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Our Liberties.

Philadelphia, 1335,

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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

1942

OUR LIBERTIES:

THEIR DANGER,

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A DISCOIJRSi;,

GEORGE W. BETHUNE,
MINISTEB or THE BE70BMED DDTCH CHUBCH, CBOWN ST. rHILADEKPHrl.

BY REdUEST.

GEORGE W. MENTZ & SON, 53 N. XmRD STREET.
John C. Clark, Printer, 60 Dock Street.
1835.

The substance of the following discourse was delivered to the
(jongregation of the First Reformed Dutch Church, on the Sabbath
immediately succeeding the 4th of July. A number of those who
heard it then, desired its publication. More recent events has in
duced a compliance with their wishes, and it is sent to the press
with some additional remarks, as a humble but earnest rebuke of
the evil spirit abroad in our land. The pulpit should speak out ob
this subject, and in the silence of others it may be that this small
voice may not be unheard.
Philadelphia, August nth, 1835.

i^C.
Galatians, v. 1.
" Standfast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."
Jesus Christ was a patriot. The overflowings of his love
went forth through every channel of human affection. Faith
ful to his God, faithful to his people, and faithful to the world,
he was not the less faithful to the land of his birth. This is
clearly seen in his personal efforts to bless his brethren of a
common ancestry, his tears over the waning glories of Jeru
salem, and his command (given after his bitter trials and
death) to begin there the work of evangelizing the world.
Every Christian should be a patriot. Christianity is the
religion of Him, who implanted in our hearts a love for our
own, and who condemns the man who owns no such ties, as
worse than an infidel. The love of country is but an exten
sion of the love of home. Association, gratitude, and inte
rest, combine to feed its flame. The plea of general benevo
lence, as an excuse for the neglect of meaner ties, is hypocri
tical and false. The loftiness of philanthropy cannot be at
tained by despising the intermediate gradations of social feel
ing. The man, who would abandon his household to want,
that he might lavish his substance upon strangers, is scarcely
more unnatural than he, who divorces his country from his
heart to make room for the world. The Author of virtue has
established a different order. He has indeed made the heart
of man the centre of a circle wide as humanity, but he hath
described within it narrower spheres, which the heart must
overflow to reach the farther boundary; and he who is not a

patriot, can never be a philanthropist. Yet, as moral duties
never clash with each other, and as personal happiness can
only be attained by a wise regard to the general good, so true
patriotism can never be inconsistent with more extended be
nevolence; and the converse of the proposition is evident,
that he who is not a philanthropist can never fulfil the obliga
tions of a patriot; nor can he serv? his country aright, who
disobeys the precepts of his God.
But, my hearers, if patriotism be so natural an affection,
that he who feels it not is a monster among his kind, what
should be the strength of its emotion in our hearts? " The
Lord hath not dealt so with any other people." Our coun
try, in the early bloom of her youth, rises high in comparison
with the empires of the past or present, and reads in the catas
trophe of other infant commonwealths the truth, that none
less than Almighty Power hath fostered her recent vigour.
The confused rabble of democratic Athens, the barbarous
strength of brutal Sparta, the unequal rights of consular Rome,
although the gray veil of classic reverence hath somewhat
hidden their rude proportions, place in bolder relief the doric
simplicity of our rising government. While half unfranchised
Britain struggling to imitate our example, and France re
lapsing from spasmodic tumults and abused opportunity, to
yet more galling servitude, remind us of our peculiar bless
ings. God himself has placed our country on the mount of
his favour, and despite the efforts of their despotic masters,
the people of all nations look to the brightness of our watch-
fires, and take courage. Yet is there no danger? Can one be
so blind to the imperfection of our nature, and of all human
institutions, as to believe we may repose in safety and aban
don the watch over our privileges? Are there no dark clouds
skirting our political horizon, no tremblings beneath the foot,
which may be presages of the storm and earthquake? Chris
tians and fellow citizens,
"Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made his
people free."
The reference of the text is not indeed directly to civil
liberty. It intends primarily the deliverance of evangelized

