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GOD’S JUDGMENTS, AND THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 
 
 A 
 
 DISCOURSE, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. J. R. W. SLOANE, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE THIRD REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 tfeto Yorfc: 
 
 THOMAS HOLMAN, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, CORNER OF ELM AND WHITE STS. 
 
 185 8 . 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/godsjudgmentsthaOOsloa 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now. and know, and seek in the 
 broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executetli judgment, that seeketh the 
 truth ; and I will pardon it. 
 
 And though they say the Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely. 
 
 0 Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth ? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved ; 
 thou hast consumed them, hut they have refused to receive correction ; they have made their faces 
 harder than a rock ; they have refused to return. 
 
 Therefore I said surely these are poor ; they are foolish : for they have not known the way of the 
 Lord, nor the judgment of their God. 
 
 1 will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them ; for they have known the way of 
 the Lord, and the judgment of their God : but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the 
 bonds. 
 
 Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evening shall spoil them, 
 a leopard shall watch over their cities ; every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces : 
 because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased. — Jeremiah 5 : 1 — 6. 
 
 “The proclamation of the present truth, notwithstanding its 
 almost universal neglect, constitutes a very important portion 
 v of the faithful watchman’s duty. 
 
 He is required to consider attentively the course of divine 
 providence, to recognize those principles of eternal rectitude 
 '■ that underlie it all, and to apply those principles to the con- 
 dition, and, as they arise, the developments of the age or the 
 nation in which he lives. 
 
 A task of sucli difficulty in itself, as to require the exercise 
 O of the greatest prudence, caution, and wisdom, that must neces- 
 sarily bring him in contact with the opinions and prejudices of 
 men, expose him to their opposition, sometimes to hatred, and, 
 
 , as often heretofore in the progress of the church, persecution. 
 
 The command of God, however, is imperative : “ Cry aloud, 
 spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people 
 
4 
 
 their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” In the 
 second chapter of Ezekiel we have the commission under which 
 we act, the divine mandates which we are to execute, the char- 
 acter of those to whom we are sent, and, in the reluctance of 
 the prophet, the feeling which the performance of a work so 
 ungracious, and apparently so useless, must induce. 
 
 The roll which was given him was written within and with- 
 out with mourning, lamentation, and wo. 
 
 In the third chapter he proceeds to inform us that he went, 
 in bitterness, in the heat of his spirit, but with the hand of the 
 Lord strong upon him. For seven days he sat astonished at 
 what he saw and heard among those to whom he was commis- 
 sioned ; at the close of this period the word of the Lord came 
 to him again in the most authoritative manner : “ Son of man, I 
 have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel : therefore, 
 hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. 
 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and thou 
 givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from 
 his wicked way, to save his life, the same wicked man shall die 
 in his iniquity ; but his blood will I require at thine hand. 
 
 We were called upon during the past week to celebrate our 
 annual thanksgiving under circumstances of a very peculiar 
 character. It came to us, not as before, with a countenance 
 radiant with the smiles of peace, plenty, and prosperity, but sad 
 with commercial ruin and financial disaster — ominously point- 
 ing to the gory front of civil war upon our western border, and 
 to an approaching winter upon whose nearing footsteps hideous 
 forms of want and suffering attend. 
 
 In our country, suddenly, without any premonitory signs, at 
 least none that men regarded, but unexpectedly, like a clap of 
 thunder from a clear sky, a fearful financial storm has burst 
 sweeping before it the accumulated wealth of years, confound- 
 ing the wisdom of the wisest statesmen and political economists, 
 inducing a condition of things that no mortal could foresee, and 
 for which all seem equally unable to account — its force unspent 
 and its fury unabated, it has reached other shores, carrying 
 everything before it in its tireless and resistless march. This 
 cry of distress from the west has been met by a wail of deeper 
 anguish from the distant east, where, in the most important 
 
