Your verdicts of " not guilty !" have turned loose the 
 wolves upon the sheep. The angry ghosts of assassinated 
 men will visit your midnight pillow and whisper in A'our 
 secret ear: "you sent me to my bloody grave." The wail- 
 ings of widows and orplians charge you with cutting ofi:' their 
 husbands and their fathers by your indifference to human 
 life. Remember that impunity to the guilty is perfidy and 
 cruelty to the public. For every guilty life you spare, you 
 immolate a hecatomb of more precious victims. 
 
 Let none condemn these censures on the old, traditionary, 
 
29 
 
 time-honored forms of justice, because they have been the 
 laws under which our ancestors hved and flourished for many- 
 generations. Many institutions are good in the main, but 
 have serious admixtures of evil, of which they ought to be 
 purged. Many forms have a conservative tendency in an 
 early state of society, which are cumbrous and retarding to 
 progress in a more advanced age. The nutshell which pro- 
 tects the kernel during the frosty season would kill it unless 
 it should burst and drop off at the arrival of Spring. And 
 thus, as Dr. Arnold most beautifully remarks : " What is the 
 wisdom of Winter, is the folly of Spring." Old legal customs 
 may have had their use in their day, but something better 
 ought to be substituted in an enlightened age. 
 
 The Edinburgh Keview, whose high position among the 
 periodicals that have controlled human thought for half a 
 century, I need not tell to this well-informed audience, beara 
 the following testimony to the working of the English law in 
 England. What modification and improvement of the ma- 
 chinery have been introduced into this young country I am 
 no competent judge of, but it does not take a very keen ob- 
 server to notice, that this country groans under many of the 
 evils complained of in the following passage of that famous 
 Delphic oracle of criticism : 
 
 " In spite of the panegyrics which have so often been pronounced upon 
 our laws and upon the administration of them, no person who is practically 
 acquainted with our English system of jurisprudence, and who will speak 
 of it ingenuously, can deny that it is attended with great and numerous 
 mischiefs, which are every day becoming more intolerable. The difficulties, 
 the expenses, the tedious length of litigations, the uncertainty of their 
 issue, and, in many cases, the lamentable delay of their decisions, are but 
 too well known to the great number, to whom all this is a source of profit, 
 and to the far greater number, on whom it brings down calamity and ruin." 
 
 In this young country we oieed not, and ought not, to sub- 
 mit to old abuses. There ought to be reformers of the law 
 as well as of the government ; and if the bar and the bench 
 do not provide for loosing these Gordian knots in which they 
 have long entangled the interests of mankind, let them look 
 to it, lest the outraged patience of the people cut these G-or- 
 
30 
 
 (lian knots, after Alexander's fashion, with the sword ! or, 
 California-hke, take the administration of justice into their 
 own hands. It is not for me to point out the remedy. 
 
 "Non nostrum est tantas coroponere lites." 
 
 But I cannot heheve that, after so much experience, there 
 are not wise statesmen and jurists enough in the land to alle- 
 viate the present abuses, if not entirely to remove them. 
 
 V. CHRISTIANITY THE SOVEREIGN STYPTIC THE APPOINTED 
 
 8TAUNCHEK OF HUMAN VEINS. 
 
 It is the glory of Christianity that it has stamped an intinite 
 value upon every human being, and thus throws its heavenly 
 aegis around every human life. It has taught us that the 
 true nobility of man consists, not in the artificial and acci- 
 dental distinctions of the world, but in his possession of a 
 SOUL, capable of illimitable progress ia'virtue and in bliss — 
 that the highest perfection of that- so4}.} is, not intellectual, 
 but moral excellence — that this perfection is as attainable by 
 the pauper Lazarus as by Solomon on his gorgeous throne ; 
 by the illiterate peasant as by Newton, the high-priest of 
 nature and interpreter of the laws of the universe. 
 
 It was one of the darkest features of the first French revo- 
 lution that its leading spirits denied the existence and the 
 nobility of this immortal soul of man, and adopted the creed 
 tliat man was a mere forked animal, of little more importance 
 than a radish or a nine-pin ; and, therefore, that the rapid 
 feeding of the hungry guillotine with human necks was as 
 innocent an operation as feeding the threshing machine with 
 sheaves of wheat ; and the demolition of a hundred thousand 
 men in the field of battle, was as trifling a matter as the 
 knocking over of so many pieces in a game of nine-pins. 
 No wonder when they annihilated Go^, they ignored the 
 noblest part of man, his handiwork. It is to this cheapening 
 of liuman life, by disowning his immortality, that Robert 
 Hall, in his celebrated " sermon on modern infidelity," has 
 traced the imexampled horrors of that revolution ; and by 
 
31 
 
 ■which he has accounted for the production of such prodigies 
 of ferocity as Robespierre and his fellow-demons. And to 
 the same cause may we attribute it, that IlTapoleon Bonaparte, 
 the legitimate progeny of that atheistic generation, played 
 with armies as with nine-pins, and made Europe, Asia, and 
 Africa one great nine-pin alley ; showing in his battles a pro- 
 digality of the carnage of his own men which made his 
 victories almost as terrible as defeats. To use the language- 
 of the same celebrated Review already quoted, his was 
 " a frantic contest against the principles of human nature, 
 and the laws of the physical world ; against the rage of the 
 winter, and the liberty of the sea." '^ 
 
 The moment that the world catches the spirit and the 
 genius of Christianity, the remorseless indiiference to human 
 bloodshed will cease. That religion bears not on its banner 
 the eagle, the cock, the lion, or the dragon^ signals of havock 
 and depredation to the world, but displays on its waving white 
 folds the figures of the dove and the lamb, and promises, as 
 tlie sign of its full advent, the change of all the M^eapons of 
 war into implements of husbandry, ai>d the disappearance 
 from off the earth of all that can harm or destroy the crea- 
 tures of God. That is the time when death, the last enemy^ 
 shall be destroyed, and the death of death shall be the final 
 extinction of evil, and the commencement of love's eternal 
 reign. 
 
 ♦Edinburgh Review. 
 
 NOTE. 
 The vrriter of the Address is confirmed in hfs remarks orr the mob-cre> 
 ating tendency of the present practices of the bar, by the following extract 
 from a Baltimore paper, (the "American ") of Sept. 11th, 1857: 
 
 Mob Law in Memphis.— Some short time since one Isaac L. Bolton, a citizen of 
 Memphis, Tenn., shot and killed a mam named McMillian at that place, under circum- 
 stances which marked the transactioni as a coward fj murder, and excited public in- 
 dignation to the highest pitch. Bolton, relying upon' his friends and position, fully 
 expected to escape scot free, but was arrested and pirt in prison. After haying been 
 
32 
 
 detained in jail long enough as was supposed for the public excitement to subside, a 
 moveniuut was made to procure bis release on bail. A habeas corpus was conse- 
 quently sued out before Judge Fitzgerald, who directed the writ should be heard, not 
 at Memphis, where the prisoner was confined, but at a place cailed Carrolton, some 
 distance from that city. It is chaiged that the object of this arrangement was to se- 
 cure Bolton's escape while on the road, if the application to release him on bail should 
 not succeed. The citizens of Memphis became highly' indignant and exasperated at 
 the announcement of the proceedings on the habeas corpus. They insisted that Bol- 
 ton should not be removed ; the papers were filled with inflammatory appeals, and it 
 was very plainly intimated that if the sheriff attempted to remove Bolton from Mem- 
 phis, it would lead to the prisoner's summary punishment at the hands of a mob. 
 Public meetings were held, in which the most influential citizens of the place partici- 
 pated, aud the most determined feeling prevailed. A committee was formed, who 
 endeavored to prevail upon the sheriff not to obey the order to remove Bolton, which 
 the sheriff refused to promise, when the Mayor took possession of the key of the jail, 
 aud a guard of three hundred men was formed, to prevent, by force, the execution of 
 the writ. The judge was solicited to modify his order, but he would not. In fact, 
 the time limited for the execution of the writ having expired, he has issued a new 
 one; aud thus the matter stands. The laws are practically nullified, the city of Mem- 
 phis is in an actual state of revolution, and by a popular movement that invaluable 
 personal writ and guardian of personal rights aud liberty, the habeas corpus, is forci- 
 bly suspended, and this too, which makes it the more remarkable aud the more to be 
 regretted, in the interest and on the side of true right and justice. 
 
 The state of things at Memphis calls for earnest consideration, not so much for the 
 isolated violation of the law by a whole community, with its chief Executive at their 
 head as there presented, but because we see in the transaction which we have relate(j 
 as transpiring in that city, the full fruits and ultimate development of a state of 
 things relating to the admiuistration of criminal law, which is almost universal 
 throughout the Union. There is a growing feeling of distrust aud insecurity as to 
 the administration of the Ian, which is likely, and indeed will inevitably lead to just 
 such scenes elsewhere, aud perhaps with the most deplorable and disgraceful conse- 
 quences. It is difficult, under the circumstances, to censure the proceedings of the 
 citizens of Alemphis, with the Mayor at their head, as unlawful and revol itionary as 
 the are, and subversive though they be of the first elements of order aud good govern- 
 ment; for they saw, through the legal machinery of the courts, arrangements made 
 to set at large, and free from all punishment for his crime, a man whom they re- 
 garded as undoubtedly guilty of the wanton assassination of one of their fellow citi- 
 zens, and the instinct of self-protectiou, uo less than the demands of natural justice, 
 impelled them imperatively to the course they have pursued. That citizens of other 
 localities have had the same provocations to irregular action is but too well known. 
 The laxitv of the administration of criminal law, the diliiculties in the way of con- 
 victiufT criminals, and the legal facilities aS'orded for their escape from the conse- 
 quences of their misconduct, are becoming an unendurable evil. There must be a 
 change; there must be a roforimition. Crime, when the guilty are caught, must be 
 surely, swiftly and severely punished. At least legal t\>rms aud proceedings must 
 cease to be a shield and a protection for the criminal. If such a change do not take 
 place, the people will take the law iuto their own hands, and it may be with fearful, 
 Moody and disastrous results. 
 
1 -I 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 SHOWING THAT 
 
 *'€\t €Kti\ I^Hhtlj ^axtkx" 
 
 AND THAT 
 
 HELL AND HEAVEN 
 
 ^KE LIST THIS ^^OULD: 
 
 BY ELDER J. P. NEVIll. 
 
 Delivered in the City of Raleigh, June 14th, 1857. 
 
 aiCHMOND, VA : 
 
 WILLIAM H. CLEMMITT, PRINTER, 
 
 No. 173 Main Street. 
 
 1857. 
 
A DISCOURSE. 
 
 " One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth 
 abideth forever." — Ecc. i : 4. 
 
 My Friends: 
 
 This is an old text^ the opinion of that wise 
 man, Solomon, King of Israel. We agree with the king,, 
 that the earth abideth forever ; and, although the term for- 
 ever in some places in the sacred vrritings is limited in its 
 duration, nevertheless, in this text it is unlimited* The 
 history of the past proves the correctness of the first part of 
 the text, viz : "One generation passeth away and another 
 cometh." The old and young of this congregation are proof 
 of the same fact. And the many thousands of years that 
 have passed away before and since the days of Solomon, with, 
 the present appearance of the earth, after having stood firm- 
 ly for so long a time amidst the commotions and revolutions 
 of the past, go to prove the correctness of the second part of 
 our text, viz : that "the earth abideth forever." The re- 
 turn of new forests and new vegetation, on old fields long for- 
 saken by the agriculturists, considered with the various de- 
 posits beneath the earth's surface, all go to prove that it is 
 likely that "the earth abideth forever," — that time is not 
 about to end, but will never, no — never end. 
 
 Things that are subject to decay and death generally show 
 marks of the same ; such we see in the wisest and best of 
 men. Yes, the flowers of generations wither and die, they 
 fall at the touch of time's scythe. But not so with the sun, 
 moon, or stars — not so with the earth. No ! they do not 
 grow dim with years, time does not make impressions of an 
 approaching annihilation on them. No! for they are the 
 strong works of Him who is immortal, eternal and invisible. 
 
Spurious must be that dogma that proposes to pull down and 
 root up all lieaven above, and all earth beneath. 0! mad and 
 jjresumptuous man, take heed, do stop and think ; lest you 
 be sun-stricken, and swallowed up by the earth ! Eemem- 
 ber those poor deluded fanatics who spread their tent north 
 of this place some years ago, to behold the end of the world. 
 But, poor ones, they were mistaken, for time swiftly passed 
 them by, perhaps unnoticed. And soon it was said by all, 
 '"See the new day, the new Sabbath, the new year ;" and 
 see our poor deluded friends yet in this world. ! They 
 thought that Jesus was to come and take them up on high, 
 where they would not have to work for food and raiment ; 
 but, poor fellows, they have been left on earth, and I thank 
 my God for it. Remember, too, the false alarm that was 
 made in this State, and in many other places, more than 
 twenty years ago, alDOut the falling of the stars of heaven, 
 and the end of the world. Brethren, have you forgotten 
 that night ? But the sun arose and went down, and night 
 appeared again, with all of the stars of heaven, and they 
 met around the midnight arch and not one of them was 
 missing, although thousands of Christians on earth said, 
 fifteen hours before, that they- saw them fall to the earth. 
 But, brethren, it was a mistake. Yes, and so will it be 
 with all those that are this day looking out for the end of 
 the world. ! how many have spent life, beginning in 
 youth and terminating in old age, in sermonizing on the de- 
 struction of the heavens and the earth. But time, in his 
 flight has smitten them, sealed their lips, cut short their 
 frightful story. 
 
 It cannot be that Grod designs to annihilate all creation — no, 
 no ! View the sun, moon and stars of heaven through your 
 telescope, and you will find that they are as bright now as 
 in the beginning ; then what proof have we that they will 
 fail? that they will be destroyed ? None, I think. Men, 
 have, as I honestly believe, misconstrued the Scriptures on 
 this subject, as will be seen in the ages to come. The day 
 will come when a minister would be looked upon as a ma- 
 niac, to preach that G-od would destroy all creation with fire 
 and brimstone. Some bloody-minded speakers grow eloquent 
 when speaking of this humbug, the conflagration of the 
 world. 
 
 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, 
 and said they were good, and this was, in part, no doubt, 
 in reference to their durability. Now, if God should destroy 
 them and make new ones out of them, the new ones would 
 not be better than the old ones when first made ; for be it 
 
rememlsered, that God does not make improvements in his 
 works, he does not improve by repeated efforts. The gospel 
 and all religious efforts have not, nor cannot, make a more 
 perfect being than was Adam, when first created. It can- 
 not be, that the transgression of Adam and Eve will, at 
 some future period, cause Gfod to destroy the heavens and 
 the earth. N"o ! for the earth was not a party in the offence, 
 and, as such^ should not be destroyed. The old world was 
 destroyed in the days of the flood, that is, the people were 
 destroyed, and not the earth. 
 
 I want you, my friends, to remember this when talking 
 about the end of the world. It is a key that will unlock 
 2 Peter, iii : 10; and many other difficult passages may be 
 explained by it. The people are frequently addressed in the 
 Scriptures by the appellation, "earth:" "0 earth hear the 
 words of the Lord;" "The earth shall remove out of her 
 place." Now, all such Scriptures, as a general thing, refer 
 to the people who hear and remove from place to place. 
 Eemember the children of Israel journeying to the better 
 land ; hear their song on the other shore ; think of Abel's 
 brother when on the lonely road to the land of Nod. Ee- 
 member Lot's wife removing out of her place. Grod, in his 
 wisdom, has frequently changed the location of man, by 
 which he has rewarded, as well as punished, as will appear 
 from the history of our race. St. Peter speaks of the pass- 
 ing away of the heavens and the earth, by which he meant, 
 as I suppose, the political and assumed powers, the isms of 
 the religious world. Behold the movement of the Mormons 
 in the beautiful West, whose heaven will sooner or later be 
 destroyed. Yes, perhaps pass away with a great noise. Ee- 
 member ancient G-reece, once the mistress of the world, in 
 civilization, science and arts. But her political heavens 
 have passed away. Eemember, too, Jerusalem and ancient 
 Babylon, they have fallen, their heavens have passed away. 
 
 But to return home. what a great political and religious 
 heaven is ours. But I fear that too many from fallen po- 
 sitions are being received into this political heaven of ours. 
 Behold ships from a distant land bringing millions of all 
 grades into this great heaven. ! see that man that was 
 banished from his own native land for violating the law of 
 God and of man, ascending into our political heaven. My 
 brethren and friends, I tell you, of a truth, that this great 
 American heaven is in great danger of hell-fire. Behold 
 Kansas ! look north, look south, look all around at State 
 and churchy and then tell me, as honest men and women, if 
 
6 
 
 you do not see something that resembles hell. But we leave 
 this subject in the hands of an all-wise Grod. 
 
 Adam was the first man of his order, but we cannot believe 
 that he was the father of all the different races of men ; 
 that climate has caused the different complexions among the 
 different nations of the earth. No — God created a first 
 black man as well as a first white man. We read, in this 
 old book called the Bible, (in Gen. 6th chap.) of Giants, who 
 were a different race of beings, and in the process of time 
 the children of Adam intermarried into this family of gi- 
 ants, thus contaminating the races of men ; and this was 
 one of the causes of the deluge on the earth. 
 
 The first paradise was located on the earth, called by God 
 the garden of Eden, and in which Adam and Eve were hap- 
 py, but lost their felicity and home, by violating the com- 
 mandment of God, who cast them out of this happy place, 
 into a hell of thorns and thistles. So we see how hell was 
 found, and paradise lost. God has not transferred either 
 from earth to the celestial world. God in his wisdom made 
 ih-e worlds, and located man on the earth, and fixed the 
 bounds of his habitation, beyond which he cannot go; his ce- 
 lestial boundary line passes through the eerial region, beyond 
 which man has no business to call him away from his home; 
 below this great boundary line are our cares and responsi- 
 bilities, our sorrows and our pleasures, our heaven and our 
 hell, our rewards and our punishments. Yes, below this line 
 are the histories of nations, the graves of all the dead; the 
 spirits, too, of all mankind live below this line which sepa- 
 rates this lower world from the celestial. Let the inhabi- 
 tants of the starry world possess their own country, undis- 
 turbed and unmolested by the citizens of earth. Let us stay 
 in our own country, living or dead, in the body or out of it. 
 why desire to fly away and be on earth no more ? why 
 shut the eye and stop the ear on all the charms and melodies 
 that this world alFord? It is, as I believe, the desire of all 
 men to remain in this world, the old would be glad to be 
 young, the sick wish to get well. If we judge men by their 
 actions, we are bound to say, that they are pleased with 
 this lower world. My friends, Avould you not be glad to 
 know that you are to stay for all eternity in this world? 
 that our heaven is a part of this world, or if you please, is 
 in this world? Well, my friends, I am happy to inform 
 you, that it is tlie will of God that we should all remain in 
 this world. Was it not the will of God, that man should 
 l)0ssess the earth forever, seeing that it is so stated in the 
 
title that Grod gave "him to the earth. David said, "The 
 heavens are the Lord's, hut the earth hath he given to the 
 children of men." I doubt whether any one can show that 
 man has a lawful title to the upper world to possess it for- 
 ever. Has Grod given man a title to the sun, moon and 
 stars? No ! And had he done so, according to the teach- 
 ing of this age, his title would soon be worth nothing, since 
 they say that all creation is soon to be annihilated. But our 
 friends that teach us that we are to go to the high heaven 
 after death, also tell us that we will all again return to the 
 earth. So you see they cannot forget this lower world, they 
 expect to come back. Now, would it not be better to remain 
 all the time on the earth ? Now, is it possible, that we are 
 all located, are at home, are all in our own land, and do not 
 know it? Such is the case with the most of men living. 
 
 Many of the spirits of the dead are this day in the church 
 on earth. Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to 
 minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. See 
 Heb. i : 14. Doubtless many good men and women have 
 done more for their friends and the country since their 
 deaths than they did in life. Do not think that men have 
 quit the field, the rostrum, the bar, the parlor^ the world, 
 because they are dead. That great man, Dr. Ben. Franklin, 
 has, in my opinion, made and communicated to the world 
 many important discoveries in the use of electricity since 
 the day of his death, and although dead, yet he lives. The 
 improvements of the earth are, in part, the work of the il- 
 lustrious dead. They are somewhat attached to the earth, 
 and, in some instances, desire to prosecute their discoveries 
 and inventions commenced in life, and in order to do so, 
 they are permitted ^to animate the body of some living per- 
 son, and to use such a one as their agent or workman to do 
 their work ; and in such a case the spirit is as happy, per- 
 haps more so, than when in its own body. The world has 
 been made to wonder at the success of many poor young 
 men who were destitute of means, and living without an 
 education in the fashionable world. But unexpectedly they 
 are risen to distinction — they are the great men of the na- 
 tion. They have risen, and others of means and opportuni- 
 ties have fallen. Now, in many instances of this kind the 
 success of such men has been owing, in part, to spiritual aid, 
 they have only been doing the work of some illustrious 
 spirit, and in this way we find employment and pleasure for 
 tFie dead ! 
 
 Better give your son or daughter a good and energetic spirit 
 than dollars and cents. The young man that gets the spirit of 
 
8 
 
 tlie wealthy energetic dead person is far better off, in some 
 instances, than those that get his property. Thousands of 
 eminent men are preached out of this world by ministers 
 who locate their spirits in the high heavens, thus placing 
 them beyond the possibility of assisting the living, they set 
 them down in the stars of heaven to do nothing; but this 
 will not suit the energetic spirit, it would be misery instead 
 of pleasure. Such, perhaps, would please the indolent, the 
 man without a nerve, just such an one as hid his lord's 
 money^ being too lazy to loan it out, to put it to work; just 
 such persons would be willing to go to any place,, if they 
 knew that they would have nothing to do. The spirits of 
 all men, as I believe, are in this world, and, my friends, it 
 is my oi^inioU;, that when we die our spirits will continue in 
 this world, and that we will be happy or miserable, as is the 
 case with those who have gone before. Our happiness after 
 death depends on the life that we now live. I do not wish 
 to disturb my friends who have long been preparing them- 
 selves with wings to fly away to a home in the stars of 
 heaven. Then permit me to say unto you that yours is a 
 great undertaking, something that you will never per- 
 form. 
 
 Christ and the apostles met with demons, or the spirits of 
 wicked dead persons, on the earth, and not in another world. 
 And the discij^les often talked about spirits being on the earth. 
 Now it is impossible for a spirit to be on earth and in heaven 
 at the same time. Spirits or demons anciently afflicted 
 the living in various ways. See Luke xiii : 11. — "And be- 
 hold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity 
 eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could, in no 
 wise, lift up herself" Now, what caused this affliction? 
 Was it not the spirit of some dead person that afflicted this 
 woman ? But we will hear the testimony of Dr. Adam 
 Clarke on this subject. Said he: "God has often permitted 
 demons to act on and in the bodies of men and women, and 
 it is not improbable that the principle part of unaccounta- 
 ble and inexplicable disorders stilly, come from the same 
 source. In ancient times the spirits of dead persons some- 
 times destroyed the intellect of living persons,, as will ap- 
 pear by an examination of Matt, xvii : 15 — "Lord have 
 mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed; for 
 ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and into the water." This 
 is another case of the power of spirits to afflict and torment 
 the living ; in this case the intellect was im[)aired by a wick- 
 ed spirit. Now, if wicked sjjirits impair the intellect of 
 men, why should not good spirits strcughten the intellect of 
 
9f 
 
 men ? Wicked spirits have, i» some instances, added to tlie 
 pecuniary interest of tlie living, as will be seen in the 15th 
 chap, of the Acts of Apostles : "And it came to pass as we 
 went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of 
 divination met us, which brought her master much gain by 
 soothsaying." This was the spirit of some dead person that 
 was soothsaying through this damsel, who, it is said, brought 
 her master much gain. The damsel of herself could do 
 nothing in this art ; but the spirit of this dead person could 
 do as much in the art of soothsaying through this damsel 
 as he could have done in life, and when in his own body. 
 Perhaps this spirit was acquainted with the owners of this 
 damsel^ and wished to do them a favor. Or, it may be that 
 this spirit, when in its own body, had contracted a debt with 
 the owners of this damsel, and died, leaving it unpaid, and 
 now proposes to pay it through this damsel. Now, if wick- 
 ed spirits were permitted to assist the living in a pecuniary 
 point, why should not the spirits of good persons be permit- 
 ted to do as much for their friends in this life ? 
 
 We now propose to examine Matt, xii : ^'When the un- 
 clean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry 
 places seeking rest and findeth none. Then he saith, I will 
 return into my house from whence I came out, and when he 
 is come he ^findeth it empty, swept and garnished. Then 
 goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more 
 wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there," 
 &c., &c. 
 
 In this case we find in one living person eight spirits, 
 seven of which were called to assist one to regain his home 
 in the living, which he was about to lose. So we see that 
 demons assisted each other in afflicting and tormenting hu- 
 man bodies ; the last state of this man was worse than the 
 first, yes, all of seven degrees worse than his first state. 
 Poor, unfortunate man was this^, in hell on earth. The 
 spirits of wicked dead persons were destructive to swine in 
 the days of Christy as will appear from the 5th chapter of 
 Mark: "And all the demons besought him, saying, send 
 us into the swine, that we may enter into them ; and Jesus 
 gave them leave, and the unclean spirits went out and en- 
 tered into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep 
 place into the sea^ and were choked in the sea." Were these 
 spirits the souls of wicked dead persons sojourning on earth 
 after death? Yes, I think they were. So you must admit, 
 if you say they were the spirits of dead persons, that this 
 doctrine would have been true if preached in the days of 
 Christ. But if it were true then, it is also true to-day. 
 
10 
 
 What a mystery this, two thousand hogs destroyed by wick- 
 ed dead persons. Yes, many thousands of dead persons 
 took a part in this slaughter. 
 
 My friendSj I ask you to lay by your religious prejudices, 
 your fears of becoming unpopular, religiously or politically, 
 and honestly examine this subject for yourselves. My 
 friends, in the discussion of this wonderful and time-honored 
 subject, I do not expect to add unto my present standing as 
 a teacher of the ancient oracles of God. Had such been my 
 object, my experience of human nature, of the religious 
 world as it was, and now is^ would have led me to a differ- 
 ent conclusion. My object is to find the truth, the home of 
 my fathers, the land of departed spirits, the occupation of 
 the spirit after death, and to save the world from an awful 
 pulpit conflagration. 
 
 We have no proof that those spirits are at this time con- 
 fined in a hell in some other world unknown to them in 
 life. The last account we have of them leaves them in this 
 world. Now, if they are in some other world in hell-fire, as 
 is often said by the religionists^ I call for the proof. Can 
 you produce it ? If not, then you must admit that thou- 
 sands of the dead are living in our midst, and if so, then 
 you must find a hell for them in this world. In Mark xvi, 
 we have an account of seven more spirits which were cast 
 out of Mary Magdalene by Jesus. But in this case we have 
 no proof that they were cast out of this lower world into a 
 hell in some other world. The Scriptures inform us that 
 Jesus went and preached unto the spirits in prison^ which 
 sometime were disobedient, when the long suffering of God 
 waited in the days of Noah. In this case the spirits had 
 been disobedient when in their own bodies, but after this 
 disobedience, and after the death of their bodies, and after 
 the death of Jesus, they were preached unto by him. But 
 where did he find them — in this world or out of it. I an- 
 swer, in this world. Jesus often conversed witli the spirits 
 of the dead, before his death, and it is not unreasonable to 
 suppose that he did talk or preach unto the spirits after 
 death. We read, that on one occasion, after the death of 
 Jesus, that he conversed with the disciples about a spirit, 
 and showed them the difference between himself and a spirit, 
 separate and apart from the body. So you see that ours is a 
 world of spirits, that we are surrounded by the spirits of 
 past ages. 
 
 In this world are heavens many, and hells many. It 
 would not be a difficult thing to find hundreds of living per- 
 sons that are living in hell, yes, a hell of torments, of sorrows, 
 
li 
 
 and of woes. I have seen a great many people in my time, 
 in hell, and I have endeavored to keep many from going 
 into hell. Men often cast others into hell. Keraemher that 
 Jonah, a preacher, was cast into hell by the men of the ship. 
 His hell was in this world, he went down into the deep sea. 
 So you see that preachers go to hell in some instances, as 
 well as other people. Remember poor Judas who fell from 
 a high place, who found a hell in this world. Remember, 
 too, St. Peter, with a bad spirit in his heart, he too was 
 about to plunge into that awful place; yes, a few more de- 
 nials and oaths would have ruined him. I knew a young 
 who was cast into hell, more than fifteen years ago, by an 
 old gambler. 
 
 David said;, " The sorrows of death compassed me, and 
 the pains of hell got hold upon me. I found trouble and 
 sorrow." — Ps. cxvi : 2. Now, where was David when in 
 hell ? was he not in this world? The Apostle James speaks 
 of a tongue set on fire of hell ; yes^ a tongue in the mouth 
 of a living person. So we have hells in the present state, 
 and no doubt, but some will find a hell after death. 0! how 
 painful is the thought of living and dying in hell, and go- 
 ing into hell after death ; to find no enjoyment on the great 
 earth, nor on the wide sea, nor in the spirit-land. Man, by 
 his wickedness, makes his own hell, digs his own pit. And 
 man, by his good deeds, by observing the law of his God,, 
 walking by the golden rule, finds his heaven, his bliss, his 
 peace of mind. 
 
 this is a beautiful world of ours — it has ten thousand 
 charms. Are you never delighted with the song of the 
 bird ? are your ears deaf to the notes of the whippowil ? 
 have you no taste for this world of flowers? See those young 
 ladies and young gentlemen, gathering sweet pinks and 
 flowers, they are happy now, they find some bliss in this 
 world. Behold the bride and bridesrroom surrounded with 
 youthful friends. Behold, too, the bride-cake ; and tell me 
 if this world has no charms. what a pity that men will 
 abuse this lovely world ! Some call it "a poor old deceitful 
 world," "a howling wilderness," "a lonely desert," "an un- 
 eaven and rocky shore," "a vain and delusive world," "a 
 cheat," "a trick," "a bite," "a nibble." Yes, say they, we 
 are disgusted with this world, we wish to go to the sky. 
 Yes, say they, this poor old world will soon be destroyed. 
 Now, is not this awful? is it not too much? David said, 
 "■The heavens declare the glory of God ;" but religionists 
 say, that which declares his glory will soon be destroyed. 
 Say they, "the stars of heaven will soon fall, the sun and 
 
12 
 
 moon refuse to shine." yes, you are destroying the things 
 that declare the glory of G-od. Well, my friends, you will 
 he retained in this world after all. A great many persons 
 want to leave this world just to get rid of an industrious 
 life. They have long heen looking for a j)lace where men 
 live without working for food and raiment. Our spirits will, 
 no douht, find employment after death. 
 
 Many ministers rely on 2 Cor. xii, to prove that men go to 
 the starry world after death. In that chapter we read of a 
 man that was caught up into the third heavens. This man 
 could not tell whether he was in the body or out of it at the 
 time of this vision. Now, I am of the opinion, that those 
 heavens were in this world ; those that say they were in an- 
 other world do not propose to stop in the first one, all wish 
 to go on to number three. But let us remember that this 
 man was injured seriously by going into those heavens — he 
 was wounded, he was in distress — he besought the Lord to 
 remove the thorn from him. Now suppose your minister 
 should go to L3'^nchburg, Va., and return wounded in his 
 side, and in great misery^ would you not suppose that he 
 had been in a difiiculty ? 
 
 Dr. Clarke, in his comment on Eev., 12th chap., says : 
 '^Heaven is G-od's throne, they therefore who are advanced 
 to the supreme authority in any state are very properly said 
 to be taken up into heaven, because they are raised by the 
 favor of the Lord." 
 
 Now, according to the Doctor's view of the above subject, 
 the President of the United States was raised to heaven in 
 March, 1857. But the most of Bible readers take all 
 heavens to be above, not considering the heavens below. It 
 appears that some persons do not believe that this lower 
 world has any heaven or hell, all are located in some other 
 world by them. But when men contrast countries, or speak 
 of America politically it is then a great country — a land of 
 liberty, a great place indeed. Yes, the good old Nortli 
 State, the good old Virginia shore, live forever. But as 
 soon as the subject of religion is mentioned, this world be- 
 comes an old howling wilderness, a barren shore. Now is 
 not this so. 
 
 "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman 
 clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon 
 her head a crown of twelve stars." 
 
 Now, this wonder was among the people of the earth, and 
 not among the inhabitants of the starry world. The wo- 
 man was not in the literal sun, nor in the literal heavens, 
 but on earthj perhaps she was a queen in political jjower, 
 
13 
 
 and tlie writer, to describe her higli position among the na- 
 tions of the earth makes use of the sun, moon, and a dozen 
 stars. 
 
 In this same chapter we have an account of a war in 
 heaven. " Michael and his angels fought against the dra- 
 gon," &c. This war was on earth as well as this heaven. 
 The angels were citizens of earth ; Michael was also a man, 
 a noted officer, one skilled in military tactics ; Michael is a 
 family name ; are you not acquainted with Michael ? The 
 dragon was a man — a citizen of earthy a noted chieftain of 
 ancient days — one perhaps actuated by demons. 
 
 The ancient fathers frequently gave to the mountains the 
 epithet eternal, because they are ever the same, from the 
 creation. In the early ages of the world, men were of the 
 opinion that the mountains were everlasting places of re- 
 treat and safety. Many, doubtless, looking up into moun- 
 tains, called them heavens. Thus we read of the everlast- 
 ing hills, the holy mount, the mountain of the Lord, holy 
 hill of Zion. The Mosaic law was given on Sinai, and we 
 suppose that many looked upon this place as a heaven, a 
 sacred and holy place. Said Dr. Watts : 
 
 " Could we but climb where Moses stood, 
 And view the landscape o'er, 
 Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood 
 Should fright us from the shore." 
 
 Now I ask, where did Moses stand ? Was it not on a 
 mountain ? And was he not, last of all seen on a mountain 
 many years after his death ? And was not Elijah, too, seen 
 on a mountain on earth long after his translation ? Thus 
 we find men, supposed to be in the starry world by many, 
 yet in this lower world. Our .good friends, who tell us that 
 they expect to go to heaven above soon, also tell us that 
 they will come back after a while. Now would it not be 
 better to remain all the while, and thus save the great trou- 
 ble of climbing up and down. Many are growing tired of 
 this world, they want to fly away to a starry world just to 
 sit down and do nothing. Adam, in his b€st«days, worked 
 in the garden ; but this generation think too much about 
 doing nothing. We shall find as much to do after death as 
 in life. 
 
 what a pleasure it must be to the old, to know that 
 they will soon be young again, and find happiness in this 
 world! do permit the fond mother to remain in this 
 world with her children, as a ministering spirit. We have 
 
14 
 
 an account of the spirit of the dead returning to the living 
 in this world, and contending for the property left children 
 hy a will. I think there is a case left on record to this effect^ 
 in one of the States of this Union. Let no one suppose that 
 he is out of danger of a person because he is dead. Kemem- 
 her that a spirit may call on you through a second person, 
 or set up its claim in a court of justice. 
 
 At the time that St. Peter was imprisoned, many persons 
 were surprised on being informed that he stood at the door 
 of a friend's house, having been lead out of the prison. 
 Some said it is his spirit. And some writers inform us that 
 the disciples may have supposed that Peter was killed in the 
 prison, and that his spirit had called to inform them of hm 
 death. But it turned out to be St. Peter, spirit and body. 
 
 Says Dr. Clarke, "Many of the Jewish doctors have be- 
 lieved that the souls of Adam and Abraham have success- 
 fully animated the great men of their nation." And Philo 
 says, that the air is full of spirits, and that some, through 
 their natural propensity, join themselves to bodies, and that 
 others have an aversion to such a union. 
 
 Our Saviour also declares that Elijah had already come in 
 spirit in the person of John the Baptist. That is to say, that 
 Elijah's spirit was in John, and if in him, then it was not in 
 the stars of heaven, as it is impossible ibi- a spirit to be in the 
 sky and in a body on earth at the same time. 
 
 It is a fact, that the early inhabitants of this world did 
 not expect to emigrate to the stars of heaven after death ; 
 and it is also a fact, that they lived and died without having 
 thought for the first time in all their lives, that the heavens 
 and the earth were to be destroyed. 
 
 Poets and orators have taken great liberty with the Bible, 
 Let us remember that religion has been established by law, 
 and that the Scriptures have been revised from time to time 
 by men. Let us also remember that learned men are not 
 always honest men. Let us depend more on self, and that 
 that appears to be contrary to sound judgment and nature, 
 let us receive it cautiously. 
 
 The study of man in this age appears to be that of learn- 
 ing to live without working. The State and church are 
 filled with professional men. In State it is give me a fat 
 office ; in church, a large congregation and a fat salary. 
 The Scriptures speak of sowing and reaping, and as such, 
 professional men and ministers would do well to walk 
 through the field occasionally, in order to understand such 
 business. God said, work six days and rest on the seventh. 
 
15 • 
 
 Work six days and go to diurch. on the seventh, is a good 
 doctrine. 
 
 In conclusion, I would say, that this is my view of the 
 suhject, and not that of any church known to me. I am 
 now fishing with my own hook, and select my own bait from 
 the Bible and the great gospel field, where are many fish. 
 I felt unwilling to live and die without expressing my reli- 
 gious sentiments on this great subject. Let us live with the 
 fond and pleasing hope of appearing again in the ages to 
 come, among the children of men on earth. Let us spend 
 the remainder of our life in making arrangements for our 
 reappearance in the land of our nativity. let us remem- 
 ber that our felicity and honors on our return to our race 
 will be determined by what we now do. 
 
 May you all be crowned with present and future enjoy- 
 ments. 
 
 
^*> 
 
 i 
 
Zi. 
 
 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 SHOWING THAT 
 
 ESAU WAS THE AIGEL 
 
 THAT WRESTLED WITH JACOB : 
 
 PREACHED AT 
 
 ^V\^^KE BETHEL. 
 
 ON SUNDAY, APEIL 11, 1858, 
 
 BY ELDER J. P. NEVILL. 
 
 RICHMOND : 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, BY WM. H. CLEMMITT, 
 
 1858. 
 
A DISCOURSE. 
 
 "And he said, let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let 
 thee go, except thou bless me." — Gen. xxxii : 26. 
 