Israel from the bondage of the Levitical ritual, and includes
their freedom from the bondage of sin. But liberty is one.
Its source must ever be the same. The purpose of the gospel
is to break every yoke, and there is not a form which true
liberty can assume, that derives not its beauty and its vigour
from the spirit of Christ dwelling within as the animating
principle. The text, therefore, instructs us as patriots.
Let us then consider.
First. The nature of true liberty.
- Second. The dangers to which our liberties are exposed.
Third. The means of their preservation.
1st The nature of true liberty. Liberty we would define
to be — Freedom in the right pursuit of happiness. God
gives to every intelligent creature a right to be happy, for it
is impossible to suppose, that a benevolent being would create
another to be miserable. This right supposes the right to
pursue the means of happiness, of which no man can be de
prived without injustice.
True liberty is thus not inconsistent, but perfectly harmo
nious with our obligation to obey the laws of God.
For happiness under the government of a wise and holy
God, who has constituted man after his own image, can only
be enjoyed by us in obedience to the fundamental laws which
he has ordained, and the moral connexions of cause and effect
must be as certain as the physical. A transgression of these
laws is an abuse of freedom, and a voluntary forfeiture of hap
piness. The, man who is restrained from prosecuting his la
bour or his pleasure by the demands of his body for food or
for sleep, suffers no deprivation of liberty, because food and
sleep are necessary from the constitution of his nature. He
must comply with these demands, or perish. Thus also the
commands to abstain from drunkenness, sensuality, or idle
ness, are no infringement of our liberty, because such crimes
are opposed to our true happiness. So the precepts which
forbid envy, malice, hatred, avarice, discontent, are all in per
fect consistence with true liberty. Indeed, obedience to the
Divine will is the only right method of pursuing happiness.
But man is not solitary. He is constituted with relations

8
to his fellow men. Dependent upon them, as he is, for happi
ness, he owes to them reciprocal duties; and, as the right dis
charge of these reciprocal duties is necessary to the happiness
of the whole, of which he is a part, so the commands of God,
which enjoin him to seek their welfare, and refrain from their
injury, are not infringements of his true liberty, but, on the
contrary, his obedience to them is its proper exercise. The
same laws which prohibit him from invading the life, the pro
perty, or the domestic peace of his neighbour, restrain his
neighbour from the like invasion on his own. Without such
laws there would be no security, and, consequently, no happi
ness. Equally necessary to his personal enjoyment are those
precepts which enjoin active benevolence and interchanging
kindnesses, for they are intended to acquire for him the same
blessings which they require him to confer. The imperfect
recognition of the divine government by men has led to the
necessity of human laws, as an immediate and tangible security
of human rights. For this purpose God has given his sanction
to governments upon earth, and explicitly commands us, to
" submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's
sake, whether to the king as supreme, or unto governors as
unto them who are sent by him for the punishment of evil
doers, and for the praise of them that do well; for so is the
will of God, that with well doing we may put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men, as free, yet not using our liberty as
a cloak of maliciousness, but as the Servants of God." Our
obligation, therefore, to obey the laws of men, so far as they
are consistent with divine law, is not an infringement of true
liberty, but, on the contrary, right government is essential to
its enjoyment and preservation; and U)henever human laws
are most consistent with the divine, then men may enjoy
the truest liberty.
Thus, a TREE GOVERNMENT MUST BE A GOVERNMENT OF
THB PEOPLE, by which I mean, one whose laws emanate from
the people they govern as their sovereign source.
For, as the pursuit of happiness is the right of every man,
and God has constituted every man the cultivator of his own
happiness, no one may justly restrain him in it, except where

