ajurnell 5lltti»eratta Cihrarg Charles H. Hull Cornell University Library BX7233 .HI 7 (Discourses. olin 3 1924 029 487 497 B Cornell University ^ Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029487497 "> - ^^^2^-92^ f^^x-^^/^ BICHARUe^ PROI'ESSCFt '3F CHRISTTATl THEOLOGY ft,-^,.-.-^ TV 'f FAEEWELL fm\ Cnngregatoiml Cjitirrj) IN NORWALK, CONN., SABBATH, APRIL 29, 1855. BY REV. EDWIN HALL, D.D. AT THE CLOSE OP HIS LABORS AS PASTOR OE THE CHnKCH FOR TWENTY-THREE YEARS. NEW YORK: W. H. TINSON, PEINTEE AND STEREOTTPER, 24 BEEKMAN STREET. 1855. NoBWALK, May 2, 1865. To Eev. E. Hall, D.D. Rev. and Dear Sib : — At a meeting of the First Congregational Society of Norwalk, holden at the Lecture Room, on Monday last, the undersigned were appointed a Committee to convey to you their unani- mous acknowledgment, that, during the long period you have been their Pastor, you have preached to them the Gospel in its fullness and purity ; that your pastoral duties have been performed with kindness, faithfulness, and impartiality ; that your daily walk, as a man and a Christian, has been eminently such as to win their confidence and esteem and that of the community at large ; and to assure you, that entertaining these senti- ments, and regretting the partial loss of health which has induced you to separate from them, they shall ever hold your services, and intercourse, and character, in grateful and affectionate remembrance ; and pray that length of days and temporal happiness, and the peace that passeth all understanding may attend you in the new relations you are called to sustain. We were further charged with the duty of conveying to you the unani- mous request of the Society, that you will favor them with a copy of your Farewell Sermon, for publication. Hoping that a compliance with their request will be consistent with your views and feelings, we are Very truly and sincerely Your friends, Thomas B. Butler, Stiles Cubus, L. Hyatt, Charles Lock^wood, A. E. Beard, Ira Gbegokt, Henry I. Hoyt. FAREWELL SERMON. 2 COE. XIII. 11. " FINALLY, BRETHREN, FAREWELL. BE PERFECT, BE OF GOOD COMFORT, BE OF ONE MIND, LITE IN PEACE ; AND THE GOD OF LOVE AND PEACE SHALL BE WITH YOU." The apostle having, in two long epistles, set forth to the Corinthian, brethren the whole scheme of Christian, doctrine, with every exhor- tation to holiness, comes, at last, to a point where his labors for their good must close. In a few brief words he sums up the amount of all he would say, and bids them a final farewell, ' ' Final- .ly, 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." " Be Perfect." — The word in the original, for Be perfect, is used in Mark, i. 19, where James 6 and John were " mending " their nets ; — repairing whatever was defective or unsound ; making them whole, complete, and serviceable. It is used m Gral. V. 1, for restoring one who has been over- taken in a fault. It is used in Luke vi. 40. Every one that is perfect shall be as his master ; i. e., every one that is a complete, finished disciple, shall be of such a character as Christ. If the original idea of mending is retained, every man wholly restored from his sins, and made a complete Christian, shall be like Christ. The word is used, Heb. xiii. 21, " The God of peace make you perfect in every good work, to do his will." Be perfect : . be complete Christians ; having a symnietrical and finished Christian character. Let your whole mind, soul, spirit, and life be wholly imbued with Christianity, and completely under its power. Some Christians content themselves with one or two traits of Christianity ; and, overlooking other important requisites, grow up sadly out of shape. Some, ^W-ho lay great stress on devotional frames of mind, and who, perhaps, excel in spiri- 7 tuality and prayerfulness, forget to be active in "well-doing — in feeding the hungry, "clotliing the naked, visiting the sick and the prisoners, and endeavoring to lead souls to Christ. Some, who are in repute for devotional piety, strangely fail in honesty or in liberality, — become hard men to deal with, or have an unpleasant temper, and fail in kindness and love. It should seem hard to explain how such qualities can exist together ; but man, when he is renewed, has two natures : he delights in the law of God after the inner man, but he finds a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into cap- tivity to the law of sin and death. While he watches and cultivates one part of his character, the evil breaks out unnoticed in another, and he may be all unconscious of it. Some are active in the church, but self-sufficient and self-willed. Some fail in direct activity, who are yet even in their course, and much to be relied on in case of need. Some run well in other respects, but fail in the graces of forbearance and patience. They cannot bear a slight injury, or a disrespectful or disparaging remark. They lack the charity that beareth all things ; not considering that in this sinful world whoever would possess his soul in patience, must bear many things, which would not need to be borne if the world were not in a fallen state : and not considering, perhaps, that they themselves are not fit for a better world. Some do well till they are injured ; and then they show they have not yet attained the grace of the Saviour, who, when he hung upon the cross, instead of speaking one word of rebuke, by which his enemies would have withered up and perished, only said. Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. Some do very well in prosperity, but when troubles come they faint, and forget to profit by the words which are written for our comfort, and which describe the Lord as our Rock, our Fortress, our High Tower, our very present help in time of trouble. It requires many and many a lesson, and much severe discipline, to take a poor, fallen creature, whose depravity is not only innate, but strengthened by long habits of evil, and to make him in all respects a complete, perfect 9 Christian. But this is what we are to strive for, to be perfect ; to be as kind, as just, as true, as pure, as merciful, as forbearing, as patient, as zealous in doing good, as meek, as humble, as prayerful, as full of piety to God, as heavenly- minded, as strong in the faith, as hopeful, as far raised above all improper despondency or gloom, as Christianity requires. This is what we are to strive for to be perfect, with every sin subdued, every defect in our character removed, and every ornament, and grace, and excellency in us in full perfection. All this is a great work for a poor, feeble^ wicked worm of the dust to undertake, but this it is to undertake to be a Christian. It is wonderful what time, and pains, and prayer, and the grace of God will accomplish in one who earnestly sets about the work. Who of us doing it ? Who of us will endeavor to fulfill the apos- tle's injunction. Be perfect ? "Be of Good Comfort." — This is a world of trial. In addition to the ordinary troubles of life, Christians, in the days when the apostle wrote. 10 suffered from the hostility of the world. There are also spiritual afflictions ; when the child of God feels his infirmities, and is distressed with his sins as with the body of death. Hunger, cold, want and the fear of want, are not the only trials of life ; no, nor is one's own sickness or distress, nor one's own calamity or death. Many of our keen- est afflictions arise from our purest affections ; as when we are called to part with our children, or our dear friends ; or when we are afflicted with their sorrows. One may have reached a point where all anxiety for himself ceases, yet his care for the welfare or for the afflictions of those who are nearest to him, may greatly oppress his heart. But whatever be the trials of the Christian, whe- ther outward distress or inward sorrow, it is always his privilege and his duty to be of good comfort. The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice : much more the children of Grod ! Have you cares ? Oast them on the Lord. Are you afflicted ? Pray. Are you troubled with anxious forebodings ? Take no thought for the morrow. The Lord only calls you to bear the evil that he lays upon you 11 to-day. Do embarrassments and trials surround you? Count it all joy. They are the trial of your faith and patience. They are exercises of the gi^ace of submission ; light afflictiorls, but for a riioment, working out for you a far more exceed- ing and eternal weight of glory. Are you anxious for Zion ? Are you grieved for the afflictions of J-o'seph ? The Lord loves Zion more than any of her children love her. He may be preparing the richest mercies in ways that seem the darkest. Or if what seems adverse is a chastisement, that may be'iliore TOedfur than anything else ; the richest blessing, in the end, that a faithful Grod can bestow. With the throne of grace' open before him ; with a kind Father— a Faithful Q-od for his rock and refuge, his very present help in time of trbiible, the Christian may well be of good com- fort. Cast away gloomy, desponding, ' thoughts. Trust in God. Seek his face. Repose in him ; aiid Rejoice ever more ; and again I say,'Rejoice. "Be of One Mind." — Wh^re age, and taste, and judgment; and temperament, and interest, cause 12 men to differ so much, it would seem almost impossible that a large community, or church, can in all things long continue unanimous. Unad- vised speeches, little misunderstandings, party- feelings, and sin in a thousand forms, aU tend to get them out of patience and out of confidence with each other. Then all men love to have their own way. The world would stagnate if the views, feelings, and tempers of all were alike. If all material objects were of the same chemical cha- racter, the world would die. It would be a dull world indeed, if all things were of one color. Music would be a wearisome monotony, if all were one note. Grod made men to differ. Their looks differ ; their complexion, their gait, their minds, their voices ; and so with their views. God meant it so. There is use in it. But as all nature in its infinite variety blends in harmony and beauty, so it should be with the differences among men. Expect differences. Never demand that all shall feel and think alike. Yet remember how some of our dearest interests depend upon union ; and how necessary these very varieties of thought 13 and temper render it, that people should be con- ciliatory, and sometimes yielding. It is seldom allowed to people to be so unanimous in feeling that all may have their own way. Yet in public