 My Fkiends: 
 
 You would naturally infer from the history of this noctur- 
 nal wrestle, that two distinct persons were engaged in it. 
 But we should rememher that persons and things seen in 
 dreams and visions are not such in reality. Perhaps nothing 
 in Christendom has confused the minds of the people so much 
 as that of taking dreams and visions for realities. Many 
 persons in the church to-day read the dreams and visions of 
 the men of the Bihle as realities — as matters of fact, with- 
 out having thought for the first time in all their lives, that 
 they were the dreams of men and women long since dead. 
 Some of the most important events seen and read in the sa- 
 cred books had their origin in dreams and visions, and must 
 he so considered by the church. It will require much atten- 
 tion and close study to separate the dreams and visions of 
 the Bible from its realities. If you take a dream for a real- 
 ity, you will make the Bible the most unreasonable of all 
 books. Jacob's wrestle with an angel has long been consid- 
 ered by divines and Bible readers generally as a matter of fact. 
 They suppose that an angel descended from the celestial 
 worlds and, after a long wrestle, maimed Jacob, and then 
 winged his way to worlds many millions of miles from earth. 
 But this is not the case, as I hope to show you in this dis- 
 course. 
 
 Jacob's wrestle, as well as his long ladder, extending from 
 earth to heaven, were dreams of his. If the ladder were a 
 dream, then the angel seen and contended with was also 
 a dream. The angel that wrestled with Jacob was his bro- 
 ther Esau, seen in a dream, not Esau in reality. The cause 
 of this dream was a dread on the mind of Jacob of twenty 
 years' standing, which was powerfully impressed on his 
 memory by being informed that he would meet Esau soon. 
 The fear of Jacob in this case was caused by a threat from 
 
4 
 
 Esau, that he would kill him, and it was this that caused him 
 to leave his father's house. This unpleasant difficulty had 
 not been settled from the time that Jacob left his home up to 
 the night of his wrestle ; therefore Jacob did not know but 
 what Esau would kill him. He knew that his brother had an 
 army of four hundred men with him. The blessing sought 
 by Jacob in prayer, as well as that sought in his wrestle, 
 was, to be protected and saved from the threat of Esau. 
 This assurance he obtained in his wrestle, which caused him 
 to rejoice, and to go on his way with a full assurance that he 
 would meet Esau in peace, which he did. The Scriptural 
 account of their meeting is very affecting, and does honor to 
 the memory of Esau, for no one living or dead ever acted 
 more honorable than he, in receiving his brother Jacob, and 
 freely forgiving him for all the injuries he had done him in 
 youth. But strange to tell, the church has never had the 
 least sympathy or commendation for Esau. We often hear 
 eulogies given to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Eebekah, but 
 no soft words for Esau, who acted the part of a Christian 
 and brother. Many good deeds go unnoticed by a blind and 
 prejudiced community. 
 
 Jacob said unto his brother, '' I have seen thy face as 
 though I had seen the face of God." But when was it that 
 his face appeared so lovely in the eyes of Jacob? Was it 
 not at the time he saw him in the wrestle, as well as at the 
 time he ran and embraced him? 
 
 The children of Israel seeing Jacob halting upon his leg 
 soon after his wrestle, passed a prohibatory law which con- 
 demned that part of the kid or animal corresponding with 
 Jacob's wound as being unfit for food. Was there not a 
 cause for this? and if so, we should make an efi'ort to find 
 out what that cause was. I believe that the children of Is- 
 rael believed that Jacob received his wound from seeing 
 Esau in a dream, and that they believed that it was caused 
 by the kid that Jacob took, and whose skin he wore at the 
 time he obtained the blessing from his blind father. The sor- 
 row of Rebekah, and the fear of Jacob, caused by this family 
 difficulty, should admonish all persons of that ancient maxim 
 taught long before Christ, and which he adopted as a part 
 of his system of religion, "Do unto others as you would 
 have them do unto you." It was a departure from this rule 
 in Isaac's family that caused this unpleasant difficulty be- 
 tween brothers. But for all this Rebekah sufiered, being 
 deprived of the society of Jacob, her darling son. 
 
 Little did she think, when putting the goat skin on her 
 son, that she was endangering his life and happiness, and 
 
preparing sorrows for her own heart. Little did she think, 
 when sending Jacob away to remain for a short time, that 
 she would see him no more, — that death would come to see 
 her before the return of her son. Let us remember that jus- 
 tice will pursue all that wilfully do wrong, fetich has and 
 ever will be the case. Many divines pursue some ungodly men 
 beyond the limits of the gospel. Some men have placed them- 
 selves where they cannot be saved by the gospel, forgiveness 
 is not to be obtained by them from the fact that their crimes 
 are so numerous — their liabilities so great, that a life time is 
 too short to satisfy and pay the debt. A man like Herod, 
 who caused hundreds of precious little boys to be murdered, 
 cannot be saved by the gospel and made a happy man in this 
 life. The Scriptures say that some men are past feeling, 
 and I would add, past the line of salvation. I have been dis- 
 gusted by seeing the gospel offered to men under the gallows, 
 with ropes tied to their necks for the worst of offences. 
 Brethren, stand back, do not undertake such miserable 
 cases. The following lines were composed by a minister at 
 the funeral of a man who was killed by a fall from a horse: 
 
 " Between the stirrup and the ground, 
 Pardon sought and pardon found." 
 
 I must confess that I have no faith in such conversions ; 
 they only deceive the youth by flattering him with the idea 
 that he may obtain forgiveness as he passes swiftly through 
 the valley of death. Many important discoveries have been 
 made in dreams in all ages of the world. It was through 
 a dream that Joseph and Mary were put in possession of 
 Herod's cruel design to put Christ to death. It was the 
 dream of Pontius Pilate's wife that influenced him in favor 
 of Jesus of Nazareth at the time of his triah The Messiah, 
 as well as the apostles and prophets, was a dreamer. It was 
 the art of dreaming and interpreting dreams, that promoted 
 Joseph, Daniel and others. St. Peter was instructed in a 
 vision to go and preach unto the Gentiles. This vision was 
 as simple as many things that men dream in this, our day. 
 Yet the salvation of the world depended upon its interpre- 
 tation. The gospel and all its ordinances have come down 
 to us through Peter's vision. Let us remember how we 
 looked in this vision before its interpretation. We looked 
 like four-footed beasts, wild beasts, creeping things, and 
 fowls of the air. John the Baptist said unto some persons 
 that attended his meetings, "0, generation of vipers, who 
 hath warned you to flee the wrath to come." 
 
6 
 
 A young lady, on the eve of marriage, dreamed one night 
 that she and her lover were walking along a pleasant path, 
 side by side. When wide spreading trees waved their lofty 
 branches above their heads, her lover turned to her with a 
 smile and asked, if he should show her the home which he 
 had provided. She longed to see it; and they pursued their 
 journey. They came to a tangled thicket, through which 
 they found a difficulty in passing. At last they suddenly 
 came to an opening. A grave lay open before them ; the 
 cypress and other dark evergreens were seen on every side. 
 Her lover pointed to the grave, and said, "■ There is our 
 home." She awoke in violent agitation. The dream made 
 a dreadful impression on her, and in a few days after, her 
 lover's death was announced to her. 
 
 Afflicted persons have frequentlj' dreamed of remedies for 
 their diseases, which proved beneficial on being resorted to 
 by them. An eminent Scottish lawyer had studied an im- 
 portant case for several days. One night his wife observed 
 him rise and go to his desk, where he wrote a long paper, 
 after which he retired to bed. In the morning he told her 
 that he had a dream, in which he conceived himself to have 
 delivered an opinion on a case which had perplexed him ; 
 and he would give anything to recover the train of thought 
 which had then passed through his mind. She directed him 
 to look in his desk, where he found the whole train of 
 thought clearly written. This paper proved efficacious in 
 the subsequent conduct of the case. 
 
 A gentleman of the law in Edinburg had mislaid an 
 important paper connected with the conveyance of a prop- 
 erty which was to be settled on a particular day. Most 
 anxious search had been made for it for many days, but the 
 evening of the day previous to that on which the parties 
 were to meet for the final settlement had arrived, without 
 the paper being discovered. The son of the gentleman then 
 went to bed under much anxiety and disappointment, and 
 dreamed that at the time when the missing ])aper was de- 
 livered to his father, his table was covered with papers con- 
 nected with the affairs of a particular client. He awoke 
 under the impression, went immediately to a box aj)propria- 
 ted to the i)ai)ers of that client, and there found the paper 
 they had been in search of, which had been tied up by mis- 
 take in a parcel to which it was in no way related. 
 
 Another individual connected with a public office, had 
 mislaid a paper of such importance, that he was threatened 
 with tlie loss of his situation if he did not produce it. After 
 a long but unsuccessful search, under intense anxiety, he 
 
also dreamed of discovering the paper in a particular place, 
 and found it there accordingly. 
 
 The art of dreaming has never been lost, and I see no 
 good reason why we should not have as much confidence in 
 the dreams of men now as we have in those of past ages. 
 My father once dreamed when many miles from home, that 
 several persons broke into his smoke-house. The next 
 morning he related the dream to several persons, and on his 
 arrival at home some time after his dream he found that the 
 house was entered on the same night of his dream. 
 
 The account given in the scriptures of Jonah being swal- 
 lowed by a fish, and three days after being thrown up, must 
 be a dream of his. That a fish swallowed him is a dream. 
 But that he preached to the citizens of Ninevah is a reality. 
 The scriptures say that he was fast asleep when discovered by 
 the mariners, and thus the great probability that he had 
 been in a vision for some time. The voice of one saying 
 unto him, "0, sleeper arise," changed his position, and it 
 "was about this time that he was released from the confine- 
 ment in the fish. I believe that Jonah suffered more in 
 this dream than he would have done had he been in a literal 
 fish. It is impossible for a man to live three days in the 
 abdomen of a fish. What was the object of G-od in placing 
 Jonah in this condition ? Was it not for the purpose of 
 punishing him for his disobedience in order to make him a 
 better servant. The account of the gourd that come up 
 over Jonah is also a dream that he had near the city of 
 Ninevah, after he had preached unto them. The gourd came 
 up in a night, and perished in a night, it grew and matured 
 in an intellectual soil, and was cut down by an intellectual 
 worm. Many good men and women take these dreams for 
 realities, and in this way make the book of Jonah one of 
 the most unreasonable books now extant. 
 
 The friends of the Bible, so to speak, have inflicted its 
 most injurious wounds. Christendom freely bleeds to-day 
 from the wounds inflicted in the dark ages of her history. 
 The layman continues to feel in all dominions the priestly 
 yoke of other countries, and even his liberty in the Ameri- 
 can world has not made him free indeed. The Bible is 
 freely circulated but not so freely investigated. 0, how 
 many live behind the curtain, afraid to express their opinion; 
 afraid of their popularity — afraid that they will lose some 
 votes — be defeated for some office. It is evident that many 
 join the church for the purpose of obtaining the influence of 
 her members. 
 
 The scriptures say that Jonah was three days and three 
 
8 
 
 nights in the whale; hut it has heen ascertained that a 
 whale's throat is too small to admit a human body, and that 
 whales are not often found in the waters over which Jonah 
 was passing at the time of this event. Thousands believe 
 that the witch of Endor called up Samuel from the 
 dead, but this is a great mistake caused by taking the 
 witches' dream for a reality. What was it that caused Saul 
 to seek for Samuel through the instrumentality of the witch 
 of Endor? Was it not from the fact that the Lord had 
 ceased to answer him by dreams, by Urim, and by prophets? 
 Being dispossessed, for a time at least, of information through 
 dreams, he sought for one possessed with a familiar spirit, 
 to assist him in obtaining the information through one that 
 was at rest in the grave. The witch asked Saul who 
 it was that he wished her to call up; he said, bring me 
 up Samuel. It is evident from this conversation, that both 
 Saul and the witch believed that Samuel was in this lower 
 world, that he would come up, not down. Had they be- 
 lieved that he was in the starry world, they would have in- 
 vited him down, and not up. But did Samuel come up out 
 of his grave, and complain that he was disturbed ? No! no! 
 It was not Samuel of the grave, but Samuel of tlie intellect. 
 Samuel coming in a dream — Samuel's voice and mantle. 
 The fear of the woman on seeing Samuel goes to prove that 
 she was in a vision, in which state she detected Saul, who 
 now appeared in his true character undisguised. The scrip- 
 tures inform us that this event transpired in the night, and 
 this we offer as additional proof that Samuel was seen in a 
 dreavn. The condition of Saul at the time he enquired of 
 the dead respecting what would be his success in the future, 
 was calculated to depress his spirit, and to unnerve him on 
 the battlefield. Said Samuel unto Saul, "You and your 
 sons shall be with me to-morrow." 
 
 The bravest of men have seen their defeat in dreams just 
 on the verge of an engagement. Men and women frequently 
 see in dreams approaching calamities, and even death. Who 
 has not been warned in some way in dreams? Our misfor- 
 tunes are at times seen in the dreams of others. I remem- 
 ber when it was the custom to relate dreams to the church. 
 The ministers fifty years ago believed that calls to preach 
 the gospel came through dreams and visions, and it was 
 through this medium that the old folks received tlieir min- 
 isters, and in whom they had unbounded confidence. Never 
 was the cliurch more pure, nor the ministry better supplied 
 with honcst-licarted men tiian in tliose days of dreams, when 
 ehe had no money to give. Strip her of her money, and her 
 
ministers by thousands will forsake her. Have they not 
 already said in many places^ " Increase my wages, or I will 
 leave you." The first thing to be done in many places in 
 order to call a minister, is to see how much money can be 
 raised. iSometimes the church says, we like a little more 
 money. Can't you help to raise it? We are only waiting 
 to get it; and just as soon as it can be had we will call him. 
 1 speak of this only to show the difference between ministers 
 in the days of dreams, and ministers of the present time. 
 The time has been when it would scare a minister to offer 
 him money for preaching. You could not get him to touch 
 it. Such a gift would have been more bitter than the wild 
 gourds in the great pot at Gilgal. We have heard of some 
 ministers in this country who years ago were urged by friends 
 to receive gifts of money for preaching, but suffered so much 
 from having received it that they declared they would never 
 receive any more. I only refer to such cases to show how 
 things of this nature have changed. 
 
 God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to 
 him, "Behold, thou art but a dead man for the woman 
 which thou hast taken, for she is a man's wife." Abimelech 
 took Sarah, Abraham's wife, to be his sister, an unmarried 
 lady ; but detected his mistake in a dream. Was not this 
 sufficient to prove to the satisfaction of this man that Abra- 
 ham and Sarah had not fully and fairly represented the 
 subject to him ? Was this not also calculated to make 
 Abimelech a strong believer in dreams ? Solomon's future 
 honor and wisdom as a king, were the results of a dream in, 
 which the following conversation took place between himself 
 and his God : " In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon 
 in a dream by night; and God said^ Ask what I shall give 
 thee. And Solomon said. Thou hast shown unto thy ser- 
 vant David, my father, great mercy, according as he walked, 
 before thee in truth and righteousness, and in upright- 
 ness of heart with thee ; and thou hast kept for him this 
 great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his 
 throne, as it is this day. And now, Lord, my God, thou 
 hast made thy servant king instead of David my father, 
 and I am but a little child, I know not how to go out or 
 come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people 
 which thou hast chosen, a great people that cannot be num- 
 bered nor counted for multitude. Give, therefore, thy ser- 
 vant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may 
 discern between good and bad; for who is able to judge this, 
 thy, so great a people ? And the speech pleased the Lord, 
 that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him ; 
 
10 
 
 Because thou liast asked this thing, and hast not asked for 
 thyself long life, neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor 
 hast asked the life of thine enemies, but hast asked for thy- 
 self understanding to discern judgment : Behold I have 
 done according to thy words. Go, I have given thee a wise 
 and an understanding heart. So that there was none like 
 thee before thee, neither after thee, shall any arise like unto 
 thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not 
 asked, both riches and honor, so that there shall not be any 
 among the kings like unto thee all thy days. And if thou 
 wilt walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my command- 
 ments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen 
 thy days. And Solomon awoke ; and behold it was a 
 dream." 
 
 I have read this nocturnal dream to show you how men 
 and kings of past ages were instructed by God. In this 
 dream Solomon refers to his father David, then dead, also to 
 the children of Israel as being a great and numerous na- 
 tion. He also saw himself in his dream, and compared 
 himself to a little child. We are all bound to admit the 
 fact, that Solomon's wisdom and riches were the results of 
 his dream, and he, no doubt, often looked back with pleasure 
 on his dreams. I believe that thousands of men and women 
 living to-day have been blessed through the medium of 
 dreams. One hundred years ago ministers of the gospel 
 generally taught the people that a call to preach came to 
 men in dreams and visions, and that a voice was heard 
 commanding the man to go forth. Such impressions were 
 of lasting duration, causing the man of God to live near 
 the cross of Jesus of Nazareth. One hundred years ago the 
 church believed in dreams and visions, which were frequent- 
 ly related in church and approved of by the wisest and best 
 of men and women. But now dreams are rejected, since 
 benches have been introduced into the altar as the place for 
 sinners to receive the forgiveness of sins. The old folks saw 
 God when dreaming ; but now the people see him when ex- 
 cited in a great revival, as they say. But I must confess 
 that I have more confidence in dreams and visions than I 
 have in many of the long protracted meetings of this age. 
 People are not so apt to be deceived in dreams — have but 
 little chance to pass themselves off on the public for saints, 
 when they are rot such — have no chance to show off to an 
 advantage, by exhibiting a fine dress or a lovely face — can- 
 not cast a sheep's eye to an advantage — cannot start an ex- 
 citement by groaning and shouting — have rather a bad 
 chance to effect the hearts of the people by telling how fa- 
 
ii 
 
 tlier^ mother^ brother and sister died. The impressions 
 made on the mind in dreams and visions are sufficient to lead 
 men to believe in a spiritual life, and to strengthen our faith 
 and confidence in the testimony of the divine books, that 
 originated, in part, in dreams and visions. If we had never 
 experienced anything in dreams of our own, we would not 
 be so well prepared to appreciate the dreams and visions of 
 the men of the Bible, Who is the author of dreams and 
 visions ? God or man ? Who first taught men to dream ? 
 Was it not that being that made the night for sleep? I 
 consider that God is as much the author of dreams as he is 
 the author of the human language ; if he first taught man 
 to speak he also first taught him to dream. That God is 
 the author of some dreams and visions is sustained from the 
 fact that many parts of the Old and New Testaments are 
 composed of dreams and visions in which God himself is 
 made to appear and promise to give great and precious 
 blessings unto men. Why not have as much faith in the 
 dreams of men now living as we have in those of men long 
 since dead ? Why not believe that God has continued to 
 bless men and women in dreams and visions in all ages of 
 the world's history? 
 
 It is said that a youth in the north saw^ in a dream, his 
 brother in the Pacific Hotel, in St. Louis, on the same night 
 that it was destroyed by fire, and gave the alarm in his 
 dream, exclaiming in a loud voice, "The hotel is on fire, and 
 brother is burning up!" Had this youth lived in the pro- 
 phetic age he would have attracted the attention of the 
 world. But things that promoted men in other ages and 
 countries, now pass away almost unnoticed. 
 
 Job said, '•' Why dost thou strive against him, for he 
 giveth not account of any of his matters ; for God speaketh 
 once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream — in 
 a vision of the night — when deep sleep falleth upon men in 
 slumberings upon the bed. then he openeth the ears of men 
 and sealeth their instruction.^, that he may withdraw man 
 from his purpose and hide pride from him. He keepeth back 
 his soul from the pit and his life from perishing by the 
 sword." 
 
 We have quoted largely from Job to establish the follow- 
 ing facts : 1. That God speaks to men on their beds when 
 asleep. 2. That the object of his speaking is to benefit man 
 by turning him from his intentions and designs, and in so 
 doing saves him from the pit and from the sword; yes, saves 
 him from plunging headlong into hell-fire; saves him from 
 
12 
 
 coming into collision witli the sword, pistol, musket, and 
 clutches of warlike men. 
 
 Again, Job said, "'Fear came upon him which caused 
 him to tremble, and all his bones to shake. Hear, hear, 
 and a spirit passed before his face ; the hair of his flesh 
 stood up. The spirit stood still, but he could not discern 
 the form thereof. An image was before his eyes ; then was 
 silence, and he heard a voice, saying, shall mortal man be 
 more just than Grod? Shall a man be more pure than his 
 Maker?" 
 
 We have quoted this part of Job's vision to show you how 
 men were operated on anciently, in dreams. Judging from 
 the contents of this part of the history of Job's trials, we 
 conclude that his frightful situation, at the time that a spirit 
 passed before his eyes, was to instruct him in relation to 
 approaching trials and persecutions. Poor afflicted Job, 
 among other troubles, had at home a devil in the shape of 
 a wife. It is reasonable to conclude that it was the power- 
 ful impressions made on his mind in dreams, that enabled 
 him to stand steadfastly amidst all of his temptations, and 
 afflictions, and losses. 
 
 The notion that all divine instruction and spiritual influ- 
 ence come through written words or through preaching, is, 
 as I believe, a false position, efiecting the spiritual interest 
 of a large portion of the human family. It does not require 
 an education in order to receive spiritual aid. Nor does an 
 education exclude any one from receiving divine and spirit- 
 ual communications. It is evident that the gospel was first 
 given to the illiterate, and that it has come down, in part, 
 at least, through them. Yes, we find that the keys of the 
 kingdom were first in the hands of an illiterate fisherman, 
 by whose faithfulness the world has been blessed. The gos- 
 pel is a plain, simple narrative, that all men may understand. 
 It was called foolishness in the days of the apostles. By 
 its simplicity many persons were saved. It is said that men 
 and women went every where preaching — all knew what 
 the gospel was, and all felt at liberty to preach it. In those 
 days there was no money in the gospel. As such, women 
 as well as men felt at liberty to speak for Christ. But now, 
 the gospel is swollen with the precious metal; yes, its wealth 
 has added many to its cause. The question now is, who is 
 entitled to preach, and who is entitled to receive, and how 
 much shall he have? The gospel was committed to the hands 
 and keeping of poor illiterate fishermen, by its author, and 
 we have all received it through their instrumentality. I 
 have frequently been disgusted by seeing poor, honest-heart- 
 
13 
 
 ed, illiterate men excluded from the rostrum, for no other 
 reason than the want of an education. If any one desire to 
 ispeak, let him speak. If he say that God has appeared unto 
 him in a vision, let him tell the people all about it. 
 
 It is surprisingly strange to see how the church has de- 
 parted from original principles. 8he has lost her love, and 
 her original banner has been pulled down and concealed be- 
 neath the dust of gone-by times. The church is too apt to 
 condemn innocent amusement. Is it a sin for young people 
 to attend a decent party? No! no! I have been disgusted 
 on seeing young ladies called up in the church to acknowl- 
 edge to the church that they were sorry for having attended 
 and participated in the amusement of a party. I contend 
 that the church has no lawful right to interfere in such cases. 
 I have seen an innocent young lady in great trouble on being 
 denied the right to attend an innocent party. Many are 
 depriving themjselves of pleasure in this life, hoping to be 
 rewarded in the life to come for so doing, but this is a great 
 mistake. Let us remember that heaven is in this world, 
 and that the natural wants of the people must be supplied, 
 in order to enjoy happiness. It is impossible for man to be 
 happy deprived of eatables, raiment and society. God has 
 provided for all our wants, and if we will only use the means 
 that he has given, we shall be happy in this life as well as 
 in that to come. 0, what an alarming state of suffering 
 has been caused by the doctrine that threatens to cast men 
 and women into a deep pit of fire and brimstone, to burn 
 for all eternity. Many persons have been threatened from 
 the stand by being told that God would cast them into 
 this awful furnace if they did not join the church. Many 
 grieve on account of believing that their departed friends 
 and children have been dragged out of this world by the 
 devil, and cry day and night for water to cool their tongues. 
 Thank God our departed friends continue to sojourn in this 
 world. Yes, it is in this world that the wicked dead suffer 
 for the deeds done in the body, and it is in this world that 
 the righteous dead enjoy felicity. Let us rejoice that we 
 live in a land surrounded by the spirits of the dead of all 
 ages. 0, let us rejoice as we approach the hour of death, 
 that we shall soon be associated with the spirits of those 
 who have gone before. Many persons now in this congre- 
 gation have raised the dead, but you may ask how. I an- 
 swer, in dreams and visions of the night. You cannot deny 
 the fact that you have raised up the dead and conversed with 
 them on various subjects. You cannot lay your hand on 
 your heart and say that you have not seen the dead long af- 
 
14 
 
 ter their death. And inasmuch as you have been permit- 
 ted to raise up others from the shades of death, it is likely 
 that when you die some one of the living will call you up 
 from your tomb in dreams and visions, and entertain you with 
 the news of the day. So you see that you are at home in 
 this world. If you go away, the living will bring you back 
 in their visions. In the days of the prophets and apostles 
 it was common for the dead to be raised in this way. In 
 addition to this, let us not forget that the dead were raised 
 in various other ways. The prodigal son was raised from a 
 death of poverty, starvation, sin and debauchery. Said the 
 father unto him, "This, my son, was dead, but now is alive." 
 The poor man Lazarus was raised from a death of poverty 
 and affliction, by friends, called angels in the Scriptures. 
 
 If you will only read the Scriptures you will agree 
 with me, that a large portion of it is made up with the 
 dreams and visions of men ; that many of the most popu- 
 lar texts now preached from, had their origin in visions. 
 Cornelius, the centurion, received his first lesson on the sub- 
 ject of religion in a vision. Ananias was instructed in a 
 vision to go to the house of Judas, to instruct Saul. And 
 Saul was informed in a vision that Ananias was coming to 
 see him, that he was at that time on his way to instruct 
 him. Thousands of men and women now living have been 
 instructed in dreams in a singular way, that is, have seen 
 their friends and relations in dreams coming to see them. 
 Only as late as last summer, I had the pleasure of seeing 
 Elder John L. Clifton in a dream coming to see me, and in 
 less than twenty minutes after I awoke he was at the door. 
 Now, it is impossible for me to have more faith in the dreams 
 of the men of the Bible than I have in this my own. The 
 subject of dreaming, says a late writer, is unfortunate in its 
 being so much a matter of vulgar wonderment, for intelligent 
 inquirers are thereby repelled from it. When regarded 
 apart from all absurd marvelling, it is evidently a very 
 curious department of psychology, and one which deserves 
 careful investigation. By a proper collection of facts on this 
 subject, I have no doubt that an important advance might 
 be made in the science of mind. If the Bible is to be the 
 test of our faith, then we must admit the fact that much of 
 the testimony of the Bible on which our faith is based had 
 its origin in dreams and visions, and in the beginning was 
 first related as such. The question may now be asked : Is 
 there a reality in any other dreams and visions, save those 
 seen and read in the Bible ? I believe that the art of dream- 
 ing has not been lost by the human family. If God con- 
 
15 
 
 • 
 
 versed with men anciently in dreams, he does so at this time, 
 and will continue to do so as long as the human family has 
 a heing. It will not do to reject all dreams because some 
 dreams are suggested by casual disturbances. Nor will it 
 do to reject all dreams because some dreams appear to be 
 made up of foolishness. Joseph said unto his brethren : 
 Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed. For 
 behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and so my 
 sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and behold your sheaves 
 stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. In this 
 dream it is stated that Joseph and his brethren were bind- 
 ing sheaves in the field. In what field did this binding take 
 place? Was it not in Joseph's mind, and did he not put 
 his brethren to work in this intellectual field? And did 
 not the sheaves stand erect in Joseph's head, and not in a 
 literal field? In this next dream he makes the sun, moon 
 and eleven stars bow down before him. Now if you take 
 this for a reality, you will have the high heavens in one 
 man's head. It would be quite an easy matter for a man 
 in a dream to swallow an elephant or to be swallowed by 
 him. The book of Revelation abounds with visions seen by 
 St. John, on the island of Patmos, many ages ago, but now 
 read by thousands on the American continent for realities. 
 Have you ever stopped to separate the dreams of the Bible 
 from its historical events ? If you have not, you will on 
 doing so be surprised to find so large a portion of it dreams 
 and visions. The visions of St. John are the most beautiful 
 of all visions found in the sacred writings. They embrace 
 almost the entire book of Revelation. Indeed we may say 
 that the church has been furnished by St. John with a 
 beautiful religious book of visions, which was for a time 
 rejected by the church. We find this beautiful vision in 
 Revelation, 22d chapter : "And he showed me a pure river 
 of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne 
 of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, 
 and on either side of the river was there the tree of life, 
 which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yieldeth her fruit 
 every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing 
 of the nations." 0, what a lovely river was this to the 
 dreamer's eyes? What a difference in this and Jacob's dream. 
 His was full of excitement and fatigue. But this was as 
 calm as a May day. Yes, it was pleasant to see future bless- 
 ings on their way to supply the wants of the people. 
 
 From what has been said on this subject, and from the 
 several dreams and visions referred to ; can you not say as I 
 have said, that much of the Bible is made up of the dreams 
 
16 
 
 t 
 
 of men and women long since dead? This view of the suh- 
 ject makes the sacred writings more plain, and will, as I 
 think, meet with the approval of all unprejudiced minds, 
 who will examine the subject for themselves. I feel thank- 
 ful that I have lived to fill this appointment of several 
 months' standing, and that you have lived to meet with me 
 on this occasion. The contents of this discourse have been 
 collected in the midst of much business of a temporal na- 
 ture. I feel thankful to you, my friends, for the attention 
 that you have given me on this occasion. 
 
 "The discourse to you is new. 
 Yet you may find it true.*' 
 
 -.-^ 
 
^1 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, IN THE CITY OF RALEIGH, 
 
 ON THE SECOND LORD'S DAY IN MAY, 1859, 
 
 BY J. PARKS NEVILL. 
 
A DISCOURSE. 
 
 "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after tliis tlie judgment." — Heb. ix : 27. 
 
 My Feiends — 
 
 Our present state is marked by many mighty 
 changes. Have we not already passed through many? Are 
 there not many more couched in the short journey to the 
 land of death? In the- course of events one thing continues 
 till its work is complete, when it expires, and from its dust 
 a new order of things begin. Death is one of the fixed 
 principles in God's economy of creation. Man is no more 
 the author of natural death, than of life. God, his creator, 
 is the author of both. Yet man has often abused both. 
 Adam and Eve were made to die, as well as to live. Their 
 bodies returned to the dust, not for any thing they said or 
 did, but to fulfill the law of God. It was not in their power 
 to live forever. It is just as much in your power to live for- 
 ever as it was in the power of your father Adam. The pos- 
 terity of Adam and Eve do not die on the account of any 
 defect in their conduct, but because they were born to die. 
 Natural death is just as necessary in the world as life — it is 
 your friend and conductor to spiritual enjoyments. When 
 he comes for you do not be alarmed, but gladly go with him, 
 as did Simeon. It is only man's short-sightedness that 
 causes him to shun his friend — natural death. It is an un- 
 timely death that we should strive to avoid. It is probable 
 that every natural death is to some extent succeeded by bet- 
 ter circumstances. Had none died, what an innumerable 
 multitude of old, infirm persons would be tottering around 
 every hearth this morning. God, foreseeing the future, has 
 in his wisdom provided better things for us. He has given 
 each of his children a home beneath the green sod, as well 
 as abore it. The one in its proper time is just as important 
 
4 
 
 as the other. Our ancestors had but little dread of death, 
 therefore many of them lived for hundreds of years. 
 
 The resurrection of the dead commenced with death, that 
 is, the first that died was the first to rise from the dead. If 
 Abel be the first that died, then he was the first that rose 
 from the dead. His death was a violation of the law of God, 
 inasmuch as he was killed bv the hands of Cain. His resur- 
 rection, however, was in accordance to the law of the resur- 
 rection ; that is to say, man shall rise from the dead when 
 he dies, without regard to the cause of his death. There is 
 nothing in the nature of death that can hinder man from 
 rising at the time of death. Therefore we believe that the 
 resurrection of the dead takes place at the hour of death. 
 When Adam and Eve died, their spirits rose up out of their 
 dead bodies, and so with all others. Therefore, the body is 
 not the subject of the resurrection. The dead body is the 
 grave, so to speak, out of which the spirit rises. We pre- 
 sume that it will be admitted by all professors of religion 
 that no spirit has ever risen up out of a dead body in the 
 grave; that the union of the body and spirit is dissolved in 
 the moment of death, and not in the dark grave. The ques- 
 tion then with me is, Is this union dissolved forever, or is 
 it for a limited time? We believe that it is forever. 
 
 The five thousand years that this dissolution has contin- 
 ued, -with Adam, Eve, Abel and others, go to prove that it 
 is forever. The fact that all human bodies are now mortal, 
 and have ever been. We naturally infer that such was the 
 case with Adam in his original state. 
 
 Thousands of good people believe, as they tell us, that 
 man made himself mortal. Now if he possessed the power 
 to change immortality into mortality, then on the same 
 principle he could change mortality into immortality. If 
 man were made immortal, and has by sin made himself 
 mortal, then we may say that he has frustrated the design 
 of God in creating man. There was mortality in the world 
 before man violated the commandment. The birds and 
 beasts of the field were made subject to death ; therefore, 
 they would have died had man never sinned. The snake 
 was as poisonous before man apostatized as after. His sin 
 had nothing to do in the way of changing the nature of 
 snakes or animals. 
 
 It is believed by numbers of christian people, that the 
 heavens and the earth are doomed to destruction, because 
 man violated the commandment of God. But this idea is 
 objectionable, since they were made, and laws given for 
 their regularity and durability, and that too before m»n was 
 
created. Now, if they are to "be annihilated through a sin- 
 ful act on the part of man, then it will appear that he has 
 frustrated God in all his works. It is absurd to say that 
 God will destroy all things just hecause Adam and Eve vio- 
 lated a commandment concerning the fruit of a certain tree 
 that stood in their garden. 
 
 A child may he taught to kill, plunder and steal, believ- 
 ing it to be a part of its duty to do so. And it is from this 
 principle that men appear to rejoice in war and bloodshed. 
 Many of the evils that now exist in our country can be 
 traced back and fixed on men long since dead. The deeds 
 that men do live a long time with posterity. False doctrine 
 may in the course of ages become so popular as to deter men 
 from investigating it. It is from this principle that spuri- 
 ous tenets have quietly descended from age to age. 
 
 We sometimes see imperfections in the deeds of some of 
 the prominent men of the Bible, but are deterred by the 
 popular opinion of them from pointing out those imperfec- 
 tions. Who is so blind as not to see imperfections in Da- 
 vid ? Was the square before his eyes when he commanded 
 Uriah to be placed in the front of the battle? David was 
 not perfect in all things. Who can approve of all he has 
 said in the 109th Psalm? — "Let his children be fatherless, 
 and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vag- 
 abonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their 
 desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath_, 
 and let the stranger spoil his labor. Let there be none to 
 extend mercy unto him ; neither let there be any to favor 
 his fatherless children." Here is an instance of a great 
 man under the influence of a bad spirit. 
 
 Laws have frequently been enacted to deter religious man 
 from expressing himself on certain points of doctrine. We 
 find in the Blue Laws of Connecticut the following on reli- 
 gious restrictions: 
 
 1. No one shall be a freeman or give a vote, unless he be 
 a member in full communion with one of the churches in 
 this dominion. 
 
 2. No one shall hold an office who is not sound in faith, 
 and faithful to his denomination; and whoever gives a vote 
 for such a person shall pay a fine of £20 for the first offence, 
 and for the second shall be disfranchised. 
 
 3. Each freeman shall swear by the blessed God to bear 
 true alliance to this dominion, and that Jesus is the only 
 king. 
 
 4. No lodging or food shall be offered to a Quaker, Adam- 
 ite, or any other heretic. 
 
6 
 
 5. If any person turns Quaker, lie shall be banished, and 
 suffer death on his return. 
 
 6. No priest shall abide in the dominion. He shall be 
 banished, and suffer death on his return. 
 
 It has been through such channels that original Chris- 
 tianity has been corrupted. 
 
 The dead body is not the subject of future punishment, nor 
 of future happiness. As a body, its pleasures and sorrows 
 cease in death. No approaching event can molest the sleeper 
 in the grave. In the grave are no distinctions. "There the 
 "wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest. 
 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of 
 the oppressor. The small and great are there, and the ser- 
 vant is free from his master." — Job, iii: 1*7. Death in Job's 
 eye was the final end of oppression, servitude and fatigue, 
 with all dead bodies. Speaking of himself he said, "When 
 a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I 
 shall not return." — Job, xvi: 22. Thousands of years have 
 passed away since his death, nor has he yet returned. Job, 
 thou hast gone to thy grave, not to return ! Nor would thy 
 spirit desire to be again re-united to thy tranquil dust. 
 
 Immortality cannot die, therefore nothing that has died 
 was immortal. A person once in possession of immortality 
 will always be, — can never lose it. Immortality, however^ 
 can be dispossessed of mortality. The spirit of Adam was 
 put in possession of his body, and not his body in possession 
 of his spirit. Therefore his body was inferior to his spirit. 
 Now if the dead body is to be raised immortal and equal to 
 the spirit, then the one cannot possess the other, inasmuch 
 as the possessor must be superior to the thing possessed. 
 The spirit is the subject of the future judgment. The body 
 will be in the dust at the time of this judgment. In life 
 there is a judgment constantly going on, whicli is the only 
 one that can effect it. There is nothing in the grave that 
 "now suffers, or will ever suffer. The dead family have 
 cea.sed from bodily suffering. It is that sensitive thing, the 
 spirit, that suffers after death. Indeed it is often a contin- 
 uation of punishment commenced in the lifetime of the body. 
 Now, if the judgment do commence in the lifetime of a sin- 
 ner, and it is possible for him to reform and to obtain for- 
 giveness before death, is it impossible for his spirit to be 
 saved if he fail to repent in life? Is the spirit's future hap- 
 piness suspended on the nature of death? Is it altogether 
 imi)Ossible for a spirit to reform? Must it always continue 
 wicked and miserable because death has separated it from 
 its body ? It is often the case that ministers hold out in- 
 
ducements to men ia the hour of death, by exhorting them 
 to look unto God that their spirits may be saved. Now, if 
 a merciful God can save a spirit from eternal woe when the 
 body is in a state of death, and that too after the legs or 
 arms have been amputated, why suppose it impossible for 
 the same mercy to be extended to the spirit after the death 
 of the remaining part of the body? If a spirit can be saved 
 when in the act of leaving the body, and that too without 
 baptism, or without membership in the church, why can it 
 not be saved in the spirit land ? 
 