9
It interferes with the good of the community. Of this inter
ference none but a majority oi. that community has a right to
decide, and to the voice of that majority every one should
willingly submit himself; for although instances of wrong from
the community to individuals may occur, they will be compa
ratively rare, as no one would knowingly give sanction to a
precedent for wrong to himself; and each citizen in guarding
the right of his neighbour guards his own. As a matter of
course, there are exceptions to this right of every individual
to share in his own government, as in the case of those, who
from youth or other disabilities, are incompetent to its exer
cise, yet these do not affect the general rule. The arbitrary
governments of Europe are "formed in opposition to this natu
ral right of self-government, and the right of ruling others is
claimed most preposterously from inheritance; or, more pro
fanely, from divine grant; while it remains for us to exhibit
before the world, the first example of its safe and enlightened
exercise. Thus, also, a free government should secure liberty op
CONSCIENCE IN THE WORSHIP OF GoD. Religion is a matter
between man and his Maker: to his Maker alone, therefore, he
is responsible for it. Except where its exercise interferes with
the same right in others, no man, or set of men, has justly the
power, directly or indirectly, to restrain another in his reli
gious conduct. If a man, by his mode of worship, or his con
tempt of worship, interrupts the devotion of his fellow citizens,
or propagates such sentiments (falsely called religious,) as are
contrary to good morals, or dangerous to civil freedom, he
should be restrained as a transgressor of common rights, but in
no other case. The promise, therefore, of peculiar temporal pri
vileges upon the one hand, or the threat of temporal penalties
on the other, to influence individuals in the adoption of a reli
gion, is a violation of natural right, and a blasphemous attempt
upon the divine prerogative. It is, moreover, absurd in its
very nature, for the opinions and sentiments of the inner
man are beyond the reach of human power; and hence per
secution never destroyed any sect of religionists. (You will re
mark, however, that I am here speaking of civil, not ecclesiasti-
B

10
cal governments; for I am far from admitting that discipline
in churches, with reference to opinion, is wrong or needless.
In most ecclesiastical associations, the bond of union is reli
gious doctrine; and where one has united himself voluntarily
to a sect, and afterwards embraces and teaches sentiments
which the voice of that sect declares to be different, he ought
to be expelled, as having violated his covenant, and is guilty
of a breach of faith in seeking to remain.) Arbitrary go
vernments uniformly interfere with the religious worship of
their subjects, because they desire the aid of ecclesiastical in
fluence to control the people. It is indeed worthy of observa
tion, that the state has always sought the aid of the church,
in the first instance, and never the church the aid of the
state, until the example had thus been set. A careful refer
ence to the history of establishments will confirm this asser
tion. But it is the glory of our country, that here every man
may worship God according to the dictates of his conscience,
and that all the advantages of citizenship are offered to every
one without reference to his religion. Thus may it ever re
main; for God is able to succeed his own cause without the
aid of civil power, and the union of church with state is more
dangerous to the purity of the first, than the freedom of the
last. So, a free government should secure our personal free
dom AND THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY.
These belong to the individual. It is, therefore, a violation
of liberty to pass laws restraining the subject from going
where he pleases in his pursuit of happiness, or in the acquisi
tion and use of wealth, except so far as is necessary for the
public good, in the decision of which question he should have
a voice. Such instances may occur, as in the punishment of
crime, the prevention of pestilence, the levying of armies for
national defence, or the laying of taxes for the support of go
vernment, or of duties for the regulation and protection of in
dustry. But, if otherwise my personal liberty or property be
at the disposal of others, my pursuit of happiness is at an end.
Hence, the first efforts of those struggling under a despotism
is to attain these rights, as they seem to lay at the foundation