interests there is room for great agreement. Christians have similar principles, tastes, hopes, experiences. They have one Lord, one faith, one Baptism. It is rather natural that there should be a good degree of unanimity in things pertain- ing to their spiritual interest : and it is wonderful how readily people can agree when they earnestly desire to do so, and when no one is determined to drive on his own way or else abandon Zion. Ah, they are bad people who will forsake public wor- ship, and break their covenant, because they are a little displeased, and because their views and feel- ings have not been so much regarded as they think they should have been. I said they are bad peo- ple ; I recall it. Good people are sometimes left to act very badly. I would rather say, it is bad conduct, of which no child of God should ever allow himself to be guilty. Be of one mind; be reasonable ; be conciliatory : and there is no rea- 14 son in the world why the harmony, which has been so well-nigh unbroken among you for more than twenty years, may not last as long as any of you live. At all events, this is a divine injunction. Be of one mind. " Live in Peace." — what wars and .fightings have attested the fallen nature of man ! What animosities have arisen even in the churches of Christ, and destroyed their peace ! How brethren have been separated by feuds ! How members of the same church or the same family have embit- tered their whole lives, ruined their usefulness and their character, by quarrels arising often from mere insignificant and unworthy causes ! How natural it is to fallen man to have wrath or bitterness rise up in his heart, upon ill-usage, or even to be stirred up to revenge ! How deadly these quarrels are to piety ! How they drive away the gentle Dove, the Holy Spirit! What foUy people perpetrate in anger ! What advan- tages they give to Satan ! Now as it is neces- sary to fallen man never for a single day to omit 15 the petition, Lead us not into temptation, so it is necessary, everywhere, perpetually to repeat the exhortation in churches, Live in peace. What house divided against itself can stand? Bu where Christians determine- that they will live in peace, it is wonderful how easily they accomplish it. There is one remedy for the worst evils — save for departure from the truth, and for such unrighteousness as it is sin to tolerate ; and that remedy lies in the single word Foegive. Suffer long. Be patient. If nothing else will suffice, then bear, and forgive. The fruit' of righteousness is sown in peace to them that make peace. Peace- makers shall be oalled the children of Grod. If these injuctions are complied with, then under a divine warrant the apostle promises the divine blessing. ' ' And the God of Love and Peace SHALL be with tott." As Christ is the Prince of Peace, so Grod is the Grod of Peace. He loves those who study the things that make for peace. The Grod of love loves them who live together in love. When he giveth peace, who then can cause trouble ? What 16 can disturb us when the peace of Grod, whicli passeth knowledge, shall keep our hearts and minds ? In the world we may have tribulation, but in Christ we shall have peace. Calm trust, hope, consolation, a blessing from God that cheers the heart ; that maketh the soul rich and addeth no sorrow : rich reward for them that keep the commandments of God ! Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall oflfend them. And now, dear brethren, I come to the words which, on account of their home application, pain me more than any words that I have been called to utter these three and twenty years, "Finally, brethren, farewell !" Finally ! Long have I preached the Gospel to you ; and I have the testimony of a good con- science that I have endeavored to preach it simply and purely. Ye are my witnesses that I have not preached myself, but Jesus Christ. And now standing before you, perhaps for the last time, perhaps never to meet again with some of you till we meet at the Judgment, I testify to you that the Gospel which I have preached to you 17 is true. Oh, how many of the fathers and mothers in Israel have I attended on their death beds, and seen the hope and comfort which this Grospel gave them in a dying hour ! And I enter- tain no doubt that many of these dear friends of my youth are now rejoicing in heaven. Many of your sons and daughters I have attended on their death-beds. And they have felt that the hope of this Grospel robbed death of its terrors, and' the grave of its gloom. I have seen the power of this Gospel in times of revival, when many were inquiring what they must do to be saved. I have witnessed its power when Grod was striving with the solitary sinner alone. You have in many and many a case, witnessed its transforming power. Brethren, the Gospel which has been preached in this church for more than two hun- dred years, without one discordant voice or note, is true. Other foundation can no man lay than is laid. The soul and its eternal interests are things of too great moment to trust to any other than to the chief corner stone, elect, precious, which God hath laid in Zion. 2 18 It grieves me that some to whom I have preached the Gospel from the beginning of my ministry here, are yet without its consolations, and without any part in its eternal benefits. Dear friends, you ought not so to be. You have no right to withhold your souls from Christ and from the truth, for a single hour. You need not. Where wiU this neglect of the Gospel end ? When will you at length believe and obey the Gospel? Shall I ever hear concerning you, the joyful intelligence that such or such a one is rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God ? ''Finally V After so many years, at last comes the end of my labors here. They have been years of more peace and comfort, of more for- bearance and kindness on the part of the people, than I ever expected to enjoy in the ministry of the Gospel ; for which, first, I thank the Lord ; and then you, my kind friends, whose forbearance and kindness have relieved me from so many of the shades that have fallen upon so many others in the ministry of the Gospel ; and from which I had no reason to expect an exemption. Nor do 19 I thank you alone. My heart goes out in grateful remembrance to the fathers and mothers of many among you, who are now mingled with the dead. As I have thought of leaving you, and my heart has been very sad, my thoughts have wandfered over these pleasant valleys and hills, and entered dwelling after dwelling, and recalled the pleasant and profitable hours which I have spent in the society of these ; or as my ears have again seemed to hear their voices in our meetings for prayer, my soul has been full. There is not a dwelling in this congregation where, from the beginning down to the present hour, I have not felt at home. There is not a soul among the living or the dead, whom I have not been able to regard as a friend ; not one among you, whom it will not give me pleasure to see once more, if the Lord shall ever allow me to revisit the scenes where the best part of my life has been spent ; or if I shall hereafter be permitted to see any of you in the place which I expect hereafter to call my home. But this is a- changing as well as a dying world. 20 Few among you have not been called to partings which have concerned you more nearly than this. Here none of us has a continuing city. Let us not deceive ourselves with that word " i^ma%." This is not the end. "We are certain to meet once more ; I to give an account of my stewardship, you of the profit you have made by the Grospel. If we part, then, it is indeed final. The Lord grant that we may all be in readiness for that day. But, Finally, brethren, farewell. My wishes, my prayers for your welfare are sincere ; as I doubt not are yours for mine. What lot is before any of us in this world we know not. It is a world of trouble ; it is a world of death, because it is a world of sin. Our best wishes for each other's welfare all fulfilled, may not secure us from sorrows. Let us gird ourselves for usefulness. Let us quit us like men, and be strong. Let us bear trials and endure sorrows in patience ; and then our lot will be well, for all things work together for good to them that love God. There is a better world. Let us all try to meet there. 21 Let us mind not present sorrows, but look at the end, and anticipate a happy meeting in Heaven. Any path is well that ends there. Let us trust in Grod, and he will bring us safely through, and that by the best path, though it should not seem to be the smoothest. Children of the Sabbath School ; and you teachers, — helpers in the work of the Grospel, — with much affection, I bid you farewell. Members of the choir, and you who have been so in years that are past — I bid you farewell. I cannot part with you without recording a fact sin- gular in the history of choirs, that for many years not only have your posts been filled with uniform regularity, — not only have you cultivated sacred music with a success which I have not observed anywhere to be surpassed, but for many years we have been almost entirely free from troubles and difficulties on account of, or among, the choir. The Lord reward you and bless you. From the heart I bid you an affectionate farewell. To the members of the church, and of the Society, — to the few aged survivors of a genera- 22 tion who are mostly gathered to their fathers, — to those of my own age, who have here advanced with me, step by step, from youth up to the bor- ders of age, — with kind wishes, with prayers for your future good, and for your eternal salvation, I bid you an affectionate farewell. 