 Many young persons die soon after arriving to the years 
 of accountability. Now, let us suppose that fifty such young 
 persons are passing on the railroad to attend a religious 
 meeting, and are thrown from the cars and killed ; do you 
 think that a God of love and mercy would cast them into a 
 lake of fire and brimstone forever, without giving their spi- 
 rits an opportunity of becoming happy ?— seeing that their 
 days were few in life? Again, let us suppose that a young 
 man finds a difficulty in deciding which is the church of 
 God, out of the hundreds professing to be^ and in this con- 
 dition is killed by lightning, do you believe that God would 
 punish his spirit for millions of years in flames of fire, for 
 not obeying the gospel in confusion? Children who die in 
 infancy are made happy in the spirit state without the gos- 
 pel. Their spirits grow in knowledge and happiness. They 
 are not in their bodies, but out of them, therefore their 
 deeds are spiritual, as well as their lives. Great, indeed, 
 must be the progress that infant spirits have made in the 
 spirit state, since many of them have been students in the 
 spiritual school for thousands of years. We believe that 
 the infant spirit is progressive before and after death ; nor 
 are their spirits judged after the death of their bodies. — 
 Why judge an innocent child, that knew no evil, that left 
 its mother as innocent as the sweetest flower that fades?. 
 Many ministers have disgraced the pulpit, and made them- 
 selves contemptible, by preaching children down to hell. 
 Although this infant damnation or condemnation was 
 preached in the past, it is now generally repudiated. — 
 Time will continue to throw new light on the doctrine of 
 the church. Positions of long standing, advocated by great 
 and popular men, will meet with opposition in coming ages, 
 out of which the world of mankind may be benefitted. We 
 have lived to realize much pleasure in our efibrt to sift sec- 
 tarianism. Who believes that any one of the difi'erent re- 
 ligious denominations is correct in all its doctrines ? All 
 have truth mingled with error. 
 
a 
 
 The idea that all punishment after death is to continue 
 forever, without increasing or diminishing, is objection able. 
 Why is the punishment in life more severe at one time than 
 at another, and the punishment after death always the same, 
 without the least mitigation ? The sorrow of a wicked spi- 
 rit after death is fluctuating to some extent — its grief may 
 be greater to-day than it will be to-morrow. The circum- 
 stances with which a departed spirit have to contend, may 
 have something to do in the way of increasing and dimin- 
 ishing sorrows. In this respect there is a striking resem- 
 blance between the present and future state. In the present 
 it causes remorse to see those persons we have unjustly per- 
 secuted ; how much more so when we shall meet with them 
 in the land of spirits? The changes that the nations of the 
 earth have passed through, have, in all probability, effected 
 wonderful changes with many of the spiritual family. The 
 death of one individual sometimes effects the condition of a 
 spirit long separated from its own body by death. A refor- 
 mation in the morals of a man may, under some circum- 
 stances, effect the condition of a departed spirit. It is also 
 probable that the spirits of some dead persons possess the 
 power to effect the happiness of living persons. In Matt, 
 xii: 43, we have this singular case — "When the unclean 
 spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, 
 seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will re- 
 turn into my house from whence I came out ; and when he 
 is come, he findeth it empty, swept and garnished. Then 
 he goeth and taketh with himself seven other spirits more 
 wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there, and 
 the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so 
 shall it be also unto this wicked generation." We have in 
 this case an instance of a wicked spirit seeking rest after 
 the death of its body. We also have proof that it, in com- 
 pany with others, entered into a living person and dwelt 
 there. Those spirits could have been dispossessed of their 
 home in this man in several ways — 1. They could have been 
 cast out by Jesus, or by the apostles. 2. The man could 
 have dispossessed them by reforming his life. 3. They were 
 dispossessed forever at the time of the man's death, if in no 
 other way. 
 
 Eighteen hundred years ago the spirits of dead persons 
 were numerous at different places on the earth. Why sup- 
 pose that such is not the case at this time ? If they have 
 been banished, we would be pleased to know the cause — to 
 see the law that condemned them to banishment. If those 
 wicked spirits were here eighteen hundred years ago, then 
 
9 
 
 liell was on eartli at that time. If, however, there were no 
 hell on earth at that time, then those wicked spirits were 
 going at large, unrestrained and unpunished. The religious 
 world to a great extent oppose the idea of the transmigra- 
 tion of the spirit from one body to another. But notwith- 
 standing, they teach about the same. Say they, the spirits 
 of the dead will be sent back into their same bodies in the 
 resurrection. Would not this be transmigration, inasmuch 
 as it is said that their bodies are to be new ones. Thc'idea 
 advanced by the churches of this age is, that Adam will 
 rise up from the dust, and his spirit will come down from 
 heaven and enter into his body, and dwell in it forever, and 
 so with all his godly posterity. As to the wicked, they say 
 that their spirits will come up out of hell fire and enter into 
 their bodies as they rise from the grave. 
 
 Then these extremes of heat and cold 
 Will stand before the Judge's throne. 
 
 Although the doctrine of the transmigration of souls is 
 now denied by the church, it is older than the New Testa- 
 ment, and was taught in Asia long before the advent of the 
 Messiah. The Jewish Eabbins have believed in the trans- 
 migration of souls from the very remotest antiquity, and 
 many of the Jewish doctors, as wise as our American D. Ds., 
 have believed that the souls of Adam, Abraham and Phine- 
 has, have successively animated the great men of their na- 
 tion. We may suppose that the believers of this doctrine 
 were as honest, and enjoyed themselves as well as thousands, 
 of professors of religion at this time. 
 
 It is argued by some, that the doctrine of transmigration, 
 is false, from the fact that there are more spirits than hu- 
 man bodies. But even this would not prove the doctrine 
 false, from the fact that many spirits have animated the 
 same body at the same time. Mary entertained seven, and 
 a certain man accommodated eight. In addition to this, it 
 will be seen from an examination of the New Testament, 
 that spirits lived separate and independent of a human body. 
 A spirit having once animated a living body, claimed it as 
 his — called it his home. Such was the case with the un- 
 clean spirit already referred to. The restlessness of those 
 wicked spirits after the death of their bodies is proof that 
 they had been judged and condemned, and that their place 
 of suffering was in this world. Why send a spirit to some 
 distant world to be judged and punished ? Why not judge 
 it in the land of its crimes, and if guilty, punish it there ? 
 2 
 
10 
 
 In some cases, it is probable that punishment will be for a 
 terra of years, and not for all eternity. We cannot suppose 
 that a just and merciful God will punish a man of few sins 
 as long as one of many. It is said by those who teach ever- 
 lasting punishment in all cases, that it is measured by de- 
 grees, not by time. Now, if this idea be correct, then we 
 may say that there is but little difi'erence between some in 
 hell and in heaven. The objection to measuring by years 
 appears to be this. It will not do to let a parched and smoked 
 spirit come out of hell into heaven. It is said, that great 
 men are not always wise, and we would add, not always 
 merciful. With many, a moment's repentance saves the 
 soul from punishment for all eternity. But a million of 
 years with them, are not sufficient to punish the soul for 
 failing to repent in that moment. In the present they say, 
 
 "And while the lamp holds out to burn. 
 The vilest sinner may return." 
 
 But in the future they say, 
 
 And while the brimstone holds out to burn. 
 The least sinner cannot return. 
 
 We cannot believe that such doctrine emanated from that 
 God of love and mercy. The time is coming when the reli- 
 gious world will be driven to the necessity of changing her 
 position of future punishment, as she has already done on 
 other subjects. I am a strong believer in a future punish- 
 ment. I believe that the spirit is judged immediately after 
 the death of its body, and that all of that punishment is 
 measured by time, and that its length of time is determined 
 by the nature of the deeds done in the body. Wicked men 
 often experience in life, and particularly in dreams, a fore- 
 taste of that suffering that will be endured by the spirit 
 when the body is asleep in the grave. You remember how 
 miserable you were — how your spirit was excited — when 
 you were running in your dream from the pursuer. You 
 remember how miserable you felt when detected and exposed 
 to the eyes of many persons — how miserable you felt on see- 
 ing those you had injured. Such maybe a partial represen- 
 tation of that state of suffering after death. The suffering 
 of a spirit in the future state will be owing to a combination 
 of wicked crimes — the linking in one chain all of the evil 
 of a long and wicked life. Crimes long concealed will con- 
 stitute a part of this sinful chain. The spirit will be con- 
 
11 
 
 strained after death to review the deeds of life, which will 
 constitute a part of its sorrow. The features of the mur- 
 dered person will he seen just as they were when killed. 
 The voice that cried for life will be heard again. — Not by 
 the innocent, but by the perpetrator. Those objects were 
 in the first instance realities, but after their destruction, 
 they were often the impressions made on the mind of the 
 perpetrator, tormenting him in life ; and such will be the 
 ease with the spirit after the death of the body. In the 
 spirit state, ten thousand painful reflections may grow out 
 of reviewing one isolated crime. In reviewing cases in the 
 spirit state, the grief is in proportion to the nature of the 
 case. All sins reviewed do not cause the same amount of 
 remorse; therefore a spirit may be in more pain to-day than 
 it will be to-morrow. If we knew the case that a departed 
 spirit was now engaged in reviewing, we could form a pret- 
 ty correct opinion of its condition, having been acquainted 
 with the character of the case, as well as with the person in 
 his life-time. We may suppose that punishment in the fu- 
 ture state, in some cases, is alleviated from the fact of its 
 having commenced in the lifetime of the person, and that 
 too in his youthful days. Is there not a difference in the 
 punishment of one who commits murder in his youth, and 
 is punished by the law, and one who commits the same of- 
 fence in his old age, and dies unpunished by the law? Do 
 you suppose that two such persons would occupy precisely 
 the same position after death? 
 
 It is generally believed that all men will stand before Grod 
 to be judged on the same day, which is called the judgment 
 day, some say the great day of accounts. What is meant 
 by the judgment day after death, is nothing more than a se- 
 ries of events resulting in the condemnation of evil-doers. 
 God has placed within each human breast a monitor, and 
 whenever man runs counter to it he is certain to be rebuked. 
 Such was the fact in the case of Cain, the eldest son of Adam 
 and Eve. It was not a written law that caused him to be 
 a fugitive and a vagabond, but the law of his nature vio- 
 lated. His punishment was caused by running contrary to 
 the monitor within his bosom. If men would only observe 
 the workings of this monitor, they would save themselves 
 from much sorrow in life, and would be much better off in 
 the spirit state. Many have been judged, and are this day 
 suffering their punishment, without having ever seen God: 
 therefore, we conclude, that no one will see him in the fu- 
 ture judgment. The place of judgment is in this lower 
 world, and it is here that the guilty will be punished and 
 
12 
 
 the just rewarded. Such have already taken place with all 
 the dead. Judgino; from the number which die each day, 
 we may say that the judgment is daily, Sundays not ex- 
 cepted. Some spirits will enter into heaven to-day, while 
 others are entering into hell. 
 
 Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us, that hell is a 
 place in the world not regularly finished — a subterraneous 
 region, in which the light of this world does not shine. 
 
 After all that has been said in the way of locating hell, 
 we will add, that it is in all places where men do wrong. 
 There is, a hell-fire burning to-day in many hearts. We 
 would recommend sobriety, industry and economy, as some 
 of the means of preventing men from falling into hell. We 
 often see men at one time prosperous and happy; at another 
 time we see them unprosperous and unhappy. Such changes 
 are often the results of bad economy. If all men were well 
 provided for, and the evils that corrupt the morals of society 
 and destroy the livings of men were better regulated, there 
 would be much more enjoyment in the community and less 
 vice. Millions of dollars are yearly thrown away in erect- 
 ing costly monuments over the graves of dead men. Is this 
 good christian economy? Are not the poor and needy more 
 justly entitled to it? Give me the money that is extrava- 
 gantly spent in the grave yard, and I will provide for the 
 wants of all the jjoor and needy in this world. A plain 
 slab is sufficient for the grave of any one, and christians 
 should not encourage anything beyond it. Let us give to 
 the living. Let our ears ever be open to the cry of the poor 
 and needy. Let us be economical For their sakes. Let it be 
 a part of our doctrine to do all we can for those in distress. 
 Such appears to have been the desire of the Samaritan doc- 
 tor in dressing the wounds of the unfortunate man Avho had 
 been left half dead, and whose situation foiled to attract the 
 attention and aid of a certain priest and Levite. It is said 
 that this man was half dead. Suppose the translators had, 
 through mistake^ left out the word half What a wonder- 
 ful man would this omission have made the Samaritan ! 
 And had the omission been made, how few would have 
 known it ! 
 
 It is admitted by thousands that the common version is 
 imperfect and erroneous. Thus have the leading men in 
 almost all of the denominations been driven to the necessity 
 of making alterations in the Scriptures. One man, John 
 Mills, collected no less than thirty thousand different read- 
 ings, that is, he marked thirty thousand different places in 
 which those manuscripts varied from each other. John 
 
13 
 
 Wesley made a new translation for his denomination. Dr. 
 Boothiioyd of the Congregational church, England, made 
 another translation for his denomination. Dr. Conquest, a 
 layman of the same denomination, made a translation, in 
 ■which he states that he had made twenty thousand emenda- 
 tions, English Unitarians have published a number of new 
 versions of the New Testament. There is now being made 
 in America, if not completed, a new translation of the en- 
 tire Bible. Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Baptists, 
 Methodists and Disciples, all contend, and by their actions 
 prove, that they believe that the common version of the 
 Scriptures is not correct. Therefore, it is not likely that 
 the common version is correct on the resurrection, and in- 
 correct on thousands of other subjects. But the question 
 may be asked, Are those men competent to correct the er- 
 rors of the Bible? Are they not as liable to err as those 
 translators were who have preceded them? If they should 
 err, will the people know it? Who shall correct their 
 translation? And has God commanded them to do this 
 thing? Living in an age of confusion, error and prejudice, 
 it behooves all persons to be directed by the powers of intel- 
 lect and conscience. If we cannot read and interpret the 
 Jewish Scriptures ; if we cannot comprehend all that is 
 written in Greek and Hebrew, or in the English, Spanish, 
 Latin, French and German translations ; we have nature's 
 book, seen and read by King David ages before the origin 
 of those translations. — " The heavens declare the glory of 
 God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day 
 unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
 knowledge." 
 
 Death has long been set forth under false colors, causing 
 much unnecessary excitement and injury to mankind. It is 
 often called the "grim monster," the "frightful king of ter- 
 rors," the "universal foe of mankind," &c., &c. 
 
 Why should we start and fear to die ? 
 
 What tim'rous worms we mortals are ! 
 Death is the gate of endless joy ; 
 
 And yet we dread to enter there. 
 
 There is evidently too much excitement connected with 
 the subject of religion and death, for longevity and happi- 
 ness. Many of the religious excitements of this age are 
 caused by the fear of death depicted in the sacred stand. 
 The big tears generally start on hearing the obituary part 
 of a discourse, descriptive of father's mother's or some fond 
 
. 14 
 
 lover's exit. It is the relating of death-bed scenes in ser- 
 mons, that influence multitudes to join the church. It is 
 not uncommon to hear from five to ten in one discourse. 
 The gospel in former times was glad tidings. The people 
 then went to cliurch to rejoice, but now they are expected to 
 cry and lament like those in distress. It is high time that 
 something should be done to correct this injurious custom in 
 church. We abridge life by our imprudence. We go to the 
 grave too soon. But few die a natural death. The fear of 
 disease is often more injurious than the disease itself Never 
 suffer yourself to be alarmed by the approacli of disease and 
 death. A strong resolution is frequently worth more than 
 a strong dose of medicine. The present age is living too 
 fast to last long. 
 
 We have said that the dead body is not the subject of 
 the resurrection. Christians often refer to the case of Euty- 
 chus to prove that St. Paul restored a dead body to life. 
 Acts XX : 9 — "^And there sat in a window a young man 
 named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep. ifVnd as 
 Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell 
 from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul 
 went down and fell on him and said. Trouble not yourself, 
 for his life is in him." Now, if his life was in him, it was 
 not out of him. The writer has given us the report that 
 was first made of his death by those who took him up, al- 
 though they were mistaken ; and after this he gives us the 
 testimony of Paul, who said he was not dead. Just such 
 dead men as Eutychus have been restored to life in all ages. 
 Eutychus was not dead; therefore it is wrong for any one to 
 say he was — to give Paul credit for something he did not 
 do. 
 
 The Damsel — Mark v : 35. " While he yet spake, there 
 came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which 
 said, Thy daughter is dead ; why troublest thou the Master 
 any further? As soon as Jesus heard the word that was 
 spoken, he said unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not 
 afraid ; only believe. And he suffered no man to follow 
 him save Peter, John and James. And he cometh to the 
 house of the ruler of the synagogue, and sceth the tumult, 
 and them that wept and wailed greatly. And when he was 
 come in he said unto them, Why make ye this ado, and 
 weep! The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." The death 
 of the damsel was first reported by a messenger from the 
 father's house ; but Jesus, on his arrival at the house, cor- 
 rected the mistake. — "She is not dead." In Matthew it is 
 written, "Mv daughter is even now dead." In Mark it is 
 
15 
 
 written, " My little daughter lietli at the point of death." 
 And in Luke it is said, "She lay a dying." It is one thing 
 to believe the testimony of messengers, but another thing to 
 believe the words of Jesus, whom we introduce to prove that 
 the damsel was not dead. It is not generally known, that 
 an effort was being made to restore the damsel at the time 
 Jesus arrived. The minstrels were offended at Jesus for 
 saying "she is not dead." They laughed him to scorn. It 
 was a custom in those days, with the Greek, to make a great 
 noise on funeral occasions, with brazen vessels; and the Ro- 
 mans made a great outcry, called conclamatio, hoping either 
 to stop the soul which was now taking its flight, or to awake 
 the person if only in a state of torpor. Customs of such 
 universal use — of such long standing, must have been at- 
 tended with some little success. Therefore, persons said to 
 be dead were restored to life by those customs before the ad- 
 vent of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we believe that Jesus 
 made an important improvement in those ancient customs. 
 It is a fact that persons are frequently interred alive through 
 mistake, in this enlightened age ; how much more so in 
 those countries where men knew but little of the human 
 system — perhaps never felt the pulse, nor knew but little of 
 the circulation of the blood. The law of Moses in certain 
 cases prohibited persons from touching the dead body. 
 
 There now lives in this state a colored woman who drop- 
 ped down and was declared to be dead. A grave was or- 
 dered to be dug for her. Fortunately it was ascertained 
 that she was not dead, just in time to escape from being in- 
 terred alive. Was she not just such as the apostles raised 
 to life ? It is a fact that the apostles never attempted to 
 restore a beheaded person to life. No effort was made to re- 
 store John the Baptist to life ; nor was an effort ever made 
 by any apostle to restore to life any very old man or woman. 
 They made no effort to restore to life any one who had been 
 killed on the field of battle, or murdered on the highway. 
 The art of restoring the supposed dead to life was in use 
 ages before the days of the apostles, as will be seen from an 
 examination of the case of the Shunaniite's son, by Elijah, 
 2 Kings, iv : 34. He put his mouth upon his mouth, and 
 his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and 
 stretched himself upon the child, and it revived. It is evi- 
 dent that Elijah believed there was life in the child; his ob-, 
 ject was to restore warmth to the body of the sick child. 
 Christ and the apostles made an improvement on Elijah's 
 art. They frequently excited their subjects into action. — 
 Peter said unto the lame man at the gate of the temple, "Iq 
 
16 
 
 the name of Jesus Christ of iN'azareth, rise up and walk." 
 And he leaped up. We have often heard of sick persons, in 
 a low state of healthy being aroused by the cry of fire, &c. 
 And on this principle, small boys have carried large bur- 
 dens from burning houses, which they were unable to move 
 after the excitement had subsided. Some of the religious 
 excitements of a late date have been of such a nature as to 
 require the strength of two or three able men to hold one 
 delicate young lady. Could not such excitements be ex- 
 tended so as to affect the sick and halt? We may suppose 
 excitement had something to do in causing the death of An- 
 anias and Sapphira his wife. See Acts v. Men and women 
 have frequently died under similar circumstances since the 
 death of Peter. The apostles were in possession of the art 
 to handle venemous serpents, without being injured by them, 
 but are not men in possession of a similar, if not the same 
 art? We have not time to-day to say more on this impor- 
 tant subject. We now leave with you what we have said, 
 with our best wishes for your present and future happiness. 
 
 "v. 
 
THE POWEK TO FOliGIVE. 
 
 J^ SERMOiT 
 
 DELIVERED BY THE LATE 
 
 REY. JOHI A. GRETTER. 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 PRESBYTERY OF ORANGE, 
 
 AT WASHINGTON, N. C, 
 
 DECEMBER, 1849. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY EEQUEST OF THAT BODY. 
 
 FAYETTEVILLE, K. C. : 
 FEINTED AT THE PRESBYTEEIAN OFFICE. 
 
 1859. 
 
EXPLANATORY STATEMENT. 
 
 This Sekmon was originally delivered by special request of OraBge Picsbytery, 
 before that Body, at its sessions in Washington, N. C, December, 1849. The ini- 
 pressiou produced on the minds of those wlio heard it on that occasion, was such us 
 to ci'cate a desire that it might be preserved in a permanent form for the edification 
 of the Church. If the life of the author had been spared, the sermon would, doubt- 
 less, have been prepared for the press, under his own direction. A constant succes- 
 sion of pastoral and pulpit duties, followed by a protracted illness, and closed by 
 death in 1853, prevented the accomplishment of this work, in the lifetime of the au- 
 thor. Tiie desire ior its publication was by no means extinguished by that mournful 
 event. In addition to the reasons previously existing, in the eloquence of the ser- 
 mon, its profound reasoning, the importance of the doctrine, and its special adap- 
 tation to the times, a new motive was furnished by the natural and earnest desire 
 which the author's friends felt ior the possession of some memento of his great worth 
 and usefulness. 
 
 The memory of John A. Giietter, is precious to the heart of the Presbyterian 
 Church of North Carolina. In every relation of life, as Pastor, as Preacher, as 
 Counsellor in our Ecclesiastical Courts, and as a friend, he was honored' and beloved. 
 
 By a singular coincidence in the place, the Manuscripts of the Sermon were pre- 
 sented by Mrs. Gretter to the Presbytery at Washington, Xovember, 1858. 
 
 The following minute was unanimously adopted : 
 
 " The Committee appointed to examine a Manuscript Sermon by the late Rev. 
 John A. Gretter, on the "Power to Forgive," beg leave to report that they have 
 examined the same, and find a good deal of difficulty in reading the manuscript, but 
 have learned enough of the Sermon to conclude that it is worth the publishing, pro- 
 vided it can be done. Therefore 
 
 Resolved, That this Manuscript be placed in the hands of the Editors of the North 
 Carolina Presbyterian to be published by them in their paper, and also in pamphlet 
 form, provided they can do the author justice in so doing." 
 
 The publication has been subject to a brief delay, from the fact that the sermon 
 was not complete in any one manuscript, and the Editors found it necessary to com- 
 pare and compile from several. They have taken no liberties with the author's views 
 or phraseology, and while to them their work has been a labor of love, they send 
 forth the sermon from the Press with the prayer that its perusal may be greatly- 
 blessed in comforting and confirming the hearts of the people of God. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Matt, ix : 6, 1. — " But that ye may know that the Sou of Man hath power on earth 
 to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and 
 go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house." 
 
 Among the crowd which gathered around the person of Jesus 
 of Nazareth in his journeyings in the land of his birth, the sa- 
 cred writers frequently make mention of some separated from 
 the rest by their bitterness towards him and his doctrines. These 
 men, wrapped in an overweening conceit of their peculiar devot- 
 deness to God, could not brook the thought of being eclipsed by 
 the superior lustre of another religious teacher as unpretending 
 in his manners as he was ardent in his piety, and as illustrious in 
 his deeds as he was obscure in his origin. These Pharisees, 
 the learned Doctors of the law, (for it is of these I speak) with a 
 jealous eye, watched his every motion, and stood ready to carp 
 at all he did, and wrest all he said, if possible, to his destruction. 
 Neither awed by his power, nor attracted by his wisdom, nor 
 subdued by his beneficence, each successive manifestation of his 
 more than human greatness, only goaded them on to fiercer ha- 
 tred and more shameless opposition, till at length we hear them 
 crying around the cross " if he be the Son of God let him come 
 down," Kot a few of these men in pursuit of their victim had 
 assembled at Capernaum and might have been seen seated qui- 
 etly amid the despised Galileans — when a palsied man, all other 
 mode of access barred by the pressure of the crowd, was let 
 down by his friends from the roof of the house immediately at 
 the feet of Jesus. This was a spectacle calculated to touch eve- 
 ry heart in the vast crowd. Much more so would it afi'ect the 
 compassionate Jesus. He at once said to the poor paralytic — 
 "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." Language 
 
G 
 
 like tLis souudecl strangely in the eans ut' llie Doctors iA' the law, 
 who said in their hearts, " Who is this that speaketh blasplie- 
 mies ? Who can forgive sins bnt God alone ?" And they secretly 
 charged him with hlasphemy. To convince them that he actu- 
 ally possessed the power Avhicli he pretended to exercise, and 
 that their accusation was accordingly false, Jesus now spoke 
 again to the palsied man bidding him take up his bed and go to 
 his house, and the man was immediately enabled to obey the 
 command. 
 
 It may seem a little remarkable, that our Lord should have 
 noticed a charge brought against him, in this way. Though of 
 a serious nature, it was entertained only in the bosoms of some 
 of his hearers, and had he not brought it to light, it had probably 
 never been known, save to those who preferred it. Yet it is ob- 
 vious that according to the vie/rs of these men, Jesus had laid 
 himself open to such a charge. In professedly exercising the 
 authority to forgive sins he had assumed a prei'Ogative of the 
 Godhead — being a man, he had made himself equal with God. 
 Besides, the secrecy of the accusation afforded him a fair oppor- 
 tunity of rectifying their false \iews relative to his true charac- 
 ter. He read their very thoughts and thus proved himself to 
 them, the great searcher of hearts and trier of the reins of the 
 children of men. And yet farther, while exposing to public gaze 
 the sentiments of these men that he might show their falsity, he 
 was at the same moment extending the hand of mercy to the 
 wretched man before him and rewarding the faith of friends so 
 clearly exhibited in their efforts to bring the object of their so- 
 licitude in reach of his healing influence. Thus our Lord in vin- 
 dicating himself from this charge gave to his hearers more ex- 
 alted views of his character, confounded his enemies by a pecu- 
 liar manifestation of his Godhead, and conferred a rich boon on 
 a poor sinner who had sought his aid. It was worthy of him 
 thus to notice it. 
 
 Again, we must not overlook the circumstance on which this 
 accusation was founded. This was the language of Jesus ad. 
 dressed to the sick man, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." The 
 expression seems to be rather ambiguous. It may mean either 
 "thy sins are forgiven." or "let thy sins be iorgiven," i. e. the 
 verb may be either in the indicative or imperative mood, in 
 
the one case the phrase would be a simple declaration that his 
 sins were forgiven — so Campbell understands it, and substitutes 
 tire, tbi" he in his translation. In the other it would be the effica- 
 cious word which secures forgiveness, manifesting the will of 
 him who has the power to forgive — analogous to the word which 
 said, " Let there be light and there was light." Nor does the 
 word in the original remove the ambiguity ; it is a particular 
 form of the verb which has given some ditficulty to grammarians. 
 Yater says it is the perfect pass., a form unknown to the Greeks. 
 Bretschneider regard sit as an Ionic form for 2 Aor. middle, subj. 
 
 In the former it means "thy sins are" or "have been forgiv- 
 en ;" in the latter " let them be" &c. We find, however, that 
 the Pharisees understood him as actually forgiving sins, for they 
 said in their hearts, " Why doth this man thus speak blasphe- 
 mies ? Who can forgive sins but God only ?" (Mark ii : 7.) 
 This, however, does not prove that the expression used by our 
 Lord was authoritative, but it does prove that an unconditional 
 declaration of forgiveness is, so far as the individual himself who 
 makes it is concerned, a daring invasion of the divine preroga- 
 tive, and in all respects to his case, tantamount to an authorita 
 tive forgiveness. So thought the Pharisees and our Lord en- 
 dorsed their opinion. 
 
 The course here pursued by our Lord in view of the um- 
 bra2::e taken by the Pharisees at his conduct is conclusive that 
 he was willing at any rate to be regarded as having claimed the 
 power to forgive. It follows then, in whichever way these words 
 -of our Lord be rendered that an unGondiiional declaration of 
 jyardon to an indinidual is an offence as heinous as that of claim 
 ing the full authority to forgive. Once more, we invite atten- 
 tion to the manner in which Jesus vindicated himself from the 
 accusation of the Pharisees. " But that ye may know that the 
 Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith he 
 to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed and go unto 
 thine house. And he arose and departed to his house." Than 
 this, we can conceive no surer proof of unlimited power. The 
 word which speaks, audit stands fast, is not only a word of pow- 
 er, but it is the word of the Creator. The being, between whose 
 
 declared will', and the effect produced, there is no intermediate 
 circumstance, and no intervening conceivable time, is t ic Be- 
 ing, who is girded with Omnipotence. 
 
8 
 
 He who wills and it is done ; whose fiat instantly socnres the 
 »esnlt aimed at, is and mu^tbe to our conceptions the Lord God 
 Almighty. There is no more certain indication of Almightiness 
 than this. There may be brighter and more dazzling corusca- 
 tions of this glorious perfection in yon world of glory, which sin 
 has never darkened ; there may be here on earth more overpow- 
 ering exhibitions, but there are Rone which can more surely cer- 
 tify us of the presence of the arm which none can resist. lie 
 then who says to a paralytic, " Arise and take up thy bed and 
 go to thine house," when instantly the man in view of all around 
 arises and walks ; this one, man though he seem to be and 
 though he actually be, must at the same time be clothed with 
 the power of doing whatever he pleaseth. If this be not a man- 
 ifestation of Omnipotence, there can none be given to us : then 
 is all distinction between the Infinite and finite annihilated to 
 our view. Let us now return to the history. It is admitted on 
 all hands that Jesus on this occasion gave evidence that he had 
 power to forgive sins on earth. " Here was an ocular demonstra- 
 tion" says Dr. Campbell, " of the power with which the order was 
 accompanied, and therefore was entirely fit for serving as evi- 
 dence that the other expression he had used, "thy sins be for- 
 given thee" was not vain words, but attended with the like divine 
 energy, though from its nature, not discernible like the other by 
 its consequences. To say the one with effect, where effect was 
 visible, is a proof that the other was said also with effect, though 
 the effect itself was invisible." Again it will not be denied that 
 Jesus here also showed himself to be one with the Father, equal 
 in power and glory. If now it be farther taken into considera- 
 tion that this manifestation of divine glory so clearly evidencing 
 our Lord to be at the same time God and to have power to forgive 
 sins on earth, was given to clear himself in the eyes of the Phar- 
 isees, who had said that none can forgive sins but God only, — 
 the conclusion is almost irresistible, that Jesus meant to sanction 
 the truth of the doctrine on which these men had proceeded. In 
 other words, Jesus here showed himself to be God. For what 
 ]>urpose ? That he might prove he had power to forgive sins on 
 earth. Was the proof sufficient? It is not denied. Was it ne- 
 cessary ? Would not an evidence short of this liave answered 
 every purpose ? Was it essential to prove his Godhead to con- 
 
9 
 
 « 
 
 vince his hearers that he had made no false pretensions t To this 
 we reply that is was certainly necessary, so long as the Phari- 
 sees maintained the views they then held — that none hut God 
 can forgive sins. "Were they in error on this point ? The pre- 
 sumption is, they were not, otherwise Jesus would have- correct- 
 ed that error. All correct apprehensions of his character forbid 
 the belief that our Lord would have thus manifested his glory^ 
 if the same end could have been reached without it, and that 
 in the exercise of this discretionary power, he declares his right- 
 eousness that he may be just, and the justiiier of him which be- 
 lieveth in Jesus. These are truths written so legibly and so fre- 
 quently in the glorious gospel of the Son of God, and so un- 
 speakably precious to poor sinners, that we may for the present 
 assume them as undeniable and not stop to establish them. But 
 that God onl}'- can forgive sins — that the power of forgiveness iis- 
 not only inherent in him, but reserved entirely in his own hands,, 
 is a point which some deny and we affirm. This point will 
 form the subject of the present discussion. 
 
 However clear may be the fact that powers of the highest of- 
 fices may be and continually are delegated to others — yet it is 
 obvious that there must be a limit somewhere — there must be 
 some prerogative peculiar to the Sovereign and reserved in. his 
 own hands, which cannot be transferred — otherwise all distinc- 
 tion between the supreme and inferior power is confounded. 
 
 Lord Bacon in some excellent remarks on this subject, has 
 pointed out this limit, as it seems to us, in the clearest manner. 
 He regards the prerogative in two distinct branches. In the one 
 the King's pleasure is reserved in the Sovereign's hands to be ex- 
 ercised in each case according to his personal and private discre- 
 tion. According to this distinction it is obvious not only that 
 there is a prerogative which cannot possibly be transferred, but 
 the reason why is equally manifest. A prerogative entirely 
 controlled in every case by the private pleasure of the sovereign 
 must from its very nature be incommunicable, because, 1st. the 
 private pleasure of no man can become that of another, and 2nd,, 
 because if it were possible, such a transfer invests a subject with 
 a power to rule his fellow subjects according to his own pleasure^ 
 i. e. makes him most absolute sovereign. 
 
 These remarks apply with much more force and truth to the 
 
10 
 
 • 
 
 Jehovah of the Scriptures, the King of kings and Lord of 
 lords — the Blessed and only Potentate — doing his will in the 
 armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. It 
 were preposterous to suppose that in a Sovereign wielding such 
 a sceptre, there were no powers in themselves inalienable or none 
 which a creature is totally unable to wield. Besides, a divine pre- 
 rogative in some of its branches may require for its execution, 
 the presence of some of the distinguishing attributes of the 
 Godhead, and cannot accordingly be delegated to another 
 without confounding the distinctions between the Infinite and 
 the finite — the Creator and the creature. The exercise of 
 the power may involve the presence of attributes, the transfer- 
 rence of which is the investiture of the being to whom they 
 are transferred with the distinguishing excellency of the great 
 God. And if these distinctive perfections may be bestowed on 
 another who is not God, how can the Holy One manifest him- 
 self to his creatures so as to be known from and above them all? 
 
 The possession of the divine excellency is to "us the evidence 
 of his presence and agency; the manifestation of those attri- 
 butes which constitute the divine excellency must then prove 
 that the Being in whom they shone forth is God and not another. 
 Omnipotence, for example, belongs to God alone. He who can 
 <io whatever he pleaseth in heaven or on earth, for whom no- 
 thing is too hard, he can be none other than the Lofty One, who 
 inhabits the praises of eternity. This is an attribute, whose pre- 
 sence defines to our faith the Being who made and upholds us, 
 and to whom we are bound to render our highest services. Again : 
 To search the heart and try the reins of men is another perfec- 
 tion of the Deity. " The heart is deceitful above all things and 
 ■desperately wicked : who can know it ? I the Lord, search the 
 heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his 
 ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." If then the 
 Scriptures are our rule in faith and practice, he who discerns the 
 thoughts and intents of my heart is Jehovah, and as often as 
 he does this, he calls me to own and acknowledge him as the 
 •only true God. These and others which might be mentioned are, 
 •what have been called by an old divine, so many royalties of the 
 divine nature — sucli as no creature can share in. He who is 
 clothed with theee is He^ whom we need not fear to worship as 
 
11 
 
 the Lord God. Though to the eye he may seem to be man, yet 
 if he is girded with Omnipotence, infinite in knowledge &c., 
 he is our Immanuel, God in the flesh. Such indeed was Je- 
 sus of Kazareth. He was a man in outward appearance. 
 He was encompassed with all the infirmities of our nature. 
 And when he claimed to be God, the thought seemed al- 
 most incredible. Strange indeed was it that one like our- 
 selves should claim to be the God who made us. Yet he 
 proved himself to be all he claimed to be — he showed his fear- 
 less majesty in the displays of the distinguishing perfections 
 of the Godhead he put foith. Thus we know him to be our God 
 and Saviour. The indwelling of the divine excellency leaves 
 no doubt on this point. " The word was made flesh and dwelt 
 among us" says John, "and we beheld his glory, as the glory of 
 the only begotten Son of God." "We see then that a divine pre- 
 rogative may be limited in reference to its exercise by any other, 
 both from its nature and its requiring in its execution the pre- 
 sence of such attributes as cannot be committed without break- 
 ing down the enclosure which separates the Great Iam from the 
 creatures of his hands. And the question we now wish to settle 
 is whether the power to forgive sins is such a prerogative. 
 
 In order to reach a satisfactory answer to this inquiry, let us 
 for a few moments consider what we are to understand by the 
 forgivness of sins. This will prepare the way for our entrance 
 on another enquiry : what is implied in the power to forgive 2 
 from which it will be comparatively easy to return a categorical 
 reply to our main question. 
 
 1. "What is forgiveness of sins? 
 
 " Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the 
 law of God." It accordingly implies a moral agent, a law, and 
 a lawgiver. It may therefore be regarded in these three difi*er- 
 ent relations, in each of which it presents a difl'erent and import- 
 ant aspect. Considered simply in reference to the agent, the 
 sins of an individual are nothing more than his thoughts, feel- 
 ings, words, and deeds, and form but just so many items or facts 
 in the records of his history, or to use the language of Scripture 
 in " the Book of God's remembrance." Here they are " written 
 with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond" — here they 
 must ever preserve their place, and are of course imperishable 
 and indestructible. In relation to the law, the standard of right 
 
13 
 
 and wrong, sin is a deflection from the mark it sets up, a devia' 
 tion from the path it defines. This constitutes its sinfulness and 
 gives rise to its ill desert. The law of God being holj and just 
 and good, every violation of its injunctions or departure from 
 its requisitions must be evil in itself, and attach moral turpitude 
 to him who is chargeable with such violation. This law being 
 further inflexible and immutable in its demands, this feature must 
 be an inseparable adjunct of sin. The sinner then deserves to 
 perish, and will forever deserve to perish, if dealt with accord- 
 ing to his personal deserts. Again, the Lawgiver, being the vin- 
 dicator and guardian of law, and the law binding to obedience 
 and in default thereof to punishment, there arises another im- 
 portant aspect of sin, as laying the individual chargeable with it, 
 under obligcdions to suffer at the hands of the Lawgiver. In 
 this aspect sin is a debt of suffering which the sinner owes God, 
 as the avenger of the claims of his law. So our Lord has taught 
 us to regard it in the prayer he has given us as the model to 
 which our petitions should be conformed. ."Forgive us our 
 debts, as we forgive our debtors." This debt, however, is sim- 
 ply a legal claim, and if that claim can be otherwise satisfied 
 than by the personal suffering of the sinner, it is obvious that 
 this obligation will no more remain. This obligation to suffer- 
 ing arising out of sin, called in technical language guilt, is a 
 feature, though not inseparable from it. 
 
 Thus we see there are three views of sin distinguishable and 
 distinct from each other, viz : the act, its sinfulness and its guilt, 
 or the liability to suffer which it induces in the agent, and of 
 these only one can be separated from it. But as we are anxiou8 
 to be fully understood, we will illustrate what has been said by 
 an example taken from human law. We will suppose that a 
 man having killed another, is arraigned on the charge of mur- 
 <ler. The first inquiry will be into the fact. Did he commit 
 the act? Did he kill the individual supposed? This is a pre- 
 liminary step which cannot be dispensed with, and brings the 
 crime before the view of all concerned, simply as a deed or act 
 on his part. This, hov/ever, being settled and the deed proved 
 to have been committed by him, it does not necessarily folio ,v 
 
 that he is a murderer, or in other words that he is criminal. 
 