5 
 
 dependency of a sister nation, a vast population are heaving 
 like the billows in a storm, in a wide-spread and ruinous 
 revolt. In the midst of scenes like these, we were called upon 
 to observe a day of thanksgiving, “ Wonders in the heavens 
 above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor 
 of smoke/ 7 “ The sea and its waves roaring ;” the deep of 
 financial ruin calling unto the deep of heathen revolt — “ all 
 faces gathering blackness/ 7 and “ men’s hearts failing them for 
 fear and for looking after those things which are yet coming 
 upon the earth. 77 Under such circumstances, with a feeling 
 pervading all Christian minds that we would be more appropri- 
 ately employed in fasting and humiliation before God, we ex- 
 pected a recognition of the hand that was thus laid in judgment 
 upon us. I appeal to every Christian heart to say if such a 
 recognition were not necessary to meet the conditions of the 
 case, even while thanking God for his abundant mercies still 
 vouchsafed in the midst of these great and sore adversities. 
 
 Was it too much to expect that the watchmen upon the walls 
 of Zion would recognize the displeasure of God in our calami- 
 ties, and from his goodness derive an argument enforcing the 
 great duty of national repentance ? 
 
 Thus far they might have gone, although failing to arise to a 
 full conception of the grandeur of the divine government, that 
 stupendous system whose awful wheels resting upon earth, are 
 lost in the depths of “ o’er canopying gloom, 77 the entire admin- 
 istration of which is the legitimate subject of gratitude and 
 thankfulness to God, even when manifested in the way of signal 
 judgment. “ Let Mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah 
 be glad because of thy judgments.” “ Zion heard and was glad, 
 the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of thy judgments, 0 
 Lord.” 
 
 We have perused the greater number of the discourses deliv- 
 ered upon that occasion, which have appeared in the public 
 prints, with a feeling of very great disappointment in general, 
 and, in some particular instances, of very deep regret. We 
 were not prepared for so universal a failure to recognize the 
 hand of the Lord in^ur present condition, far less to find the 
 very opposite position assumed, and such an idea met with a sar- 
 castic sneer, and pronounced “ preposterous profanity.” “ Verily, 
 
G 
 
 there is a God that judgeth in the earth •” but we have found 
 no recognition of his power in these discourses. 
 
 With their authors we have no quarrel — certainly seek none 
 — many of them are justly esteemed as great men, distin- 
 guished for their talents, their acquirements, their noble mag- 
 nanimity of character, and for their genuine piety. The} r are 
 the representative men of the several denominations with which 
 they are connected, and doubtless fair exponents of the re- 
 ligious sentiments of the nation. 
 
 For this reason, we have the more regretted the general tone 
 of their discourses, and have felt it a duty to call attention to 
 them in this public manner. They appear to indicate a state 
 of feeling in the religious world, in which there is very little 
 sense of the presence, power, and authority of Jehovah as the 
 moral Governor of the Universe. 
 
 That there should be in the masses no appreciation of the 
 overruling providence and pervading presence of Jehovah, and 
 consequently no recognition of his hand in the calamities that 
 oppress and the misfortunes that afflict us, is only what the 
 whole history of the race and the whole of experience teaches 
 us to expect. The multitudes throng the broad way ; they 
 know not nor will understand ; they walk on in darkness ; 
 their great characteristic is ungodliness , and their condition 
 without hope and without God in the world. That the rulers 
 should manifest an utter indifference with regard to the whole 
 matter, is no ground of astonishment ; for, however much the 
 warring and jarring empires of earth have differed among 
 themselves upon other subjects, they have all agreed in this — 
 an utter refusal to recognize or submit to the authority of Him 
 who has “ upon his vesture and upon his thigh a name written, 
 King op Kings and Lord of Lords.” 
 