0, our Grod ! whom we have imperfectly served, and against whom we have sinned, — whose patience has not been exhausted, nor whose mer- cies clean gone for ever, — we thank and praise thee for these years of unbroken harmony. We thank and praise thee for the spiritual blessings granted to this congregation, till now the years of its history are numbered by centuries. We com- mit ourselves, we commit each other, we commit our beloved Zion to thee, and to the Word of thy grace. Thy hand shall lead us, thy right hand shall hold us, during the remaining days of our pilgrimage. When these are over, then let us meet in Heaven, to praise thee for our redemp- tion, for ever and ever. Amen. ^ Cammtation for the 01ain. FUNERAL SERMON PEEACHBD IN -THE FIRST CONGEEGATIONAL CHURCH, NORWALK^ CONN., DEC. 5, 1853. BY REV. EDWIN HALL, D.L. • NOEWALK: PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE NORWALK GAZETTE. ilLAES 1852. William Lockwood, the subject of Ibe following Funeral Sermon, fell off from tlie wharf at Norwalk Bridge, in a state of intoxication, on the evening of December 1st, 1852. Several heard his cry for help ; some were deceived as to the direction from which it came ; some thought it one of the innumerable noises so frequently heard about the Bridge. It was then low tide. His tracks were seen in the mud of the harbor, where he had wandered about for some time, vainly seeking to escape. He was drowned by the rising tide. SERMON Jek. !x. 1. "Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a- fountain of tears, that 1 might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people." It was the hard lot of Jeremiah, like that of the other prophets, to be obliged to testify against the prevailing wickedness of his people ; to see, in the visions of the Lord, overwhelming judgments coming in the distance, and sweeping towards Israel hke the coming storm and tem- pest ; and in anguish of spirit to sound the alarm, while the people would not hear. He sees the armies of the avenger approaching ; the snorting of his horses is heard from Dan ; the whole land trembles at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones, for they have come and have devoured the land and' all that is in it-^the city and those that dwell therein. " When I would comfort myself against sorrow," cries the prophet, " then my heart is faint in me. Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people, because of them that dwell in a far country. Is not the Lord in Zion ? Is not her King in her 3 Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities ? The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved ! For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt ; I am black ; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead ; is there no physician there ? why then' is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered 3 O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!^ Such is the spirit which we must cherish, if ever called upon to speak of crying wrongs, and to warn a careless and guilty people that the cry of such wrongs ^ill surely ascend to heaven. I am therefore, to-daj', to speak or the slain of the daughtbr OF MY PEOPLE, and to point out the causes which should awaken such a lamentation in the heart of every one who loves mercy or who fears ^ the Lord. 4 A LAMENTATION FOE THE SLAIN. I. To speak of the slain. If a foreign war were raging in our land ; fields desolated, families distressed and broken, multitudes driven into the alms- houses . and prisons, thousands cai-ried into a miserable captivity, and thousands slaughtered every year — if this were to continue ten, twenty, thirty years, every benevolent man would be ready to cry out, Shall the sword devour for ever ! If the pulpits of the land-r- ■whose ministera are ministers of peace — should sound the alarm, and call upon the people to rise as one man, 'and to meet the invader in a contest for liberty or death, no friend of his country — no friend of the human race could think them going beyond the line of their duty. If it were no foreign invader, but a foe more dreadful — if it were vice, and avarice, and crime, combining to destroy more lives than were destroyed in any war that this country ever waged — wasting, devas- tating, and ruining thousands of our citizens, both body and soul — how can the ministers of the gospel altogether hold their peace at . such a time as this ! I come then to speak to you of the slain of the daughter of my people ; of men cut oflf in the midst of their days by a shameful and violent death, in which their own folly and guilt is stimulated by the cold avarice of others ; who stay not their work at the sight of the miseries of their victims ; who stay not for the distress of the families brought to suffering and poverty, by this traflBc, nor though their vic- tims are destroyed for time and for eternity. I have heretofore had occasion to show you, by reference to well known cases, that we average one such violent death in Norwalk year by year. One falls into a well, and his blood and brains are dashed on the stones ; another, another, another, another, and another perishes in the waters ; one by fire ; one by suicide ; another visits the place where ardent spirits are sold, and when his limbs are palsied, and those who have gathered the last cent of his earnings are wearied with making him their jest and their song, then they blacken his face and send him forth by night to perish by the way-side in the midst of the snow. The last week has seen another victim perishing in the waters, and adding one more to the number o^ the slain. O my brethren and friends, fomd me not to speak, while year after year, 1 am compelled to follow these victims of slaughter to the grave. Forbid me not to speak, while the Bible declares that drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God ; and while God himself pronounces a woe upon him who, through an evil covetousness, putteth the bottle to his neighbor and maketh him drunken ! For twenty yeai-s it has been my lot to visit the wrecks of this de- stroying traffic. Not all die by a violent death. Often have I been called to visit others upon their death-beds — sometimes to hear their blasphemies, and sometimes their cry of anguish ; but never did I know one ray of comfort by such a bed of death. For twenty years A LAMEHTATION FOK THE SLAIN. 5 I have witnessed the distress and shame, and often the bitter poverty, of the wives and children of the victims of this traffic. Often have I seen them suffering under anguish which scarcely the kindest comforts of the gospel and the utmost duty of submission to the will of God, had power to assuage. But never did I meet by such a bed-side, or as a comforter in the midst of such a family, one, who had, by the traffic iu strong drink, aided in producing the ruin. No one who traf- fics in the poison ever attends the body of the drunkard to the grave. The end of such a work of his hands, no man has the courage willingly to behold. ■ I have seen the aged mother, and the meek and affiicted wife, both suffering from sickness, from whom the son and husband had taken the supplies which the hand of charity furnished, had earned them down to the Bridge, and sold them for rum. I have seen a daughter, suffering and dying on a couch of straw, her bedstead standing on a few loose boards, while the rest of the floor and the ceiling had been consumed for fuel, and all else was open from the cellar to the roof. There she lay, in the cold of winter, in a dying state. Her attending physician had carried a blanket and an overcoat and spread them on her shivering limbs : and these the drunken father and mother had taken to Norwalk Bridge, and sold for rum. I followed her to the grave ; and not long after the father and the mother, both victims of strong drink. A few years since, a young man sent for me to visit him, in the fall of the year. He was in a consumption; which, he acknowledged, while his sobs choked his utterance, was brought upon him by excess- ive drinking and consequent exposure. Winter came on ; and the charities of the town consigned him to the care of a man who had been thriving and comfortable, but who had undertaken to keep a grocery and to sell rum, and had fallen a victim under its power. Character, comfort and property were at this time well nigh gone ; he dragged out a few years of sorrow and poverty, and then sunk into the grave. At the house of this person, some two miles north of this place, I visited that sick and broken-hearted young man. In a cold unfinished chamber, on a thin bed of straw, whose covering he had vainly tried to eke out by throwkg over it his wearing apparel — there without a fire, without an attendant, I found him on the coldest day of a severe winter. There, for the last time, I pointed him to the Saviour, and prayed with hinl : and that night he died. You remem- bSi' a man, who used almost nightly to be reeling and vociferating around the Bridge, for many yeare, and for whom his meek and suf- ( fering wife used nightly to send down their little boy, two miles, to follow his father, lest he should fall down and perish on the way home.- I saw that man on a bed of sickness, to which intoxicating drinks had brought him ; and then I earnestly but kindly warned him that now he must reform or die : for, in all probability, he could never live through another such a scene. The poor man, when scarcely recovered 6 A LAMENTATION FOE THE SLAIN. sufficiently to totter down to the Bridge, came down. Those who traffic in strong drink, saw his haggard looks and trembling Land. They knew his habits : they had known them for yeare. They had known the distress of his family. They knew his condition. But he had a little more money, and they filled for him once more the intoxi- cating cup. He went borne and died. After he was slain, I attended his funeral ; but no one of them who had received the price of his blood was there. The sun wofild go down ere I could tell you the histoiy of half the cases like these, which I have been perpetually called to witness here in Norwalk, during the last twenty yeare. Now another victim is gone. It is nearly twenty yeais since I first knew the anguish of his father and mother, who have gone down to their graves in sorrow. His worthy and excellent wife endured his conduct till it was neither decent nor safe to endure it any longer, and then left him. His chil- dren have drunk the cup of sorrow from their earhest yeare. He has been to them a living grief, and has gone down to the grave leaving them without comfort as they think of the past, and witiiout hope as they think of his eternal destiny. Strong drink was the cause of all. I had the confidence of that man, and often and earnestly entreated him to reform. Often has he wept, and promised reformation. But the cravings of a debased appetite were too strong : he fell lower and lower. Were those who received his scanty earnings ignorant of his infirmity ? Did they not know that they were ministering poison to a poor maniac, bereft of self-control ? They knew it well. They saw him, of late, day after day, overcome with drunkenness. But even in that state, they sold him the poison, and continued to sell, till their work was done, and their victim perished. I know not who sold him the last potion ; I desire not to know. It mattere little who sold him the last. But upon the heads of all them who have known his infirmity for months or years, rests the guilt of that man's blood. I cannot doubt that they must answer it at the bar of God. Oh that fearful appetite ; the fiuit of no natural desire, but of bodily disease 1 How my soul pities the man, who, while he has suspected no evil, and led perhaps by social or generous feelings, and by entertaining com- panions, has by degrees,- and uncossciously, kindled up within him, that quenchless thiret ! If there is a man on earth whom I honor, it is such a man, whose moral powers and principles are yet suf- ficient to resist this unnatural thirst ai5d fully to achieve the work of reform ! There are various stages in the way to ruin. The firet is that of habitual drinking, though not to intoxication. In the early part of this stage, men have ordinarily too much self-respect to visit the low dram- shops, where the tottering and slovenly drunkards are seen to enter. They go in private to the respectable grocery, or to the bar of the ele- gant hotel. The marks of overdrinking become at length visible in their countenances, and are known and read of all men, while for a A LAMENTA1E0K FOB THE SLAHT. 