 This point requires a separate investigation and is to be decided 
 
18 
 
 hy the voice of the law. Se is to be brought, as it were, along 
 side the law and viewed in the light which it sheds upon him. 
 If then, though a competent number of witnesses shall have de- 
 clared that he committed the act, it shall be seen that he did it 
 in self-defence or accidentally, the law attaches no criminality to 
 the deed, and the man is declared innocent, he has not violated 
 the law. Supposing however, he has killed his neighbor with 
 malice aforethought, and thus in the eye of the law, deserves to 
 ■Buffer, there is yet another step to be taken. Sentence must be 
 pronounced by him, who appears as the guardian and upholder of 
 the law. This sentence is but the authoritative voice of the law 
 fastening on the head of the criminal the obligation of punish- 
 ment. He is liable to death. But this liability to suffer — a le- 
 ;gal obligation to punishment — -may be removed by the interposi- 
 tion of the executive or monarch. In the exercise of his su- 
 (preme power, he may put forth his arm between the law and 
 the head of the criminal and set aside this obligation. The maa 
 then, though he killed his neighbor, and in so doing violated the 
 law and was exposed to punishment, goes unpunished. JSTo one 
 can molest him. In this process we see three different steps — 
 each one bringing the crime into different relations and conse- 
 quently presenting it in different aspects as a deed, its crimi- 
 nality and the obligation to punishment. The first two are 
 necessary to constitute it a crime, and in this light cannot 
 be separated from it— the last may or may not abide in con- 
 nection with it even as a crime. Who can doubt that the mat- 
 ter of Uriah the Hittite is truly as blameworthy, as base now, 
 as it was when Israel's king under the lashes of an awakened 
 conscience cried out in anguish, " Deliver me, O God from blood 
 e:uiltiness?" Who doubts that it will be as true, and as vile in 
 all the rolling ages of eternity, and that David will never be able 
 to stand before the throne of God on the ground of his personal 
 deserts ? Yet David's blood guiltiness has been removed and 
 Uriah's murderer lives — he livtiS in triumph and glory. 
 
 Let this illustration suffice to show, that there is one and only 
 'one element of sin, which is capable of being separated from it, 
 and this is its guilt. This, we think, must appear obvious to all 
 •on reflection. In reference to sins which are registered among 
 the deeds which are past, no one can suppose that they shall 
 
14 
 
 ever be blotted out. They must forever abide in the presence 
 of Him^ with whom there is no past. Nor can we for a moment 
 believe that their sinfulness will be separated from them, for this 
 is an essential element of their nature as sins. Take the sinful- 
 ness out and they are no more sins. Unless then the lapse of 
 ages shall make that which was once sinful no longer so — or 
 unless the Law of God shall be changed — then this element must 
 abide. There remains then as we hav-e seen only the obligation 
 to suffer which sin fastens on the agent, which can be removed. 
 The taking this obligation to punishment off from the head of 
 the sinner, or the removal of his guilt, in consequence of which 
 under the government of God, no punishment, though deserved, 
 will or can follow, is what we mean by the forgiveness of sins. 
 This essential view of forgiveness is too frequently presented in 
 the Scriptures to escape the notice of any who read them under- 
 standingiy. Certainly no idea was more familiar to the Jews 
 than that of the transference of his obligation to suffer in con- 
 sequence of sin, to the head of a victim, which because of this 
 transference suffered in his place. When he brought his victim 
 to the altar, he was required to lay his hands on its head and 
 confess his sins, then having slain the victim — the animal suf- 
 fered in his place — he went away guiltless. Atonement was 
 made for him, his sin was forgiven. These victims prefigured 
 " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,'^ 
 and according to the peculiar polity of the Jews, according to 
 which every offence incurred the penalty of death, were accepted 
 as substitutes in the place of the offenders. The idea however 
 of cancelling guilt was prominent in their minds in all aspects. 
 Laying the hands on the head of the animal, confessing sins and 
 then slaying the victim, were all significant of a passing over of 
 something on the part of the offender from him to an innocent 
 creature, in consequence of which that creature must die. That 
 something which is thus transferred, is that which renders it 
 proper in the eye of the law, that the innocent sliould suffer 
 which is guilt. This being put on the head of another, we see 
 at once why it should die according to law. Now according to 
 the method of salvation revealed in the Scriptures, this obliga- 
 tion to suffering is not removed from the sinner by a sovereign 
 act setting aside the claims of the law — but by a judicial act 
 
15 
 
 upholding its utmost rigors by declaring it to be fully satisfied 
 in his case. This is the peculiarity of the scheme of redemption. 
 This is its exceeding glory. The sinner is not simply pardoned, 
 he is justified — pronounced to be just in the eye of the law. 
 The law is not disregarded, but its honor vindicated and magni- 
 fied. All its claims are acknowledged and satisfied, and there- 
 fore no more rest on the sinner. And the Lawgiver himself 
 stands forth to view as the just, yet the justifier of the ungodly. 
 All this however presupposes a suflicient satisfaction made to the 
 law for sinners, which in each case of forgiveness is reckoned to 
 the individual. In consequence of this imputation of a righte- 
 ousness to him, the sinner himself becomes righteous and there 
 is no more condemnation to him. His sins are covered and can 
 no more rise up against him. God has bestowed upon him the 
 righteousness of his Son and the gift of faith whereby he has re- 
 ceived this righteousness. " Blessed is he," says David, " whose 
 trangression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the 
 man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose 
 spirit there is no guile." Paul tells us that David is here de- 
 scribing the blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth right- 
 eousness without works. Thus we are taught that transgression 
 when forgiven is covered and no more imputed — and it is cover- 
 ed by a righteousness without works on the part of the sinner, 
 a righteousness which God imputes to him. It is important 
 here to observe that in this procedure God has done two things 
 for the pardoned sinner. He has ofiicially declared him to be 
 righteous and free from all demands of the law. He has also 
 reckoned to him a righteousness which is not his own by works 
 but which has become his through the faith of Jesus. In the 
 one of these God has proceeded on his own previous act, i. e. in 
 pronouncing the sinner just — he has done so because of the pre- 
 vious imputation to him of the righteousness set forth in the 
 Gospel — the full satisfaction made to the law in the person of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Such we believe to be the scriptural view of forgiveness. Let 
 us now attentively consider it for a few moments — that we may 
 discern the nature of the act itself. I observe then, 
 
 1. Forgiveness is an act of supremacy. As has been already 
 mentioned, there are in each act of forgiveness two acts implied, 
 
16 
 
 separate from each other, because in each God appears m a dif- 
 ferent capacity, yet both concurring, and necessary to the same 
 result. In the one, God shows himself the judge giving utter- 
 ance to the declaration of the law ; in the other, he proceeds 
 as a sovereign conferring the most precious gift on an undeserv- 
 ing wretch. But for this gift instead of justifying the sinner, 
 the judge would have demanded the awful sentence of the law 
 — everlasting death as abiding upon him. Thus by an act in his 
 sovereign capacity, he reverses what he would have done in the 
 other. He turns the sentence of the law away from the poor 
 wretch and fastens its claims upon another. This is mosi clearly 
 the exercise of a prerogative above law. For why does not the law 
 Btill maintain its claims, and demand the punishment of the sin- 
 ner? He has violated its precepts. He has incurred its penal- 
 ty. Its condemnatory voice was lifted up against him, and con- 
 science echoed back that voice. But suddenly all is changed ; 
 there is now no more condemnation. The Judge whose duty it 
 is to vindicate the law and enforce its sanctions, pronounces sen- 
 tence of acquittal and acceptance. Why is this? Because of 
 an act which has not set aside the claims of the law, but has- 
 fixed them on another, in whom they were all satisfied. This 
 then, though not against law, nor regardless of law, is plainly 
 an act above law. It is the highest act of government. We 
 can conceive of no higher stretch of dominion ; it is an act of 
 supremacy. 
 
 " The law binds first to obedience and in neglect of it to pun- 
 ishment. Not only thelusts that break forth are evidence of, but 
 inward inclinations contrary to the law are, sin. From hence re- 
 sults a guilt upon every sinner, which includes the imputation 
 of the fault and obligation to punishment. 
 
 The forgiveness of eins contains the obligation of their guilt 
 and freedom from the deserved destruction consequent to it. This 
 is expressed by various terms in Scripture. The ' not imputing 
 sin' is borrowed from the accounts of servants with their masters, 
 and implies the account we are obliged to render the supreme 
 Lord for all his benefits which we have so wretchedly misim- 
 proved ; he might rigliteousl}'" exact of us ten thousand talents 
 as due to him, but he is graciously pleased to cross the book 
 and freely to discharge us. * The purging from sin' implies it is 
 
17 
 
 very odious and offensive in God's eyes, and has a special re- 
 spect to the expiatory sacritices,of which it is said, that " with- 
 out blood there was no remission," 
 
 It is the high prerogative of God to pardon sin. His author- 
 ity made the law, and gives life and vigor to it, therefore he can 
 remit the punishment of the offender. 
 
 This royal supremacy is more conspicuous in the exercise of 
 mercy towards repenting sinners, than in the acts of justice up- 
 on obstinate offenders. As a king is more a king by pardoning 
 humble suppliants by the operation of his sceptre, than in sub- 
 duing rebels by the power of the sword, for in acts of grace he 
 is above the law, and overrules its rigor, in acts of vengeance, he 
 is only superior to his enemies ''^ -' * It is the peculiar prerogative 
 of God to pardon sin, tor it is an act of empire. The judicial 
 power to pardon is a flower inseparable from the crown, for it 
 is founded in a superiority to the law, therefore inconsistent with 
 any depending authority. The power to pardon is an etflux of 
 supremacy and incommunicable to the subject. A prince that 
 invests another with absolute power to pardon, must either re- 
 linquish his sovereignty, or take an associate to share it. It is. 
 not presumable that the wise God should invest men with that 
 authority which they are utterly incapable of exercising. 
 
 Grace is exclusive of all merit and dignity in the subject, and 
 of all obligation in the person that shows it. 
 
 Repentance in order of nature is before pardon, but they are- 
 inseparably joined in the same point of time. David in Psalm 
 xxxii is an instance. 
 
 The repenting sinner wiio is under the strong conviction of 
 his guilt, and his being always obnoxious to the judgment of 
 God and eternal misery, the consequences of it, values the 
 favor of God as the most sovereign good, and accounts his dis- 
 pleasure as the supreme evil. Repentance inspires flaming af- 
 fections, in our prayers and praises lor pardon. The sinner is ob- 
 liged to sufter the punishment of his evil deeds in his own person, 
 therefore it is clear, tiiat the punishment cannot be transferred to 
 another without the allowance of the sovereign, who is the patron 
 of the rights of justice. There is a judicial exchange of persons 
 between Christ and believers, their guilt is transferred to hin-\ 
 and his righteousness is imputed to tliem." — BaUs. 
 
18 
 
 2. Each act of forgiveness is a discretionarj act of supremacy. 
 " God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in 
 
 mercj," jet, though forgiveness flows from his gracious nature it 
 does not follow that he will pardon every one. For he saith to 
 Moses, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will 
 show mercy on whom I will show mercj." So Paul — " Having 
 predestinated us unto the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ 
 to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the 
 praise of the glory of his grace, wdiereiu he hath made us ac- 
 cepted in the Beloved." Ep. i : 5, fi. There is, in each case, as it 
 arises, a special interposition of his will. He is at liberty to 
 exercise his grace or not, as seems good in his sight. He chooses the 
 subjects towards whom he extends the sceptre of mercy. Besides, 
 since pardon must be bestowed at the discretion of some one or 
 more, being an act above law, we ask at whose discretion can it 
 safely lie ? The majesty of the law — the glory of the Most High 
 and the stability of the government, working the happiness of 
 'Countless multitudes, are all concerned in its exercise. Who 
 but Jehovah is sufficient for these things? Whose will would 
 here afford any guaranty against sudden and sure destruction ? 
 If there be a prerogative which from its nature must inhere in 
 the sovereign, surely this must be that prerogative. True, he has 
 promised forgiveness to every believing sinner, and herein he 
 has relaxed his severity. But he has done so, only to magnify 
 his sovereignty, for the promise to which he has bound himself 
 is tlie gift of his grace. " For ye are saved by grace, and that 
 not of yourselves. It is the gift of God." " The wages of sin is 
 ■death." Thus he still exercises his pleasure, and at his discre- 
 tion alone is pardon bestowed. 
 
 3, Forgiveness is ihe most amiable act of supremacy. 
 
 The pardon of sin is beyond all doubt the most precious boon 
 that can be bestowed on a sinner. It rolls back the sentence of 
 tlie law, lifts off from his soul the overwhelming burden of guilt 
 find lights up his pathway with joy and peace unutterable. Ic 
 ■dissipates the sorrows of death and mitigates the pains of hell, 
 and in their place fills the mouth with the song of praise. No 
 blessedness like this to a sinner — compared with it, his creation 
 may be forgotten, for without it, that creation were a curse. — 
 AVhen then the sovereign disponses it, he presents himself to tlie 
 
19 
 
 view of his subjects iu the most endearing light. Touched with 
 pity for the misery of his sinful creature, and unwilling that he 
 should perish — he stretches out to the sinner at his feet his scep- 
 tre of mercy and bids him live — live forever. What can more 
 endear him to his fallen creature? Can such a display fail to 
 touch the springs of any generous bosom? Will not the sinner 
 be bound to him by the strongest ties? Can he ever forget it,. 
 that he sought and found pardon ? Will he not forget the hand 
 that created him in his own glory, in love and admiration of the 
 hand that pardoned him ? — Who can doubt it ? 
 
 4. Forgiveness in each act necessarily implies the exercise of 
 Omniscience. 
 
 The penalty of the law varies both in kind and degree, in pro- 
 portion to the heinousness as well as the number of the sins 
 committed. "And that servant that knew his Lord's will, and 
 prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be 
 beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did com- 
 mit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. 
 For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be re- 
 quired, and to whom men have committed much, of him they 
 will ask the more." 
 
 In order then to the adjustment of the penalty to the offence, 
 it is necessary to estimate properly the heinousness as well as 
 know precisely the number of transgressions. Again, the hei- 
 nousness of sin is affected by all the circumstances attendant 
 on it, among which not the least important is the state of the 
 sinner's mind. To estimate it, accordingly, requires a thorough 
 acquaintance with all their transgressions, especially with the 
 heart of the individual. 
 
 Now since forgiveness is the entire removal of all guilt or 
 legal liability to punishment, and punishment is proportion- 
 ed to the number and natiii-e and aggravation of sins, its 
 exercise presupposes and demands a perfect knowledge in this 
 respect. He who dispenses it, must in an especial manner, 
 be able to fathom the heart, to know the thoughts and feel- 
 ings and purposes of the sinner's mind — io give the three 
 their relative place and weight among all the other aggravating 
 or modifying circumstances, which go to make up the aggregate 
 of his guilt. Indeed, he must search the heart and try the reins 
 
20 
 
 of the children of men. If he does not possess all this know- 
 ledge, he may fail to set aside the claims of the law in their 
 full extent, which remaining still on the head of the sinner, must 
 bring him to punishment, i, e. he is not forgiven. 
 
 But the scriptures explicitly assert that this kind of knowledge 
 belon2;s to the Omniscient one alone. God claims it as his sole 
 prerogative to search the hearts, so as to intimate guilt and to 
 apportion to each one the punishment due to his sins. Hear his 
 own lan£:ua2"e — " The heart is deceitful above all thinujs, and des- 
 perately wickeJ, who can know it? 
 
 " I tlie Lord, search the hearts, I try the reins, even to give 
 every man according to his ways and according to the fruit ot 
 his doings." 
 
 The {iame knowledge is claimed by Jesus as the Eternal Son 
 of God, "and all the churches shall know that I am he which 
 searcheth the reins and hearts ; and I will give nnto every one 
 of you according to his works."' 
 
 It follows therefore that the exercise of forgiveness must al- 
 ways be attended with that of Omniscience. 
 
 5. Forgiveness in each act also implies the exercise of Om- 
 nipotence. 
 
 The pardon of sin, which in itself simply denotes a change of 
 relation, is in the plan of salvation revealed in the Gospel insepa- 
 rably connected with a radical change of character. He, whose 
 sins are forgiven is a believer — "To him, i. e., Jesus, gave all 
 the prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever believ- 
 eth on him, shall receive remission of sins." 
 
 Besides, forgiveness is always associated in the Scriptures with 
 repentance. Thus our Lord told his disciples, "That repent- 
 ance and remission of sins should be preached in his name, be- 
 ginning at Jerusalem." This we imagine will not be questioned 
 for a moment. And if so, it follows that the forgiveness of sins 
 must be associated with the exercise of the V)ower to give faith 
 and repentance. So in fact, Peter represented it to the Jewish 
 council, when, speaking of Jesus, he said, " Ilim hatli God ex- 
 alted witli liis right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to 
 give repentance to Israel and the remission of sins." 
 
 And without this power it is obvious tliat the power of for- 
 giviness would be a nullity. 
 
21 
 
 But repentance and faith are the points of that change in the 
 heart which the Scriptures denote by the terms creation, resur- 
 rection, a new birth, the talcing away of the heart of stone and 
 giving a heart of flesh. Such terms, if they have any meaning, 
 must denote such an exertion of power in producing this change, 
 as is implied necessarily in bringing all things at first out of no- 
 thing, or in raising the dead or in infusing life into an inanimate 
 mass. And who can doubt that these are in our view among the 
 most unequivocal acts of Omnipotence ? Who doubts that the 
 power which creates, which calls the dead from the deep slum- 
 ber of the tomb, which brings on the stage of life thousands 
 who before existed not, is the putting forth of the Almighty 
 arm ? All this is necessary to convey the precious boon of 
 forgiveness to sinners, and hence the act of forgiveness must be 
 associated with Omnipotence, or it is nothing worth. 
 
 II. THE POWER TO FORGIVE SINS. 
 
 From this view of the act of forgiveness, it is not difficult to 
 discern the nature of the forgiving power. This is the source 
 whence these acts proceed. Each act of forgiveness is but an 
 exercise — an efflux of the power to forgive. The acta of forgive- 
 ness are the streams — the power to forgive is the fountain — and 
 from the streams we may go up to the fountain. 
 
 If then, these acts, as we have seen, are acts of supremacy — 
 and special discretionary acts of supremacy, and the most amia- 
 ble acts of supremacy — if, moreover, these acts involve the ex- 
 ercise, both of omniscience and omnipotence, then is it manifest 
 that the power of which they are but the mere exercises, must 
 not only be a branch of the supreme power — but of that supreme 
 power in its most distinctive aspect : God as invested with it, en- 
 7""bes himself in the vestments of his high sovereignty, and 
 Comes forth to the view of all his creatures in the most awful 
 and imposing manner — putting his hand on the head of a poor 
 sinner, turning aside from his head the just sentence of his holy 
 law, and sending him forth big with hope on the pathway of life 
 and glory and immortality. ISTever is he so much an Almighty 
 Sovereign, shining forth in his peerless majesty to our view, as at 
 such a moment and in such an act. Never does he tower so far 
 above all the creatures of his hands, and leave at such an im- 
 
3-i 
 
 measurable distance below him, Gabriel, Michael, and all tho 
 lofty ones who burn and shine around his eternal throne — as 
 when he says to the poor condemned ruined sinner, "Thy sins 
 are forgiven thee, arise and go in peace." Then His authoi'ity 
 rises above the law, and then is he seen holding in his hands tlie 
 eternal destiny of the fallen children of Adam. 
 
 And such being the nature of this power, how can we avoid 
 the conclusion th.at He only can forgive sins — that he reserves it 
 entirely in his own hands — that he will not, that he cannot in- 
 trust it to any creature. If there be a power inseparable from 
 his Godhead — one in which, more than in any other, he ap 
 pears to us as the blessed and only Potentate — the Independent 
 Sovereign, wielding tlie eternal destiny of his creatures — it must 
 be this. If the exercise of this power — which is an exercise of 
 sovereignty, involving both Omniscience and Omnipotence, does 
 not define the Eternal I Am to our view — then may we utterly 
 despair of ever being able to distinguish him from his creatures, 
 and live in constant dread of rendering to a finite being that 
 homage which is due to the Infinite One, and consequently, of 
 incurring his heaviest displeasure. But no, this cannot be. To 
 forgive, is the prerogative of Jehovali — a right which he enjoys 
 alone — a right belonging to Him in contradistinction to those 
 which belong to his creatures. " I, even I, am He that blotteth 
 out thy transgressions for my name sake." 
 
 This is the flower of his crown — will he pluck it out and give 
 it to another? It is his crown itself — will he take it ofl'and put 
 it on another's head? Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Thou shale be 
 over my house, according unto thy word shall all m}' people be 
 ruled ; only in the throne will I be greater than thou." But to 
 bestow the power of forgiving sins oh a creature, would be to 
 do more than Pharaoh did to Joseph. It would be to put the 
 crown on his head, and make him greater in the throne than Je- 
 hovah. It would be to reserve no greater power to himself. — 
 And will God give his glory to another ? Besides, should he be 
 willing to give his crown to another — what head could wear it ? 
 Could Gabriel ? " Could he read tlie heart and try the reins V 
 Could he new create the soul? Could he dispose of seats in glo- 
 ry ? No! beneath such a load, he M-ould bow down — sink — be 
 crushed, aye, annihilated. The sceptre then, which extends mer- 
 
cy to the sinner, in the forgiveness of his sins, is the sceptre to 
 which all heaven bows, and at which all hell quakes. We need 
 not fear to fall down before Hini who stretches it out to us, and 
 worship Him as the Lord God Almighty, which liveth and reign- 
 eth forever. 
 
 A. EXAMINATIONS OF THE PRETENTIONS TO THIS POWEE. 
 
 We think we have established our point, and shown the pow- 
 er under consideration to be in its very nature to be inalienable. 
 It now only remains that we make a practical application of the 
 principles involved in the foregoing discussion, by making use 
 of them to examine the pretensions which have been put forth 
 to the possession and exercise of this power. These pretentions, 
 must in order to any appearance of validity, be based on the 
 assumption that this power is delegated, or, that the power still 
 residing in God, is exercised through or in connexion with the 
 agency of certain individuals. The former is the ground on 
 which the church of Rome rests her hold claims, and shuts the 
 kingdom of heaven against all who will not bow to her dictats. 
 The other is that preferred by liigli churchmen, who, fearful of 
 proceeding all the length of the Mother of abominations, are 
 yet desirous of retaining in their creed this dogma as far as pos- 
 sible, in order to impart dignity and importance to the ministry. 
 Let us, then, examine the views of both parties, and see how far 
 they are sustained in them by Scripture and reason. 
 
 I. Is this power ever delegated to any finite being ? 
 
 This question, it would seem, might easily be answered from a 
 right view of the nature of the power. This has been the burden 
 of all our preceding discussion. We have seen that it is accord- 
 ing to Bacon's distinction, a branch of that absolute prerogative 
 which resides in the Godhead, according to his private will and 
 judgment. We have seen, further, that its effect in every case, 
 necessarily implies the presence of Omnipotence and Omnis- 
 cience. On both these grounds, we have declared it to be in- 
 communicable — incapable of being transferred to any mere crea- 
 ture, and therefore is not delegated to any such, because it can- 
 not be. But let us suppose for a moment that such a thing were 
 possible, what would be the necessary result? Would not that 
 being become tp.90 facio supreme ? Supreme power delegated, 
 
u 
 
 renders him to wbom it is delegated, supreme.- Omniscience 
 delegated, if suchj^a thing be conceivable, invests the individual 
 with a power to know all things. Delegated omnipotence is 
 omnipotence still.; And can such powers reside in a creature ? 
 Is not the Supreme one God over all, blessed forever? Does 
 not the exercise of omniscience and omnipotence, flowing from 
 a power resident in Him mark out the High and Hoi}'' One, 
 whom all are bound to adore. If not, how shall he ever claim 
 our allegiance in any manifestation he may or can make of him- 
 self. The absurdity of this conclusion shows the falsity of the 
 supposition. 
 
 But we will here be confronted by the passage in John xx : 23, 
 in which this power is expressly said to be bestowed on the 
 Apostles. This text will come more fully under consideration iu 
 a subsequent part of this discourse. For the present, it may suf- 
 fice to say, that while we admit such to be its most obvious 
 meaning, yet an interpretation so much at variance with the 
 views every where advanced in the Scriptures, and so inconsist- 
 ent with right reason, cannot be sustained unless it can be shown 
 to be the only one of which the passage is susceptible. And 
 that this language may be otherwise understood, is evident from 
 the fact that a great multitude of pious and learned men have so 
 understood it. 
 
 II. IS THIS POWEK EXERCISED THROUGH HUMAN AGENCY ? 
 
 This view seems, at first, to be free from all the objections 
 arising from the nature ot the power as inalienable, admitting 
 that God only can forgive sins, and claiming simply that he ex- 
 ercises it in connexion with human instrumentality — while there- 
 fore it apparently shields its advocates from the danger and guilt 
 involved in those daring pretentions, it leaves them certainly in 
 the same condition to all practical purposes ; for so long as par- 
 don can come only through the ministry, our souls are in their 
 hands. This point, accordingly, demands a careful examination. 
 And the more so, too, because this view, it is contended, is sup- 
 ported by many examples in the Old and New Testament. Thus, 
 we read that Moses laid his hands on Joshua, and the spirit of 
 wisdom came down on him. But it should be noticed that Mo- 
 ses acted in accoidance with a special revelation of God's will 
 
35 
 
 "And the Lord said unto Moses, take lliee Joshua, the son of 
 'Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay thine hands on him'. 
 And thon shalt put some of thine honor on him. tliat all the 
 
 congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient." 
 
 Again Annanias was sent to Saul in Damascus, that he mio-ht 
 receive his eight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. But An- 
 nanias, too, acted in obedience to a special disclosure of God's 
 will made to him, and this fact he declared to Saul at the 
 time, and so in all similar cases. ISTow, this special revela- 
 tion we regard as essentially necessary. For how otherwise 
 wonld it be possible for the ministry to know when and where, 
 and towards whom, God would be pleased to put forth his par- 
 doning mercy ? Or how would the individual to whom the min- 
 ister was sent know that his sins were forgiven? The only 
 ground of assurance would be the word of a man, a ground ut- 
 terly insufficient, unless he proved himself to be a messenger 
 from God. A revelation from God would be all that was re- 
 quisite, but it is indispensable. Each case, as it arises, would de- 
 mand a special disclosure, and thus the minister would need to 
 receive constantly, new revelations of the mind of God. But, so 
 far as we know, this special privilege is not claimed by those 
 with whom we are now at issue. They make no pretensions to 
 new light from above, or to plenary inspiration. They are ac- 
 cordingly constrained to abandon this position, if they are ready 
 to submit to sound argument. 
 
 But, perhaps, we may be told that there is no need of a spe- 
 cial revelation, a general one is all that is sufficient ; and that is 
 given us in the sure word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
 ever. If this can be shown, we are ready to submit without any 
 further debate. Before, however, proceeding to examine the 
 Scripture passages supposed to maintain their views, let us inquire 
 what is meant by this general revelation, or by a general revelation 
 authorisiug the belief that God exercises this power through or in 
 connexion with a specified human agency. If this were so, then 
 God, otherwise at liberty to pardon whom he pleases, binds himself 
 to exercise his prerogative only through a certain mediation ; of 
 course he is no longer free to exercise his pleasure in each case. 
 Pardon is no more according to his private will and judgment. 
 The will of man becomes essentially necessar}'-, and thus his 
 declaration to Moses no longer remains true : "I will be erra- 
 
26 
 
 •cioTi-s to wliom I will be gracious, and will sliow mercy on whom 
 I will show mercy," Ex. xxxiii, 19 ; because God has bound him- 
 self to exercise his will in every case in which these, his ap- 
 pointed instruments, are pleased to exercise theirs. It is not, 
 then, according to God's good pleasure, but according to that of 
 the ministry. Their discretion regulates the course of procedure. 
 And is not this to all practical purposes, an assumption of this 
 power ? Is there not a delegation of it to the ministry ? And, 
 accordingly, does not this opinion lie open to all the objections 
 ■we have raised against the first opinion ? Most assuredly it does^ 
 in our judgment, and we can see in this belief, nothing more 
 ?than an attempt to escape these objections in theory while they 
 still retain all their force in practice. We regard, then, such a 
 binding himself up, in the exercise of this prerogative, as utter- 
 ly inconsistent with its nature, and impossible in the nature of 
 the case. But our opponents here say all this reasoning is set 
 aside by the plain declarations of Scripture, such passages as 
 John XX : 23 : " Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
 unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained."* 
 
 * " The Holy Catholic Church hath in all ages, referred to this passage as a com- 
 inission to the most important spiritual functions. It was ever understood to mean 
 what its language hterally imports. It is the explicit sense of our church that the 
 power of remission and retention is as permanent as the ministry, and is an essential 
 prerogative of the sacerdotal office. Wherever remission of sins is spoken of, we 
 attach but one idea to the expression. — Dr. Curtis' Sermon, pp. 5, 6. 
 
 Nature of the power to forgive as thus bestowed on the Ministry. 
 
 This is not an independent or intrinsic power, * * * *, Such power belongs 
 ■to God alone. It must, therefore, be a ministerial or instrumental power. God hav- 
 ing appointed an order of men in the world to accomplish his gracious purposes of 
 mercy to mankind, makes them his agents in conferring the blessings which he hag 
 in store for them. lie has entrusted to them certain powers, whose proper exercise he 
 ■has engaged to ratify. 
 
 The embassador of an earthly monarch, in treating with revolted subjects, may be 
 invested with the power of settling the conditions of reconciliation, as well as of 
 promising to all who will submit to them. Although the original source of pardon and 
 its final ratification are with the sovereign, yet, if his agent or minister has kept by 
 the articles furnished him, he has so far, acted in place of his sovereign, who will 
 ratify and confirm the acts of his minister, as much as if done by himself. • * • 
 Through the ministry as the agent and instrument, are conferred all these benefits 
 which are implied in the ordinances. These, when rightly administered, and duly 
 received, are as effective of their purpose, as if administered by the independent or 
 supreme power. * » * » (This is all pretty well ; our friend ha.s his eyes open 
 while speaking directly on the nature of this power, but as we shall sec, be waxes 
 bolder and bolder as he proceeds.) 
 
Matthew xviii, 18 : " Verily I say unto jcm, whatsoevep je 
 shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever 
 ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." Matt, xvi, 
 19 : " And I will give unto thee (i. e. Peter) the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on eartli 
 shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 
 earth shall be loosed in heaven." 
 
 • Before proceeding to the consideration of these passages, it 
 may be well to remember the purpose for which they are intro- 
 duced by our opponents — not to prove that this power is dele- 
 gated to the ministry — this is repudiated ; but to show that God 
 limits his own exercise of it by the discretion* of a regularly au- 
 thorized ministry. This is all we have to do with this. Our 
 business is simply to show that they cannot be brought forward 
 to substantiate such a view. u 
 
 It is contended that these three passages contain the same 
 idea, which is most clearly, because literally, expressed by John, 
 and therefore are to be interpreted by it. If so, i. e., if we are 
 to take the language of John in its most obvious and literal 
 sense, then it explicitly teaches that the Apostles were endowed 
 with the plenary power of forgiveness at discretion. 
 
 Now thig, in the eyes of our opponents is very diflPerent fromi 
 the idea that God made use of them and now makes use of the 
 Christian ministry as a special mediation through which he dis- 
 penses pardon. And it will not do to meet all the formidable 
 objections which are raised to the grant of any such power to 
 
 * * * And hence, it maybe urged, of what special and positive value ia a min- 
 istry if its service be only of incidental benefit, such as not ensues from the sober ac- 
 tion of any man whatever, and not of an appointed and certain efficacy ; one to which 
 mankind, encouraged and fortified by the promises of God, can confidently resort as 
 the divinely authorised agent for dispensing grace to the soul. (The power for 
 which Dr. C. contends then, whatever may be its nature, must be such as to engender 
 in an intelligent mind the conviction, that the ministers in whom it resides, or through 
 whom it flows, are so authorised to dispense pardon, that their declaration is an infalli- 
 ble ground of assurance of pardon.) If the ministry be an appointed office, it must 
 have an authority and efficiency, which does not belong to those who are not invest- 
 ed with it. This authority, though delegated, is competent to all the purposes for 
 which it was bestowed, and when actually given, is as efficient to its end as though it 
 were original and independent. A true authority implies either an inherent or ac- 
 companying power, which is competent to all the purposes for which it is held. 
 And, although a delegated authority implies a derived and limited power, yet that 
 power is in its effects precisely the same as if original or exercised by the supreme 
 power. — Dr. ^tcrtis^ Sermon, j>, 9, 11, 12. 
 
28 
 
 the miniBtiy, by saying that all that is meant is, that God makes 
 nse of them as the appointed channel through which he himself 
 conveys pardon, and then appeal to these passages in proof of 
 the doctrine as thus explained. Their literal import is that the 
 apostles were impowered to forgive sins at their discretion — and 
 only in proof of such a pretence can they in their literal view 
 be fairly urged. They may thus be quoted by the advocates of 
 the claims of the Romish church, and are thus often appealed to 
 in defence of their claims — but none who are not prepared to go 
 all the length of these followers of the Man of sin have any 
 right to appeal to them. Oar reply to them has already been 
 given. But those with whom we are at issue now disclaim such 
 views. These contend merely that the ministry are the agents or 
 instruments through whom the benefit of forgiveness is bestow- 
 ed. Such is not the literal import of the passages above cited, 
 which are consequently qf no avail to establish these views. 
 
 We remark further, that whatever may be the power here 
 
 granted, it cannot be proven to have been granted to the apos- 
 tles exclusively. It is clear from John that the occasion on whick 
 
 these words were spoken was on the evening of our Lord's re- 
 surrection — when the disciples were gathered together in Jeru- 
 salem with closed doors for fear of the Jews. John tells us tliat 
 the disciples were present and were the persons addressed, "Then 
 were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. Then said 
 Jesus to them again. Peace be unto you : as my father hath sent 
 me even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breath- 
 ed on them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whosesoever sins ye 
 remit," <k:c. Now Luke (24 : 33) tells us, in speaking of the same 
 occasion, who these disciples were — they were not only tlie elev- 
 en apostles, but they that were with them — i. e,, all the disci- 
 ples — so that the power here granted was not granted exclusive- 
 ly to the ministry, but given to all the disciples. The passage 
 then can with no show of fairness be alleged in proof of any 
 special ])ower conferred on the Romish ministry. 
 
 Once more — granting that the apostles were the individuals 
 here addressed, though other disciples were present, and that to 
 them alone was this power given. Yet since thisjiower is grant- 
 ed or promised in immediate connexion with the conferring of 
 the Holy Ghost significantly alluded to by our Lord's breathing 
 on them, it cannot Ije bliown that it was not granted to them as 
 
29 
 
 inspired men and that none possess it but those who have such 
 supernatural gifts. On such a supposition, we see no difiiculty 
 in the exercise of such a power on their part. For being en- 
 dowed with the power of discerning spirits, they could infallibly 
 distinguish such as were real penitents and believers, and their 
 authoritative declaration based on this knowledge would be only 
 an annunciation of what God had already done. It would in 
 reality be no more than a declaration to others of a disclosure 
 of tlie exercise of the power of forgiveness on the part of God 
 made to them by the direct communication of the Spirit. But 
 such a grant as this avails nothing to advance the claims of such 
 as now pretend to exercise the power of forgiveness, unless they 
 can show themselves inspired men. So that the text viewed in 
 all its meanings, in no one of them answers the purpose for which 
 it has so often and so exultingly been quoted. And this being 
 the main and sole prop of this dogma, we are warranted to con- 
 clude that there is no revelation made in the Scriptures of any 
 purpose of God to confer pardon through the ministry as a spe- 
 cial mediation. I^Tone in which they are warranted to say to a 
 sinner, thy sins are forgiven thee, and this declaration thereby 
 be an evidence that his sins are really forgiven. 
 
 But we contend further, that the pretensions, which men set 
 up to the power on earth to forgive sins are not only false, but 
 blasphemous. That these pretensions put forth in any form are 
 high, their advocates candidly acknowledge. It is for the avow- 
 ed purpose of investing themselves and the ministry in general 
 with a great degree of authority, and giving themselves eleva- 
 tion in the eyes of the church, that they are put forth. They 
 are, however, in our view, not only high and arrogant, but blas- 
 phemous. 
 
 If the conclusion reached in the foregoing discussion be cor- 
 rect, then it has been shown that the claims advanced are such 
 as if true, demand at the hands of all, the reverence and hom- 
 age due to the supreme and Mighty One. They are claims of 
 the possession of the highest prerogative of supremacy, and of 
 attributes which cannot inhere in a finite being. If these claims 
 however, are false, which on principles laid down is obviously 
 so, then those who make them must be under the serious charge 
 of a bold assumption of the prerogative of God. These men at- 
 tempt to mount up and occupy the throne of God and profes- 
 
30 
 
 sing to be seated there, they call on others to confess their sins 
 unto them in order to forgiveness. Pretending that they sit upon 
 the throne of grace, they invite us to come boldly to them' that 
 we may obtain mercy and find grace in time of need. And alas ! 
 how many thousands and myriads of poor ignorant deluded 
 souls are led away by their craft. If any one more wise say to 
 one of such pretenders, " Who can forgive sins but God only ?" 
 is there one, a single one of them, that can say to a palsied man, 
 " Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thine house," and the pal- 
 sied man will arise and do so ? Is there one who can substanti- 
 ate his claims to the authority to forgive sins on earth, by such 
 or a similar faith ? Jesus did not hesitate to do so — to show his 
 authority ; and surely since the servant is not above his Lord, 
 his legitimate successors should not hesitate to follow his exam- 
 ple. 
 
 But we repeat it, is there one that can or will do it. If so, 
 where is he ? Let him come forward and produce his strong 
 claims. Till then we may be pardoned for replying to one and 
 all of such claimants, " Jesus we Imow, Paul we know, but who 
 are ye ?" 
 