II
of all; and hence, the peculiar excellence of our happy institu
tions, which, by an equality of representation, give to every
man a power over his own freedom and purse.
These are the principal elements of a free government; and
in the intelligent use of such privilege^, with obedience to the
commands of God, the highest enjoyment of temporal liberty
and happiness consists. This liberty, like every other blessing,
we derive from Christ; and, had I time, it could be shown
that it is peculiarly the result of Christian principles: for the
history of the world demonstrates that civil liberty has ever
been in proportion to the prevalence of pure Christianity.
While, therefore, it is to God we give thanks, we may receive
from God the exhortation, —
" To stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made
us free."
2d. Let us consider the dangers to which our liberties are
exposed. As the great evil of sin is to subject the mind to the inferior
body, so the great danger to true liberty is the contest between
might and law, between brute force and right reason. Pre
cisely as men refuse to submit to the government of reason,
have they recourse to physical strength. The same principle,
which leads an angry, because unsuccessful, disputant to knock
his antagonist down, leads men, who would unjustly oppress
others, to do it by main force. Hence, the scourge and the
chain are the inseparable accompaniments of slavery; hence,
arms have been called the last argument of kings; and hence,
the immense armies of arbitrary governments. It was this,
which made our fathers so jealous of a standing army, and it
is the supremacy of reason alone that can render it unnecessary
for home purposes.
Here, however, lies the secret of our danger in the United
States. The very instinct of our natures, the very genius of
our free institutions which lead us to resist the usurpations of
power, are liable to pervert our strength in resisting or over
coming law, when it seems to interfere with our inclinations,
or personal interests. When men are conscious of the power
to resist or oppress, and their minds are . not sufficiently en-

12
lightened as to their true interests to employ such power aright,
there is always danger. In popular governments, when the
numerical force of contending parties is brought into clear
comparison by their ballots, this danger must be peculiarly
great It is distinctly visible in that jacobinism which seeks
to attain its ends in any other way than by the intervention of
Taw. It is this spirit which has excited the various riots that have,
from time to time, disgraced so many portions of our land, no
matter by what cause excited, or against what objects directed.
It may be religious persecution in burning a convent; or
hatred against the blacks in tearing down their dwellings; or
indignation against a gang of gamblers in summarily hanging
them; or hate of insurrectionists in executing them without
legal trial ; or in violating the sanctity of the mail to come at
incendiary publications; but the spirit is the same, and always
dangerous. Every man has a right to justice, and justice re
quires calmness and deliberation. It can never be administer
ed by an infuriated populace, or an illegal and usurping ca
bal. The next night prejudice may direct the same violence
against a protestant church or the best citizens of our land. It
is submitting every thing for decision to a contest of brute
force. It is vain to say, there are cases beyond the reach of
law. Law is reason, and where reason cannot govern, there
can be no liberty; and the elements of society are reduced to
chaos. Laws alone should be invoked, but never brute force
substituted for them. If such be the state of things under our
institutions, that might must govern, good night to liberty.
If might must rule, let it be the might of one tyrant, not of
many. The same tendency is se(en in what are technically termed
STRIKES, when combinations are formed by men who refuse
to labour, and a parade of physical force is made to intimidate
their fellow workmen and their employers, that the price of
labour may be enhanced. These measures can rarely be car
ried out without violence, either against dissenting workmen,
or those who employ them, as we see in the frequent fights,
and incendiarisms, which accompany them. It is also vain to

13
attempt any lasting alteration by such means. It is a sense
less opposition to the unchangeable and resistless laws of profit
and loss. Labour, like every other marketable thing, will
bring its price, and no more than its price; and that price can
only be regulated by the necessary competition of trade. If
the demand for the products of labour be more than the num
ber of labourers can supply, the master workman will increase
the rate of the wages he pays, that he may obtain workmen,
and thus secure his own profits, being justified in so doing by
the increased price of his articles. But if the number of la
bourers be greater than is necessary to supply the demand for
their products, the price of those products must fall, and con
sequently the price of labour must fall with them; for no man
will pay others what would take away his own profits. A
strike, therefore, is at best only a trial between the journey
men and the master workmen as to which can do without
bread the longest, for a combination of the one class will ne
cessarily produce a combination of the other, in self-defence.
Labour, I repeat, must have its market price. It is regulated
by the supply and demand. Every man will give as much as
he can, that he may secure more profits for himself; and no
men will willingly give more, lest he lose those profits. As it
would be unjust in me to compel a man to take less than the
market price, so it is unjust in him to compel me to give more;
and what is unjust in an individual, is unjust in a body of men.
The first would be unjust in a combination of master-work
men, so the last is unjust in the workmen themselves. Such
combinations must be fruitless. A man may dip water from
a river in a bucket, but he cannot empty the river; water will
flow in to supply the vacuum; so the refusal of any number of
labourers to work will not permanently alter the state of
things; other labourers will come in to supply their places, or
the products of more remote industry will supply the absence
of their own. One might as well attempt to make water flow
up hill, as to raise the price of wages by such means. The
capitalist must get interest for his money, or he will let it re
main safely locked up. The labourer must get wages to buy
his bread, or starve. And, I doubt^ not, if the investigation