7 long time they know it not. The next stage finds them at times pros- h-ated in drunkenness, while they vainly attempt by various represent- ations to conceal it from their friend?. Alas, the folly to think that such things can ever be concealed I Then comes the last stage, when they have acquired the character of drunkenness, and have given themselves up in despair. Now, the disease has overpowered every faculty, and tainted all their blood. They are swollen and bloated ; their breath is fetid with the sour effluvia of strong drink ; their hand trembles ; their tongue faltere ; and if left to their own resources, their clothing is filthy, rags. Nothirig remains to them but sorrow and death. The community is never without some specimens of these be- fore their eyes ; as if the Lord, in his providence would be perpetually saying to those who trafiBc in the poison, " Behold your work 1" One you shall see filthy, haggard, enfeebled in body and mind, with blood-, shot eyes and tottering gait, driving a petty traffic in roots and herbs, to gain his pittance of drink, apparently without means or energy sufficient to carry himself ofi' by one full and final -debauch. Another you shall see, regular as the morning returns, bent with premature weakness, with feeble shuffling gait, wending his way to the Bridge, glad of the privilege of doing, irregularly, the most menial offices for his morning dram. The evening sees him with difficulty stumbling and reeling home, only to repeat the same ^Jsmal round on the next succeeding day. Who sells these miserable men their rum ? Who that has the heart of a man, or the conscience of a man, can be guilty of so much base- ness, as well as of so much wrong ? Methinks that one who can do it, would sell the very bones* of his father for gain ! 1 know not who does it, I care not to know. But I stand in amazement, that in a civ- ilized and Christian community, such things are sufiered to be done. Nor would they be suffered, year after year, were it not, that by too long familiarity with such scenes, the public sense of decency is lost, and the public conscience seared as with a hot iron. I know not who is base enough to sell such miserable creatures rum. I care not to know, I would rather that they would repent, and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Human laws may slumber, or be impotent ; but let not such men think that th^ey shall escape the just judgment of God. " A few such specimens of the last stage of ruin by strong drink we have always before us. Once they were respectable, and lived in honor and comfort, Once they drank moderately; then habitually; then were occasionally drunken ; but such is their end. These stand in the front rank for death. Longer than we had supposed it possible, they endure these efliects of debauchery, and bear up against the poi- •sons which avarice mingles with strong drink in these modern days ; then they perish in the watei-s, or in the snow, or come to some other violent end. We continue to hope that' when these are gone there will be no more such specimens ; but othei'S are preparing, and fill up 8 A LAMENTATION FOE THE SLAIN. their places. The succession continues like the stream of a river ; the fountains send forth an unceasing supply. Who works the gi-eatest mischief among them who traffic in strong drink ? the keeper of the respectable resort, where the drunkard, rag- ged and filthy, is not suffered to come, or the remorseless keeper of the low dram-shop, where the work of death is completed ? If compelled to strike the balance between them, I am unable to assign the palm of evil to the latter. If the former did not begin the work, the latter could not end it. If the former were to cease, the succession of drunk- ards would at length die out ; for no man, till he is already half ruined, will condescend to visit the latter. The latter may be more atrocious in appearance, but the former is the more dangerous ; for here the steps of the unsuspecting begin to slide. If one of the former should, in extenuation of his guilt, say to me, " I sell not to the drunkard ; I suffer not the miserable objects to Knger within my doore," methinks I should feel bound in conscience to reply to him, " O, then, in the name of mercy, change your practice, Say to the sound and respecta- ble, I sell not to you. Go home ; forbear to enter within the Mael- strom of death. Escape while you may. Few whose steps enter upon this path return. I sell not to the sober, but only to the drunk- ard. To this he has been brought by moderate drinking, and now the fire is in his bones ; he must die, I sell only to quench his raging thirst, which can torment him a little longer. I sell to him because he is already ruined. Let me never be the occasion of- leading a healthy man into this path of disease and crime, and death. No, sober, respectable young man, go home — ^I sell only to the drunkard, who is already unfit to live either in the present world, or in the world to come." Having now considered the slain, let us II. Consider why there is cause for such lamentation over them. 1. On account of the vast extent of the slaughter. We average one such violent death in Norwalk in a year. This would make, in all the United States, an annual slaughter of six thousand men. Add- those destroyed by diseases, either engendered or rendered fatal by the same cause, and no war in which, this country ever engaged has destroyed so many, year after year, as are hurried down to the gi'ave by intemperance. 2. If these had been simply slain in war, the grief would not be so inconsolable. But they die in shame ; the victims of vice, they are not cut off in a career of honor and usefulness, but after having been lost to the community, after having been a living grief to parents, to wives, to children, and after having entailed upon all the kindred, and friends a giief, over their character and end, which the heart can hardly endure. 3. There is cause for grief in consideration of the vices and crimes' which the use of intoxicating drink engenders. This fills our ?,lms- A LAMENTATION FOB THE SLAIN. 9 houses and prisons. This stimulates nearly all the more horrible crimes ; especially the murders. The sorrows, the suffering, the woes which rise to view as we contemplate this aspect of the case, are abso- lutely incalculable. 4. There is cause for lamentation, since there is no hope concerning these victims in the eternal world. Their sentence is recorded before- hand : Drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Those who have helped to ruin them here, and who have put into their coffers the price of blood, have helped to ruin them for ever. O there must be sorrow over such, more than over those perishing in prison, or falling by the sword ! But take a little, the guage of temporal mischief, which must be set over against the gains of the very few who will consent to traffic in the poison ; and ,who, as they amass all the gains, ought surely to bear all the burdens resulting from the traffic. In the year 1832, the number of poor assisted by the town of Nor- walk, was thirty-nine. The late Judge Isaacs showed me a Kst, and marked with his own hand, those brought to pauperism by intemper- ance, either of their own, or that of their husbands or fathers. Out of ^ the thirty-nine who received the aid 'of the town, thirty-two were reduced to pauperism by intemperance. In the year 1833, the whole number assisted by the town was forty. All, save four of these, wei'e . brought to pauperism by intemperance. In the year 1832, the amount paid by the town for paupers, brought to that condition by intemperance, was $485 85, and for the poor brought to that condition by all other causes, was $32 10. In 1833, out of $557 paid for the poor, all but twenty dollars was paid for those brought to that condition by intemperance. But how rapidly has the evil increased. In 1840 a committee, con- sisting of Matthias Hubbell, James Quintard, Matthew Wilcox, A. E. Beard, George St. John, and George Hoyt, made a careful examina- tioTi, and certified under their own hands, that they had, with the assistance of the First Selectman of the town of Norwalk, carefully examined the accounts of the town for the year 1838 and 1839, and ' found that in 1838 the tax of the town amounted to $1137 06 ; of which there was expended for the poor $1066 28 ; and of this, $782 25 for those whose pauperism was caused, either directly or indirectly, by intemperance ; that is, nearly eight dollars out of every eleven dol- lars of the town tax, went to support the poor brought to that condition by intemperance. The account for 1839 was nearly the same. They stated also their belief that other sums ought to be added to this list, but that they had carefully excluded every case concerning which there coUld be the least doubt.