 Did I ask who are they ? Did I inquire who are such as pre- 
 tend to say to a poor sinner, thy sins are forgiven thee and ex- 
 pect that it will be even so according to their declaration ? Why 
 need I ask a question answered long ago, to guard us if possible 
 against the danger of ignorance on this point? Look at 2nd 
 Thess. n. We read of that man of sin, the son of perdition, who 
 opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that 
 which is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of 
 God showing himself that he is God." Can we fail to recognize 
 in these features the likeness of these pretenders? Could de- 
 scription be more accurate in its main points ? Who opposeth 
 and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is wor- 
 shipped ? Is not this precisely what we have proved to be the 
 amount of their pretentions ? Have we not shown that they ex- 
 alt themselves to supremacy in its highest and most distinctive 
 exercise ? So that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, show- 
 ing himself that he is God. Ilave we not also shown that they 
 show themselves to be God, by their calling on men to seek for- 
 giveness at their hands, occupying places of trust and honor in 
 the church on earth. 
 
31 
 
 We therefore conclude that these men are guilty of blasphe- 
 my. Does such a conclusion startle us? Do we shrink back 
 and pause before we can be persuaded that men could be car- 
 ried so far in their zeal to maintain their influence and increase 
 their authority ? Why should we ? Has not the apostle ac- 
 counted for it? He declares that they are given up to strong 
 delusion, to believe a lie that they may all be damned, and this 
 because they believed not the truth, but take pleasure in un- 
 righteousness. 
 
 Those given up to judicial blindness, may proceed to any 
 length in the way of iniquity and absurdity. And surely it is 
 reasonable to suppose there is no sin which God would be more 
 ready to punish with an unsparing hand than that which makes 
 so bold an onset on his dearest prerogative — as one which would 
 pluck the flower from his crown. 
 
 The force of these remarks is not at all weakened by the reply 
 that the power claimed is only conditionally effective. If by 
 this it were meant that the ministry possessed only the power of 
 declaring the sins of the true penitent forgiven, then all objec- 
 tions to its exercise would be obviated. But that such is not 
 the meaning we are to attach to these terms, is obvious from the 
 consideration that this is our authority, which every one with 
 the Scriptures in his hands, is at liberty to exercise. The Scrip- 
 tures declare in the plainest terms that he who repents is forgiv- 
 en. Any one, then, who reads and understands, can declare 
 upon the authority of God, that if an individual is a true penitent, 
 his sins are forgiven. This, however, is not a power which sat- 
 isfies such claimants. It does not invest the ministry with any 
 peculiar authority above others, and consequently, does not an- 
 swer the purpose for which such pretensions are made. The 
 conditional effectiveness thus turns out on examination to be 
 without a condition, i. e. a real and unconditional effectiveness. 
 The reply is accordingly a mere evasion, and the charge stands 
 unreputed. 
 
 But it becomes not only those who advance such claims, but 
 those who are disposed to hearken to them, to beware. — 
 They are so high, so daring, so far above all claims, ordinarily 
 set up by men — they are moreover so opposed to all proper views 
 of Scripture, so derogatory to God, and so degrading to man — 
 that there must be guilt in entertaining them for a moment. — 
 
32 
 
 Tlie poison is so violent, that the sliglitest quantity is fatal. The 
 pretensions should at once be resisted, and every good and true 
 man is bound to show their fallacy and impiety. 
 
 Finally, while we deny this prerogative to any mere man or 
 finite being, we cheerfuUv acknowledc:e it as belonorinor to Jesus. 
 W^e claim it for him at the hands of all others. The Son of Man 
 hath power on earth io forgive sins, lligli and sacred as is tliis 
 prerogative, it is not too much so for llim. He is the Son of 
 God — the brightness of the Fatiier's glory, and the express im- 
 age of his person. He is clothed with every divine perfection, 
 because possessed of a divine nature. In this wonderful person, 
 then, this Jesus of Nazareth, this God and man in two distinct 
 natures and one person, we see one able to receive and wield 
 this power. Besides, as the one Mediator between God and 
 man, he has purchased by his obedience unto death, the right to 
 give eternal life to as many as he will. It is his righteousness 
 which makes the sinner just. It is his blood which delivereth 
 from all sins, his death which stands in the stead of the sinner. 
 He assumed our relation to the law, and all our legal responsi- 
 bilities rests on him. He bore our sins in his own body on the 
 tree, and cancelled the guilt of every believer. 
 
 The Father has accepted him, and all power in heaven and 
 earth is given unto him. We may well, therefore, concede to his 
 claims. If they are controverted, he can easily substantiate 
 them by the exhibition of these very divine attributes necessary 
 to the exercise of the power. So he did on the occasion alluded 
 to in our text. He read the thoughts of the heart. " Why rea- 
 son ye thus in your heart." He displayed his omnipotence. — 
 Arise, said he to the palsied man, take up thy bed and go unto 
 thine house ; and he arose and departed to his house. V>y an 
 effect, which was palpable to all, he showed that he could pro- 
 duce another of equal difficulty — though not discernible to oth- 
 ers. His pretensions, therefore, were not false — his claims were 
 valid. All must know that he had power on earth to forgive 
 sins. 
 
 Let lis then, my friends, as poor sinners, come to Jesus for 
 pardon. Let us receive our forgiveness at His hands. Those 
 that would stand between us and him, and protfer to us their aid 
 in securing forgiveness, let us thrust aside and refuse their aid. 
 Let us know that while Jesus can forgive, none other can. Then 
 let us cry with broken hearts to Him, and learn from experience 
 that Jesus has power on eartli to forgive sins. 
 
(^ ^ 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 OF 
 
 REV. DR. H. M. SCUDDER, 
 
 OF THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, ARGOT, INDIA; 
 
 AND OF 
 
 REV. DR. RICHARD FULLER, 
 
 OF THlE BAPTIST CHURCH, BALTIMORE, MD., 
 
 AT TUB ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICAN TRACT 
 SOCIETY, NEW YORK, MAY, 1860. 
 
 REV. DR. SCUDDER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 The earlier compositions belonging to the Hindoo literature differ 
 materially from tlie later ones in this, that thej are characterized by 
 extreme conciseness and brevity. And there is a maxim among the 
 Pundits, the learned men of India, to this effect : " That an author 
 rejoices in the economizing of half a short vowel, as much as he does 
 in the birth of a son." I shall try to conform to this heathen maxim — 
 to the spirit of it — in so much, at least, as to be brief. 
 
 Here are two resolutions. They open a great territory of subject 
 before me, and it is impossible for me at this time to enter upon it so 
 as to do justice to the important questions involved. But there is 
 one little word which juts out like a promontory at the end of the 
 first resolution. It is the word abroad ; and I shall take it as my 
 text. What is the Tract Society, and what is its work? What has 
 it wrought? What are we to do for it? These are seemingly trite 
 and simple questions ; but they are worthy of our consideration. The 
 work of the Tract Society, as I understand it, is this : It is a channel- 
 
2 REV. DR. SCUDDER'S ADDRESS, 
 
 digger. It is not a fountain ; it does not originate truth. It is not 
 Divine, but human. It is not a creator, but a wcirker. The Bible is 
 the fountain — pure, vivifying, inexhaustible. And as one mode of 
 leading out its waters upon the heart and the life of the world, the 
 Tract Society digs channels. All over' the earth it has opened such 
 channels. Through them the water of life trickles down the fair, ver- 
 dant slopes of our mount Zion, and by them the living stream has 
 permeated heathen deserts, causing beautiful oases to spring up on 
 surfaces once bleak with spiritual barrenness. 
 
 If you ask, What sort of a work is the Tract Society doing in the 
 earth ? I say. It is a noble work, I have been sixteen years a mis- 
 sionary, and I have had an opportunity of seeing what the Tract So- 
 ciety has done in the great country of Hindostan, A sublime work 
 is the Tract Society performing on the earth ! Here is the Bible, a 
 WORLD of spiritual truth, with its oceans, its towering mountains, its 
 free, glad-springing rivers. Over the whole the Tract Society moves — 
 everywhere a worker. In the ocean of Scripture it goes down like 
 the diver, and brings up pearls. Into the bowels of the mountains of 
 Scripture it pierces like the miner, and brings forth ores to build, and 
 gems to deck palaces of spiritual beauty. In the river-beds of Scrip- 
 ture it stoops and searches, and it comes up the banks with its apron 
 full of golden sand. Everywhere it is a worker in the domains of 
 Scripture, and every thing that it collects and brings forth is for the 
 renewal and the garniture of souls, immortal souls. Its pearls and 
 gems and wisely wrought jewels, what are they but adornments of 
 imperishable loveliness which it confers upon souls ? Truly, this is a 
 noble work. 
 
 What has the Tract Society wrought out ? I may claim to be a 
 competent witness in regard to a part of the heathen world. Sixteen 
 years ago, I went to India, I returned from there nearly two years 
 ago, I have had an opportunity of knowing what assistance it has 
 been to missionaries there. Has not the Tract Society been to us a 
 helper? Do we missionaric? not value its agencies? How shall I 
 describe the aids and supports which this Tract Society has extended 
 to me as a missionary ? Why, as I look back, they seem to me to 
 stand on either side of my path through the wilderness of heathenism 
 hke great protecting hedges mantling with roses — walls full with 
 beauty, full of fragrance. And I have never yet met the missionary 
 who was so hopelessly stupid as to be insensible to the assistance 
 
REV. DR. SCUDDER'S ADDRESS. 3 
 
 rendered us by this Society ; and I know none so ungenerous as to 
 withhold the aclsnowledgment. I ask if there are not recorded results 
 which justify me in saying what I have said, and which would justify 
 me in saying a great deal more of what this Society has accomplished 
 in foreign lands. Its archives are the records of Christian churches, 
 planted in many a spot between Cape Comorin and the grand old 
 Himalayas. Go through the annual reports, and read the summaries 
 of missionary witnesses. Pass from year to year, from the earlier 
 and feebler efforts to the maturities of wider scope and enlarged 
 labor ; and gazing back from the platform of its present position, add 
 up the triumphs, and see how God has blessed this Tract Society. 
 
 There is a tract in India called The Jewel Mine of Salvation. I 
 have packed up my things ready to return to India, else I would 
 have brought a copy of it here. It exists in many languages. I do not 
 know who composed it, but probably it was a native. It has been 
 adopted and published by the Society. That tract has a marvellous 
 history already in India ; it has worked its way from the remotest 
 north down to the extreme south, passing from language to language, 
 perpetually demonstrating its power and its usefulness'. Its whole 
 course has been a career of triumph. Why, its footsteps have been 
 marked everywhere with flowers of peace and beauty springing up 
 and by the sides of the paths it has trodden have ripened rich clus- 
 ters of fruit, and triumphal arches have spanned the highway of its 
 advance. That tract has been the means of a great many conver- 
 sions. There are souls to-night in the kingdom of heaven, whom this 
 tract taught where to find wings for so lofty a flight. That tract is 
 in poetry, for the Hindoos are very fond of poetry. An assembly can 
 be collected in the streets at any time by chanting. I will chant a 
 verse of it in Telugu, which will show you the sweetness of one of the 
 vernacular languages of India. [Dr. Scudder then chanted a verse in 
 that tongue.] The meaning of it is this : " sirs 1 read this true, 
 spotless book of God ; sirs ! discerning its truth with love, take 
 hold upon Jesus Christ ; thus, sirs ! at last go clear of the dreadful 
 hell, and joyfully reach the blest abode in the heavenly world." 
 
 Hindoos have actually sung away their prejudices against Chris- 
 tianity, as they chanted the stanzas of this tract, and as the truth 
 stole in upon their hearts and consciences through its mellifluous 
 cadences. The stanzas of this tract have been heard from night- 
 boats as they floated down Gunga's broad tide. They have been 
 
4 REV. DR. SCUDDER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 heard beneath the banian's shade at noontide, issuing from the lips of 
 the resting traveller, who found, in the flowing verse and the loving 
 thoughts, the solace of his weariness. And don't you think, as the 
 sweet utterance swelled up from the river shore and from under the 
 shady palm-tree, that the sympathizing angels came to the very brink 
 of the battlements above, and looked over, listening to the strain, and 
 murmuring back their happy echo ? If there is any work which I 
 thank God for permitting me to accomplish in India, it is that I suc- 
 ceeded in introducing that tract into two languages. 
 
 That will live on. Yes, its star-rays will continue to beam out 
 upon the night sky of India, until, sweetly blending, they shall lose 
 themselves in the all-eclipsing effulgence of that millennial morn which 
 we all believe is speedily coming. It has often been to me a sub- 
 ject of marvel, that a little tract like that can accomplish such won- 
 derful results. The only way in which we can explain it is, that God 
 energizes it, that there is a spiritual power which God gives to it. 
 Take a haughty Brahmin. That tract flies up to him like a little 
 bird, and flaps its wings in his face. He gets angry, and would stran- 
 gle it. "But it expands into the form of an eagle with piercing talons 
 and striking beak, and that Brahmin and all his superstitions become 
 in its presence like a company of squeaking chickens. How mighty 
 the power of a God-commissioned tract ! It grapples with the intel- 
 lect of a Brahmin ; it flings that man's intellect just as a giant would 
 fling a stripling. It goes down into the dark caverns of his heart, 
 where a knowledge of God has never entered, and lets in rays of light 
 from the Sun of righteousness, lets in a new story — the story of the 
 Crucified One — and that man's heart becomes a palace in which God 
 resides ; it brings all his thoughts into obedience to Christ, and sends 
 him out to preach the gospel. What a marvel is this I There is none 
 so high that a little tract, if God pleases to own and bless it, cannot 
 bend and break him ; and there is none so low that it cannot lift and 
 bless him, no matter whether he be a sneering Brahmin on the banks 
 of the Ganges, or the dairyman'g daughter in the Western world. 
 The same tract now is the lightning-bolt that rives the proud, uplifted, 
 defying crag, and now it is the dew that fills, and the sunbeam that 
 quickens a withering flower. I believe we shall see what tracts have 
 done, when we reach the shores of eternity. 
 
 In India there was a man preaching under a tree. A lad about 
 sixteen years of age asked him for a book. The missionary pu 
 
REV. DR. SCUDDER'S ADDRESS. 5 
 
 tract into his hand. He began to read. He read a page or so, and 
 came to the word — that wondrous dissyllable that floats upon our 
 banners, Jesus — he came to that word, and he looked up at the mis- 
 sionary, and said, "This may be the very book that my father got a 
 great many years ago," "How is that?" asked the missionary. 
 "Why," says he, "my father lived away in a distant town, far from 
 any white man, and he received a book which had that name in it, 
 and having read it, after some months he threw away all his idols, 
 and shaped his course according to it ; and when he died, Jesus was 
 the last word that trembled on his lips," Did not that man go to 
 heaven? I ask. There shall be wondrous and joyful meetings at 
 the last day, between missionaries who have labored in this work, 
 and redeemed souls whose redemption they never knew of while 
 they were on the earth. In that day a man will come up to another, 
 and say, "Perhaps you don't know me, but I know you. I heard 
 you preach in such a year on the earth, and you gave me a book, 
 and I never saw a white man's face again. But the book was the 
 means of blessing to me ; it was the one plank which carried me to 
 the shore. " Then shall those two fall on each other's neck, and kiss 
 each other with kisses of affection. 
 
 But we can trace tracts not only in the overmastering power which 
 they have exerted on individuals, but we can point, in India, to a new 
 community springing up, like a fresh creation, from the energy of a 
 single tract. There is a mission in India which grew out of a tract 
 on the Decalogue. It fell into the hands of a wandering priest. He 
 was a Brahmin of high standing, and a band of disciples followed him. 
 They had abandoned their idolatry ; they yearned to know something 
 better than was furnished in the foul mythologies of Hindooism. I 
 have been asked, in this country, this question : "Did you ever meet 
 a heathen who seemed really to seek for the mercy of God, and for the 
 truth ?" I think these men come as near to it as any I ever heard of. 
 If a man shall seek for God, if his heart shall pant after truth and the 
 love of God, God will meet that yearning of his heart. He will call a 
 man in this country to go and announce salvation through Jesus to 
 him. He will find the person to build a ship to carry him. These 
 men yearned for truth. The little tract containing the ten command- 
 ments met them ; they found at once that there was a power in it. 
 They recognized this power, just as the ass of Balaam recognized the 
 power of the angel. They said, " Why, we have never seen any thing 
 
6 REV. DR. SCUDDER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 so-pure, so simple, so majestic, so far-reaching as this." They seized 
 hold of it like a sword. They pressed it against others ; for still they 
 roved through the villages, continuing their work of teaching, though 
 now teaching only this. They found that they had a two-edged 
 sword, and it cut them, as well as others. It became a schoolmas- 
 ter ; it led them up into the temple of the New Testament, and intro- 
 duced them to the great High-priest the Lord Jesus Christ, who is 
 God over all. They found out where the tract came from. They 
 went and got a Bible, and some of them are now ministers, and nearly 
 all of them were brought into the church. That single tract was the 
 germ of a whole mission in India, What has the Tract Society 
 done — this Tract Society, and the Tract Society of England? What 
 have they done, do you ask ? I answer. They have begun to span 
 the sky of heathenism with a galaxy in which the stars are converted 
 souls. Since I left India, two years ago, through the agency of a 
 tract of this Society, a movement has commenced in our own mis- 
 sion, which will, I trust, result in the organization of a Christian 
 church. 
 
 Now, what shall we do ? Shall we go back ? Never I ShallVe 
 sit down ? Never ! Shall we deflect ? Never ! What shall we do ? 
 We shall go forward, no matter who opposes. The true Christian 
 fears neither man nor devil. If a man is a true Christian, what has 
 he to fear ? Nothing. His watchword is, Forward ! People may 
 tell him, " This is a feeble agency. Nothing is more absurd than to 
 try to convert a person by giving him a tract of four pages. <<It 
 appears to be absurd, and worldly people sneer at it. In the olden 
 time, on the walls of the city of Jericho, were there not great sneer- 
 ings and hootings among the people as they talked, and said, " Who 
 are those queer fellows blowing rams' horns ?" But when the long 
 blast came which the Lord commanded, did not the city fall flat ? So 
 it will be with these. The tracts are the rams' horns. I have heard 
 it remarked, that "distributing tracts is like sowing seed on the sur- 
 face of a river. What will become of it?" We shall admit the 
 figure, for do Ave not read of one river, the swelling Nile, with its roll- 
 ing stores of liquid wealth, on which the inhabitants of that region 
 do cast their seed ? And the sound of the rising, rolling wave — what 
 is it ? Is it not the prophecy of the harvest-song ? From the bosom 
 of those waters there shall come up an abundant harvest, and the 
 smell of sheaves. 
 
REV. DR. SCUDDER'S ADDRESS. 7 
 
 People say, again, "Will not our efforts meet with opposition"? 
 What if they do ? Opposition only glorifies the gospel. If we have 
 got to overcome opposition, it develops our muscles. The church, 
 which is intrusted with the dissemination of gospel truth, is the grand- 
 est military organization in the universe. Our great Captain is Jesus 
 Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; and that man is a traitor 
 in the camp, who will not follow when Christ calls. The angels them- 
 selves delight to be pioneers and camp-followers to the church. But 
 let him beware who withstands the gospel, for it will upset him. A 
 man had a stream that ran pleasantly through his meadows, " I will 
 not have that stream any longer, " he said. So he got together stones, 
 and built a huge dam. The stream looked at him, and laughed ; and 
 swelling into a vast lake, it burst the barrier, and its accumulated 
 waters came into this man's premises with the rush and roar of a 
 giant, and that man and his chattels were never heard of again. That 
 is the way with the gospel. The natural course of Christ's gospel is 
 kind and gentle. It is like a stream purling through the meadow, 
 murmuring hosannas in its gentle ripples ; but let a man meddle with 
 its flow, and it will gather up its forces, rush in upon him, and sweep 
 him away, and all opposition, with a roar like that of our own Niag- 
 ara. God's promises are the foundation upon which we rest. We 
 don't care whether man opposes or not ; we trust God ; his word is 
 enough for us. No matter how great the storm may be, we ride over 
 the angry crests in the life-boat of the Divine promise. 
 
 How can we carry forward the work of God ? Every individual 
 must work, and recognize his power in Christ's kingdom. For my- 
 self, am I not bound to find out what my work is, to gird up my 
 loins for it, to shoe my feet, to have the sword in my hand, and the 
 helmet on my brow ? So are you to work, my friends, every one of 
 you. If every Christian were but a trimmed lamp, what a light 
 would be shed abroad upon the world. If every Christian soul wera 
 a tuned instrument, what blessed sounds would swell the universal 
 strain. What glorious results we should then behold. Oh, for a 
 heart and life of love ! The very same wind that howls as it moves 
 through the canebrake and the dismal swamp, when it falls upon the 
 strings of an ^olian harp evokes the sweetest melody. The unlov- 
 ing heart is the canebrake and the swamp. The loving heart is the 
 jEolian harp, and when the breath of God touches its strings there 
 is melody ; the life of that man on the earth is a strain of music. 
 
8 REV. DR-. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 REV. DR FULLER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 Resolved, That tlie national and catholic spirit of the American 
 Tract Society", and its influence upon the literature of the land, ought 
 to make it dear to every Christian and patriot. 
 
 It is Seneca who says, that the sources of large rivers are sacred, 
 and altars should be built there. If such reverence ought to be given 
 to fountains from which fertilizing streams issue, how ought we to 
 venerate those great institutions which enrich and bless the earth 
 with heavenly truth and spiritual influences. 
 
 In some ages and nations, the danger has been from a superstitious 
 idolatry of every thing established. And this bigotry to system is 
 certainly most deplorable, as it dreads all improvement, and rivets on 
 the mind a blind devotion to falsehoods in religion and government, 
 simply because they are hoary with age. In our day, and in this 
 country, there is little peril from this quarter. The most reckless 
 spirit of innovation "raves, recites, and maddens round the land." 
 Good is at all points assailed by its old insidious enemy. Better. 
 Nothing is so venerable that it escapes the restless mania for tam- 
 pering and tinkering, and pulling down and destroying. And yet 
 it seems to me that this rage for disorganizing would find itself 
 rebuked, if people would only study the past, and examine the 
 biographies of the noble men who founded our religious and civil 
 institutions, and read the record of their toils, self-denials, anxieties, 
 prayers, and sacrifices. 
 
 From infancy we have been accustomed to our national privileges 
 and blessings, and we feel as if this happy union of states had always 
 existed. But let any patriot reflect upon the condition of this country 
 before we had a Constitution. Let him then explore the history of 
 that instrument. Mr. Webster intended to write such a history, and 
 Mr. Curtis of Boston has nobly fulfilled the task. Let him begin with 
 the first convention in Annapolis, to which only five states sent dele- 
 gates. Then let him mark the proceedings in the body which adopted 
 the constitution, and the conflicts through which the friends of this 
 republic had to pass, before the ratification of that glorious charter. 
 Let any man who loves his country examine these pages of our annals, 
 and he will acknowledge that, in the formation of the general gov- 
 
REV. DR. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 9 
 
 ernment, a victory was achieved almost as arduous and sublime as 
 that which crowned the Revolutionary campaigns ; and he will con- 
 fess, too, how hopeless must ever be the effort to reunite these states, 
 if — which may Heaven forbid ! — folly and wickedness shall succeed in 
 dividing them. 
 
 These remarks apply to our great religious organizations. We 
 meet, and mingle our prayers and counsels, and exclaim, " Behold, 
 how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in 
 unity!" And we feel as if it had been always thus. But it would 
 touch any heart to hear, from those who were present, the narrative of 
 the inauguration of this enterprise and of others kindred to it : how 
 a few men of God met ; how they inquired whether it was possible 
 that those who had so long been arrayed against each other could 
 unite ; how they knelt down and prayed for light and harmony ; and 
 how they wept for joy at the great triumph of Christian love over 
 sectional and sectarian littleness. For my own part, as I have heard 
 those apostolic fathers speak of these things, my very heart has 
 burned within me ; and I have been filled with amazement and sorrow, 
 that servants of Jesus, north or south, should desire to enlist such 
 institutions in any partisan warfare. 
 
 I have travelled from Baltimore to this city simply that I might 
 enjoy the pleasure and honor of being with you to-night. But you do 
 not wish me, I am sure, to pronounce any eulogium on the American 
 Tract Society. The time has passed when that could be needed. 
 There are, however, one or two traits in its character which ought to 
 make it dearer and dearer to us every year. Upon these I would say 
 something. 
 
 And, first, this Society is national — national, not sectional. It is 
 more. It is one of the few grand conservators and bonds of union 
 which are left us. Once, all our influential religious denominations 
 were accustomed to have their respective anniversaries, when, from 
 every part of the land. Christians came together, glowing with love 
 for each other and with a common loyalty to Jesus, And I need not 
 say by what ties of love our national Union was thus compacted. 
 This harmony of feeling and action has been for ever destroyed in the 
 two largest religious bodies ; and unless God interposes, it will soon 
 be violently broken up in all our religious communions. 
 
 [Dr. Fuller proceeded to ask what were the grounds of these de- 
 
10 REV. DR. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 plorable disruptions, and affirmed that, practically, there is little dif- 
 ference between good men on any of the questions which have pro- 
 duced these fatal mischiefs. These separations of those who once 
 embraced each other had not been caused by any alienation in the 
 great masses of the denominations. He had not words to express 
 his sense of the folly and madness of disunion. He loved and hon- 
 ored this Society because it had stood nobly aloof from these unwor- 
 thy bickerings and disputings.] 
 
 If we deserve to be American citizens, this Society will engage 
 our warmest interest because it is superior to all sectional feeling, 
 because it recognizes no North, no South, no East, no West ; but 
 is, in its entire character, in all its objects, wholly American, embrac- 
 ing with the same tender solicitude, every portion of the land. 
 
 He knows little of man who can make light of the religious sen- 
 timent implanted in our nature. It is the deepest and most uncon- 
 trollable element in society ; and like those central fires which cailse 
 earthquakes and convulsions, it can subvert the foundations of any 
 government. There is no danger to this land, there is no principle at 
 work, so threatening to the permanency of our civil institutions, as a 
 misguided, fanatical spirit. It is, in itself, a desperately mischievous 
 thing ; insinuating distrust among brethren ; sacrificing the noblest 
 undertakings, the most venerable charities, to any blind, wild, head- 
 long, chimerical impulse which inflames the passions. And poli- 
 ticians are ever busy stimulating it, for their own ambitious, mer- 
 cenary purposes. This widespread and portentous evil can be coun- 
 teracted only by a sound, healthy religious influence : by the diffu- 
 sion of the Gospel, God's remedy, working slowly — not as some men 
 wish to do things ; for as the smaller the insect the more rapidly it 
 multiplies, so the littler the man the greater the haste in which 
 every thing must be done — working slowly as God ever works, but 
 working surely, to cure all the maladies which afflict our fallen race. 
 
 Another characteristic of this association endears it to my heart. 
 It is CATHOLIC — catholic, not sectarian. Its motto is, Unity in things 
 essential, liberty in things indifferent, and charity in all things. 
 
 Here, again, I repeat, in effect, what I said as to the proper love 
 of one's native state. If we are sincere, we of course prefer our own 
 communion. Macaulay and others have laughed at simple parson 
 Adams, who, after exhorting his hearers to become religious, added, 
 
EEY. DR. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 11 
 
 "And when I say religion, I mean the Christian religion, and by the 
 Christian religion, I mean the Protestant, and by the Protestant, I 
 mean our own." The proverb says, that if the faults of the best men 
 were written on their foreheads, they would all pull their hats over 
 their eyes. It may be that some of us only conceal what this good 
 man was frank enough to proclaim. However that may be, we can 
 all comprehend and respect his sincerity. But when a man loves 
 only his own church ; if he cannot love the image of Christ in his 
 brother, wherever he finds it, and on whatever metal stamped, why, 
 then I question whether that man's heart has ever been changed by 
 the Holy Spirit. A man who loves his sect more than the image of 
 Christ in his brother, really loves his sect more than Christ, and loves 
 himself more than all. 
 
 Those who refuse to cooperate with Christians of other denomina- 
 tions, because there is some difference of opinion as to forms and rites 
 and sacraments, are no doubt quite sincere ; and sincerity is so rare 
 a virtue, that I honor it wherever I see it. But when such persons 
 call themselves Protestants, they are guilty of palpable self-contra- 
 diction ; they might as well pretend to be in Rome and Geneva at the 
 same time. On this subject there can be only two consistent courses : 
 that of Rome, which forbids all cooperation with others, because 
 there is an infallible church ; and that of Protestants who allow 
 cooperation, not because the points of difference are unimportant — for 
 nothing is unimportant in religion — but because they do not recog- 
 nize an infallible church. 
 
 I wish this principle of cooperation were more distinctly under- 
 stood. It is impossible for those who have the spirit of Christ not to 
 love each other. I appeal to all such, whether at the period of their 
 conversion they did not enter into the apostle's languag-e, and say, 
 " Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." 
 But a scrupulous conscience may afterwards be perplexed by the 
 suggestion, that to unite with others is a compromise of the truth. 
 Let it ever be borne in mind that there is no surrender, no letting 
 down of any truth. We were Christians before we were identified with 
 any denomination ; and our union in this Society is not a union of 
 denominations. It is something higher and nobler — it is a Christian 
 union. We meet to carry forward the great enterprise of salvation, 
 to diffuse the great essential doctrines in which we all agree. A man, 
 
12 REV. DR. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 and that man my brother, is sinking in your river. I hear his bub- 
 bling cry, and leaping into a boat, I look around for some one to 
 take the other oar. In an instant a noble form is at my side, ready 
 to bend to his work. But I first catechize him : Are you a Baptist ? 
 Do you believe in immersion ? in close communion ? With tears he 
 looks up to me: " See, see !" he cries, "your brother is perishing; 
 let us save him before it is too late." But I refuse. He does not 
 agree with me on the doctrines of my church, and I prefer that my 
 brother should sink rather than cooperate with him. 
 
 The melancholy reactions of Protestantism described by Ranke, 
 are to be ascribed mainly to these baleful animosities ; and the great 
 solvent of our sectarian prejudices, that which can melt and fuse 
 them into love, can cement us and make us cohesive, is cooperation. 
 I am weary of hearing homilies on brotherly love. Let us work 
 together, let us fight together, and we shall be one — one in counsel, 
 one in heart, one in sacrifice for our common Redeemer. The parting 
 prayer of Jesus will be answered, " That they all may be one, that 
 the world may know that thou hast sent me." At the battle of the 
 Peiho in China, about a year ago. Commodore Tatnall looked on for a 
 while ; but as the war waxed more fierce, he could stand it no longer ; 
 " It is no use," he exclaimed, " blood is thicker than water !" and 
 dashed into the fight. And you remember the effect of his conduct 
 upon England. "Well done, Americans," they cried ; "this act will 
 do more to bind us to you than all the treaties of diplomatists." We 
 Baptists are sometimes thought to be rather fond of water, somewhat 
 amphibious in our creed. But, friends, once for all understand us ; 
 we really do not believe that the pure milk of the word is water. We 
 feel that blood is thicker than water. It is blood which draws and 
 unites us to you. And this hour, when we stand here side by side, 
 and the coming campaigns — in which, wherever the conflict shall be 
 closest, and the sword of the Spirit shall flash fastest and brightest, 
 we pledge ourselves not to fail you — these, these will do more to 
 unite us than all essays and plans of Christian union which the whole 
 college of apostles could devise, if they were now on earth. 
 
 One other excellence of this Society is mentioned in the resolution. 
 I refer to its influence upon the literature of odr country. May I 
 be permitted to say a word as to this? 
 
 The living ministry is God's ordinance to save them that believe. 
 
REV. DR. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 13 
 
 Therefore I have no sympathy with those who give the press prece- 
 dence to the pulpit. Still, who can measure the power which the 
 press exerts ? An ounce of lead moulded into a bullet and put in 
 a Minnie rifle, with a little black powder under it, will, if it meet no 
 obstruction, go some two miles, and do its errand very sufficiently upon 
 a man. But that same piece of lead, cast into types, and put into one 
 of Hoe's hghtning presses, with a little black liquid over it, will mock 
 at obstacles and do its mission, not on one man, but on millions, and 
 though mountains, continents, and oceans intervene. 
 
 A steam printing-press ! I feel something like awe as I stand 
 before one of these wonderful engines. It seems to me almost as if 
 it were a living thing — one of Ezfekiel's living creatures, "with the 
 hands of a man, and the noise of many waters^ and the spirit of the 
 living creature in its wheels." How it strips itself for its work 1 It 
 requires no nourishment, knows no weariness, but on it toils, with a 
 strength which would mock to scorn the might of a giant, with a 
 clamor as if it would shiver in pieces any substance within its grasp. 
 And yet, with a precision and delicacy unattainable by human mus- 
 cles, it receives a fabric which any rude touch would rend, and 
 impressing upon it, in the twinkling of an eye, thoughts which it 
 cost the most active mind hours to compose, flings off page after 
 page to instruct, delight, regenerate, and bless the world. 
 
 None of us appreciate the potency of the press as an agent for 
 the diffusion of knowledge over the land, in heavy tomes, in journals, 
 above all, in the daily newspaper, that wonderful modern institution 
 which has revolutionized not only the literary, but the commercial 
 and the political woi'ld. Constitutionally there are only two estates 
 in Congress, but a third estate has sprung up, occupying a higher 
 seat than members either of the Senate or House, while Congress is 
 in session, for it presides in the galleries, and continuing in session 
 after Congress has adjourned, in session all the year, and all over the 
 country. It is composed of the representatives of the press. They 
 form and shape public sentiment ; and at this day when the world 
 is, as never before, under the influence of public opinion, they wield a 
 power transcending that of both the constitutional bodies combined. 
 
 I wish I had time to say something of the singular power with 
 which the press has invested the public speaker. We talk of the 
 grandeur of ancient oratory, but how far did its influence extend ? 
 
14 REV. DR. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 Demostlienes ascends the bema. He delivers one of those master- 
 pieces of eloquence which are logic on fire. He ceases ; how many 
 has he reached by his appeals ? Athens was a little place, with about 
 one hundred and forty thousand inhabitants. Not more than ten 
 thousand have felt the burning words of that prince of orators. Nor 
 can he send his thoughts abroad through the land. There are no 
 reporters, no telegraphs by which he may " fulmine over Greece." 
 How different the potency of speech now ! In Congress or in Parlia- 
 ment, the audience really occupies but little of the speaker's concern. 
 He addresses the millions who, in a few hours, will be reading and 
 pondering the words which he has uttered. 
 
 Think of the power which the' press gives to written words, es- 
 pecially the word of .God. Niebuhr and others maintain that the 
 ancient writers wrote only for a circle of friends, to whom their 
 books were read. Indeed, if you think of the materials for writing 
 which they possessed, you will feel that their readers could only have 
 been a select few. As to the Scriptures, we find more than one epistle 
 ending with a charge that they "be read to tl>e churches." Contrast 
 with all this the facility now furnished by printing, when the compo- 
 sitions of a writer are, in a few days, distributed over all the land, 
 and when the word of God is in the hands of the poorest child on the 
 mountain top, of the savage in the depth of the forest. 
 
 I need not tell you how diligently the enemies of God have availed 
 themselves of these facilities ; and if the press were left to them, we 
 might well, with the German legend, ascribe the art of printing to 
 the devil. Even our most respectable booksellers have to cater to 
 the diseased taste for pernicious novels ; and the press groans inces- 
 santly — Sunday giving it no rest — with works either openly or secretly 
 assailing the gospel. It would be an unheard-of delinquency if the 
 church did not make this powerful engine tributary to the cause of 
 the Redeemer. And I do not hesitate to say that the vehicles we 
 employ for the circulation of truth are the most effectual, are indeed 
 the only effectual antidote to the poison which I have just mentioned. 
 But I have already detained you too long, and may not dwell upon 
 this topic. 
 
 Let me only remind you, that wlien Eternal Wisdom devised a 
 plan to counteract the evil in the world, it selected the publication of 
 tracts as the most effective expedient. The Bible is a collection of 
 
REV. DR. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 15 
 
 tracts written and distributed by God. When the period had come 
 for the Great Reformation, God disclosed the art of printing, without 
 which Luther would have failed. And when Baxter, Bunyan, and 
 Rutherford were shut up in prison for the truth, with what sway 
 did they not employ the press. A man may not preach, he is not 
 properly ordained to preach. Very well. But he may write a book. 
 For this no priestly manipulation is necessary. If God have laid 
 his hand on a man's head and heart, he may write a book. And 
 a man who writes a good book is a priest, a bishop, an archbishop, 
 though he may never have been to Rome, or Geneva, or Lambeth, or 
 Princeton, or Andover, or Brown University. What would the Sun- 
 day-school do without a religious press, without a library ? In our 
 families we cannot and would not keep our children from reading : 
 what a blessing it is, that we can fill our houses with works in which 
 the noblest intellect and most refined taste have been consecrated to 
 Jesus. The individual Christian is now endowed with a talent to do 
 good which cannot be overestimated. He may be ignorant, he may 
 not be able to say a word, he may be a deaf mute, but he has the gift 
 of tongues, he can speak with the learning and eloquence of the most 
 illustrious saints who have adorned the church and pulpit ; for he 
 can distribute their best productions. 
 
 In a word, and not to weary you with details, look at the masses 
 of busy, restless life around you — the multitude whose steps "beat 
 the murmuring walks like autumn rain." Who are they ? Where 
 are their homes? How fatal are the influences which encircle them ! 
 How can they be visited by the ministries of salvation, except 
 through your agency ? There is no accommodation for them in the 
 churches, and thousands would not enter the house of God if there 
 were. What is to become of them ? God so loved the world that he 
 gave his only begotten Son for its salvation. Yet they will perish, 
 unless you go to their rescue. 
 
 But they must not perish. " Let them alone ?" No, no ; God for- 
 bids that. Jesus does not say, " Let them alone ; wait till they come 
 to you." He says, "Go" — "Go, preach the gospel."- In -faith let 
 us obey that command. Men and brethren, it is impossible for us 
 to look back, without thanking God and taking courage. Those 
 who prayed and wept over the cradle of the American Tract So- 
 ciety never anticipated such results from its maturest vigor as we 
 
16 REV. DR. FULLER'S ADDRESS. 
 
 have already witnessed. They never even hoped that it would scat- 
 ter such blessings over this country ; that it would be such an ally 
 to the ministry ; that it would infuse such strength into the churches ; 
 that it would so penetrate the dark places of our land, and shed light 
 there ; that it would take the emigrant as he lands upon our shores, 
 and lead him to the Cross ; that it would plant Sunday-schools and 
 churches in wildernesses and desert places ; that it would so power- 
 fully reinforce the cause of Temperance, the Bible, the Missionary 
 enterprise ; that from Maine to Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
 cific, in the valleys, by the rivers, all along the mountain ranges, it 
 would comfort the afflicted, enlighten the blind, restore the fallen, and 
 lead the erring in the paths of salvation. 
 
 Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. Because he hath been our 
 help, therefore under the shadow of his wings will we rejoice. No 
 weapon formed against us shall prosper. It is the cause of Him, 
 in whose hands are the resources of the Universe. Let us but have 
 faith, and a glorious future beckons us on. Faith — faith in the 
 human soul, which is endowed with powers transcending the con- 
 ceptions of an angel, and which, though fallen, still retains a dim 
 longing for its original dignity and purity — faith in the gospel, which 
 meets all the profoundest necessities of the soul — faith, above all, in 
 Him who is, this night, here present, to animate us ; who is saying, 
 "Fear not; Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
 world." This faith is all we need to cover this whole continent, to fill 
 the whole earth with the trophies of redeeming grace. 
 
 Faith, mighty faith, the promise eyes, 
 
 And looks to that alone, 
 Laughs at impossibilities, 
 
 Ani sayf, It shall b3 done. 
 
er^T 
 
 THE CHIEF EXCELLENCE OF FEMALE CHARACTER. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE THE GRADUATING CLASS 
 
 OF 
 
 Oxford Female College, DST. O. 
 
 MAY 30th, 1860. 
 
 BY 
 
 ELDER JAMES McDANIEL,, 
 
 OP 
 FAYBTTEVILLE N. C. 
 
 AND 
 PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST 
 OF 
 
 THE YOUNa ladies:. 
 
 FAYETTEVILLE, N. C. : 
 
 A: T. BANES, " COURIER" OFFICE PRINT. 
 
 1860. . 
 
SEIRMON. 
 
 " Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she 
 shall be praised. " Proverbs 31 : Chap, 30 Verse. 
 
 More than two thousand and eight hundred years ago, as sacred history 
 informs us, there hved in Palestine a Jewish Lady of great intelligence 
 and piety. As the Moon, though not equal to the Sun, goes forth along 
 the planetary sphere as an Orb of light, possessing and exhibiting great 
 distinction and obvious excellence, so passed along the sphere of life that 
 illustrious Jewess. Understanding the true and chief excellence and 
 adornments of female character, she selected them as her theme on a cer- 
 tain occasion, and sung in living and immortal notes her thoughts upon 
 this subject to the fair Daughters of Jerusalem^and those who should suc- 
 ceed them in every age to the end of time. One of her brilliant senti- 
 ments, which is worthy to engage the attention of every lady, is that pre- 
 sented ia the Text. '* Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain ; but a wo 
 man that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. " 
 
 My aim, dear young ladies, in addressing you on this occasion, will be 
 more your permanent profit than your transient entertainment. While 
 happiness is Heaven's bestowment, your own, and that of many others will, 
 in a great measure, depend on the part that you may act on life's grand, 
 eventful stage. It is conceded on all hands to be a solemn and important 
 thing to die, but it is a more solemn and important thing to live. For, the 
 manner of life is the seed, from Avhich the future harvest of happiness 
 or wo:: will eventually grow. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for 
 whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to 
 the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the 
 spiritshall of the spirit reap life everlasting. " 
 
 rWoman's act at first affected herself and all the world — a kind of pre- 
 sage of v/hat her influence would be in every age, while the wheels of time 
 shall continue to run. Much more depends on female character and in- 
 fluence than is generally supposed and ,\inderstood. There is quite as 
 much truth as poetry in that little fainilifir song, in which woman is repre- 
 sented as ruling the lords of creation. A- distinguished writer has advanc- 
 ed the idea th.it the ladies dctQvmixie .nianncrs, and he might with equal 
 
v^ 
 
 propriety have added destinies tooA Invested with a magic power, wo- 
 mau's influence, Hke M'>ses' rod, achieves wonders in the production of 
 evil or good ; it fills the land with plagues or makes the beneficial stream 
 from the rock to flow I 
 
 Youth is the appropriate season in which this mighty principle is to be 
 fitted for the position it will assume, and the sphere it will occupy. This 
 is the season for the pursuit and attainment of those elements of character^ 
 which will aff'ord a blessedness to yourselves and toothers Some of these 
 I propose to bring to your notice in this exercise, f My theme is 
 
 THE CHIEF EXCELLENCE OF FEMALE CHARACTER. 
 " Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth tlie 
 Lord, she shall be praised. " 
 
 In discoursing on this Text, I shall consider, 
 
 I. Those things which by many are estimated, yet erroneously, the chief 
 excellence of Female Character. And 
 
 II, Those which are truly and positively the chief excellence of Fe- 
 male character. 
 
 I. Let us consider those things which are by many estimated as the 
 chief excellences of Female Character, but which are in reality only Hrg((- 
 tive oxcellenees. The principal of these are the two specified in the text 
 — Favor and Beauti/. 
 
 I. The first is Favor. " Favor is deceitful." The value of favor de- 
 pends on the source from Vt'hich it emenates. To have the admiration of 
 the vain, the thoughtless, the worthless, deserves not so much as a wish or 
 desire. Such favor is deceitfuL And yet there are multitudes of both 
 sexes who coA'et this vain admiration or favor, as the chief excellence. The 
 means of attaining it, becomes an object of absorbing interest to them. One 
 of these means is gaudy and extr^vagapt equipage. Hence that extrava- 
 gance in dress, which characterizes the present age, and threatens the 
 happiness of millions fjr time and eternity. Eighteen hundred years ago, 
 the inspired Apostle uttered a prohibition. of it, in all the elofjuence, zeal and 
 pathos of an ambassador from the Heavens. Hear him — " Whose adorn- 
 ing, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting of the hair, and wearing 
 of Gold, or putting on of apparrel, but let it be the hidden man of the 
 heart, in that which is not corruptible, cveji the ornament of a meek and 
 quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." 
 
 A stranger as I am to nearly all who are present, I may not be presum- 
 ed to charge extravagance to any of this audience ; yet, if the charge were 
 made, happy for all, if no one niigiit require an artful, eloquent, and im- 
 
5 
 
 pasriioned advocacy to secure a verdict of " not guilty," from a disGi'imina- 
 ting public. If no youthful mind liere present is affected by this vanity 
 of such general and wide-spreading influence, yet the danger that they 
 may b ecome the victims of it, is suflieient to justify a friendly warning. 
 
 \ It is a fact, written with the clearness of a sunbeam on the very face of 
 society, that the Milliner and Mautua-maker, with all their inventive 
 genius, can scarcely keep up with the ueuiauds of the fair sex, for varied 
 fashions and new styles of dress. The Manufacturers of fine and costly 
 fabrics, with all their industry and energy, can hardly furnish new and 
 attractive styles, with sufficient rapidity to gratify this passion for mere i 
 display or vain show. And all this is to gain admiration or a favor which i 
 is deccUjal. In many instances estates are wasted, and families beggared 
 by this extravagance in dress. It is like the last one of the evils which i 
 escaped from Pandora's Box to afflict the world. It is the p/ay«te of the ; 
 present age. Vy'here the remedy or cure of it is to be found, is a problem, j 
 the solution of which is much more important to society and individuals, ' 
 
 ithan was that which srave Archimedes his immortal fame. \ 
 
 Scarcely may we look for its cure to our Seminaries of learning. Their 
 
 ■power has already to some extent been tried, and it has proved almost as 
 aminflucntial as an astronomical Lecture delivered to the raging storm- 
 The Press, that mighty power which creates and governs political worlds, 
 has made some eifort at reform in this particular, but to little visible effect. 
 The Pulpit in too many instances, with a cuwariUce or negligence unwor- 
 
 •ihy of its office, has winked at it rather than attempted to covrect it. HuW 
 
 vthe evil is to be checked or removed is the problem to be solved. 
 ^ The origin of this extravagant display in dress is hidden in the remote 
 
 ..ages of antiquity. There is good reason to believe that it contributed 
 much to induce that defection whicb brought the Delu™ on the world. 
 
 • Sacred History tells us that tlie Deluge was occasioned by that sin which; 
 
 -originated in the intermarriage of the Sons of God with the Daughters of 
 .men. Attracted it is believed hj this vain show, this gaudy plumage in 
 
 '■which the Daughters of men arrayed themselves, the Sons of God admired , 
 
 ..them and sought their companionship. An union was thus formed ' 
 
 'Avhich was displeasing to God, and ultimately resulted in the ruin of men. 
 That admiration or favor based on this vain display, proved deceltfal and 
 ended in ruin. God never intended that men should be allured by such 
 vain show, and he has uttered his prohibition of it in tones so audible and 
 impressive, that all may understand it. See Isaaih 3 Chap : 10-24^ 
 
 Too many of the fair ones seem to think that if they can succeed in 
 adorning themselves in gaudy and costly attire, they cannot fail of admi- 
 
ration and favor. Hence, it often is the one thinr/ needful in their desire 
 and parsuit. Their great solicitude is about dress, wherewith they shall 
 be clothed. There is an unhallowed rivalry among many, v»- ho shall excel 
 in artificial adornment. Like Turped, the deluded Roman Maid, they 
 will risk their very soul for costly attire. But, remember well that the 
 favor that is won by this means, the favor that is based upon this founda- 
 tion, is deceitful. Not even all who run into this extravagance succeed 
 in the attainment of that admiration or favor to which they aspire. Many 
 of those extravagant ones live year after yeae, ignorant ho»v little real 
 worth is appropriated to them by the wise and reflecting. This explains 
 tlx;^ secret hov,^ it coiacs to pass that so many fine Butterflies, decked with 
 golden adornment, live so long upon the wing without the offer of a hand 
 or home. Some it is true, by this means inveigle and ensnare the giddy 
 and the vain like tliomselvcs, and the conquest proves a dire calamity to 
 both. For such '' favor is deceitful. " flam no enemy to all due perso- 
 nal adornment. Nay, I encourage it, — I only condemn it when it extends 
 to extravagance, and is sought as a basis of favqrj 
 
 rX second basis of deceitful favor is riches. Worldly wealth exerts a 
 magic power in the creation of admiration and favor. '* The rich hath 
 many friends, " is the anuonncement of inspiration. In this age, almo.st 
 the first question concei'ning a young dady is this. Is she rich ? And it it 
 be ascertained that she has ridiea, she rarJy fails to have admirers. Favor 
 will spring up amid riches, or the anticipation of them, as a plant in a hot- 
 bed. It will vrill grow up as quickly as did Jonah's gourd. Pour a^uan- 
 tity of honey on the ground, and if there be any flies in that region, many 
 of them will collect thither. There are many flies in human form, which 
 are on the wing and scent for the honey of wealth. They will be sure to 
 entertain a favor towards the irealth possessed, whether they have any 
 love for the possessor or not. Many a lady possessing onl}' a common por- 
 tion of Avealth receives the.oifer of the hand by those, who Avould spurn 
 the idea of making such ah offer were it not for vhe property she has, or 
 which is nnticiplted with her. The morah of many of those adnurers are 
 far below the point of respectability, aye, thoy are sunk to infamj-J And 
 •tliere arc others whose indolence and prodigality are such as to rcn- 
 •der them but little more deserving than the dissipated. The favor of a 
 h'.zy spend-thrift, who lives merely to cat and vrear, and waste, is nothing 
 worth, and she that values it is reckless of her happiness. Yet, too many 
 iair ones never think seriously about the morals, motives ov j)ro2:)e7isities of 
 admirers. They assume it as a prospective certainty, that under their 
 jjlasfcic influence, all will go right. They fcllovr such delusive dreams, auul 
 
at length prove by bitter experience the realities of unanticipated decep- 
 tion. Such " favor is deceitful. 
 
 I 2? TTie'second thing estimated by many, but erroneously so, the chief ex- 
 cellence of female character is " heaufi/, " personal beauty. This is greatly 
 admired, and often ardently sought. Though numbered among the chief 
 excellences and adornments of Female character by the masses, yet it is 
 really not one of them. Vain and unworthy persons sometimes attain to 
 positions and exert an influence of which they are unworthy. And as it 
 is with persons, so it ia with things — so it is \ii.h. personal beauty, it holds 
 a position and wields an influence in many instances beyound its desert.\ 
 The spirit of truth has announced this fact. '' Beauty is vain. " How 
 generally are those who possess it, rendered vain by it ! In its effects it 
 is vain. 
 
 Its basis is vanity. A fq^er or some attack of sickness will mar it. 
 Declining health will be sure to spoil it. But, if none of those occur- 
 rences whioh are so common in our wr rid, and from which so few are ex- 
 empted, shall befall beauty ; yet time or age will certainly bear away its 
 charms, and consume its loveliness. So vain, so precarious is beauty. 
 
 And how vain is beauty when it constitutes the fouadation of admira- 
 tion or favor ! How deceptive the admiration or favor that rests upon 
 such a basis as beauty 1 When the foundation is removed, what becomes 
 of the structure that rests upon it ! Could the grave, where now sleeps 
 many an once heautifid one, be penetrated by some omnipotent and resusi- 
 tative voice, and the departed be recalled from her calm repose to tell the 
 history of her own experience, what a tale she would tell of fugitive affection!. 
 What an account she would give of the sorrows she felt, when deserted by 
 that affection which was founded only on personal beauty ! What hours- 
 and days did she spend in pensive sadness, when her beauty had departed, 
 she sat as in the Autumn of life, and sighed in strams like these — 
 
 " The trees of the forest 
 Shall blossom again, 
 And the song-bird shall carol 
 A soul-thrilling strain ; 
 
 But the heart fate has wasted 
 
 No Spring shall restore, 
 
 And its songs shall be joyful 
 
 No more — never moi'e — never more ! 
 
 At length the flower from which the beauty had gone, itself drooped 
 and died, and dropt from its Stem to mingle with tlie ground ! Beauty 
 
r 
 
 8 
 
 1 II. I shall dwell no longer ontlie negative excellence of Female char- 
 acter, but pass to consider — 
 
 Those which are truly and positively the chief excellencies. 
 
 " A woman that fearetli the Lord, she shall be praised." The fear of 
 »the Lord is the grand embodyment of the the chief excellence of charac- 
 acter. In it certain mental qualities are embraced. I will specify the 
 chief of these : ^ 
 
 1. The first is r/ood taste.': And the fear of the Lord may hardly be 
 regarded as existing where there is not good taste. This is a creature of 
 the mind. Circumstnnces, associations, and Education may, and do exert 
 a considerable iufluence in the formation of taste. But, after all, its pater- 
 nity is traceable to the mind. It depends upon the qualities of the mind.. 
 And where incorrect taste exists and prevails, it springs mainly from some 
 tiefection in the mind. It is of mental origin. 
 
 There are multitudes who have no taste — no relish for solid and useful 
 reading, or, for such as lays the mind under the necessity of labor to di- 
 gest what is read They have no relish for a train of thought which re- 
 quires diligence to pursue and comprehend it. They dislike all solid lite- 
 rature. But, they are delighted with a mere romance or story, which is 
 wholly fictitious, and from which not a solid or useful idea can be gleaned. 
 Novels of the least merit are those most admired by them. I do not 
 condemn all literature in the style of Novels — far from it. There are some 
 productions witten after the style of Novels, which contain great j9rzHc?}j/fs 
 and inculcate great morals. 1 speak in condemnation rathel* of those 
 works which discuss no important principle, and contain no good moral. 
 These corrupt the mind and spoil its good qualities., I never knew a lady 
 possessing this mere dust-catching mind, that ever 'did much for her own 
 happiness, or that of others. Such give poor evidence indeed that they fear 
 the Lord ! 
 
 And there arc scores who have as little taste or relish for proper conver- 
 sation, as for solid literature. Their themes of conversation are of the 
 most trashy, superficial, penrile kind. Vain remarks about others — foolish 
 criticisms on dress, or persons — childish sayings make up their conversa- 
 tional store. Not unfrequcntly a lady fi'om a Seminary or College, will 
 entertain for a considerable time, one, two, or more gaping gentry, with a 
 conversation abounding in trash enough to sicken twenty persons of good 
 taste. 
 
 ( And not a few there be, who have no taste, or relish for industrial em- 
 ployment. They have an utter aversion to the use of the scissors and needle. 
 If any garment is to be made or mended, a seamstress must be hired for 
 
theAVork. They cannot bear the idea of iiddressiug themselves to the care 
 aud task of keeping the house in proper order. And iu their estimation, 
 5t would be an everlasting reproach, enough to exile them from the state of 
 Jadysliip, to superintend the preparation for the table ! They would blush 
 and squirm, your speaker knows not how long, for it to be said that they had 
 ever catered the kitchen and superintended, or aided iu cooking a meal.: — 
 They are satisfied only with dressing up their persons, in such finery as 
 they can procure — receiving and ''paying calls," and acting their full part 
 iu the gossipping of the day. Now, good taste is the very reverse of all 
 this. It is the fulfilment ot that ApostoHc advice, given in the 4th chap, 
 ot Phil, and 8th v : '' Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things arc 
 honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever- 
 things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any 
 virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things I" 
 
 f 2. The second mental quality included in the fear of the Lord, is dis- 
 cretion. Many an one does not consider or reflect on what she says or 
 does. She may mean no harr--. She puts on certain airs, and a few extra 
 cants, not intending by these things in any wise to render herself ridicur 
 lous, or vain; but only presuming this to be the means of attaining an 
 enviable notoriety, or distinction.! Yet, the result is the very opposite of 
 what she hopes to realize. SEeoften speaks dispai-agingh'- of others with- 
 out proper cause, not intending thereby to do harm ; but it is the sponta- 
 neous effusion of a mind and heart stored only with trash and vanity, and 
 " out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." She does not 
 intend by such a couri3e to render herself odious, and make her society a 
 curse to community ; but such is the result. Indiscretion is a characterT 
 istic too frequently found in character. 
 
 Then be careful to avoid all those airs which have the aspect of pride, 
 vanity, or self-importance, remembering that the exhibition of them is 
 oflfensive in the sight of God, and will inev'tibly lower, instead of elevate 
 you m the judgment and esteem of all the discreet. Never indulge in 
 evil-speaking. The practice is not only odious, but it is also corrupting. 
 " Evil communications corrupt good manners " — you will thereby corrupt 
 your own minds, and contract a despicable habit. If you cannot speak 
 well of an individual, touch his or her character but tenderly, except where 
 the turpitude existing is monstrous and manifest. Remember the golden 
 rule _" As ye would that others should dp unto you, do ye even so unto 
 them." 
 
 I 3. The third mantaZ quality included in the fear of the Lord, is dcci&iarif 
 .and firi\incts. Ho-sy many thei-is arc who hav6 no i^ind of their b'wur-^ 
 
10 
 
 Theirs is a kiud of cowpifatiou, a little from one, and a little from another,, 
 until, in the aggregate, their mind is a perfect medley. They have no 
 settled principles — they do not know what they believe, nor why they be- 
 lieve what they pretend to believe. They resemble the toif-^klff which 
 the little boy has built and rigged, and placed upon the bosom ot the pond, 
 While his attention is for a moment turned away, there comes a puff of 
 wind which bears it out upon the deep, where it is driven and tossed 
 about as wind and wave may direct. So multitudes have no decision and 
 firmness. If one have their friendship or favor, no reliance may be placed 
 upon it. Their affection is a mere cob-web. They are children o^ caprice 
 or whim. And each one of such, is a little world of vchims and notions. 
 They can bear no disappointment, — no cross— no trial — no opposition — no 
 test of principle. These unavoidable circumstances with which they meet, 
 sour them, and the acidity is imparted to the cup of life. Thus they 
 act a part like the man in Israel who gathered green gourds for pottage,, 
 and when the cofnpany tasted of the provision, such was the bitterness, they^ 
 exclaimed, " 0, thou man of God, there is Death in the pot!" 
 
 » Bi^t^~^pire to decision and firmness. Have a reason, and a good reason. 
 ipr what you beli/3ve and do. Let such solidity ever characterize your 
 (^onduct and words, that all acquainted with you. will feel that you may 
 be trusted. Be ever scrupulous to speak the truth, in all things, carefully 
 avoiding misrepresentation, exaggeration, and mere fabrication. Deliberate. 
 falsehood on the lips of mail, is enough to make humanity weep j but falser, 
 hood on a woman's lips is enough to make an angel blush ! \ 
 
 4. The fourth men i'a? quality included in the fear of the Lord, la a Jixed 
 cleterminadon to merit universal admiration hy the attainment and exhibir 
 tion of all those excellencies ichich are within your power. There are many 
 ■who demand esteem without the merit of it. Their claim is unjust, and 
 it passes uul^eeded. However much you may merit \iniversal esteem, 
 you will share it only from a part. If you become the embodiment of all 
 those excellencies which challenge universal esteem, these very exellenT. 
 cies exhibited by you, will expose you to the dislike of some. There is 
 an irreconcilable antagonism between virtue and vice. Long as this statQ. 
 pf things shall continue, vice will look on virtue with that malicious jeal- 
 ousy, with which the fallen spirit of old, contemplated the happiness of 
 the innocent pair in Eden But, remember if ye be reproached for right, 
 eousness sake, happy are ye I Aim to be worthy of universal esteem, and 
 if there be those from whom you have it not, account that failure itself a 
 l^rilliant in your character. 
 
 6. The fifth mental quality included in the fear of the Lord, ie mental 
 
n 
 
 culture Too many act as though their education belonged only to the seaso'K 
 of their association with the College or Seminary. When they graduate, 
 all their text-books are laid aside, and all their studies given up, like a 
 dress that is worn out and of no further use. Two years aftewards they 
 know but'little of all that they have been for years laboring to acquire. — 
 Like tae Prodigal, they waste all this precious store, and the money, the 
 time, and labor bestowed to acquire it, are all thrown away for naught ! 
 If such a course be correct, then educational facilities are a mere profitless 
 farce and should be discarded. But, such is not the proper course. It 
 involves impropriety and guilt. When the Institution of learning is left — - 
 when the diploma has been received, the work of education has but just 
 begun. Instead of the structure being finished and complete, the /owiiAt- 
 tion is Ohly laid. And you should go on to build thereon, endeavoring to 
 improve and enlarge your literai'y temple. For, that -tvill be k source of 
 solid advantage, to you, when worldly vanities shall be 'of noavarHj 
 
 SECONDLY. In the fear of the LOrd are included certain qualitM 'of the 
 heart, as well as mind. The first of these of which 1 shall speak, is 
 (jovernahle temper. There is a very great diversity in the temper pos- 
 sessed by persons. Some unhappily possess a temper that is peculiarly 
 excitable, and when excited it is hard to goteru or control. No one may 
 be considered at fault for the peculiarity of temper possessed. For, there 
 is no art or human power that can radically change the teMper of any 
 ■ one. Much, however, may be done to its modification and^g6vernffient. And 
 this is the duty and work of the individual, " He that is slolvto anger," 
 aays the inspired penman, " is bettor than he that taketh a city. " The 
 .proper government of the temper is a grander and more profitable achive- 
 ment, than the conquest of of a wealthy city,. Ever wtitch oveif .your own 
 temper, and keep it in subjection, for if you neglect this, in moments of 
 'excijcment with which you will inevitably meet, you will say or do things, 
 the review of which afterwards will fill your soul with sorrow, and wash 
 ■your cheeks with tears! "Be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun gO 
 
 down upon your wrath. " 
 
 2. The second quality of the heart included in the fear of the Lord is 
 
 a disposition of kindness The society of this world is mixed with many 
 \vho have no tender sympathies — no commiseration, and in whose consti- 
 tution there are but few, if any of the elements refered to in that beauti- 
 ful Btauza of the Poet — 
 
 " Teach me to feci another's woe, 
 To hide the fault I see ; 
 That mercy I to others show, 
 That merer show to me '' 
 
12 
 
 InstOc'icl of being dicposed to net ii part like the Divinely appointed 
 Doves that ministered to the suffering I'rophct of the Lord, they arc more 
 like the Vulture, ever seeking the defective parts of character on which 
 to feed, and their delight is to rend and destroy. But, be ye ever kindly 
 nfFectioned. Let It never be that you can look on suffering innocence 
 ^*■•ith a heart unmoved. Eehold Salem's Daughters weeping at the sight 
 of the suffering Savour, and seek the f^ame kindly di.'^position. 
 
 You Vi'ill often meet with those on whom fortune has not smiled so 
 propitiously as it has on you. They have sensibilities as well as you. Look 
 not upon them with coldness and scorn. Often will you meet with those, 
 whom death' has orphaned, — thej' have no one to perform towards them a 
 tender parent's part. From the grave of the departed, there comes the 
 melting voice of appeal to you, sayiilg : " Be kind! Oli I he kind to the 
 
 loved ones from ivlioin we arc parted." 
 
 8. The third quality of the liearl included in the f.3ar of the Lord is 
 an inflexible regard to the di^tiwdixm which God has cifabliyhcd hetween 
 ritjhf (Old irronrj. 
 
 To know tlie rifiht and approve it too, 
 
 T o know the n-roiui, and yet the wronjx pursue 
 
 irtvolves fearful guilt and danger There are multitudes who are easily 
 Ted to dispose of the distinction between viglit and vn-ong, as a very .small 
 thing. Thus the conscience soon becomes so torpid and insensible, that 
 they find but little difficulty in rejecting the good and embracing the evil 
 in almost any instance. It is a thing of vital importance to possess and 
 maintain a nice sensibility touching the di-^tinction between right and 
 wrong. It must never be compromised. Rather suffer than coilscnt to) 
 do wliat you know or believe to be wrong. No circumstances can 
 Justify one in doing wrong. The consequences of deliberately doing 
 so, though fancied by you to be very trifling, or insignificant, may 
 prove your utter ruin. '• Remember Lots Wife I " She vainly imagined 
 the consequence of so apparently small a thing as that of looking back to 
 the City contrary to the Divine command, would be harmless, yet it bau.'s- 
 ed her ruin. Es:iu sold his Lirth-rirjht for a morsel of meat, and vainly 
 fancied in so doing, that he was exposing himself to no fearful conse- 
 quence ; but afterwards ho found to his everlasting regret, that the act so 
 lightly esteemed by him had caused his overthrow ! And the scriptures 
 point to his example, and in tones of solemn warning address every one. 
 "Lest there be any — profane Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold hiu 
 birth-right. For vc know how that afterwards when he would have in- 
 b'i^itcd thV hto'!*^n*:f, h(» VrW it/cVtW, for h(? fduinl nrt plaV-tJ of rtpMifjumJ 
 
IS 
 
 thuiigli lio souglit it (.'ircfii'ilv and Vi'ith tears. " " Tlic prudcat man for- 
 seetli the evil and hidetli himself, but the simple.pass on and are puniohed." 
 
 4. The fourth quality of the lurtrt included in the I'ear of the Lord, is 
 humilifij. Pride and haughtiness are too often found in human character. 
 A proud look God abhors. "]?e clothed with humility," is Heaven's 
 t^unsel to mortals. Pride is one of the most dangerous, if not the most 
 dangerous quality to be found in the human heart. It was one of the 
 principal elements in that sin which iM-eei^itatcd an Angel of hght from 
 . his glorious abode down to the depths of iatenuinable darkness and woe. — 
 There are many who have such pride of heart that they arc ashamed o^ 
 Christ. They deem it a (lishoum- to obey all his commands. They glory 
 i-u that which is their shame. Jlut, no one lu-s any real and abiding 
 honor outside of obedience to Jesus Christi They may ha/e wordly honor 
 in disobedience, but this is the very essence of dishonor. Such honor as 
 is gained by disobedience to God, is in reality deep "ignominy. It will 
 thus appear in a corning day.' " Them tliat honor me, I will honor, but 
 tliej that despise mj fih.iU bs tightly esteemed." " Learn of me, for I am 
 of a meek and lowly mind, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." 
 
 ■5. The fifth quality of tlie heart, included in the fear of the Lord is tlip, 
 '(lispoxition to he ra^eful. ''■'• To dx5 good and communicate forget not, for 
 with such sacrifices God is v»'ell pleased. " Too many seem to think that 
 •' their only business in this world is to live unto themselves. They reahze 
 no responsibility in relation to society. ^Vhatevcr may be the wants of 
 the world, they r'e'Srtgnize no responsibility as resting on them to perform 
 any part in the silpply of those wants Ee ye fed and clothed is tlieir 
 proclamation to the needy, brU they move not a hand or a finger to afi"ord 
 the necessary relief. They are mere passengers on the ship of life, and 
 they have but little concern about any except themselves, and a few nearly 
 related to them. But, God has placed you in this world to be useful, to be 
 a blessing to society. Aim therefore to properly fulfil this design of your 
 mission into this mode of existence. Aspire to such a life that when your 
 earthly career shall close, and you shall pass from the scenes of this world, 
 .your usefulness may be left as a valuable legacy to society and the guar- 
 dian Angel, clad in the garments of invisibility, may sit upon your grave- 
 stone and sweetly hymn your calm repose in these charming strains, 
 
 " She hath done what she could. " 
 
 G. The sixth quality of the heart included in the fear of the Lord, is 
 Hitprr.ma love to God. This includes repentance for sin, for no one can 
 love God truly and supremely and at the same time love sin. Deep sor- 
 •j-trw fdr filn ftiid hatred td it) are always tbnnectbd with Icfi'^.t'o Ci^cxl. And 
 
u 
 
 without supreme love to Q'jd, the auucipatiou or hope of salvation itf 
 another world, is nothing better than a delusive dream. You must obtain 
 
 A renovated li'oaff,- 
 
 *' The Great Redeemer's throne, 
 
 Where only ^Jhrist is heard to speak, ^ 
 
 Where Jesus reigns alone. 
 
 This is the " one thing needful. " Without it on every other attain- 
 ment and possession, this inscription must be written, " One thing thoU 
 laclcest yet I " This is the chief of all the amiable qualities that embel- 
 lish character. This is the ornament of the most accomplished education-.- 
 This is the true and abiding loveliness and worth I This is the crowning 
 excellence of the heart ! Upon it Jehovah looks with approving smilea 
 as a thing " of great price. " 
 
 'Tis Religion that can give, 
 Sweetest pleasures while we live, 
 'Tis Religion must sap{)ly, 
 Solid comforts when we die. 
 
 After Death its joys will be. 
 Lasting as Eternity ^ 
 Be the living God nVJ' friend, 
 Then my bliss will never eird ! " 
 
 '*Reme*hber now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, wllilc the evil 
 days conic not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no 
 pleasure ifei them." " They that seek me early thall find me. " " Wilt 
 thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, Thou art the guide of 
 iny youth ? " 
 
 The perfection of all the qualities I have specified is practical oi/eJii-nce 
 and consecration td God. This is the reliable evidence of the fear of the 
 Lord. " This is the love of God that we keep His eommandmcMs. " 
 "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." "Why call 
 ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ? " " Xot every one 
 that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of IleaVcn, 
 but he that doeth the icill of my Father which is in Heaven. " " If «ny 
 man love me, he will keep my saying. " Such a character and life t^^ill 
 hot fail to be rewarded with the praise of all the good on earth, and with 
 the praise of God Irt the world to come. " A woman ihai fearcth the Lord 
 she shall be praincd. " 
 
 And let it be remembered tliaf this roligioti catitiot be sought and cm- 
 ^jraceal tbo soon. 
 
15 
 
 It is the chief coHcern 
 
 • ffcv 
 
 ,0f mortals here beiow. 
 
 Make hastQ i^Q^, make haste to (secure it ! !' Boast not thyself o^^ 
 to-morrow, for thptji kuowest not what a day may bving forth ! " 
 
 I would not, j^ijnecessarily cause you one painful ^niiuotion. But it is 
 ;neet that T sl^oigld here remind you of jtl^e uncertainfij of life. 8ome ,of . 
 you, in all probability will $11 a youthful grave. Your bri<i;htest anticipa- 
 tions will be suddenly blighted ! Your Sun will go down ere it is cv,en 
 noon ! The Rose that bloomed in Spriog, will ere the close of Summer., 
 be faded and gone! The coffin — the Aviuding-sheet — the grave, ere long 
 will your youthful form enclose! Hardly can such an anticipation be realized 
 without a starting tear I Which one of you may be thus destined soon to 
 droop and fade, and die, is a secret unk^Q^wn ! Then let the salutary in- 
 quiry come home to every heart, in all it§ appropriate solemnity — " Lord 
 is it I. " Must I soon sickeB, fade an^ .d"^ • •■ ^^ ye therefore, ready, 
 for in such an hour as ye think not, the SoJ> of PiL,a,.Q cometh. " 
 
 Haste then ye fair ones (t<j be wis«, 
 And stay not for the morrows sua j 
 The longer wisdom you despise, 
 The hJirder is she to be won! 
 
 "What thy hands find to do, do it with thy might, for .there is no 
 work, nor device, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest. '' 
 
 Or, if in the kind providence of God, you may be spared rpany years, 
 piety will do you no harm, but it will be a source of unspeakable advan- 
 tage to you. " Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and allher paths are, 
 peace". 
 
 No mortal doth know, what Christ will bestow,. 
 "What light, joy and comfort, go after Him, go,! 
 
 Young Ladies of the Graduating Class! It is more than an ordinary 
 pleasure to see you encircled with your literary laurels, procured and 
 woven into a ever-greea wreath by industry and diligence. In this plea- 
 sure. Teachers, Parents, Guardians and friends, with me richly share. I 
 congratulate you on the distinction to which you have thus attained. You 
 will gq forth from these lovely scenes of study, bearing the precious trea- 
 sure of joyous, budding hopes. And I trust that your pathway in life 
 may be as the shining light, which shines more and more unto the per- 
 fect day. W herever your lot iq tl^e prpyidence of God may be cast, re- 
 
 meicber the counsels I have given yew. And let each one diligently strive 
 
to 
 
 so to live, that wlri>n, our last meeting; shall arrive — srav uieetinu: at tliu 
 grcnt examination, where the worthy in Christ's grandest of all Institu^ 
 tions shall be graduated w^ith everlasting honorn, it may Le to us attended 
 by no painful emotion, and saddened by no falling tear I 
 
 Then in that happy, happy huid, 
 Well no more take the parting hand ! 
 
 My beloved Brother, the President of this College, and the Faculty 
 associated with you I I may not on this occasion, withold from you an ex- 
 pression of my congratulation. The pleasure with which I contemplato 
 your success and prosperity is not feigned. I bestow no vain flattery. To 
 speak the truth of persons, and tell the deeds of worth whicli they have 
 performed, though highly commendatory of them, is not flatter^'. That is 
 flattery where commenda;iou is expressed in the absence of men' f. Your 
 tvorhs praise you. Your labors and success arc panegyric, printed in 
 brilliant and legible characters. Had you not performed your duties faith-, 
 fully, and nobly exerted yourselves, this large assemblage of young ladies 
 would uot have graced your College as Pupils. This is beyond doubt, the. 
 most brilliant of all the d^ys in the history of this Institution. The plea-. 
 sure which you doubtless feel, is not like that vain, egotistic joy felt by 
 the Chaldean Monarch when he looked over Babylon in the zenith of its 
 glory, and exclaimed, " Is not this gTcat Babylon that I have built ?" but 
 it is the nobler pleasure of having educated young ladies to be ornaments 
 to society, and blessings to kindred and to the world. Happy President I 
 Happy Teachers ! Happy Pupils ! may each returning commencement in 
 this College, add new aiid increased happiness, that like the fostered mul- 
 tiflorous vine, it may grow, and display ils countle.-^s flowers i^ all their 
 beauty and fragrance to the admiration of all around I 
 
 Within the i)ast eleven years, how changed and how improved is the 
 town of Oxford I Here has arisen this attractive Institution, now teeming 
 as it does, with scores of lovely pupils. Yonder has arisen, on the liber- 
 ality of that aocieqt and noble Fraternity of Free and Accepted 3Iasons, 
 another beautiful College, where will be educated many a young man to, 
 fill positions of honor and usefulness in the world. Heaven smile with 
 fostering care on both these Institutions of learning, that as in Ede-ri's 
 bowers, plants may in them grow, which may adorn many a circle — bless, 
 many a family, aqd impart joy to n)auy a heart I 
 
 And now dear yottng ladies, I have finished the t;aslx which your parti-. 
 ality has assigned mq. It is not probable that I shall ever preach to the. 
 Pupils of this (.College again assembled as to-night. This is a Valedictory 
 in reality, as well as in name. With these reflections, affecting to my own 
 mind, I close mv discourse. 
 
 May the God of all grace and comfort, abundantly blpss all who arc 
 present I 
 
p-"^ 
 
 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP, — ITS EAULTS AND THEIR 
 
 REMEDIES. 
 
 A SEKMON 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 DAY OF NATIONAL FAST, 
 
 JANUARY 4, 1861, 
 
 By ALEXANDER G. MERCER, D.D. 
 
 ASSISTANT MINISTER OF TRINITY CHURCH ON THE GREENE FOUNDATION. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 
 
 1861. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 
 
 Little, Brown and Company, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBKIDGE: 
 PRINTED BY II. O. HOUGHTON. 
 
 i 
 
J^v ClXL c^ci^l^ CIV (^ZCt 
 
 
 This Sermon -was preached only in part, on account of its 
 length and the indisposition of the writer. After much hes- 
 itation he has consented to its publication, — because he feels 
 that no one ought from vain scruples, to withhold any oiFering 
 of word or act from the cause of a country so sorely tried. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 " Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he 
 may exalt you in due time." — 1 Peter 5 : 6. 
 
 However clear the right of the Pulpit to speak of 
 politics wherever the word Duty can describe the sub- 
 ject, it is a right to be used rarely and reluctantly, as 
 no man's discretion is refined enough to save it from 
 abuse.* The voice of the preacher ought never to be 
 associated with what may unfit or disable it as a public 
 voice of relio:ion. Yet at imminent times a timid silence 
 is immoral, and at least as much so as any sort of 
 conscientious speech. For myself, placed here by Provi- 
 dence, and not by my own seeking, no considerations of 
 a personal nature shall keep me silent, or modify what 
 I think is fit to be said. Yet addressing, as I do, many 
 varieties of opinion, and as I must be found in opposition 
 to some, — perhaps to all, — I trust you will at least 
 remember that 1 am actuated, as I surely am, by none 
 but the purest motives. 
 
 This nation stands to-day on the eve, it is feared, of 
 great changes and sorrows, and we are called here pub- 
 
licly to humiliate ourselves for national fault, and specially 
 for our share in it. Suddenly a clear sky is covered 
 with gloom and fear. A strange moment has come, 
 when a rising sun seems transferred to the place of 
 its setting. It is worse than vain to make hght of 
 such a crisis, — as has been very common here. Prosper- 
 ous men are constitutionally unable to realize calamity. 
 They have formed the habit of prosperity. Our national 
 history has had no afflictions, and we have forgotten the 
 thing, — the imagination itself has become incapacitated 
 even to state it. And though our just fears are now, of 
 course, increasing, I regret to say that they do not grow 
 at the rate of our calamities. There is a fear which is 
 the most crazy and paralyzing of passions, — but there 
 is a wise and deep solicitude which, before a great dis- 
 aster, is the only source of hope. This is especially true 
 in America. For one great danger in our country and 
 government is, that there may be irreparable ills before 
 the real nation has felt and spoken out its wish, and so 
 the most fatal thing now is serenity and easy hope, — if 
 danger is real. But is it real I — You have the evidence 
 before you. 
 