 They have ever said, like their great type, the haughty tyrant 
 of Egypt, “ Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice ?” 
 They continue to refuse allegiance to the exalted and enthroned 
 Mediator ; they take counsel together against the Lord and his 
 anointed. We are not surprised that, intent as the great 
 mass of them are upon their mad schemes of personal and 
 national aggrandizements, that they should refuse to rccogniz* 
 the strokes of the iron rod in the hand of Him against whose 
 
government they are in open rebellion. Our astonishment is 
 reserved, and all required for those, the professed, and, we sin- 
 cerely hope, the true followers of the Lamb, who, nevertheless, 
 refuse to recognize Him in these inflictions of his wrath. 
 
 We are told, however, that this was a day of thanksgiving, 
 and therefore no other topic was admissible. I deny it. With 
 a feeling pervading every mind that there was something in 
 our circumstances strangely incongruous with the occasion, with 
 such a pressure on the heart of this great community, that a dis- 
 tinguished man, in a neighboring city, devoted a whole dis- 
 course to an investigation of the cause that enables us to 
 preserve our natural buoyancy of spirits. It certainly required 
 a sublimity of impudence, of which it is difficult to form a con- 
 ception, to stand before an intelligent audience without so 
 much as an attempt to dispose of the facts that pressed them- 
 selves with peculiar urgency upon the consideration of all. 
 There is more, however, than a simple ignoring of this severe 
 chastisement. In one instance, to which we have already 
 alluded, it was pronounced “ preposterous profanity ” to speak 
 of our present condition as a judgment of God. We hope this 
 was not the echo of the sentiment of any great proportion of 
 the religious community. Had it not come from one who 
 stands high in the estimation of the church, and who has the 
 ear of the nation, we should not have thought it worthy of 
 notice. The religious journals have not sanctioned it ; in most 
 of them we have seen at least a faint recognition ; and in some 
 of the more independent ones the full avowal that our condition 
 is one of judgment. Yet, thus far we have heard it from no 
 pulpit, save from that noble and fearless one in the Church of 
 the Puritans, on Union Square. 
 
 On Dr. Cheever the mantle of the old prophets seems to have 
 fallen, and in him their spirit is revived : when hearing 
 or reading his burning words and thoughts, we are ready to 
 ask, as the Jews of John, “ Art thou Elias ?” Long may he 
 live to snatch those bolts from heaven that make tyrants 
 tremble on their thrones. 
 
 If this fearful financial disaster that has overtaken us is not 
 a judgment, pray what would constitute one? We have, in 
 common with many of the greatest and best in the land, thus 
 
interpreted it ; and we stand here, to arraign the men who 
 deny it, on the authority of this book, before the bar of God 
 on the charge of insulting his government. 
 
 The judgments of God are those punishments which he inflicts 
 upon nations for their sins, whether for warning, for correction, 
 or destruction. Do we not require the first ? have we not 
 deserved the second ? do we not merit the third ? The first- 
 born dead in every house, from the first-born of the captive in 
 the dungeon to the first-born of Pharoah upon the throne, was 
 not the first of Egypt’s plagues, not the first of that series of 
 judgments which culminated in this fearful infliction, and ended 
 in the destruction of the monarch and his army by the waters 
 of the sea. 
 
 No ! Amid many grounds of thankfulness to God this is no 
 inconsiderable one, that he has not exhausted the vials of his 
 wrath — that we have not been compelled to drink to the dregs 
 that cup of bitterness which he commends to the lips of guilty 
 nations. These are the first great drops that precede the 
 approaching storm — a few of the coals of juniper which he 
 scatters before he utterly consumes. He looks through the 
 pillar of cloud to trouble us now ; if we rush madly on, he will 
 look through the pillar of fire to waste and devour. 
 
 What must we term this condition of things ? When our 
 benevolent societies are actively engaged and putting forth 
 every effort to drive the gaunt form of famine from the homes 
 of thousands around us ; when, from every household in which 
 an altar to the everliving and true God is erected, morning 
 and evening goes up the prayer to Him who provides for the 
 birds of the air, who gives to the young lions their pre^ when 
 they roar, and feeds the ravens when they cry, that he would 
 have mercy upon the famishing poor in this inclement season 
 that approaches. 
 