* * NoKWALK is not much worse oflf in this respect than most of the neighhor- ing towns. About the time here mentioned" the author of this sermon gavp addresses in many of these towns, and made jt a condition that those who 10 A LAMENTATION FOE THE SLAIN. What the profits of the traffic may hare been I know not. But judging from these data, the taxes thrown upon the people, if reckoned as annuities in arreare, during the last twenty years, would amount to more than twenty-four thousand dollai-s. Quite as much has been thrown upon private chaiity. The cost of the prosecution of crimes, and the maintenance for criminals from the same cause, we have not included. The waste by idleness and di'unkenness is not reckoned. The suffering from hunger and cold, from grief and shame, from op- pressed and broken hearts, no arithmetic can compute. All this is in our midst, and the river of desolation and death is rolling on. There is cause for lamentation indeed, if it must continue to roll on. Some tell us that it is wrong to attempt to stop it by. law. Some tell us plainly that they will submit to no law. Others say that no adequate law can be executed. If this be so, then I can only say that the peo- ple ai'e sunk very low, in a worse than Egyptian bondage. I am no lawyer — I am no statesman. Bpt somehow I feel an instinctive desire to demand whether the people have no rights ? It may be that there i^ no remedy, but they must stand by and see so many perishing in the flames, and in the watere, with no power or right to, interfere. PeAaps they have no right to interfere in behalf of so many sorrowing. ■ and suffering wives and children. Perhaps, for all this, those who drink and those who sell, have rights to work such evils at their plea- sure, and poor suffering humanity may plead for protection in vain. It may be so : I am no lawyer, I cannot tell. But there is one ground, on which, though it is a very low and unworthy one compared with others, and one which I am almost ashamed to be obliged to mention — on which it seems to me the People have a right to stand ; I refer to the enormous taxes which this drinking and traffic impose on others,. who hold both the traffic and the drinking in utter abomina- tion. To me it seems that if eveiy other ground fails, the People may stand here, and say, If you will drink and sell, then keep all the burdens and taxes to yourselves ; and if you do not, we shall see to it that you so use your liberty and property as not to injure ours. Our fathers waged a war, which periled their existence, against the mightiest nation on earth, rather than submit to an unrighteous taxa* invited him, should previously furnish him with authentic statistics. The fol- lowing are specimens, viz : Wilton in 1839.— Town tax $112.5 ; expended for the poor, $1093 13 ; for those brought to pauperism by intemperance, $512 49. Stamfoed in 1837.— Whole tax, $1389 50; expended for the poor, $1263 75. In 1838, whole tax, $1226 07. Expended for the poor, 1118, of which, at the pro- portion indicated by the accounts of Korwalk, $874 went to support those brought to pauperism by intemperance. Danbuky in 1838.— Town tax, $2358 07; expended for the poor, $1325; .for intemperance, $550. Would that the examination could be made for the last five years in every town in the State, that the people might know how remorselessly their pockets are plundered by the rumsellers, in combination with the drunkards. A tAMENTATION FOB THE SLAIN. 11 tion, which compared with this, had not the weight of a feather. And somehow the feeling will keep rising in my heart to inquire, whether, if all this desolation and death must be endured, the people have no right to defend themselves from so heavy and so horrible a taxation ? Are your houses, shops, farms, earnings all mortgaged to pay for ever whatever taxes may be imposed by this unhallowed compact between the drunkard and the trafficker? I am indeed no lawyer; but if here be not ground on which the people may take their stand, and rise in their strength, and coerce this traffic and ilrimkenness, by a righteous and effectual law, then I give up in despair, that I know not what righteousness or liberty is. If this be the case with us, that there is no relief from these burdens and no redress ; then the liberty of the few is a slavery upon the many ; liberty to tax, to plunder,^to ravage and destroy, according to the avarice and the appetite of a combined and odious aristocracy. If this be hberty, then I know not what may be slavery. Tell me no more of slaveholding and slavery, if the few who have the conscience to work all these evils have power also to lay upon all the people such an odious, limitless, and endless taxation, for such purposes as these ! ' The wonder has been with me, for years, how, in a civilized cammunity, such things can be endured. Nearly a hundred years ago, the great and good John Wesley said, " It is gmazing that the preparation and sale of this poison should be permit- ted, I will not say in any Christian community, but in any civilized State." Who can show that this is not sound speech which cannot be condemned ? But the discussion of policy and laws is not my province, farther than as "laws are required or forbidden by the principles of everlasting righteousness, and by the law of God. I was to preach the funeral sermon of another poor ruined — murdered man. If I have spoken too freely, or too earnestly, fbrgive me. If I have gone not beyond the demand of truth, and of duty to men in view of the last judg- ment, then I need no apology. I remember that when an Apostle was sent for to be heard concerning the faith in Christ, and there was need to urge home the truth, and to reach the conscience of a transgressor, though that transgressor was the Roman governor who had •over him the power of life*or death, and the apostle stood before him in bonds — then " Paul reasoned of Righteousness, Temperance and Judgment to come,'''' and so reasoned that Felix trembled. How can I visit the poor suffering families of the inebriates, or see the inebriates them- selves on their death-beds, or follow them to their graves after they have perished amid the snow or in the waters, and not have my heart stirred within me ? Will those who traffic in the poison complain that I speak too earnestly ? Alas, why will they continue to give me so much cause? Why, after witnessing so much distress and sorrow, and so many violent deaths for so long a course of years, why do they not cease ? Why is there no generous, no compassionate feeling rising in their hearts, or at least some fear of God, which shall prompt them to 12 A LAMENTATION FOE THE SLAIN. sajr, We will share in the guilt of so much ruin no longer ? Why do not the sober, influential part of the community go to them, tell them the results of this traffic, and beg them, as good citizens, to forbear ? And if there be any who will not, why is there not virtue enough in TEE People to rise in their strength, and say in a tone which may not be disobeyed, vStop ! Pursue this work of devastation and death no longer ! If none of these things can be done, then what remains for me, but after I have pointed all to the law of God, and to the final judgment, to take up the lamentation of the prophet, and say, " Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of teai-s, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people 1" COLLEGES ESSENTIAL TO HOME MISSIONS. A DISCOURSE, DBLIVEBED AT THE NINTH ANNIVERSAEY ^0mta fax t\t ^xsmtim sf Mlqmtt m)i %\tal^m\ CENTRAL CHUEOH, BOSTON, MASS., OoTOBEB 27, 1852. BY EDWIN- HALL, D.D., FASTOK 07 THE FIRST CONGB£aATZONAL CHrECH, NORWALE, CONN. NEW-YOEK: JOHN R TROW, PEINTEE, 49 ANN STREET. 1853. " The thaaks of the Board were presented to the Rev. Ed-win Haix, D.D., for his Discourse, delivered before the Society last even- ing, and a copy requested for publication." An extract from the minutes of the Proceedings of the Directors of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Edu- cation "at the "West, at their Annual Meeting at Boston, Mass., Oct. 28th, 1852. A. D. Eddy, Sec^y. SEEMON. EPHESIANS, IV. 11, 12. "And he gave some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evan- gelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. IN tte work of upbuilding and perpetuating the Cliurch, our Lord, from time to time, employs men in various capacities. Noah the preacher of right- eousness, Abraham the father of many nations, Mo- ses, Aaron, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, each" has his work according to the necessities of his day. John the Baptist has his work, the apostles have theirs. As there are diversities of labors, so there are diversities of gifts. All are not prophets ,; all are not apostles ; for as the body is one, and hath many members, so also is Christ. If bishops and deacons are established in the organization, of each particular Church, evangelists are also sent to labor where the Church is not. The great Head over aU things to the Church hath committed to him all power in heaven and in earth ; and is not limited to agents or methods. He can say to the deep, " Be dry : " and of Cyrus, " He is my sheplierd, and shall perform all my pleasure ; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shall be built ; and to the Temple, Thy foun- dations shall be laid." He can make Mngs nursing fathers, and queens nursing mothers to his Church. The ships of Tarshish first shall bring his sons from far. The kings of the isles shall bring presents ; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Fire, hail, snow, and vapor, fulfilling his word, shall be enlisted in the cause of Zion. In a sense unknown to the Psalmist, fire and vapor are yet to fulfil the pleasure of the Lord. Perhaps, also, in a sense which prophets never imagined, "a highway shall be there ; " and there shall' be made " straight in the desert a highway for our God : every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." Now the Lord famishes the lar borers with the gift of tongues ; now with the press ; now they are scattered abroad preaching the word; now they bear up against persecution ; now they re- sist unto blood, witnessing against the abominations of antichrist; now they cross the seas, and found new homes for religion and freedom in the wilder- ness. As each disciple has his work, so have the people of each generation. Besides the duties uni- versally and permanently binding on all the people of God, the Lord is perpetually leading each gene- ration of his people, in each land, to some special work which they alone can fulfil, and which, if well done, proves the glory of their age. Thus one generation of our fathers were called to stand for religious purity and freedom,' and to suffer in their native land ; another was called to be pilgrims, and to be " stepping stones " for others in a labor for Christ in the wilderness ; another was called to contend for the possession of the land against a formidable Papal power ; another to sever it from the dominion