14
were made, into the stagnation of trade, the stoppage of build
ings and various enterprises in consequence of these strikes,
together with the idle days, and the expenses of the dissipa
tion accompanying the tedium of unusual idleness, putting the
moral and physical evils out of the question, it would be seen
that more has been lost by standing out than years can reco
ver. Jealousy has been excited between classes who have a
common interest; and in the event of any unusual pressure
upon the industry of the country, it may well be feared, that
appeals to considerate and charitable indulgence, once always
successful, would be made almost in vain. May it not also be
regretted, that many of our more intelligent citizens who must
have known better, should have lent their sanction and their
influence, through the press or otherwise, to courses most ru
inous to the mistaken men themselves who pursued them?
Such a spirit carried out would ruin all social peace and mu
tual rights. It is an appeal to force, not justice.
The same arguments, it will easily be seen, will apply to
strikes for hours as well as wages, except in the case of those
who have nobly refused to break the Sabbath with secular
and unnecessary labour, in which refusal they deserve the
support of all good citizens.
We see this tendency manifested also in the endeavours
which are made to array the rich and poor as parties
against each other. This is done, on the one hand, by ap
peals to the labouring classes to combine against the rich, (or
the aristocracy as they are fantastically termed) and on the
other, in the unmeasured epithets by which the one are dis
tinguished as low and vulgar, from the refined and intelligent.
Such a course is very madness. Nothing can be gained from
it, while scarcely any thing is more dangerous. It appeals to
the worst passions of our nature, exciting the few rich to use
their money as a defence against the physical and numerical
force of the many in the labouring classes. It needs but a
glance to see, that in a free government like ours, their inte
rests are so intimately combined, that an injury to the one is
of necessity an injury to the other. For as the poor cannot
live but upon the employment afforded by the capital of the

15
rich, so the rich cannot get interest for their capital, or enjoy
the luxuries of life, without the employment of the poor. If
a rich man have a fuller wardrobe, the tailor and the semp
stress have the more employment, while the hatter, the shoe
maker, and the jeweller, come in for their share. If he have
a mahogany table, he must pay the cabinet maker for it; if he
ride in his carriage, he must employ the coach builder and
the saddler; if he live in a finer house, the carpenter, the
mason, and the painter, all demand their toll upon his luxu
ries. His trade gives employment to the ship builder, the
mariner, and the drayman; and so his wealth finds its way
necessarily through all the channels of life. Were all men
poor, what would become of the poor? Were all men rich,
what would be the use of riches? Why then "put asunder
those whom God has joined together?" The very nature of
things in a free government, where there are no hereditary
privileges, is opposed to such conflicts. There can be no aris
tocracy among us, but that of successful industry, talent, and
worth. Such appeals, therefore, must lead to disastrous re
sults. For, if to be rich is to expose a man to the oppression
of the labouring classes, (who constitute the governing ma
jority) the motives to become rich are taken away, the sinews
of enterprise are cut, and the rewards of the labourer must
cease, while capital will be exported to some safer place of
use and deposit.
The same remarks may, to a certain extent, be applied to
appeals made to our citizens as distinctive classes, as to me
chanics in opposition to merchants or professional men, to na
tive citizens in opposition to those whom in good faith we
have adopted as sharing w^ith ourselves in common benefits,
to the north in opposition to the south, the west to the east,
the country to the town. We are one in interest, why should
we not be one in heart? Away then with such distinctions,
made and used originally by political gamblers, who would
stake the welfare of the nation against their personal. aggran
dizement. Let no name be known, but that of American
citizen; no rallying cry be heard, but for our country,
OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND OUR COUNTRY AS ONE.