 Is there not upon the whole community a painful apprehen- 
 sion that, notwithstanding all the efforts which can be made, 
 many must suffer from actual destitution ? Is not the tramp of 
 hungry men already heard in our streets, and their cry for 
 bread ringing in our ears ? 
 
 To talk about abundant harvests to those who have nothing 
 to purchase, is the crudest mockery ; the want of means and of 
 
9 
 
 the opportunity to procure them, is as inexorable as the decree 
 of fate' that prevented Tantalus from drinking the water that 
 rose to his chin, or eating the fruits that hung from the boughs 
 almost within his grasp. 
 
 But I must appeal to the reverend gentleman himself from 
 whose lips these inconsiderate words have fallen. Is that 
 no judgment whose voice (to use his own eloquent language) is 
 heard in the “ cry of those who but yesterday knew not a 
 want ; in the cry of the strong man and the famishing child ; 
 of the young girl, tempted by hunger, to a life of shame ; the 
 cry of woman, when her hour has come, with no comfort or 
 cordial near her wretched bed ?” With such scenes around us, 
 and the whole nation consciously tottering upon the brink of 
 ruin, what else shall we say but that God has visited us in very 
 sore displeasure ? 
 
 Suppose all this admitted — what then ? Why, then, God’s 
 hand is recognized ; then we are prepared to search and see 
 wherein this great wickedness lieth, we have the basis for a 
 sincere and speedy repentance — the only mode of appeasing 
 His anger in the present, and averting dire calamities from our 
 country in the future. This is what God requires of individ- 
 uals, of churches, and of nations, who have forfeited his favor 
 and incurred his displeasure. 
 
 But, while there has been a failure as to the true charac- 
 ter of this chastisement, there has been a more manifest 
 one in attempting to assign the cause for which it has been 
 sent. For, while there has been such an almost universal 
 reluctance to give it its true name, there has been a very gen- 
 eral recognition that there was something wrong, and that 
 things were not in their normal state, or, at least, in their 
 usually prosperous condition. It is called a 'panic , and a crisis , 
 and vague terms are employed about gloom and difficulty and 
 embarrassment, but from what source we are not informed. 
 
 Whether it be from man or God, the work of chance — a kind 
 of fortuitous concourse of circumstances, or the necessary result 
 of determined causes, whether it is a mere fatherly chastise- 
 ment, or an incoherent event without any definite relation to 
 God or his government, we arc left to conjecture. 
 
 As to the cause, however, we have theories in abundance. 
 
10 
 
 Female extravagance — the credit system — fast living — rail- 
 roads — the tariff, and especially the banks — have all come in, 
 and, perhaps, all deservedly, for their share of influence in bring- 
 ing about the result. The nation has undoubtedly been indulg- 
 ing in a wild dance of extravagant folly, unconscious of the gulf 
 that was yawning beneath — Quem Deus vult perdere prius de- 
 mentat. Nations as well as individuals are sometimes given 
 over in awful visitation to blindness of mind ; they become 
 more reckless as they approach the verge of national ruin, as 
 the laugh of the maniac is loudest and wildest when he leaps 
 from the giddy hight upon the ruin beneath. The mistake 
 does not consist in tracing the effect to these causes, but in rest- 
 ing upon them. “ Is there evil in the city and the Lord hath 
 not done it ? ” Great national calamities are to be traced to 
 great national sins. God has announced the law of his govern- 
 ment : “ For the nation and kingdom that will not serve me 
 shall perish. h Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. Nor 
 can a nation more than an individual violate God's law and 
 expect to escape with impunity. If they sow the wind, they 
 must reap the storm ; if they plant the vine of Sodom, they 
 must eat grapes of gall and clusters that are bitter. If 
 they will not cease from their crimes, God will not lay aside 
 his thunderbolts. Justice, although, according to the concep- 
 tion of the ancients, /«me, never fails to overtake the guilty — 
 her hand can only be stayed by repentance. In our own na- 
 tion, we find causes far more than adequate to the production 
 of all the disasters that we witness ; the wonder is, ngt that the 
 punishment is so severe, but that it is not far more fearful. The 
 truth is, and it may as well be told, this nation, like the youth- 
 ful criminals in our streets, has early attained maturity in 
 crime — why not confess it and repent before God ? What is 
 the proper course for an individual who realizes that he has 
 incurred God's displeasure ? Is it not to seek out his sin, con- 
 fess it, repent, and pray to God for that forgiveness which He 
 alone can confer. I have yet to learn that there is any other 
 course provided in God's word for nations. 
 