of the mother country ; then to form our constitution: for we love to believe that all these labors were done for Christ, and under his direction, whether all the laborers so meant it or not. As to the work to which God specially calls his people in this land and in this generation, there re- mains no possible doubt. It is to plant the institu- tions of the Grospel in all our widely extending set- tlements, and to save this country for Christ, now while its character is in the forming state. In order to form a just conception of the work to be done, let us first survey the field ; then consider how it is to be cultivated ; and then the nature, and relative importance of the work undertaken by this Society,, with reference to this gi'eat end. 1. SuEVET THE FiELD. Here is a vast country spreading through all climates, capable of yielding nearly all the productions of the earth, rich in mine- ral resources, and with its commodious harbors, its innumerable lakes and rivers, furnishing facilities for commerce, the like of which, on so vast a scale, is found nowhere else on the globe. For some thousands of years, this land had been kept vacant. Monuments of a strange people are found here and there, betokening some advance in the arts of civilization, but the people are gone, and who shall declare their history ? About three hun- dred and sixty years ago, this vast region was made known to the civilized world. Why then ? Why not earlier? Why not later? The world was ready for it then. Had it been discovered before, this land would now have been in a condition aa Jiopeless as that of the most despotic nations of Eu- rope. Had the discovery been longer delayed, the germs of freedom which have here expanded and grown with so much hope for man, might, in that delay, have perished. For reasons not yet fully com- prehended, the Lord suffered the subjects of the Pope to establish themselves first, in what were supposed the fairest and richest portions ^f the field, while for another hundred years, the English Pilgrims were under discipline to fit them for their work. Never was there before so auspicious a field ; never was there before a people so prepared. We need not detail the means by which Grod" brought them here, and then maintained them ; nor the means by which he defeated the designs of po- pery in this field. Its power was the strongest. Its plans were far-reaching, formed with consummate wisdom, and pressed with indomitable perseverance. It held the North. It advanced up the St. Law- rence, and founded its establishments and fortresses along the lakes, on the plains of Elinois, and on the banks of the Mississippi. It held Mexico. It held Florida. It pushed its fortresses down the Ohio, with the design to prescribe, and finally to extermi- nate the few scattered colonies, which were identi- fied with the cause of truth and freedom in the des- tinies of this vast continent. I need not tell how God wrested Canada from its grasp, and freed our fathers from a subtle and dangerous foe on the North ; how he ' defeated its designs on the Ohio ; how he severed this land from the mother country when her help was no longer needed, and when her power and designs were hostile to the growth of the colonies, and to their enjoyment of true religious Kberty. Then God took Louisiana from the control of the Pope ; a domain large enough for kingdoms ; a loss to the man of sin eventually greater than to lose several of the most important kingdoms of Eu- rope. Then Florida was added to the area of free- dom and ..truth. Then Texas ; then New Mexico and California; alas, I -say not by what measures and what injustice on the part of man ; I speak only of the manifest and merciful designs of the Lord, who causeth the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain. Observe, also, the hand of the Lord in another respect. In the early days of the colonies, their remoteness, and the difficulties of their situation se- cure their religious liberties. When they become independent the dense forest shuts in their Western border. Population must advance slowly^ with in- describable toil ; this gives time for our new insti- tutions to become consolidated, and for the native population to multiply to such an extent as not to be overwhelmed by an immense and promiscuous emigration from foreign lands. At length the na- tion comes into such a state, that with almost any 8 possible amount of emigration it shall remain Ameri- can, and our institutions and religious liberties be pre- served. By the time that this is accomplished, then the tide of emigrants has reached the great lakes, and is rushing through the passes of the Mississippi. It spreads abroad over the immense prairies all ready for the culture of the plough. Just at this period, famine and oppression stir up sev;eral of the nations of "Europe, so that nothing but the lack of ability, and the limited means of transportation, prevents their landing in solid masses upon our shores. And now, also, the Lord has designs to be accomplished on the borders of the -Pacific, and probably among the Asiatic nations beyond. It is needful to bring with all speed an immense population to California. For this purpose, as it appears. He has, from the creation, stored up the treasures of gold, which, when the time has come, shall draw countless mul- titudes thither. In two short years these multitudes have crossed the plains, and poured through the passes of the Rocky Mountains. They have doubled the Southern Cape ; they have poured in streams across the isthmus ; they have ascended the waters of the Pacific ; they have formed an American State on the shores of the ocean that unites the West with the East. In all these great designs, so linked together, and so adjusted to each other in time, the Lord appears to have some great and good purpose to accomplish for the nations of the earth, and for his cause, by means of this American land ; and to us he commits the great work of making this land Christian. "What, tlien,, is this land ? wliat are its capacities and prospects? Here are twenty-four millions of people ; yet the one strong impression of an inhabit- ant of the Eastern shore as he travels Westward, is, that the land is well-nigh vacant. Ohio, that within the recollection of many here present was almost an unbroken wilderness, now pushes hard upon two millions of inhabitants ; yet as the stran- ger passes through the central parts of the State, from her beautiful city on Lake Erie to her metro- polis on the Ohio, he finds, for a hundred mUes toge- ther, a forest, broken at distances by now and then a clearing aad a settlement; a dense, primeval fore§t of trees whose height and magnitude fill him with wonder, even after a famUiar acquaintance with the primitive forests yet remaining in the North and East. He passes down the waters of the Ohio, winding among hills and dales interspersed at dis- tances with bottom lands of exceeding richness and beauty ; he passes by numerous towns and villages ; but the great impression that remains on his mind is, that the land is -weU-nigh vacant. Onward he passes for hundreds of miles : at times the hills seem to recede and to disclose an unlimited prospect of the valleys and plains of. Indiana on one side, and of Kentucky on the other ; but the impression re- .mains that the land is weU-nigh vacant. As he en- ters the Mississippi, he catches a glimpse of the broad and rapid stream, rolling its deep current downward between two immense walls of forests. The steamer meets the current as it turns to the North, and quivers at every joint. With difficulty 10 she struggles onward against a stream every where boiling, eddying, and rejoicing in its might, and every where bordered by an immense dark forest. Onward the traveller passes, his heart swelling with strange emotions of loneliness and grandeur. He passes amid solitudes so vast that it seems to him as ■ though a New England State might be laid down there and lost, till it should be forgotten. The smoke of St. Louis at length appears rising above the forests in the distance. On the one side rise the castellated rocks and bluffs of Missouri, on the other spread out the vast intervale", or bottom lands of Illinois ; nearly equalling in extent, and rivalling in richness the land of Egypt when it was the gran- ary of the world. He enters the great State, and crosses the great river of Missouri. He ascends the table lands which overlook the valleys of the three great rivers, the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Illinois. He gazeSj till on every side vision is lost in the distance, over thje widespread fertile plains. But though St. Louis is at his feet with her almost one hundred thousand inhabitants ; though here and there large and lovely villages dot these plains, the impression remains, that the land is well-nigh va- cant. Here the streams of emigrants that pour in countless numbers along the valley of the Missis- sippi and over the great lakes, spread themselves out and are lost. The traveller once more pursues his way. He passes along the Eastern border of Iowa, now and then climbing the bluffs that skirt the river, to the table lands from fifty, to two hun- dred feet above ; and though he has advanced some 11 hundreds of miles, he sees every where spread out that same interminable rolling prairie, with its waving grass, and its occasional groves of trees ; but the land is weU-nigh vacant. He ascends beyond the limits of the vast State of Illinois — he has coasted along its Western shore for six hundred miles, and most 6f the way her fertile plains have been spread out before him like one vast natural garden. He reaches Wisconsin. The river which below him re- ceives the accession of such streams as the Ohio, the Missouri, the Des Moines and the Iowa, seems scarcely to have abated any thing of its breadth or volume. He passes the romantic Dubuque, and the lovely Prairie du Chien ; he leaves the abodes of civilized man ; he enters the Mississippi Highlands, where the broad river spreading wide its surface, and embosoming numberless islands of green grass and groves of trees, winds between bluflfe wrought, as if by the hand of art, into every possible form of variety and beauty ; now the smooth conical hill, covered as if with a shaven lawn, and tufted at the summit with a cluster of .trees ; now rising iuto a broad mountain side, still covered with a smooth lawn, and dotted with trees like an orchard ; now a steep conical mound crowned with rocks seeming like the