16
I could allude also to the manifestation of the same radical
and Jacobinical spirit, as seen in the course of those, who in
blind or pretended zeal for the abolition of slavery, evince a
determination to trample upon the sacred compact which se
cured our country's liberties, and to scatter "fire-brands, ar
rows, and death," among the dwellings of our southern breth
ren; who defame in their scurrilous prints the characters of
the best of men (aye, and of women too), who cannot adopt
their frenzied zeal, and who reward witli plaudits and prema
ture apotheosis the foreign and hired agitator, for his calum
nies against their native land. There may be, nay, there are,
many good and sincere, though misguided men among them;
yet is the spirit of their party jacobinism, for it is in open
violation of the acknowledged principles of our government.
It is as though they gave Philanthropy a torch, and Mercy a
poniard, and bade them burn and destroy in the name of
melting charity.
And so also might I turn to our southern compatriots, and
ask, if they, in their denunciation of all philanthropy for the
enslaved negro, even the wisest, and their loud and furious
threats to know no law in their resistance of fancied or real
wrongs, whether they do not invite the censure they heap
upon others? They say it is none of our biisiness, and that
we have no right even to think or feel in the matter. Not
feel for the black man? Not pity the slave? Not desire uni
versal freedom by safe and legal means? Not wish the vindi
cation of our common land from the censures of a liberated
world? Before God, we must He hath put the mercy in
our hearts, and we cannot cast it forth. We love them, we
will seek their good, we will invoke heaven's blessings on
their heads; but we must feel, we must weep, we must pray,
for the brethren of our race who are in bondage, though their
faces be black, and their fathers were bondsmen. We cannot
be traitors to our nature, despisers of Christianity, and rebels
against our God, in forgetting that they are men and breth
ren. The rapid increase of vicious indulgence, in a community
like ours, must tend to the destruction of true liberty. For

17
it not only impairs a man's perception of his true interests,
but makes him the slave of his vicious propensities, and con
sequently the means of indulgence the price of his freedom.
What will not the drunkard give for the gratification of his
thirst, or the sensualist of his lust? Money can never reduce
to bondage a virtuous commonwealth. The fewness of their
wants place them beyond the reach of bribes. " See," said a
frugal patriot of ancient times, when one came to bribe him to
the betrayal of his country; "See my dinner, see my dwell
ing, see my garments; can your master purchase one whose
wants are so few?" It is the vices of our countrymen which
will make them slaves, if ever they become so. Vice, while
it degrades our spirits, makes us needy, and unless our morals
be preserved, money in some form or other will yet be the
tyrant of America.
Had I time, I would dwell with special emphasis upon one
vice, which makes more thieves, more murderers, more in
cendiaries; beggars more households; widows more wives;
abandons more children; builds more jails; fills more alms
houses; inflicts more taxes; destroys more lives; and damns
more Souls, than any or all other causes put together; I mean,
the use of ardent spirits as a drink. It has already branded
us among the people of the earth as a nation of drunkards,
and unless it be arrested, it will yet brand us as a nation of
slaves. I might have shown the moral connexion of danger from
the wrath of God with our national sins; our sins of profanity
for which "the land mourneth;" of Sabbath breaking, (even
in high places) and neglect of divine worship; our sins of
pride in forgetting our dependence upon the God of nations;
our sins of injustice against those who suffer as slaves amidst
a nation of freemen: but I forbear, as such considerations,
though not sufiiciently appreciated, are more obvious, and
may also be included in the two general heads we have noted,
ignorance of our true interests, and vice. These are the dan
gers that threaten a government like ours, which is based
upon the opinions of the people. For, if the people be igno-