 But, unfortunately, of all nations, perhaps, we are the most 
 sensitive to any mention of our faults, and therefore so very 
 reluctant to acknowledge them either to man or God. It is a 
 
11 
 
 maxim in the British government that “ the king can do no 
 wrong / 7 because I believe he has a convenient method of hand- 
 ing over his sins to the parliament. “ We, the people / 7 claim 
 the sovereignty in this land, and apply to ourselves the same 
 maxim. A kind of demoniacal infatuation has taken possession 
 of us, and we persuade ourselves that, in our national capacity, 
 at least, we have attained a state of sinless perfection ! We do 
 not require even a parliament upon whose shoulders we might 
 lay the burden of our national iniquities. Measured by our 
 opportunities and professions, weighed in the balance of the 
 sanctuary, and viewed in the light of the blessings that a mer- 
 ciful God has bestowed, we will be found among the most guilty 
 nations upon the face of the earth, indeed, it would not be diffi- 
 cult to prove, the very guiltiest . Point me, who can, to any civil- 
 ized or professedly Christian nation, to whose charge such a 
 sin as American slavery can be laid, or one at all comparable 
 to it. Men may deny, denounce, deride — say just what they 
 may — but there it is, the foul “ damning spot 77 upon our national 
 escutcheon, that “ won’t out 77 — that makes us the by-word and 
 the reproach of nations, Avliile the pitiful eagerness with which 
 our divines stand ready to apolog-izo for and defend it, fills the 
 hearts of Christians all over the world with grief and shame, 
 and the mouth of infidelity with an argument to which we have 
 no reply but a blush. 
 
 Dr. Baird — and we respect him personally as well as publicly, 
 as highly as we can any one who in any shape undertakes to 
 apologize for slavery — seemed to think that he had frightened 
 the whole religious ivorld, or at least the British portion of it, 
 by threatening to introduce the subject of the “ opium trade / 7 
 should any mention be made at the Evangelical Alliance of 
 American slavery. The old gentleman seemed to forget that 
 that particular branch of commerce was not under the special 
 protection of any religious denomination. That all the pulpits 
 in the “three kingdoms 77 would be open to him or any one 
 else to denounce it as vehemently as they chose, and that had 
 its introduction into the discussions of the Alliance been at all 
 proper, not a mouth would have been opened by way of apology 
 or defense. We were sorry to sec such a silly threat, and did 
 we not entertain for Dr. Baird such feelings of genuine respect, 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
12 
 
 would be tempted to commend him to the celebrated prayer of 
 Robert Burns — it would save him from such a blunder in the 
 future. God grant that the day may soon dawn when these 
 defenders of a system so foul and abominable may see them- 
 selves in the light in which other Christians view them. How 
 fearfully absurd for us to talk about the sin of Britain in with- 
 holding the Bible from the schools established in India, while 
 we are silent as the grave with regard to the four millions 
 of slaves on whose necks this nation has the iron heel of its 
 power, and from whom it withholds the words of everlasting 
 life. 
 