magnificent ruins of some ancient castle. Now a deep ravine opens far back into the land, disclosing ravine Opening into ravine in the distance, and valley opening into valley, bordered by cliffs, ter- minating, and^ succeeded by other valleys and cliffs in endless succession. Now he passes clusters of islands, and now the mouth of a broad river. Now 12 the river expands into a lake, along whose shores receding at a distance rise romantic cliflfe, softened into tints of beauty by the smoky atmosphere of summer, and fringed at their bases by continuous forests. Onward he passes amid scenery whose mingled wUdness and beauty, and whose exhaustless variety never suffer the eye to rest for nearly two hundred mUes ; but, where, save now and then an In- dian village, or a solitary woodcutter's hut, or a cou- ple of log cabins in a woody ravine, already digni- fied as a county seat, all is a wilderness. From now and then a roving way passenger he learns, that as you pass up these raviaes and reach the table land above, the same expanse of prairie and timber, and the same gently rolling surface of fertile lands spread out in interminable prospects, as he saw it so many hun- dred miles below. The voyage of a thousand miles from the mouth of the Ohio is at length completed. He ascends the high bluff to the flourishing town of St, Paul's. He hffcs up his eyes, and how immense the fields of forest and prairie which are spread out be- fore him there ! He passes the hills that skirt the rear of the town ; he crosses the prairie where the eye scarcely reaches the dim forest that bounds the Eastern horizon. He reaches the Palls of St. Antho- ny, where he meets again a New England village, with every token of thrift, order and comfort ; while the smooth green native meadow spreads round them like an ocean, with dim island forests in the distance. -He descends the stream, and climbs the high bluff where stands Fort Snelling, on a site un- .surpassed for the richness of the field spread out 13 before the vision on every side. He gazes upon the valley of the Minnesota ; with what beauty do the mingled prairies and woodlands slope down to the peaceful river, natural parks and meadows, equalling the most beautiful and best cultivated portions of the valley of the Hudson or of the Connecticut, and extending in endless succession tiU vision fades away in the distance ; but in all this region, looking West- ward, save the abodes of a few missionaries, there is no dwelling of civilized man. Here a tract of land larger than New England, has recently been ac- quired by treaty from the aborigines ; and here, fifty years hence, will be another New England in the West. And now the traveller pauses and thinks of the regions around him. Below him the Mississippi opens a navigation of twenty-two hundred miles to the Gulf of Mexico. The Minnesota, the river at his feet, takes rank in length before the Hudson ; and, at high water, is navigable Westward for three hundred miles. North of him is the colony of Pem- bina, whose people come down to trade, a journey of seven hundred miles. And he remembers that at St. Anthony he heard the hiss of the steamer which plies on the waters of the Mississippi, above the falls one hundred miles ; a distance which the removal of some obstructions is to increase to four hundred miles. He thinks of the Missouri stretch- ing its way to the West more than two thousand miles. He calls to mind its magnificent entrance into the Mississippi, and the immense volume which it pours through the State of Missouri^ He thinks 14 of the OMo, coining down a thousand miles from the "Western slope of the Alleghanies ; of the Cum- berland and the Tennessee, the last sweeping its current far into the State of Alabama ; of the Ar. kansas and the Red River, coming down from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles from the West. And now it occurs to him how distant he is from the At- lantic shore. Green Bay, that some few years since used to lie at so vast a distance West, lies now three hundred miles to the Eastward ; beyond it come the ■ great lakes ; ' and then four hundred miles farther to the Atlantic! Yet the point where he stands is but little more than one-third of the distance to the shores of our country on the Pacific ! And now what impression is fixed upon the mind of the traveller from the East ? An impres- sion of the vastness of his country far beyond any thing that he had ever conceived before ; that the East is soon to be a mere trifling adjunct of the West — no, not of the West, for the great West is still be- yond him, but of the great central valley ; that the heart of our country is, beyond all question, to be on the borders of the Mississippi. Though most of the land seems vacant, yet towns and villages are spring- ing up with immense rapidity. But let emigrants 9omain such numbers as they will ; let Europe pour her living masses on our shores — on these wide fields many years must elapse, before it shall not seem that as fast as they come they are scattered and lost. And now Eastern Asia begins to be stir- red, and the people of China are crowding to our Western shores ! In due time, this land is to be 15 filled. . Ah ! what shall he its destiny then ? Shall the republic be preserved? Shall our posterity have freedom to worship God? Shall this land be a land of Gpspel light when it shall number its- three hundred or five hundred millions ? These are questions of fearful import, not only to our children, and our children's children, but to the whole world. The battle of the- great day — ^for pure religion and for the freedom of mankind — ^is, I am persuaded, to be fought in that great valley. " Multitudes, multi- tudes in the valley of decision ; for the day of the Lord is near in the- valley of decision ; " not, we may trust, with confused noise of warriors, and with gar- ments rolled in "blood, but with the weapons of light and truth, against the powers of error and darkness ; and whoever wins that valley will, in one hundred years .hence, rule the world. If evangelical truth, how auspicious the day ! If Romanism, or Roman- ism combined • with infidelity and socialism, and agrarianism, — ^for Rome will league with any thing on earth or in hell to crush the rising power of free- dom and truth, — then how dismal the cloud that shall shut out even the light of hope from all man- kind ! If our great experiment of freedom and of self-government fails, what further continent re- mains? what other wilderness, whither freedom and truth may flee for shelter ? If this land, with its advancing millions shall be lost to true religion, can the world supply the missionaries that are once more to conquer it for Christ ? Believe it, we stand at a point of more momentous interest to our coun- try than that occupied by the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 16 or by our fathers at the time of the Kevolution. Other men have labored, and we are entered into their labors. The Eeformers, the early Puritans, the Pilgrims, they who saved this land from the de^- signs of Prance and the Pope, they who established the constitution under which we became a nation, rather than a neighborhood of feeble and disjointed States, — all these, each in their day, labored for our good. How rich the harvest for which our hands have not labored ! But if we have entered into harvests prepared by the toils of others, we have also entered into their labors. By the toils of others this land was prepared, freedom achieved, and the institutions of government, of learning and religion established; by our labors, undei- God, aU these blessings are to be preserved. The Lord seems to have ordained that such blessings shall not be pre- served without labor. Since we cannot send mis- sionaries to papal lands, God is bringing the subjects of papal despotism to our doors, and planting them in the midst of our bibles, churches, and schools^ and under the protection of our civil institutions and laws. Since we have felt it a trouble to send missionaries in adequate numbers to the heathen, God is bringing the heathen hither. And remem- ber that the single nation from which they come, numbers its four hundred millions. She can spare a hundred millions for us in fifty years, and grow all the stronger and the richer. Now God wiU make the Christians of this land labor for life. They shall hold forth, the light of truth, they shall plant and sustain the institutions of learning and religion IV in this land, or they shall be overwhelmed ! O my people, blessed with such light and freedom and prosperity, preserve this land ! O my people now on the stage of action, gird yourselves for the con- test ! No future generations can do your work. No amount of effort and liberality on the part of your children and your children's children can re- medy the want of effort and liberality now ! Now the character of your country is forming ; now it is plastic, and may be moulded. The next genera- tion may see it fixed, either for good or for evil,, for a thousand years ! So speaks the voice of Divine Providence to us ; and never was a more momentous trust given to any people or to any generation, than that which the Lord has devolved upon us, — ^to save this land for freedom and for Christ, Having viewed our country as a field for Chris- tian effort, let us consider, , 2. THE WOEK TO BE DONE. 1. There is ample room for the most active ex- ertions of Christians of every name. Let none envy the prosperity of others, but rejoice that by any means the Gospel is preached in that widely extend- ed field. May the Lord of the Harvest send forth laborers into his harvest ; and send whom he will. The only fear is, that with the intensest activity of all, the fields may spread beyond the reach of all the reapers. 