 But you still go back to minor experiences of past 
 blusters, and so measure this case ; or you trust to a 
 sense of self-interest when distresses come. I think you 
 are mistaken. When I find the cool and thouohtful 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts governed by enlight- 
 ened rules of prudence, I shall be prepared to expect 
 a little of that sort from those far Southern States. No 
 nation has yet shown itself high enough for ])rudence 
 wlien a passion begins to blow, and what will you expect 
 
of a vivid population which has drawn every sort of 
 honor and of interest into one focal point of fire ! — and 
 now committed, too, — formally pledged, — and conscious, 
 moreover, that any humiliating- submission must annihi- 
 late their power. I think there is no retreat. Why, 
 the Nation grows disrupted at the heart ! The growth 
 of heart-estrangement within sixty days makes anything 
 possible. But peaceable dissolution is spoken of, and 
 peaceable arrangements between new sovereignties. A 
 weak fancy ! There can he no peace. When once the 
 Nation is gone, and the national feeling all lost, there will 
 be more points of interest, of feeling, to arrange between 
 these proud States than have arisen between all the great 
 nations of Europe during modern history. They will be 
 endless. And to be settled, — by whom \ by friends 
 turned to enemies, " hateful and hating one another." 
 If any man looks at this, he will seem to himself as 
 one standing at night on the beach of an unknown sea, 
 where he knows there is before him a wild and wasteful 
 world, but it is so dark he cannot see. He hears, how- 
 ever, threats of wind and thunder, and the sound of the 
 rising surge ; and if there be a gleam upon that unknown 
 sea, it looks — I may mistake — but it looks red^ as 
 of human blood. 
 
 O Thou, who knowest, instruct us, that on this day 
 we may feel and know where we are, that we may 
 humble ourselves under thy mighty hand ; where we 
 have done amiss lead us right again ; " what in us is 
 dark, illumine, — what is low, raise and support!" 
 
 The solemn duty of the day, then, is candidly to state 
 to ourselves our faults, that we may see our remedies. 
 
8 
 
 Look first at the common faults of the nation, for 
 these are indirectly — nay, directly enough — the causes 
 of our present disaster. The one specially which lies 
 farther hack, and deeper down than all others, I think, 
 is the one-sided tendency of our civilization. I suppose, 
 my friends, that the whole of human culture lies in rev- 
 erence and freedom, — not in one thing, but two things 
 — God and the individual ! — a full assertion of myself, 
 rounded and circumscribed by that which is above my- 
 self. History has really but these two ideas ; all events 
 issue out of them and falteringly express them ; and the 
 perfect moment of history will only come when these 
 ideas are of power enough to bring themselves to perfect 
 birth. Through the most of the past we find but an 
 abject sinking of a man's self before something differ- 
 ent from himself, " Gods many and Lords many," — 
 whether before a religion, a government, a leader, — 
 whether before the might of nature, or a man's fel- 
 lows, — or before some exaggerated projection of a 
 man's fear and wonder. 
 
 Our modern era began the reverse of all this, and 
 the rights and power of the individual will are the thing 
 asserted or aimed at in all modern changes ; my right 
 to make my religion, my government, my leaders ; my 
 power asserted in the form of science against nature, 
 or asserted against society in the form of the political 
 and social freedom of the individual. The vigor of this 
 impulse has within a few years made this amazing 
 ])roduct — American success. We are the head and van- 
 guard of the movement, and the popular cry is that we 
 can never have enough of it. We began so. Our Con- 
 
9 
 
 stitution, wise as the instrument is, (a wonderful paper 
 — a sort of cartoon of our civilization,) yet sketches the 
 idea of a State without a religion, or a God. It is man 
 all through. Now who does not know, as a hrilliant 
 Frenchman has said, that the " body politic is a tree, 
 which as it rises finds as much need of the heavens 
 as of the earth," — that "the State is a mysterious 
 vessel whose anchor is in heaven ] " Its anchor is 
 there or nowhere. The idea of a State, as of one man, 
 is that of a divine plant which, if rooted in the earth, 
 lifts its head and bears its fruits towards heaven. And 
 its permanence and power is in the proportion that it 
 realizes this idea. At the apex of the great dome of 
 the Pantheon in Paris, at the very crown of this tem- 
 ple, representative of the w^orks and glories of the na- 
 tion, you may see grandly depicted the French Kings 
 gathered at the feet of a heavenly figure, which floats 
 over the whole, — and to her, on bended knee and in 
 rapt devotion, they offer the splendid trophies of their 
 history. However intended, I take that to be the veri- 
 table symbol of a veritable State. But our State pur- 
 ports to be a perfectly ordered earth, with no heavenly 
 figuie overhead, and with tlie whole sky swept off" as 
 if it were a superstitious mist! 
 
 So through all our civilization the human side has 
 grown too large. We forget that liberty, as we name 
 it, is not all, but that reverence is no less a name, — 
 and that each is only a mistake without the other. We 
 forget that tve are not all, but that there is something 
 outside which ought to hem us in ; — we forget that 
 
 whatever, sets free binds also, and with higher obliga- 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 tions, — nobly subjects us to God, to man, to society, — 
 not that we may be trampled, but that the energies of 
 self-love may be kept within the limits of justice and 
 loyalty; — and, in short, that we must be animated by 
 something nobler than self-assertion, I mean self-sub- 
 jection. Let us not then pronounce so much the cant 
 words " Freedom " — " Man " — the " People," — until 
 we learn to say also "God" — "Duty," — or even 
 " Honor " and " Courtesy." And until we do name 
 these with a full heart, the People are but a mob, 
 and Freedom nothinof more than the breaking- of the 
 rope that binds them. 
 
 Then again, look at the issues of this inordinateness 
 on the side of self, when joined to our singular advan- 
 tages. In this magnificent good of territory, enter- 
 prise, wealth, peace, enjoyment, there is a bait which' 
 has caught the whole heart of the people, and made out 
 of these noble gifts the seed-plot of devilish fruits to 
 come. For out of this a decent but most energetic self- 
 ishness has risen ; so that not public care, — the feeling 
 and sacrifices of a worthy citizen, — but mere selfish neg- 
 lect has been the issue of our freedom. The public in- 
 terest, — the noble meaning of Commonwealth, — what 
 do we know of that ? Or if there be some interest in 
 public events, — as to action^ (for that costs something,) 
 — what action have we but the sinister debauched work 
 of the politician ^ Nay, the citizen, too often hampered 
 by a thousand mean fears, does not even give his coun- 
 try his real thought — a free and noble speech ; — the 
 best opinion of the best, fearlessly given, is not heard, 
 while rude and ])artisan outcry is distinctly given, and 
 is called the public voice. 
 
11 
 
 So of all our public life. We profess to have in our 
 hands the costly results of all history, those great ideas 
 and practices which are " the precious acquisitions of 
 humanity," — and they have been reached through what 
 troubles 1 — and yet how treated ! Because our insig- 
 nificance in so great a mass, allows each man little 
 power, he feels free to give up duty, and neglect his 
 part. Or if he weakly tries it, he becomes disgusted 
 nearly at once. And so the whole is handed over to 
 the politician, (aided by his organ, the press,) whose 
 trade is to coin the neglect and the folly of the people 
 for his own pocket, and who at this moment makes 
 husbandry out of the ruin of the State, and perhaps 
 the blood of his countrymen. Under his shaping of 
 the great measures and topics, even this greatest of 
 national topics, Slavery, is fashioned but to strike the 
 eye of some leading faction, — an eye gloating with 
 party and sectional avarice, or mad with some hate 
 and fanaticism. 
 
 Law-making, the noblest function of humanity, how 
 has it been done 1 Look for yourselves at the law- 
 makers — the laws — and the manufactories of shame 
 (too often!) where they are made and sold! What cor- 
 ruption of public honor in all its offices, — that sacred 
 honor on which all rests, on whose purity is staked not 
 only property and rights, but in the last issues the 
 national life, and something of the individual soul itself! 
 — for who can say to what extent the elevation and 
 efficiency of free government is involved not only with 
 the interests but inward life of the governed ] 
 
 Now if there be these great underlying faults, viz : 
 
Ij2 
 
 an enormity of conceited will, which we call our free- 
 dom, and an enormity of selfish grasp on outward good, 
 which we call our greatness, what is our want and our 
 remedy but to "humble ourselves," — to know God^ and 
 law, and the common ivecd, — to know them in our rev- 
 erence and love ^ And if it does not please us to do 
 this, I assure you those majestic facts need but to retire a 
 little further off", and the state or society at the first pres- 
 sure which strains its bond will break asunder, as if the 
 bond were but a holiday-ribbon. 
 
 We want loyalty, not to a man or a party, but to Law, 
 to the State, and to whatever is Higher ; and hence we 
 want a public sentiment as to the duty of citizens, — a 
 stern public judgment as to that class of men who, if 
 ruin is preparing, are the miners ! We want a public 
 indignation as to the men who, from the caucuses of the 
 bar-room up to the caucuses of senates and cabinets, sit 
 in dark council, " hatching the cockatrice's eggs, and 
 weaving the spider's web." We want from every honest 
 man, from pulpit, press, and jjlatform, a broadside and 
 blaze of indignation to light up the land and appal every 
 description of traitors, \\'hether they are striding in state 
 to the public gaze, or " lurking in the thievish corners of 
 the villages." 
 
 But, after all, let not you and me shift oft" on these men 
 the making of ruin. My friends, when in the history of 
 Liberty among nations, she has risen from the dust once 
 more, and " loosens herself from the bands of her neck," 
 and lifts her form shining with some aspect of redemp- 
 tion, — who stops her, and brings her mouth to the dust 
 again? Kings, priests, demagogues? Never anywhere 
 
13 
 
 — but here, never, never! It is the lookers-on, — it is 
 you, the people, who will think a little longer on the 
 matter and who will let others act. I tell you that the 
 men too lukewarm to seek out the right of the case, 
 too selfishly dull to see it, too weak to decide upon it, — 
 the blood of the ruined cause lies upon them ! Upon 
 them ! 
 
 So much as to our common faults. Next are those of 
 the two great sections in respect to each other. 
 
 These are in some part rather misfortunes than faults, 
 
 — alienations prompted by such a difference and for- 
 eignness as Slavery and Freedom ; and allowed from the 
 ignorance of distance. We in this place and age hoped 
 that the vastness of area which hitherto had been a clear 
 cause of weakness and dissolution in great empires, had 
 here become a different fact. For now, as it to fit us for 
 this largeness, we had gained commensurate organs of 
 intercourse, — a new motion that narrowed the width of 
 the continent to a strip, and a new power of speech 
 that flashed like lightning out of the east into the west. 
 We supposed that these new powers could manage this 
 enormous greatness. But w^e jjresumed a little : the 
 House is too great to be well lit even by our new 
 method of lighting; — at least when passion, and interest, 
 and fear cloud the air the great sections of the Ameri- 
 can people, we find, are hid from each other ; trifles 
 move like phantoms in the twilight ; and so we learn 
 once more that that which is unknown easily becomes 
 hateful and hostile, and that ignorant hatred once begun 
 is keen in reactions and increase. 
 
 All this, however, even with the natural alienage of 
 
u 
 
 freedom and slavery, would not have been important but 
 that two distinct fanatical powers have risen south and 
 north, and face each other, — both based on that enormous 
 conceit, that dogmatism of self-will, that boldness of self- 
 assertion of which I have spoken, — but, northwards, this 
 taking" the form of conscience, — a fanaticism for an 
 idea; southwards^ a fanaticism for an interest, mixed up 
 with a sectional point of honor ; an absurd humanity here, 
 an absurd blending of ambition, honor, and avarice there ; 
 both darkly exasperated by conflicts, and altogether un- 
 checked by loyalty to the common nation, or even by any 
 strong sense of rectitude as to obligation and law. At 
 Washington, and in the words and acts sent down from 
 Washington, the South and North meet, and there only 
 they meet, and present to each other their worst aspect, 
 and deal with each other in their worst moods, and not 
 with the nice skill which that great intercourse requires. 
 The sections could be neighborly if there were total ig- 
 norance or total knowledge of each other. But not with 
 such knowledije as Washing-ton and Congrress give. It 
 is inevitable that such northern men, in such a mood, 
 should be ill-pleased with such southern men in their 
 mood. And the reverse. The remedy for this bad 
 mutual understanding cannot be found until the heart 
 and wisdom of both sections is better represented among 
 the national legislators ; until intercourse between the 
 sections is increased, — not merely by the interchange of 
 commerce, but by an interchange of finer benefits, — of 
 courtesies, of afiections, of fair interpretations, of Chris- 
 tian influences ; — and not until the Press, in whose 
 looking-glass each side sees the other's face, becomes a 
 
15 
 
 faithful glass, and not marked (as in noted instances it is) 
 for the breadth and malice of the distortions. 
 
 But now let me confine myself to faults peculiar to 
 ourselves. It would be very easy to berate the madness 
 of fanatics south, — their unnatural and wildlv factious 
 acts. I think no unbiassed man can look on their pro- 
 ceedings without a mixture of inexpressible sorrow and 
 indignation — all the deeper for the good-will he bears 
 them. But it serves no manly purpose to arraign the 
 absent when our duty is with ourselves. I prefer to 
 speak of the fanatics here — the fanatics as to Slavery. 
 
 And first, as to their influence. I deny that it has 
 been small. Those who deserve that name are to be 
 sure few, and their direct effect small, — often indeed 
 they spend their force against themselves. But by sup- 
 plying in large part the data and shaping the opinion 
 of England as to Slavery here, and also of France, 
 and in turn reinforcing themselves from these quar- 
 ters ; — by intense activity, and speaking like creatures 
 in a wood at night, with more (and more alarming) 
 voices than the creatures themselves justify; — by 
 striking right at the heart of a sensitive people, and 
 all the year, as a hu&iness^ planting their sting with 
 unerring aim in the very sore of the wound ; — but 
 much above all, as I think, by acting as a small and 
 rapid stream running in the midst of a large and 
 quiet water, they have turned the motion with them- 
 selves, — I mean that they have turned the spirit of 
 a larger body than themselves, lying just around them, 
 into a vague direction against the South : through all 
 this, — aided by the South itself, which in its fury has 
 
16 
 
 » 
 
 often struck back on the bystanders, and. turned them 
 
 into foes, — ttiey have been, and are, poiverfid. They 
 / are hke a small battery, so maliciously placed and 
 ^ ., played as to threaten the issue of the day. I repeat : 
 leaning on opinion abroad, and availing themselves of 
 a natural sectionalism at home, and trusting to a series 
 of devilish reactions when once begun, — they have 
 been mighty by indirection. And I here add that the 
 Southern complaints as to Northern responsibility for 
 all this are more just than we are willing to allow. 
 
 Then, as to the fatal nature of the delusion on which 
 this faction is based, I shall only say: it is no doubt 
 sanctified, to itself by the conscious humanity in which 
 it started, but it is none the less a blind, a dreadful 
 tyranny of one supposed good over and against other 
 good, — and sits hatching, wnth terrible self-complacency, 
 its one ^gg^ after pushing out and destroying the rest. 
 And it is not merely an exclusiveness whose bent is to 
 reject other morals, but to reject religion also ; and this, 
 not only because it is so fond over its one thing that 
 nothing is sacred which does not serve to that, but 
 because nothing becomes so embittered and narrowed 
 as a benevolence which, proud and wilful in its origin, 
 has been checked and outraged, as it thinks, by all that 
 is called good. 
 
 Hence it comes that some of the extremest leaders 
 of a moral cause not only do not pretend to be spe- 
 cially well-affected towards God, or towards man in 
 general, but become in fact not specially /or the African 
 himself, — nay, not for him at all perhaps in the 
 last issue, except as, by a fine chance, they liave now 
 
17 
 
 the opportunity of being against all others by being 
 so much for- the slave. There was once a terrible 
 religious justice which " hewed Agag in pieces before 
 the Lord," — but there is now a philanthropy which 
 hews God and man in pieces before Agag. Of course, 
 I know that high natures led by high instincts have 
 been caught in this trap of the devil, — caught by 
 what seemed angel's food, and I speak of them only 
 with sorrow and not with bitterness. But, led into 
 error through the mistakes of noble instincts, I must 
 still charge them, as I do, with the name of fanati- 
 cism, and with its dreadful issues. 
 
 It is this hostile spirit, full of vital activity, and 
 which has now reached, if not Power, yet increased 
 influence, (for the triumphant party as it has gained 
 something from it, must yield something to it,) — it 
 is this spirit, longing to render itself into illegal act, 
 and which, through its alliances, seems to threaten 
 aggression, — it is this which, far more than any assign- 
 able wrongs, justifies the South to itself in its present 
 position. 
 
 And I here repeat the old assertion, that this spirit 
 of excessive opposition has defeated all benign action 
 as to the slave, and has turned attention away from 
 a gradual and practical dealing with the subject. The 
 common Christian sentiment in the great Christian 
 communities in the South was very much at one with 
 the North in this matter, — and so also in no small 
 degree outside of the churches. The truly sensible 
 men of the country South and North were impatient of 
 all this dispute about abstract right, and, not wast- 
 
18 
 
 ing themselves on this, felt and knew this much at 
 least, that the African here, — though hetter than the 
 African in Africa, — though better than the African 
 emancipated, or, as I shall choose to say, turned loose, 
 — is not what he might he, and that it became them 
 gradually, and accepting the facts, to do their best for 
 him. To increase that pity and justice in better hearts, 
 was our chief duty and hope. 
 
 I have been much among large slave-owners, and am 
 happy to call some of them my valued friends. I may 
 have been fortunate, but I have rarely found one, though 
 interests were deeply involved, whose conscience did not 
 respond to a delicate treatment of the subject. And 
 mere silence, and concern, (I have seen it often enough,) 
 could sliape the feelings of ingenuous and high-spirited 
 men, when coarse accusation was met like steel. In 
 fact the better, and I think (by our aid) the rul- 
 ing class of southern minds would always have been 
 prompt and forward in the right direction, unless 
 thrown back by some of us. And as to southern 
 women, — women in the best fashion of womanhood, — 
 whose vast influence in this, as in all humanity, was 
 always on the side where Christ stands, — what deep 
 and tender responsibility have I seen among them, and 
 what a power was ready for us there had we known 
 how to use it! 
 
 I say, had this belter sentiment of the South been 
 supported by us, our symj)athies given to the situation, 
 it would gradually have meliorated the condition of 
 the slave, removed the otieiisive features as to marriage, 
 instruction, and sale — would have resisted the designs 
 
19 
 
 of base and cruel cupidity among themselves, and 
 gradually solved the problem by raising slavery into a 
 clear Christian service, and in the process educated both 
 parties, master and slave, to a higher moral position 
 — higher perhaps than either, ceftainly than one, could 
 have obtained alone. Wilfulness, however, childish sen- 
 sitiveness to one thing, impatience, imperativeness, 
 narrowing and darkening into actual inhumanity to all 
 concerned, ends now in threatening the future of the 
 highest race on earth, — and involving the certain ag- 
 gravation and increase of slavery. 
 
 But I must leave this dark nucleus and turn to the 
 fault of a much larger Northern class. There are many 
 men in this land true to all law, who yet so regard 
 slavery as to look upon this contest of feeling between 
 North and South as a necessary and normal process. 
 At least at the bottom of the hearts of some of the real 
 leaders of the Northern party is a belief that with slavery 
 no harmonious advance can be made. Accordingly, they 
 accept the widening of this sectional gulf, and legitimate 
 it as part of a necessary alienation. It is but a stage, 
 they think, in an inevitable process. Hidden or open, 
 they feel there is a conflict which must go on, issuing 
 either in a gradual and peaceable triumph of one of the 
 two sections ; or coming out, as now, into open collision, 
 and reaching peace only by quiet dissolution or by a 
 coercion of the weaker section, — or at least by its return 
 to the Union shorn of future power. Nay, if their views 
 go thus far, they must go farther. In case of disruption, 
 they must see that side by side two such nations, or the 
 fragments of them, could never exist, — being slave and 
 
20 
 
 free ; and they feel sure as to which must triumph. No 
 matter though the Southern side, if it begins only with 
 the Cotton States, begins with 856,000 square miles 
 (an area equal to that of Great Britain, France, Austria, 
 Prussia, and Spain), and soon must stretch down to Mex- 
 ico and Central America, and blacken vast areas with 
 new slavery — dark tropic armies — in such multitudes 
 as " the North poured never from her frozen loins " ; — 
 no matter ; nay, no matter if, at last, the whole Southern 
 half of the Confederacy fall off; — no matter, they think, 
 — slavery left to itself will destroy itself. So that the 
 extinction of the evil, and a peaceful end, will be reached 
 by the great Southern power dying in its own corruption, 
 or its national existence trampled out by war. 
 
 This is the private programme of some of the farthest- 
 looking minds, and of men who do not use the principles 
 for the party, but the party for the principles. This is 
 the outline — (there can be no other) — sketched, too, in 
 the interest of humanity ! I do not mean that such 
 leading minds ever meant — much less do they now 
 mean — to make unconstitutional interferences, but they 
 put the first terms of the logic in motion, and leave its 
 forces to bring out the vast conclusion. I am not insen- 
 sible to the boldness of the thought, and its reach into 
 the future. 
 
 " The sybil, who had numbered In the world 
 The sun to make two hundred compasses, 
 In hev prophetic fury sewed the work." 
 
 But what a monstrous scheme ! as visionary and wilful 
 in its benevolence, and with the same superfine indiHer- 
 
21 
 
 ence to real evils as the worst of those fraternal schemes 
 which the worst minds of France once put into dreadful 
 experiment. It is not true ; we are under no necessity 
 of fatal contest ; the thing this nation is put here to 
 realize is not the abolition of slavery, and the value of 
 this nation is not to be measured as it effects that. It 
 is erected here for purposes unspeakably larger ; and if 
 we be true to the stewardship, the lesser with the greater 
 trusts will be borne forward together, and God's purpose 
 for the free and for the slave will come to fruit in our 
 hands, or among our posterities. 
 
 To allow another thought is madness ; it is guilt ! 
 And for what 1 To destroy the sun for his spots '? 
 Will you forget the ample orb, the magnificence of the 
 light-shadow he casts, the beneficent grasp of his hands 
 upon the planets ; will you despise and cast down this 
 solar-order of God, because you in your visions can 
 conceive a sun purged of spots ; or because, in your . 
 conceit, you can make a finer thing even than this, — 
 "a world of other stuff" 1 
 
 O that in all this mistaken duty as to slavery, what- 
 ever its degree or form, the spirit of Christ were felt, — 
 that spirit which is the divine "Way," — which, while it 
 always keeps the purest and profoundest righteousness as 
 the end, moves towards it in a sort of celestial discreet- 
 ness, as the river curves, yielding to necessities, and 
 sweetly respecting bounds. 
 
 " This way of sweetest wisdom, tho' it winds, 
 Is yet no devious way. Slraightforwurd goes 
 The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path 
 Of the cannon-hall! .... 
 My son ! the road the hunaan being travels, 
 
That on whicb blessing comes and goes, — 
 Curves round the corn-fields and the hill of vines, 
 
 And thus secure, thouffh late, leads to its end." 
 
 But understand me. I have no idea that the great 
 Republican party would have lent itself to such a 
 scheme or such a spirit as that just mentioned. Be it far 
 from me, to cast a slur upon so large a mass of men, as 
 enlightened, and who mean to be as national, as any 
 among us. But the party had such a scheme within 
 it, I am sure. I earnestly hope they will now reject it. 
 For, though there was this evil within them, they have 
 not been conscious of it ; and the South, in sweeping as 
 she does this majority of northern freemen into the class 
 of her foes, commits a vast mistake and wrong. 
 
 That great party not only represents other ideas and 
 issues, but it represents a barrier against the aggres- 
 sions of an extreme Southern spirit, — a just exasper- 
 ation at wilful and violent Southern acts, — and an 
 exasperation not less just at that powerful party 
 which has so long held the nation, — (not always for 
 the nation's ends,) — and which, by its corrupt com- 
 pliances to Southern wishes, has gone far to create 
 the Northern sectionalism which it now so violently 
 accuses. It is always well to be just. And let me say 
 here as to parties in general, — let your party be what it 
 will, — call it by fine names of Union or Freedom or 
 Purity; — you have not much to boast of. Our bad 
 citizenship will soon spoil the new temple with the old 
 gods. New parties are the same bad citizens under fresh 
 names ; and though of course one party may be and is 
 wdser and purer than another at one moment, and so to 
 
support it may demand the whole energy of those who 
 think so, yet it is but as a goblet of fresh water before 
 the coloring drop falls in. The primal taint of bad 
 citizens blasts all. 
 
 To be just, it was necessary to say this. 
 
 Charging, then, no party, and separating this spirit as 
 to slavery from any special organization, it is obvious 
 enough that, through whatever organism it works, — 
 for it can at any time make or command a new one, — 
 it will not die so long as it can hope in such an interest 
 to grasp the government or keep it; for a compound 
 of power and profit, on the base of a moral idea, forms 
 the mightiest party-composition ever known among us. 
 Divide it finally from hope of power, and it will shrink 
 back into the nucleus from which it broke out. It may, 
 to be sure, live there ; for as slavery is the only moral 
 mischief on a national scale that the moral fanaticism 
 of this land can ever lay its hand to, and as that spirit 
 will ever demand an object, be sure it will never leave 
 its grasp on this. But its force will be inconsiderable. 
 Can there, then, be such a settlement of this question 
 as will disunite it from political hopes and power '? Can 
 that be 1 We could afford great calamities, if the whole 
 people could now be brought face to face witli this ques- 
 tion, and settle it forever. Here, then, we reach the one 
 question for the destiny at least of the Western world, — 
 Is such a radical settlement possible ? Such a settle- 
 ment, I repeat, as will forever clear the subject out of 
 the sphere of the government. 
 
 I hope — I believe, such a settlement is yet possible, 
 for I hold it a crime to despair of the State. And what 
 
24f 
 
 shall it be ] It is not for me to instruct you on such a 
 subject ; but as I hold every citizen bound to speak, I 
 answer in a word. In respect to slavery in the terri- 
 tories, (I mention no other points, for all others allow 
 an easy adjustment,) let the Missouri line be given, and 
 the application of that rule to all territories, — and let 
 the acquisition of territory be forbidden unless by a vote 
 of two thirds ; this, or something- similar to this ; and 
 yield, if they are wished, fresh Constitutional guaranties 
 
 for present rights. You see I would not stand 
 
 on the terms of a hard bargain; for both freedom and 
 the slave can grant very generous terms and yet be 
 gainers. In fact every one knows or ought to know 
 that it is scarcely a practical question, at least as to 
 present territory, — and judicious men can be very 
 liberal concerning abstractions. But whatever your 
 concession is, (I am not exquisitely careful about its 
 terms) it should be such in style and substance as will 
 bring back lost Union to the heart, for reaching that, 
 we may be sure that if we yield more than is just, w^e 
 are gaining something better than justice. Let the Free 
 States, then, speak to the South and say, " Let us be 
 at peace, — for we be brethren. We are not ashamed 
 to forget all irritations, to quiet your fears, to correct 
 your mistakes, to assure your rights, — nay, we will 
 take a grand scope of concession, and magnanimously 
 yield where your right is doubtful." 
 
 But yet there is one thing which on our part we must 
 demand, — viz: that the fact be hereafter (/ 
 mean hereafter) forever settled, that the United 
 States is a government. For, in my judgment, the 
 
25 
 
 question as to this which has now come out in full 
 dimensions, is paramount to all others. The atti- 
 tude of the South, or much of the South, is, that force 
 shall not be used to maintain national law in case of 
 resistance even by one State. I so understand their 
 present position, though it is not stated in general 
 terms. If this be granted, there is a right, practically, 
 not only of irresponsible, but guaranteed secession ; and 
 the nation has no security against exactions made from 
 a section, under threat, and national power within the 
 nation is reduced to a great phantom which any way- 
 ward child can pass its hand through. 
 
 If this be granted, such a State as South Carolina may 
 every year point her guns against the American flag, 
 while this great empire — called an empire, but without 
 a bone in its body — must sit in helpless imbecility, or 
 go about and, with " bated breath and whispering humble- 
 ness," get, or strive to get, the consent of a whole sec- 
 tion before it can move to the enforcement of its laws on 
 one inch of it. If the South deliberately maintains this, 
 no hope of a lasting settlement is left, — for it contradicts 
 the very thought of government and of that security for 
 which the government was erected. Of course I well 
 know that the actual use of force is nearly a fatal rem- 
 edy, — but to deny the right to use it in last extremes is to 
 strip the government even of moral influence. No doubt, 
 a State or bodies of States may be ill-treated and it 
 may be a high act to fall back on Revolution, — but call 
 it not Regular, and a Constitutional act, — but what it is 
 —Revolutionary^ — and justifiable only on Revolutionary 
 grounds and after the failure of all Constitutional meth- 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 ods either to remedy wrong, or peaceably to unloose the 
 national bond. And I must add that the states- 
 men who put aside this question, — as is now general, — 
 as if force can have no practical place or virtue, forget 
 that such a provision made definite and constitutional, will 
 by every sanction forever prevent the necessity of force, — 
 or at least will so sacredly justify its use that coercion 
 under it can be made possible. But it is for the South 
 to settle this question ; and if it is settled, all the con- 
 cessions asked of the North, — this imperial and advanc- 
 ing North, — sink into comparative insignificance. 
 
 For you then the question simply is, which will you 
 choose, — a broken nation, with its whole issues to white 
 and black, or will you choose to be wisely yielding on 
 one side that you may give foundation to Government 
 and Liberty on this Continent ? That question, fairly put 
 to the people of the Free States, will receive an emphatic 
 answer ; such as, if they know their future, they can 
 well afford to give. There and there only is our hope. 
 For the South, alarmed at the spirit exhibited at the 
 North, — which spirit, in some measure at least, now 
 begins a career of power ; alarmed, not merely at the 
 loss of an election, but at the overtowering prospect of 
 the Free States, both outside the government and in- 
 side, and from this forward, — looks about her for more 
 securities, (the feeling is common even to her most con- 
 servative men,j while sectional bitterness and ambition 
 seize on the universal discontent, and, bending it to their 
 purposes, make this alternative distinct : Disunion or 
 some magnanimous Concession. And such concession, I 
 assert, must be, and ought to be, and will be made if the 
 
S7 
 
 people speak. To the people, then, let the question be 
 promptly put. See to this — to this one point. Let 
 your business be to see to it. Speak, write, move, unite, 
 act to this one end, to clear away parties from between 
 the people and their perishing government. I believe 
 in the people in a moment like this, and I care not a 
 whit for parties, and have no faith in mere party-men. 
 They will wait until the heart-strings of the nation crack 
 before they bate one jot of their party-demands. The 
 question must be forced down to the people. Who hin- 
 ders it ] No matter what our opinions may be, who 
 dares to deny that, in a revolutionary moment like this, 
 we, the people, and we only, ought to be the judges? 
 Our Congress and our State Legislatures are representa- 
 tives of other views, of another and an older condition 
 of things, and ought not to pass upon a crisis like this. 
 To the people at large let it come, and quickly ; and if 
 persons or a party are found obstructing an appeal to the 
 true source of settlement, it is an usurpation of jurisdic- 
 tion, and the time is near when they will be ground to 
 powder. 
 
 But you say, " Nothing will satisfy Southern extrem- 
 ists, and it is vain to try it." Of course, no satisfaction 
 to extremists anywhere can be. And of course mere 
 madness and fright, a willingness, for the sake of peace 
 or property, to say, " Take all," is to be despised, and can 
 be the source of no just settlement. It is another spirit 
 which is asked for. The people who at the first signal 
 of disaster yield all, and those who understand no course 
 but that of holding to every jot of their due, — both these 
 classes of persons are at present the bane of the State. 
 
28 
 
 " But the South really wants no arrangement, — 
 
 and no concession will meet the case." As to the Border 
 States, I assure you, you are mistaken, — and all these 
 States once brought into firm unity with us, together 
 we can finally control the whole subject. But suppose 
 the possibility that no concessions will be met — if you 
 offer them — you have done your part — you have placed 
 yourself in such a position as will at least give to you 
 honor and strength in the day of adversity. 
 
 But you still say, " To yield now is to be bullied and 
 demoralized, and more of the same sort must come after ; 
 and we wont be menaced." I answer : In a question not 
 involving principle, I want no rule of such honor or such 
 justice. I want the rule of brotherhood, and of the 
 stronger to the weaker. Do you call this ^mr.^ — I wish 
 we had more of this honorable fear ; — but who dares 
 
 suspect these mighty Free States of cowardice \ 
 
 But " you will sacrifice something ; " — I take patriotism 
 to mean that love of the nation that can sacrifice some- 
 thing ; when the life of the country is in question, the sec- 
 tion or the party must go down before the nation. We 
 are Americans ; that is now our platform, and not the 
 platforms of Charleston or Chicago. We are Americans ; 
 and your star, and my star, and all the stars of the great 
 constellation disappear, and I see nothing in the heavens 
 but the one day-star ! If, to be sure, you are a mere fac- 
 tion, with certain ends of greedy hope or mere pride, — 
 which you cannot give up but from fears as mean, — and 
 if you show all tliis in your faces as you do it, then your 
 concessions will be but a title to contempt. But if you 
 are men with public souls, wise enough to shape a line or 
 
29 
 
 mould an abstraction so as to suit a point of fancy and 
 honor ; or if you yield something real, magnanimous 
 enough to prefer a nation's life to a theory or a party, 
 and to do it too with a noble air ; if this be so, you 
 of the Free States will rise in a majesty of real pozver 
 unknown before. The measure of superiority is the ability 
 to yield with increased dignity. 
 
 Besides, note this, which we forget : The point of in- 
 ternational honor should have no place in this adjustment. 
 We of these States do not stand — and now is the fairest 
 moment to show it — on the jealous, rival principles of 
 foreign States. Among the many dignities assigned to us 
 is such a position as will allow us to illustrate and begin 
 a new international spirit; at least our honor as States 
 should be the honor of a generous brotherhood, and not 
 the cold justice (meaning justice to themselves) which to 
 this day marks with a mere barbarism the sentiment of 
 international honor. To introduce between these Com- 
 monwealths the feelings and attitude of jealous and hos- 
 tile communities, is the worst sign. It becomes us to 
 infuse, if not Christianity, yet something of the humane 
 heart of Christianity into national proceedings. The 
 mutual conduct of these States conceived in a higher 
 spirit would set forward a nobleness in the relations of 
 States, and draw the first sketch of the great com- 
 munities of the race, standing together as a family and 
 kingdom of Christ. Are we high enough to treat 
 it so ] 
 
 If we are, the Free States, having once taken a gener- 
 ous position, will unite firmly upon it ; and this great 
 free section, once at real unity with itself, must bring 
 
80 
 
 the South to it. I think it is inevitable. No dissolu- 
 tion is possible, with the North at real unity with itself, 
 and on noble ground. While on the other hand, so 
 long" as it is broken up, or stands represented by party- 
 ideas, not only will the South fall off', but there will be 
 a dissolution of the North itself. Every interest there- 
 fore, from the lowest party-interest up to the interests 
 of the slave, and up to all the interests of human na- 
 ture, demand such a settlement. 
 
 But there is, observe, one condition precedent in all 
 this : that the men of this nation value the nationality 
 with some degree of justness. That I do not see, but 
 the contrary. Perhaps the time for valuing it will only 
 come after we are made acquainted with national retri- 
 bution. In the earnest hope, however, that we may w^ake 
 up in time, permit me now to ask your deliberate atten- 
 tion to the faults of tone and temper prevailing just at 
 this moment. 
 
 You will hardly deny now that it is a moment of 
 exigency. It certainly looks as if the Lord's fan were 
 in His hand to sift the nation, and as if there were to 
 be a scattering of men as chaff from the mouth of the fan, 
 or as dust from the threshing-floor. Already the golden 
 band of the States is broken — and there is preparation 
 for war ! War among these commonwealths ! among 
 American citizens ! The vital question then is, Hoio 
 does the citizen behave himself at this moment ? Every- 
 thing hangs on that. 
 
 In the history of the debates and of the process by 
 which our present Government was formed, Mr. Madi- 
 son places as the last lines of that great record, this 
 
31 
 
 impressive narrative: "Whilst the last members were 
 signing, Dr. Franklin looking towards the President's 
 chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be 
 painted, observed to a few members near him, that paint- 
 ers had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a 
 rising from a setting sun. ' I have,' said he, ' often and 
 often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes 
 of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that sun 
 behind the President, without being able to tell whether 
 it was rising or setting ; but now, at length, I have the 
 happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting 
 sun.' " He thought he saw in that sight of wise for- 
 bearance, — the Patriots from all sections and with all 
 views and interests coming forward to sign away their 
 wishes for their duty, — he thought tliat sight changed 
 the Heavens to a fresh, eastern look, like Morning. 
 Judging- by the same test, the sun those philosophic 
 eyes discerned to be rising-, is now, after a Lapland 
 day, near to the moment of its sinking. I say judg- 
 ing by the same test, of lioiv the citizen behaves himself. 
 
 I do not wish to exaggerate, and I shall therefore 
 begin by saying that everywhere there are people of 
 the right fashion, God-fearing men, — or if not that, 
 yet lovers, and if need be, martyrs to the common weal ; 
 and some are already at work, and with great effort and 
 sacrifice. There are such before me. But in general 
 it is not so ; — so far from it that, as I have heard, there 
 may be an inebriation of an age or people, it looks 
 
82 
 
 HOW as if there were a great case of it here ; a morbid 
 torpor with some, a bad excitement with others. 
 
 Among many this bad excitement grows daily ; they 
 seem to breatlie in an atmosphere heated from be- 
 low. Everywhere while I speak there are men who 
 feel the sanctions of their better nature passing away 
 and a dark seed germinating with fatal speed. South- 
 ward you can hear the crack of its rank growth hour 
 by hour. And the North, for her part, is " taking root 
 downward," and will respond with a deepening response. 
 And many begin to talk coolly, and rather pleasantly, 
 of war ! — such war as was never waged! of war which 
 is to cover this continent with a vast fratricide ! The 
 brute within begins to scent blood, and there is a stir 
 among the dark and buried instincts of men's lowest 
 souls. I hear, here in this seat of our oldest and most 
 Christian civilization, — I hear talk of what arms we 
 have ! what advantages ! and there is something of joy 
 in the recital. I know that both there and here much 
 that is noble is mixed up with this feeling. I know, 
 to be sure, that there may be Christian war, and that 
 there is a time when, in execution of law and to vin- 
 dicate the public existence, a Christian hand can draw 
 the sword ; — but with what awful solemnity, — with 
 what deprecation, — washing the hand clear of all taint, 
 and taking down, with invocations to God, and with 
 hearts bleeding inwardly, the sword of public justice, — 
 such a sword as was worn at the side of George Wash- 
 ington, and not a knife bared in passion, and private 
 quarrel ! 
 