 Nor is slavery by any means the only sin with which, as a 
 nation, we are chargeable. Our constitution of government, 
 and its administration, are, to all intents and purposes, atheistic, 
 ignoring the existence of God and every institution that he has 
 established among men. This constitution was formed at a 
 period when this country and Europe were both overrun by the 
 principles of French infidelity, by men who were notoriously 
 sceptical, and by whom all recognition of God was purposely 
 excluded from this “ remarkable document /* 7 This no one can 
 deny who has any acquaintance with the history of this period. 
 Read the life of Dr. Dwight, and you will learn that the work 
 which lie and his noble compeers performed, and for which they 
 deserve, and will receive, the lasting gratitude of Christians, 
 was the extirpation, to a very great extent, of its fatal and per- 
 nicious influence from the land ; a work, however, which, unfor- 
 tunately, they never accomplished in the State , as to its con- 
 stitution or administration, and which remains to this day, in 
 both respects, as thoroughly infidel as it was at its organiza- 
 tion. But very recently, as you are doubtless all aware, our 
 minister to France presented his credentials upon the Sabbath, 
 a compliment perhaps to the cofd-blooded usurper who rules 
 that infidel nation, but an insult to the religious sentiment of 
 the country which he represented. Can it be denied that this 
 nation acquired the greater portion of her territory by means 
 the most unwarrantable and unjustifiable ? The wars with the 
 Winnebagoes in the north and the Seminoles in the south, are 
 yet fresh in our memory, while the revelations of the “ Indian 
 Aid Society” recently organized in this city, but too clearly 
 
13 
 
 show that there is no material alteration in the general course 
 of her policy to that unhappy race. 
 
 Toward weaker and neighboring nations, her conduct has 
 been overbearing, unjust, and oppressive. Who is unmindful of 
 the late disgraceful war with Mexico ? or, who is ignorant that 
 these filibustering expeditions, which have done so much to 
 render our very name odious, are fitted out, and pass from our 
 shores under the very eye, and with the connivance of the officers 
 of the government — the President not excepted ? 
 
 What shall we say of the existence of idolatry in its worst 
 forms in California, and in this city, under the operation of our 
 spurious ideas of universal toleration, or of the manner in 
 which she has fostered that foul band of miscreants on our 
 western border, who now defy our arms and affront our 
 power ? 
 
 These are all the legitimate offspring of that proton pseudos 
 with which this nation commenced its career, the determination 
 to separate religion from all connection with the constitution 
 and administration of the government. When she declared her 
 independence, she uttered great truths upon the rights and 
 equality of man ; but as soon as that boon was secured, she 
 gave the lie to her professions by riveting more tightly the 
 fetters upon the unhappy bondsmen in her power. “ A golden- 
 mouthed deelaimer 77 has pronounced the declaration of in- 
 dependence glittering and sounding generalities, and the policy 
 and. practice of this nation show that in her mouth it was, and 
 is, nothing else. Yes, something worse, glittering and'sounding 
 falsehoods. 
 
 Thus must it ever be with nations who refuse allegiance to 
 God and his Christ, who will not accept of his law as their 
 rule, and his Son as their Ruler. Who will not acknowledge 
 Him to whom every knee should bow and every tongue confess, 
 and who, consequently, have no standard of reetitude by which 
 their national policy may be guided. 
 
 Now, what is our present position ? Like Israel of old, 
 “ cursed with a curse / 7 and, for the same reason, we have 
 11 robbed God even this whole nation . 77 Open rebellion in 
 Utah — civil war imminent from the Kansas imbroglio — every- 
 
14 
 
 where financial ruin and distress — gloomy forebodings of still 
 more disasters upon every mind, like the toppling rock of Tan- 
 talus ready to fall at any moment, or the drawn sword of 
 Damocles suspended by a single hair — the streams of national 
 wealth dried up like waters in tliQ desert, and the nation 
 reeling upon the brink of a general bankruptcy. 
 