18
rant, they will become the dupes ofthe designing; if they be
vicious, they will become the venal slaves of power.
3d. Let us consider the best means of preserving our liber
ties. And now I speak to Christian patriots. We have seen that
true liberty consists in obedience to right laws, and that laws
are right only as they are agreeable with the laws of God.
We have also seen, that ignorance which obeys our inferior
nature rather than our reason, and vice which subjects the
mind to the propensities of our bodies, are the great dangers
of our liberties. The right method to maintain them, there
fore, is to diffuse intelligence and virtue. The Christian,
however, believes that true intelligence and virtue are secured
by the gospel alone. A man must know himself to be im
mortal, and what the will of his God is, to know wherein true
happiness consists; and this knowledge, when practically re
ceived, is the best security to the practice of virtue. Indeed,
it may correctly be asserted, that the idea of self-government
is a chimera. It can have no real existence. God made man
a subject. He must have a king; and that people, who ac
knowledges no king in heaven, will soon be ruled by tyrants
upon earth.
The extension of pure religion is then the best mean of
securing the liberty of our country. That religion, which
makes the law of God the rule of all our conduct; that reli
gion, which fixes the eye of God upon our secret practices and
our inward motives; that religion, which proposes the richest
rewards to virtue, and the heaviest penalties against sin which
the law of man cannot, nor dare not reach ; that religion, which
brings every man before the judgment seat of God in his re
sponsibility; and which draws by the sweetest inducements in
the exhibition of a Saviour's love the heart of man to follow
his example.
This religion is not to be advanced by civil power. He is
a traitor to her cause who would seek her elevation by any
other strength than her own. The means of this advancement
God has clearly laid down. The Christian will do it by his
example. " Standing fast in the liberty wherewitli Christ

19
hath made him free," he, by the purity of his life, the equity
of his dealings, the benevolence of his acts, the conscientious
use of his right of suffrage (for which he is responsible as for
any other talent), and by the diligent discharge of every other
duty, is to win others to admire and pursue the same course of
happy freedom with himself. The force of Christian exam
ple alone, were every Christian in the land faithful to his
duty, would place our liberties beyond the reach of dan
ger. The Christian will extend the gospel* by the spread of its
ordinances. Whatever mean God gives his sanction to in his
word, for converting sinners to himself, he will employ in
preserving the liberty of his country. The word of God will
be placed in the hand of every citizen. The pulpit will be
erected in every hamlet The religious tract committed to
every breeze. The Sabbath school embrace every growing
youth. The morality of the gospel, its temperance, its chas
tity, its meekness, and its charity, will be recommended to
every heart Thus God will be exalted, and blessed shall be
that people, whose God he is.
This includes the blessing of general education. The
minds of our fellow citizens should be trained and fitted to ap
preciate the claims of duty to God and man ; and thus be per
suaded of the fitness and wisdom of virtue and order. Cheap
but instructive publications, communicating the elements of
useful knowledge, especially of the principles of government,
should be diffused among them. Not a science which opens
the secrets of nature, which traces the connexion of effects
with their causes, which developes and strengthens the powers
of the mind, or which may amuse the season of leisure from
folly and crime, will the Christian believe unimportant to this
end; but by his fostering care, the church, the school-house, the
lyceum, and the college, will flourish together, as the orna
ments and stays of the republic.
But, as all means are inefficient without the divine blessing,
the Christian will invoke, by prayer, the presiding blessing
¦of the King of kings. He will pray for himself, that he may
be able to live worthy of the high trust committed to him, as

20
one of the guardians of the republic, and that he may keep no
thing back, which her interests demand from him. He will
pray for the church, that her influence may be rightly exer
cised and continually extended like preserving salt. He will
pray for the people, that they may " do justice, love mercy,
and. walk humbly with God." And never will he forget
(\vhat, alas! is too often forgotten,) to pray for " all who are in
authority," that they may be guided into all truth, and that the
blessing of Him, " upon whose shoulders is the government,"
may rest upon them. *• The prayers of one righteous man had
well nigh saved Sodom, and the fervent prayers of the church
united are sufficient to save and perpetuate our freedom.
Ah! my beloved Christians, here is work to do better than
sectarian disputes and party squabbles; better than adventuring
new theories, and reviving old polemics. Oh ! that we could
cast all aside, and neither offering offence, or taking it readily,
live for our country and our God like Christian patriots. Then
should the glory of the Lord burn around our coasts, and
" over all the glory there would be a defence." — Amen.

-HJ

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