 It is clear we must have a better spirit in this coun- 
 
. 38 
 
 try, or it is in vain to talk of settlements. God will 
 forsake us and our compacts. 
 
 We are so full of conceit too ! In fact every defect 
 I have enumerated in our national character and train- 
 ing" is brought out by this exigency into the broadest 
 illustration. Conceit, I say. Some of us proposing to 
 break a government to pieces and reconstruct it — as if 
 it vi^ere a toy ! This government, formed in our golden 
 age, under such necessities, after such distresses, with 
 such wisdom and forbearance, — to refound that govern- 
 ment in a sea of turmoil, in a generation of men who 
 have lived under no discipline of public aims and com- 
 mon sufferings ! To dissolve this inimitable crystal in 
 the fool's hope that it will form again in as fine a shape ! 
 
 But the great body in all respects think justly; yet 
 mingled with such apathy and helplessness as has never 
 been exhibited by so free and able a people. It is 
 partly apathy^ I say. We are inveterately used to find 
 all things done for us, and so, hitherto, we are content 
 to let this get itself done also and as usual. Besides, 
 because this people have moved on through such mate- 
 rial success, they have come to attribute to themselves 
 a secret virtue for success, and so they feel they will 
 be pushed on through all doors shut on their way. 
 They do not see that now, for the first time, they 
 reach a real difficulty, — of that sort, I mean, which 
 tests a true citizenship, — for an iron wall obstructs, 
 which opens to no sesame but the words Public Love 
 and Self-Sacrifice ! And because we cannot pronounce 
 those words, it is feared we will perish at our first trial. 
 Judge this case, I warn you, in no respect, by the past. 
 
 5 
 
34 
 
 It is a new case, testing what reality we have as men, 
 and bringing all the past of our negligence and selfish- 
 ness to a first account with us. Divine Providence, my 
 friends, often for ages keeps society like the surface of 
 the earth, — a green and happy surface, — while below, 
 belted in, lies a world of fire and convulsion. And at 
 the moment the demoniacal force comes up, it will search 
 out what amount of manhood is left. If we are found 
 true, I believe the Divine Restrainer will vet restrain : 
 but woe to us if, when there is beyond a doubt the 
 beginning of the upbreaking, and when Providence on 
 every side is ringing its alarm-bells, we will not wake 
 up, or deny and flout the fact heloiu. 
 
 But a more intolerable thing than our apathy is 
 our foolish helplessness. We have every appearance of 
 power, but no reality. For the defence of Cartha- 
 ginian liberty Hannibal gathered various nations and 
 arms, and according to Polybius twenty languages were 
 spoken in his camp. But here it would appear that, 
 to surround and defend a liberty intended not for Car- 
 thage but for Man, all tongues and people had gathered 
 and were ready. But nothing is ready ! Over thirty 
 millions wait — for whom 1 There is no one coming, 
 
 that is, unless ^OM come! YOU! 1 hear the 
 
 future crying its scorn back on us and our helpless 
 millions. All the world would acquiesce if the United 
 States of America went to wreck because it was fit 
 and ripe for such an end. The patriot would bow 
 his head to the just stroke. But we are not ripe for 
 any such fate. Judged by the standard of nations, this 
 is a great and undecayed people. But the citizen is 
 
S5 
 
 found to-day undisciplined in public duty. Through 
 our idle divorce from public concerns, we present the 
 sight of a mighty people lying unorganized, except in 
 the organisms of party, and helpless, doing little else 
 than watching the progress of our own ruin. And 
 so we move, drifting, drifting, and, from the habit of 
 our good fortune, obstinately thinking there is luck in 
 the drift. It is intolerable, I say, to see this great 
 and precious thing perishing from such folly ; it shocks 
 and confuses the moral sense. Why, the mere chance 
 or madness which founders a great ship, or destroys 
 a life, startles that invincible expectation each soul is 
 born with, of a certain reasonableness in nature ; — 
 but here is a great life, girt with such glory, the 
 pledge of the fairest and holiest hopes down through 
 the new scenes of a world hereafter, — a presence 
 which wakes a morning in the earth ; — I say that 
 this life, this State, this America, this noblest birth, 
 this home of men, should be broken down under the 
 axes and hammers of a mob of politicians and mad- 
 men, South and North, — the majestic people, mean- 
 while, lying below, torpid, under some dread fascina- 
 tion, — this ! — it is a new thing even in a history so full 
 of surprises and horrors as the history of States, — 
 and it is a shock to the whole moral frame : — 
 
 " Earth feels the wound, and Nature from her inmost seat 
 Gives signs of woe." 
 
 Our help must be in God. 
 
 FOR WORST OF ALL ; with this helpless apathy, 
 there is a positive selfishness towards the nation in her 
 extremest exigency. Even with some of those who 
 
36 
 
 seem to stand most boldly for the nation, it is merely 
 because the nation is identical with good trade, and they 
 would not scruple, at any moment, " to desert the ship 
 of State if they could save themselves in the cock- 
 boat of their own fortunes." But with many, over all 
 the country, there is actually a hard and unsparing eye 
 cast upon the Union ! its value counted with an easy air, 
 and with a sharp look against it. " There are many 
 things more valuable than the Union," I hear. There 
 may be ; — but what things 1 Why, the concession of 
 any free soil to slavery. This they call " crime," and so 
 enormous, that it were better to destroy a hundred Unions 
 than act it, — better to destroy for this a Union which 
 sets bounds, which meliorates slavery, and gives the only 
 hope to the slave ! For a fanaticism, — or, lower still, 
 for party-pride or greed, — and because they hate to 
 swallow a party disappointment, — people will prate of 
 " crime," and dare, in the face of God and man, to ruin 
 slave and free, and call it virtue ! 
 
 What is Union '? (noble name of brotherhood, now 
 cheapened and traduced !) What is Union 1 It is 
 thirty-three Commonwealths spread from sea to sea, 
 in unity for freedom, peace, and power ! It is to them 
 ^11, strength out of weakness, peace out of quarrel, — 
 a mould which shapes littleness to greatness, and great- 
 ness to permanence ; it is a tower that " stands four- 
 square to every wind that blows," which Freedom every- 
 where " runneth into, and is safe " ; it is something that 
 Stands here in the west of the world as a portent to all 
 kingdoms of darkness, and a promise to the children of 
 light ; a something which, though growing like a moun- 
 
37 
 
 tain, looks as if it were but a foundation for a heavenly 
 structure, — looks as if it were a " corner-stone elect 
 and precious " for that throne which is to stand as the 
 sun in the heavens ! ^ 
 
 Yet on this a mass of men, who have gained from it 
 all they are, look with an eye cold as the eye of a fish, 
 and could stand by, very comfortable, while they see the 
 axes smiting- it to the heart, as if it were a rotten tree. 
 I am sure there is some delusion. They separate the 
 Union as an accident from the Nation and from the 
 national life. But the Union — woe be to them if they 
 do not learn it ! — is the Nation, — not a mere wrapping 
 for the Nation, as a fillet for the head of a god. It is the - 
 Nation ! Destroy it, and think not, ye men of Massa- 
 chusetts or of Pennsylvania ! that ye have left to you a 
 Massachusetts or a Pennsylvania; you will by the same 
 process disintegrate yourselves to atoms. There is no 
 other unity, nothing else among us which seems one by 
 the proudest and most needful bonds, — no integrity 
 of section, of commonwealths, of religion, of humane 
 brotherhoods, of man with man, or of man with himself, 
 — which is not shaken the moment you break the one 
 charmed bond around the whole ! Tell me, then, which 
 way you can so quickly walk to barbarism, as by carry- 
 ing out to act this public heartlessness 1 Can any man 
 name to himself all that this united country is to his own 
 consciousness, his own manhood 'I What littleness are 
 we bent on 1 What little bitter hordes do we seek to 
 break into'? — following our great men of the moment, 
 or our newspapers, or our wilful wish, and forgetting 
 HIM and his parting words, — forgetting him, whose 
 
38 
 
 deep love and wisdom saw this moment and warned his 
 children of it ! O, to hear his voice ! I wonder that 
 his voice is not heard from his grave. Perhaps if all 
 were silent, and we listened, we might hear it ! O, for 
 an hour of his majestic presence, — to see that face, 
 heavy with great and generous cares, the face of the man 
 who bore America and its liberty in his heart, — to whom 
 God gave the land and the cause as a gift for his noble- 
 ness ! O, to behold him ! to see the glance he would 
 cast, — to hear what word this Southern man would 
 speak, to South, to North, to Virginia, — to bow before 
 him down to his beloved feet with shame and sorrow, 
 that we might rise up and come forth, nobly terrible 
 to purify and save the land. But we wish for him in 
 Vain, — and the company of our great and venerable 
 ones have gone after him : and " a man has become 
 more precious than the golden wedge of Ophir." The 
 Land is bereaved : " there is none to guide her among 
 all the sons she has brought forth." 
 
 Our help must be in God. 
 
 O thou Spirit, which hast moved through the sad 
 history of man, in mysterious slowness, forming the 
 souls of the world, be inward among us now; — 
 let Thy great work not perish from the folly and 
 crime of an hour ; — lift us up, scatter the baseness 
 of our souls, and in Thy pure power may each man 
 stand in his ijlace as a sentinel of the public safety 
 and honor ! 
 
 And now, if you have offered your prayer, offer your 
 act. God is ready if we are. Awake! Arise! The 
 country looks and waits for the coming of her pure and 
 
39 
 
 heroic children. I do believe that God will bring them 
 up ; this ripening hour of ill is also a ripening hour of 
 good, — there is a preparing and fashioning of better 
 hearts, — and the seeming agony of dissolution is, I 
 trust, the birth-moment of a new sentiment of Christian 
 nationality on which a better future will rest. To this, 
 coming generation indeed, there would have scarceljr 
 been a country, had not this day of trial been ordained 
 of God to teach them, and to point it out to their eyes. 
 Arise, then, in hope, and act ! This is the time. There 
 is no greater time in history. Who waits \ 
 
 But I hear once more, and hear again, and my heart 
 sinks in hearing it, " we can do nothing." Do nothing! 
 Suppose not ; it is not a question for us what will save 
 the nation, — that is with God, — but what it becomes 
 us to do to save it. But how is this, you can do nothing ? 
 If but a few of us stood out truly and grandly right, 
 and the Lord who built the nation were with us, before 
 our faces, the storm would shrink from the heavens. 
 Do nothing! Why, let each man, standing in his place, 
 be dutiful, brave and generous, — let him reach out with 
 both hands, — let his heart beat, and I assure you he 
 will find or make the most miraculous organs. O, to 
 hear the beat of patriotic hearts, beating as if they 
 would break ! O, to see men with a tithe of that will 
 to keep a nation alive, which just now invincible in 
 Italian bosoms has made a nation to live ! That will, 
 American citizens, is law and necessity, here as there. 
 
 And now I thank God that I have been allowed to 
 speak a word for the Country to-day. I have done it in 
 love to her and to all her children. Pardon the plain- 
 
40 
 
 ness and urgency of my speech, — I have felt as if 
 pleading for a Father's life. 
 
 It is not politics I have called you to ; it is religion 
 and worship. For. in the language of John Milton, " I 
 maintain that the cause of Christ and civil liberty is one, 
 and moving to one glorious end." 
 
 And so I close. Let Christian men who carry Chris- 
 tianity to their firesides, and to their business, now carry 
 it down to this great crisis of the public, and show 
 men the work of a Christian citizen. Find out your 
 duty ! and find it, not from your prejudices, but by seek- 
 ing it in humble confession of national and private sins, 
 — and in humble prayer. Humility! prayer! these are 
 the remedies of our ills, — owning in our hearts un- 
 speakable ingratitude to God and selfishness to man. 
 Low as we may go down this day, we cannot get low 
 enough for our fit place. Let us go lower still ; and 
 truly, most truly humble ourselves under the " mighty 
 hand " that is upon us, trusting that He will " exalt us 
 in due time." But be sure, the contrition is not genuine, 
 nor will the " exaltation " come, unless we go forth eager 
 to find our duty, and in His strength to stand on it. In 
 His strength. " Trust ye in the Lord forever — for in 
 the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength." — In His 
 strength stand ! I say. In the sacred name of God I 
 charge you to stand true to the nation ! — for the sake 
 of Christ " whose ri^ht it is." 
 
 But if after all the citizens ivill hold back from duty, 
 we deserve to fall. Let us fall ! Eighty years of the 
 goodness of God has but served to ingrain folly into 
 our fibre, and the only hope for us is in the furnace 
 
41 
 
 of fire. The augur finds the fatal portent that the vic- 
 tim is without a heart. 
 
 Whatever comes, I hope at least that the threatwied 
 overthrow of the objects of our pride and love will drive 
 us up to "the city which hath foundations," — above 
 the changes of this restless sea, to make us " citizens of 
 a better country, even an heavenly." 
 
 And uow, great and gracious God, as sinful men we 
 bow and humble ourselves before Thee, even to the dust ! 
 Most merciful hast Thou been, and we adore Thee for 
 thy mercies. " Be bounteous still, to give us only 
 good ! " But if thy mercies will not teach us, teach us 
 by sorrow, and so purify and redeem us, — and through 
 afflictions open to us the Land of Peace and everlast- 
 ing Rest. And, O God the Saviour, the Redeemer 
 in the time of trouble, save this nation ! Purify it 
 from bad principles and bad men. Restrain the wrath, 
 and teach the folly, of man ! Not for our sakes, for we 
 are not worthy, but for the children's sake, — for tlie 
 sake of perishing and trampled men, — for the sake of 
 the whole earth, — and for the sake of the Redeemer 
 of the earth, — hear us and save us! Amen. 
 
GOD, THE GIVER OF VICTORY AND PEACE. 
 
 A THANKSGIVING SERMON, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SEPTEMBER 18, 1862, 
 
 KALEiaH, N. C. 
 By REV. JOSEPH M. ATKINSON. 
 
 »Ji--:'- 
 
r^1 
 
 >=.J w- 
 
COIlIlES^PONDEISrCE. 
 
 Kaleigh, Sept. 23rd, 1862. 
 Rev. and Dear Sir : 
 
 It is desired by a large portion of your audience, who heard 
 your very able, eloquent and instructive sermon on the late " Thanks- 
 giving day," Sept. 18th — that the discourse should be printed in 
 pamphlet form. We think that the very original and forcible man- 
 ner in which you presented the issue ifivolved in our present strug- 
 gle, would not only prove instructive to the reading public general- 
 ly, but that, if sent to our soldiers in camp, as a f?'act, it would prove 
 very acceptable to them, and would tend to keep oonstantly before 
 their minds the great truth — thai to God alone belongs the glory ! 
 ^Tis He, who in fact fights our battles; and to Him should our thanks 
 and praises be ascribed. You will conter a favor on us, and very 
 many others of those who heard you, if you will furnish us with a 
 copy of your discourse, on the occasion alluded to. 
 
 Most respectfully, 
 L. E. HEARTT, R. H. BATTLE, 
 
 H. A. BADHAM, C. DEWEY, 
 
 WM. PEACE, J. BROWN, 
 
 T. McGEE, K. RAYNER, 
 
 H. D. TURNER, F. L. ROBERTS, 
 
 R. E. MADDOX. 
 
 Raleigh, Oct. 1st, 1862. 
 Messrs. L. E. Heartf, H. A. Badham, 'milian Peace and others. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 The discourse which you have thought proper to ask for, was 
 originally prepared without the remotest thought of publication. 
 
But since in your Judgement, its more extensive circulation might 
 be of service at this time, and especially to our soldiers, I do not 
 feel at liberty to withhold it. 
 
 Accept my thanks for the very kind terms in which the request 
 was conveyed, and believe me to remain. 
 With high regard. 
 
 Your friend and brother, 
 
 JOSEPH M. ATKINSON. 
 
, THE GIlfER OF VICTORY AND PEA 
 
 uJj. 
 
 Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in tlic morning. 
 Psalm 30 ; 5 : latter clause. 
 
 Whataperfect picture of the providence of God and the experience 
 of man ! Alternation of good and evil, pain and pleasure, light and 
 darkness, joy and weeping is the law of this lower world. In heav- 
 en where "transport and security combine," all is fixed, stable, ever- 
 lasting; the experience of good is absolute, unmingled, unbounded. 
 There shall be no succession, save of ever-growing felicities; no 
 change, save of a continual rise from glory to glory. 
 
 On all those wide extended plains, 
 Shines one eternal day ; 
 There God the Son forever reigns, 
 And scatters night away. 
 
 On earth, whether our state be one of joy or sorrow, we need to 
 be reminded of this glorious prospect — in the one case to sober, in 
 the other to cheer us. The mind takes the colour of the passing 
 time, and thinks it will ever be as now it is, and fancies it will al- 
 ways feel as now it feels. But we should know from the varied dis- 
 pensations of God in the past, from what others and ourselves have 
 undergone, and from the repeated testimonies of the inspired Word, 
 how false this estimate of things ! 
 
 This is signally illustrated in the recent history of our country. 
 God had good reason to send sorrow ; but when sorrow has done its 
 appointed work — when, by the sadness of the countenance the heart 
 has been made better, we may expect the darkened cloud to with- 
 draw and a glorious burst of sunlight to appear, like that which even 
 now 
 
 " Flames in the forehead of the morning sky," 
 
 flashes its gladdening rays from east to west, and calls our whole 
 Confederacy to thanksgiving and praise. 
 
It is in happiest accordance witli the spontaneous impulse of a 
 Christian people that the honored Chief Magistrate of these States,, 
 banded in a common brotherhood of love, of interest, of suffering 
 and of mercies, has called us to grateful ascription and religious re- 
 joicing. 
 
 On a metaorable occasion, in the personal history of our Lord, * 
 when the envious Pharisees rebuked the jubilant rejoicings of the 
 disciples, He said, if these should hold their peace, the stones 
 would immediately cry out. We might well look for a stern and 
 audible rebuke from brute insensate things, if we should withhold 
 our thankful tribute on this day to the God of our salvation. The 
 Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Bless the 
 Lord, 0, our souls, and forget not all His benefits. 
 
 At no distant day in the past, a dark cloud of uncertainty, of dis- 
 aster, of wrath, overhung our whole Confederacy and discharged its 
 collected fury on our devoted land. A series of unexpected and 
 appalling reverses, beginning with the ill-fated battle of Somerset, 
 followed in rapid succession by the capture of Roanoke Island, the 
 loss of Newbern, Nashville, and of various intermediate points, and 
 culminating in the surrender of New Orleans, the commercial era-. 
 porium of the South, the evacuation of Norfolk and the blowing up 
 of the Merrimac, had caused all faces to gather blackness. Then 
 the boldest was filled with apprehension. The most sanguine were 
 tempted to despair. The head of every patriot was bowed in pro- 
 foundest grief. Shall we not be permitted to hope that the heart of 
 every Christian was bowed in humility, confession and supplication? 
 We felt that vain was the help of man, and we cast ourselves on the 
 fatherhood of God. When brought to the lowest point of public 
 depression and of conscious dependence, our deliverance was at hand. 
 God poured the spirit of dauntless heroism into the hearts of a 
 whole people — soldiers, legislators, leaders, alike. The generous 
 resolution was taken to defend the Capitol of the Confederacy to the 
 last extremity. From that moment our prospects began to brighten. 
 Then came the successful repulse of the enemy at Drury's Bluff, 
 flushed with anticipated triumph and glorying in imagined invincibil- 
 ity. Again our coveted and hated capital was beleaguered by the 
 
 * Luke 19 : 40. 
 
most numerous and best appointed army of modern times, led by tbeir 
 most trusted and skillful generals. But day after day tbat mighty liosfc 
 was baffled and beaten back, like the surges of the sea raging against 
 Gibraltar. Their strongest entrenchments were stormed. Their 
 most costly munitions were captured or destroyed by the valor of 
 our troops, animated, sustained and guided by the Lord of Hosts. 
 The defence of Richmond was a prodigy, not only of human heroism 
 but of Divine might. From that day to this, our march has been 
 an unbroken series of splendid successes, under the invisible pres- 
 ence of the pillar and the cloud. Shall we not henceforward as- 
 cribe all glory to the Lord of Hosts, while mindful of onr inextin- 
 guishable debt of gratitude to those noble patriots and martyrs whom 
 He employed for our defence ? 
 
 When the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened, he beheld 
 the mountain filled with chariots of fire and horses of fire. In the 
 first great battle of Cortes against the Mexicans the enthusiastic in- 
 vaders imagined that they saw St. James, the patriot St. of Spain, 
 leading their fiery forces on to victory.* If our eyes could have 
 been unsealed during those seven day's memorable battles before 
 Eichmond, we should doubtless have seen a more awful and a more 
 glorious spectacle. We should have seen an angel, terrible as that 
 which smote the host of Sennacherib, hurling back the multitudin- 
 ous cohorts of our self confident invaders, filling their ranks with 
 confusion, dismay and death. Weeping may endure for a night, but 
 joy Cometh in the morning. 
 
 Never in the history of mankind has the wonder-working provi- 
 dence of God been more strikingly manifest than in the successive 
 phases of this contest. We wholly misapprehend the real signifi- 
 cance of this revolution if we fail to discern His hand and His coun- 
 sel in all that has been done, or, with high providence, permitted to 
 be done. For the present, not joyful but grievous, it has doubtless 
 been a divine agency for the spiritual educatioi\ of our people in the 
 highest lesson of religious wisdom, akin to that painful economy by 
 which Jehovah led his ancient people through the perils of the 
 pathless wilderness to the possession of the promised land. In the 
 
 * The same inspiring but imaginary vision, only in a form still more 
 glorious, was again vouchsafed during the expulsion from Mexico. — 
 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, vol. 'i. p. 341. 
 
8 
 
 successive periods and phases of its progress, it has disappointed all 
 probable anticipations j putting to shame the confident predictions 
 of the wise and vindicating the superior sagacity of humble piety. 
 Its principal agents were themselves even unconscious, before-hand, 
 of the important part which they were designed to bear in the ex- 
 ecution of the decrees of infinite wisdom. So far as it may be per- 
 mitted to man to interpet it, the great purpose of God would appear 
 to have been to exalt his own glorious sovereignty in debasing 
 the pride of material power and illustrating the supremacy of moral 
 forces. In this point of view, its progress has been to us singularly 
 instructive and cheering. Not only does it stand aloof from all 
 vulgar revolutions, but from that which we have been taught to re- 
 gard with almost superstitious veneration as the most wonderful and 
 noble in the annals of our race ; that by which, under the divine 
 favor, we achieved our independence of the British crown and be- 
 came the freest and most powerful people in the New World. The 
 courseof Providential development in our first Revolution was es- 
 sentially unlike what we have thus far witnessed in this. Compared 
 with the former, the hand of God is more bare, more open, more 
 visible, in that which is now in process of consummation. The per- 
 sonal history of one man is the record of that revolution. The por- 
 tion of the life of Washington comprehended within the period, con- 
 tains and exhausts the Revolution itself. He was not only the type 
 and hero of the Revolution, but what was silently transacted in his 
 thoughtful mind and conceived in his patriotic heart, and executed 
 by his own individual prowess, constituted the sum of the Revolu- 
 tion. Thus far at least there is no one man of whom this can be 
 said. There is no one man to whom the glory of these splendid 
 achievements can be so eminently ascribed. It is this circumstance 
 which especially distinguishes it from our first Revolution. In con- 
 sequence of his undisputed ascendancy Washington received among 
 us, it is to be feared ^the j^lory which is due to God only, and other 
 eminent patriots and statesmen of that day, Henry, IIamiltx>n, Jef- 
 ferson, Madison and Marshall, were unduly exalted and relied on. 
 The illustrous men of that generation constitute a grand Pantheon, 
 each having his own proper altar and his own particular worshippers. 
 It should indeed be to us a matter of grateful acknowledgement 
 that God has raised up for ua in this our time of need, able and 
 
godly leaders, like Lee, Jackson, Hill and others, whose character 
 ■would confer honor on any cause, as their public services would shed 
 lustre on any age. But, perhaps, it is well for us that there is no one 
 name with which the transcendent glory of this period of our coun- 
 try's history is too exclusively connected. Thus the apparent sphere 
 of the Divine operation is enlarged, and our dependence on His fa- 
 vor, though not more immediate and absolute, is more conscious and 
 visible. 
 
 In perfect consistency with this view, it may be affirmed as a 
 uniform method of Divine Providence, springing, perhaps, from 
 profound causes hidden in the nature of things and in the nature of 
 man, that in all great Revolutionary movements, religious or political, 
 the tendencies of the times should embody themselves in some one 
 heroic individual whom all men are content to take as the type and re- 
 presentative of the whole period. Thus Luther stands forth confessed 
 as the representative of the German reformation, Calvin of the ref- 
 ormation in France, Zwingle of the Swiss, and Knox of the Scottish 
 reformation. Passing now to the domain of civil Revolution, we re- 
 cognise at once Napoleon, with his brilliant endowments, his inde- 
 fatigable power of bodily endurance, his inexhaustible fertility of 
 resource, his insatiable thirst of military glory and supreme indiffer- 
 ence to human life as the incarnate genius of the great Revolution 
 in France, near the close of the last and the opening of the present 
 century. At the mention of the American Revolution every eye 
 turns at once to the majestic image of Washington, with his unsul- 
 lied patriotism, his consummate prudence, his immeasurable self- 
 control, as the model of all natural and all civil virtues. When we 
 come to our own day, may we not hope that Jackson, the Christian 
 hero, the man of piety and prayer, with a fervency of spirit, like 
 David's in the sanctuary, and a martial ardour like David's in the 
 field, has been graciously given us as the interpreter and imperson- 
 ation of the Christian element and the Christion consciousness of 
 this grand, conflict ? 
 
 We cannot but regard it as a singular mercy of God, that the men 
 for the most part who are the chief agents of Providence in con- 
 ducting this Revolution, should be in personal piety, in such perfect 
 correspondence with its religious character; and that the recogni- 
 tion of God in his incommunicable glory as Supreme Disposer of all 
 
10 
 
 events, should be so universal among our Eulers and people. So 
 long as we shall deeply feel our dependence on God alone, and put 
 our trust in Him, He will favor us, and our progress will be irresisti- 
 ble as the march of time. Faith is the principle of endeavor and 
 endurance. It prompts energy and produces patience. In its rela- 
 tion to Grod. it waits and is dependent. They that believe shall 
 not make haste. It says to the subject soul, stand still and see the 
 salvation of God, In its relation to man. it is daring and defiant; 
 seemingly desperate, imprudent, wild and reckless. But when ap- 
 parently most adventurous, it is in fact most guarded and most pru- 
 dent; for it is animated by a sublime enthusiasm which links the 
 feebleness of the creature withthealmightinessof God. The great vir- 
 tue, therefore, which the crisis demands, and, we trust, has called 
 forth, is faith in God — the perennial source of patience, courage 
 and hope. 
 
 We are prone to rebel against the dispensations of the Most High 
 and murmur as did Israel of old. But how is faith in the Divine 
 Providence yindicated even in time ! How often within the limited 
 sphere of our own personal concerns, have we seen that our owa 
 plans would have been our ruin, and that the events which 
 appeared most disastrous when they occurred, were blessings 
 in disguise. It is the sovereign prerogative of God to bring good 
 out of evil. Thus the awful catastrophe of our apostacy as a race is 
 made the occasion of the eternal salvation of his elect, and of afford- 
 ing therein the most amazing illustration of His glorious attributes, 
 to all intelligent creatures, throughout never-ending ages. And 
 doubtless, each inferior but to us perhaps, scaTcely less mysterious 
 evil, as the rupture oi.what once seemed to us the golden chain that 
 bound together in firm concord this bright sisterhood of States, 
 and in place of amity and peace, gave us the alarms and atrocities of 
 war, will yet find means even out of this visible chaos, to cause a 
 brighter and a more beautiful creation to emerge. 
 
 In that magnificent plea of Milton for the liberty of unlicensed 
 printing, the glorious image of his beloved oountry rises up before 
 him in poetic vision, and he exclaims, "Methinks I see in my mind 
 a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after 
 sleep and shaking her invincible locks ; Methinks, I see her as an 
 eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eyes at the 
 
11 
 
 full midday beam ; purging and unsealing her long abused sight a t 
 the fountain itself of heavenly radiance." This picture and prophe- 
 cy we would transfer to our own dear Southern land. Now, she is 
 involved in the heat and dust and blood of the battle : Hereafter, 
 she shall repose in victory and triumph and peace. Now she sits as 
 a widow, forsaken of the nations : Hereafter she shall arise, radiant 
 as a queen, resplendent as the day, crowned with immortal honour, 
 in favor with God and man. Now, she is oppressed, but not over- 
 whelmed ; enveloped in flames, but not consumed; in peril, but not 
 appalled ; putting her trust under the shadowing wings of the Al- 
 mighty. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh^in the 
 morning. 
 
 She is now toilfully learning those precious lessons which she 
 shall teach hereafter to oppressed and struggling nations ; and to 
 the proud and heartless Tyrants, who in other lands and in future 
 days, may seek to degrade the noble and enslave the free. She is 
 now making for herself a name which shall be gratefully and admi- 
 ringly murmured wherever freedom has a friend or the God of Pro- 
 vidence a worshipper ! The only proper view of this Revolution, is 
 that which regards it as the child of Providence, who " maketh the 
 wrath of man to praise Him and the remainder thereof He restrains." 
 The ends contemplated by men and the actions permitted, not ap- 
 proved by God, are in many cases, very unlike his ultimate designs. 
 And we may say to our Northern oppressors, as Joseph to his cruel 
 brethren, As for you, ye thought evil against us, but God meant 
 it unto good. Gen. 50 : 20. All that was affirmed, and more than 
 was imagined of the ulterior aims of those who inaugurated this 
 atrocious war, has been already done or plainly indicated already. 
 
 Were we able to interpret aright the painful dispensations of the 
 Almighty, we might find that our frightful series of reverses during 
 the winter and spring, were as truly merciful in their intent as our 
 recent splendid successes. It was a humiliating but needful part of 
 our education as a people. It was a bitter medicine, but we hope it 
 wrought a lasting cure. It taught us our prostrate dependence on 
 Him who, sitting on the circle of the Heavens, hath appointed to the 
 nations of the earth the bounds of their habitation and rules with 
 absolute sway over the councils of Cabinets and the event of battles. 
 It was the indispensable condition of th« exercise of virtues, with- 
 
12 
 
 out which no character is complete, whether of an individual or a 
 whole people — virtues less obtrusive and less glaring than heroic 
 prowess on the field of bloody strife, but not less magnanimous, less 
 essential or less rare — the virtues of self-control, of patience, of for- 
 titude and of hope. It has served to exhibit a striking character- 
 istic of our people, previously unknown, it may be, to themselves. 
 I mean their marvellous recuperative energy. In a week after a de- 
 feat or disaster, they have seemed as resolute, as hopeful, and as 
 eager as ever. In the presence of terrible calamity, under the pres- 
 sure of heavy aflB^ction they exclaim, 
 
 " All is not lost; the unconquerable will 
 And resolution never to submit or yield, 
 And what is more, not to be overcome." 
 
 Another quality conspicuously evinced in the progress of this 
 contest has been the singular unselfishness of the great body of our 
 troops, many of them belonging to the best families of our Southern 
 country, born in affluence, nurtured in ease and honour j yet enter- 
 ing thfe ranks and serving with " proud submission" — with " digni- 
 fied obedience," under men in every way inferior to themselves, but 
 invested by lawful authority for a temporary purpose with the right 
 and the place of command. The true history of this war will show 
 that nobler instances of knightly courtesy, of generous valour and 
 of chivalrous emprise, have not been found among the best and 
 bravest of our officers, than among the men subject to their authority. 
 
 I have spoken thus far of the gallantry of our soldiers and the 
 patriotism of our people, but assuredly not with the design of giv- 
 ing the supreme glory to them. They have been but instruments 
 in the hand of a higher power ; channels through which the Divine 
 goodness has streamed forth upon us. For the singular preservation 
 of the precious lives of our leaders and troops exposed beyond all 
 former precedent ; for the signal victories vouchsafed to our arms 
 over an arrogant and exulting foe ; for the patriotic unity which has 
 animated all classes and both sexes ; for the spirit of moderation, 
 of firmness and of humanity which has marked the policy and con- 
 duct of our rulers, our fervent thanks are due to that benign Provi- 
 dence who alone bestowed and inspired it all. The glorious deliver- 
 ances which we have so often experienced heretofore, so far from 
 
13 
 
 exhausting tlie Divine bounty, may under an economy of grace, be 
 turned into an argument for still greater mercies hereafter. When 
 the stripling David armed only with a sling and pebbles from the 
 brook, went forth to meet the giant of Gath, the thought of ancient 
 deliverances kindled his courage. And David said, Moreover, the 
 Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the 
 paw of the bear. He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philis- 
 tine.* 
 
 There ought to be not the spirit of carnal rejoicing and self-com- 
 placent boasting among us now, but great solemnity of heart and 
 great tenderness of walk. We should humble ourselves even in the 
 hour of victory, before the eternal Majesty of Heaven and earth, 
 whose right hand and holy arm hath gotten Him the victory. If, 
 by ingratitude and unbelief, we provoke Him to depart from us, our 
 failure and ruin will not be more deserved than dreadful. The 
 brilliant successes with which His favour has crowned our arms and 
 gladdened our hearts, will be like a single star or a small cluster of 
 stars in a firmament of gloom — a bright chapter in a volume written 
 within and without in characters of mourning, lamentation and woe. 
 This contest is not ended. Infuriated by defeat, our enemies are 
 more rancorous and inplacable than ever. They are summoning new 
 levies of hundreds of thousands, to effect, if possible, the subjugation 
 of our people, and will resort to every device which cruelty, sharpen- 
 ed by malice and mortification, can suggest to effect their purpose. 
 In these circumstances we look to that Grod who delivered David and 
 Israel, and while we celebrate His past goodness, hopefully invoke 
 His future favour. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but 
 we will remember the name of the Lord our Grod. Not unto us, not 
 Tznto us, but unto thy name, give glory for thy mercy and for thy 
 truth's sake. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in 
 the morning. Abiding in such a posture of spirit as this, may we 
 not hope that what He hath so auspiciously begun He will carry on 
 to a glorious consummation ? A conflict waged in self-defence for 
 all that man holds dear, and consecrated by the martyr-blood of the 
 best men in these Confederate States — ^by the solemn voice of all 
 our religious convocations, of all Christian churches and above all 
 
 *1 Samuel; 17: 37: 
 
14 
 
 by the visible favour of Almighty Power, cannot but terminate hap- 
 pily. We should learn, therefore, to exercise a cheerful trust in 
 God and cherish perfect unity among ourselves. 
 
 And amid all the excitements of war, let us not cease to feel 
 that a people's spiritual interests are their supreme interests ; espe- 
 cially in a time of political convulsion, when so many moral and so- 
 cial bounds are relaxed or broken. He, therefore, who at this crisis 
 does most for his own soul and the souls of others, does most for 
 his country ; and he who by his conduct or teaching lowers the 
 standard of Gospel piety, is an enemy not only to religion but to 
 liberty. There are times when extraordinary energies should be 
 put forth by the servants of the Most High. Whenever men are 
 profoundly agitated by a political convulsion or by a war. such as 
 that which is now raging throughout our extensive borders, vice 
 of all kinds abounds. Satan and his agents are active and vigilant. 
 At such a time the people of God should evince a corresponding- 
 energy. Never were Christians called to more diligence, self-denial 
 courage, benevolence and industry than at this solemn juncture; 
 and it is, at such a time as this, that God and all good men are most 
 fruitfully active. In a contest like this every man must serve his 
 country according to his several ability and in his appointed sphere. 
 Every man must find the place and the duty suited to him, and to 
 which he is suited. None can be more important than practical and 
 prayerful labor for the religious welfare of our heroic soldiers ; direct- 
 ly seeking their salvation by preaching to them — by writing and 
 distributing Tracts and Hymns and Bibles — by praying for them — 
 and by tender sympathy with them in the trials and temptations to 
 which they must be inevitably exposed. If God should breathe 
 over these Confederate States the spirit of devotion, of humility, of 
 dependence and of faith, it would be better than any victory in the 
 field, however brilliant — for it would be at once a proof of His favour 
 and a pledge of our prosperity. 
 
 Instructed by the calamities of war, we shall estimate more 
 highly the blessings of peace. We hardly ever value as we ought 
 uninterrupted prosperity, or estimate as we should any good while 
 it is ours. The evils of this trying period will not be lost to us, if they 
 shall impress upon us all an adecjuate sense of the preciousness of 
 peace and bring the policy of our Rulers and the temper of our pco- 
 
15 
 
 pie into perfect harmony with the spirit of the Gospel, peace on 
 earth, good will to men. Such have been the gallantry and patriotism 
 of our troops in the field, and such the charity and courage of our wo- 
 men in anticipating and ministering to]thcir wants, that we may pursue 
 our chosen policy of peace with all nations without the imputation 
 of effeminacy or cowardice. After the lapse of a few years, we trust 
 that we shall look back upon these trying times as on a troubled 
 dream, and in the secure enjoyment of peace repeat, with even more 
 solemn and tender emphasis than on this day of thanksgiving and 
 praise. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the 
 morning. 
 
 The martyred dead have taken possession of this Southern 
 soil for the Southern people. It was theirs originally, by the 
 gift of God, and they have bought it anew by their blood. This 
 land will be endeared to us and to our posterity, because it is the 
 earthly resting-place of our immortal dead. It was the boast of the 
 ancient Greek, as his eye wandered over his beautiful and beloved 
 land, that every hill bore the tomb of a hero or the temple of a God. 
 But more noble dust mingled not with the soil of Attica than 
 that which reposes in the bosom of our own dear native land. It 
 surely lends attraction to heaven, viewed with reference to our pres- 
 ent constitution, to think that there we shall behold and converse with 
 the best and lovliest we haye known on earth. If Socrates could talk 
 of transports of joy at the prospect of seeing Palamedes, Ajax and 
 other heroes of antiquity in a future world — how should the Chris- 
 tian feel when he looks forward to an everlasting abode, not a trans- 
 ient meeting with the saints of all ages — with his Christian friends 
 who have fallen in his defence — and with Christ Himself, the Au- 
 tJior and Finisher of our faith. If he hoped for felicity in compar- 
 ing his experience with theirs — how shall we rejoice in reviewing 
 dispensations of Providence now impenetrably dark, or imperfectly 
 understood, but then shining in the light of Heaven. The past and 
 the future meet in the memory of the dead. The sweetest and 
 brightest link in the chain that stretches back over the past, binds 
 us to the dead ; and that chain stretches forward to eternity and 
 attaches itself to the Throne of the living God. Thus death joins 
 on to life; and all that is sacred in memory connects itself with all 
 that is inspiring in hope. Weeping may endure for a night, but 
 
 joy cometh in the morning. 
 
\ ..v-/ 
 
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