 Men may talk about our recuperative energies, our vast 
 resources, our indomitable spirit and perseverance, or laugh at 
 the idea of calling this a state of judgment, and pipe to the 
 syren song of peace and prosperity, but all this will not remove 
 the incubus which just now rests with such crushing power 
 upon the national heart. We may close our chamber doors, 
 draw the blinds, fasten the shutters, pull down our niglit-caps 
 comfortably over our ears, but all this will not still the storm 
 that is raging without. 
 
 The stale commonplaces about our glorious constitution, our 
 free institutions, our inviolable Union, our vast material, wealth, 
 etc., seem sadly out of place just now. “ Wild laughter in the 
 throat of death.” 
 
 Let us take God’s plan : “ Turn ye even to me with all your 
 heart, and with fasting and with weeping and with mourning, 
 and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the 
 Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, 
 and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil, who 
 knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing 
 behind him, even a meat-offering and a drink-offering unto the 
 Lord your God. Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, 
 and the bride out of her closet ; let the priests, the ministers of 
 the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them 
 say, spare thy people, 0 Lord, give not thine heritage to re- 
 proach. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped 
 down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; 
 and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the 
 ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the 
 earth, and been wanton ; ye have nourished your hearts as in 
 a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just, 
 and he doth not resist you.” 
 
 “Wherefore, 0 king, let my counsel be acceptable unto 
 
15 
 
 thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniqui- 
 ties by showing mercy to the poor if it may be a lengthening of 
 thy tranquility.” 
 
 “ Loose the bonds of wickedness ; undo the heavy burdens ; 
 let the oppressed go free ; break every yoke.” 
 
 This is God’s remedy for such calamities as now afflict our 
 nation. We propose it, with a high degree of confidence in its 
 efficacy — with little hope of its adoption. We hear already 
 that this is altogether impracticable. So it has proved to be in 
 the history of the nations in the past, and we fear will be in 
 the history of the nations for many years in the future. But 
 let them remember that, while justice and repentance have been 
 impracticable upon their parts, in the government of God — 
 righteous, but awful — their utter destruction and annihilation 
 have proved perfectly practicable. Let professed Christians, 
 ministers, and churches, who incorporate with such corrupt, 
 God-dishonoring, and God-despising organizations, who flatter 
 and fawn upon ungodly rulers, and who are ready to apologize 
 for any iniquity, however enormous, provided the nation does 
 it, remember that this is the law of God’s government, that 
 those who partake of their sins shall receive of their plagues. 
 
 We have spoken plainly, and with a full knowledge of all 
 the prejudice and opposition that such language is calculated to 
 excite, but not the less confidently as to its truth. It is a small 
 matter to be judged of man’s judgment. We must all appear 
 before the judgment-seat of Christ. If our principles are not 
 adapted to this age we can afford to wait. The kingdoms of 
 this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
 Christ, for the Lord hath spoken it. 
 
 Though the nations forget God, he does not forget them ; but 
 when they least expect it, arises from his place, arrays himself 
 in the garments of vengeance, and makes them feel the awful 
 power of his vindictive wrath. Thus will he continue to tread 
 them in his anger, to trample them in his fury, to break them 
 a.s a potter’s vessel, until they submit, recognize the authority 
 of his Son, and give the glory to his name that is due. 
 
 There must be a fearful conflict between the church and the 
 world-powers before Zion can appear in her glory and her 
 
16 
 
 beauty ; and the sooner the trumpet is blown and the battle 
 begun, the better for her and the world. On whose standard 
 victory will perch is not uncertain. 
 
 The Lord God in the midst of her is mighty ; he will hasten 
 it in his time. 
 
 Be wise now, therefore, 0 ye kings ; be instructed ye judges 
 of the earth. Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish from 
 the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are 
 all they that put their trust in him. Amen and amen.