2. No means of doing good which Grod has ap- pointed, or which has been tested by experience, should be neglected. Send teachers. Encourage 18 the emigration of pious families ; if in colonies, their concentrated light will shine the brighter ; if singly, they will still be the salt of the land. Em- ploy the press. Eaise np Baxter, Flavel, Edwards, Legh Richmond, Andrew Fuller, Payson and Nevins ; multiply them, and send them out to preach the Gospel by every fireside, with their best digested discourses, and in their holiest frames. Send the colporteur, to distribute books and tracts, to converse with people by the wayside, and in the remotest cabins where the minister of the Gospel has not yet reached, fetter than this, send the Bible. If yoii send Baxter and Flavel, it is surely better to send Moses and the Prophets, and the Apostles, and Evangelists with the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Send the Sabbath School agent. Let . him gather the children and establish a school wherever he can, and wait not for the gathering of a Church. But, 3. While we give all due importance to these methods of doing good, surely no enlightened friend of Christianity would advise us to rely exclu- sively on these, or to regard them in any other light than as auxiliary to the instrumentalities which God has ordained, the ministry and the Church. If some hundreds of individual men were sent to scatter seed wheat, broadcast, over the untilled forests and prairies of the West, here and there a stalk would, beyond question, spring up and bring forth fruit, sixty or an hundred fold. Here and there a few continuous rods of ground would flourish with a most exuberant harvest. But if one should then draw the 19 conclusion that the means peculiarly adapted to that western field, — the cheapest and the most efficient means, — is not to clear the forests, and till the prairies, and fence the fields, and plant the hus- bandman to cultivate and nourish, and gather by a steady and uniform labor ; but to send itinerants to scatter the seed wheat and pass hastily onward, and then to write back and publish glowing accounts of how much seed wheat they have scattered, and how, here and there, a mighty stalk has sprang up and flourished, no conclusion could be more erro- neous ; no husbandry could be more mistaken and thriftless than that which should concentrate the main energies of the country on such a system of efforts as these. So in cultivating the spiritual field. The regular, permanent, indispensable agencies, are the ministry and the Church. No agencies are so economical, none are so efficient, as these; These are the agencies which Grod ordained.' The isolated fire, kindled up by the flying agent, dies without the fostering care of the ministry and the Church. The broad woodlands and prairies of the West abound in scattered Christians, who, on removing from the sanc- tuaries of the East, sought out some well watered and fertile plain where they could grow rich, rather than some neighborhood of Christian institutions where their souls might be fed, and where their children might be trained up for God. The too frequent result . of such a choice has been backsliding or open aposta- sy. It was not without reason that Christ gave as- cension gifts for the edifying of the Church. Even in-the midst of a Christian community, the Christian 20 who forsakes the assembling of himself with the Church, as the manner of some is, becomes soon a withered branch. The communities who try to dis- pense with the sanctuary, the ministry, and the Church, always find religion decaying among them, and vice and crime progressing. Let the process go on, and they become as heathen. The Chris,tian Churches, who conclude to dispense with ' pastors, and to employ casual and transient laborers, ever grow weaker and weaker ; their policy of saving ex- pense always resulting like the policy of the farmer who starves his land through parsimony, and loses his farm. We can by no means dispense with the Divine ordinances, the sanctuary, the ministry, and the Church. All other societies and agencies for the propagation of Christianity, for the maintenance of truth, or for reformation in morals, depend upon the Church. All become powerless and die when- ever the Church decays. The Church dies without the ministry ; the ministry dies without the Church. God has appointed the one for the " edifying of the body of Christ," and he made the other " the pillar and ground of the truth." Whatever other agencies we may employ, we can by no means dispense with these as first and foremost. If therefore we would evangelize the West, we must by no means make the Church and the ministry a secondary concern. Let flying agents wake up here and there a soul as they shall be able : but to till the field, to gather in and to preserve the harvest, to train Christians up to the stature of perfect men, to establish fountains which shall send forth streams of living water, and 21 help to swell the river that shall make glad the city of our God, plant the Church, and nourish it till it shall be able to live without your care. This is the cheapest, the most efficient, the most permanent of all agencies for planting and perpetuating the Gos- pel in that vacant field. I hesitate not to declare my full conviction that the work of Home Missions is the great cause of all causes to be sustained for the Evangelization of this land. But from what quarter are the missionaries to be furnished for that vast field ? "Who are to take the places of those who have already been sent out, when these shall be dead ? What would have be- come of New England, when the first ministers and other educated men who came from the mother country died out, had not our fathers with such ad- mirable fo,recast founded their institutions of learn- ing ? Without these the glory of New England, as well as the prosperity and stability of our country, could not have been. All that our fathers toiled for would have been lost. And now who are to take the places of the missionaries who have been sent out, when these are dead ? Who are to supply the amazing wants of that field in coming years ? Already have we reached a point where the East can no longer supply the present demand for the ministry in the West. If it could do so, western men trained in the West would be more serviceable. And certain it is, that western men, educated or uneducated, — or perhaps educated by papists or in- fidels, or by those who are indifferent or hostile to religion, — are henceforth to mould the character, 22 and wield the power and destinies of that great West. What shall we do for the West, to save it for Christ ; to enlist its mighty energies for coming time, in the cause of truth and salvation ? Preach the Gospel there, say you ? Plant there the insti- tutions' of religion ? Yes : but where are the minis- ters to he raised up for the next hundred, or even for the next twenty years ? It is true that the several States will do something for Colleges. But ,the States wiU not, and cannot, care for the interests of religion. , It is already decided, — ^freedom de- mands it — that whatever pertains to religion is to be cared for voluntarily by the people in their do- mestic capacity, and not by the State. We cannot alter thi$ without giving up our liberties. We can- not alter this without running the hazard that Popery or Infidelity may in time be the established religion of the state. If we care for the future interests of religion ia the West, we must look to it ourselves, and trust not to the States. Given, then, a certain work to be done, — ^to plant the institutions of religion in that land, and to provide for their permanence,---^we might well, not only bear the ex- pense, but pay for the privilege, of instructing the young, of moulding the mass of educated mind, of training not only the ministers, but the physicians, the lawyers, the teachers, the legislators, and judges of the land. It is no objection, but an immense advantage, that the Colleges which we aid in sus- taining, educate n'ot the ministers alone, but train with them the men destined to fill the other profes- sions, and mould their minds under the same genial 23 influences. Let tlie state train all these in institu- tions from wHcli sectarian, or infidel prejudices sliall exclude all tlie moulding influences of religion, and how disastrous must be the resiiltdn the next gene- ration! Infidels and demagogues wiir love to take this, whole work out of your hands. Rome will be extremely glad to be allowed to supply that whole field with institutions of learning.. Willingly will she furnish all possible facilities for training our children and our children's children who may emi- grate to that field. And then she will rule the field, which, whoever governs, will in the next century govern our country and govern the world. But plant suitable Protestant institutions of learning, and the , experiment has proved, as often as it has been tried, that the institutions which fetter the mind and chain the conscience can never compete with them. Fail to do this ; let Rome preoccupy the field, and the time may come when,, even in New England, there may be no longer freedom to read the Bible or to worship God. Will any one say, Send missionaries, plant Churches, but leave them to see to the institutions of learning ? This the missionaries and Christians at the West are endeavoring to do. They feel that the salvation of their Churches, and that the cause of truth and freedom in that land, depends upon their success in these efforts. But the people are not ho- mogeneous nor of one mind, that they may, like the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, unite their ener- gies for the promotion of learning and religion. The friends of truth are scattered and feeble. The diffi- 24 culties of a new settlement in a new country press hard upon them, and must overwhelm them in their efforts for this work, unless they have aid. With great sacrifices on the part of the men engaged in these institutions, and on the part of the western ministers and Churches, a few of their Colleges had struggled for life, and would have died, but for the timely aid of this Society. By this aid some of them lived tni their friends at the West were able to take the burden, and now mainly by western liberality, they are endowed. Some are still struggling for life, and without aid continued for some time longer, they cannot live. It seems therefore necessary, to the completion and carying out of the work of Home Missions, to help our brethren of the West in sus- taining, for a season, the institutions which are not only to add immensely to the results of Home Mis- sions, but which are indispensable to secure the fruits of all these labors, and to render th6m permanent. This, and this alone, is the work of the Society for the promotion of Collegiate and Theological Edu- cation at the West : not to furnish these institutions with an endowment, but to aid them till the friends of education and religion in the West shall be able to sustain them ; and leave their further support or their endowment to their hands. Something ought now to be said with regard to the Society for the promotion of these objects. It arose from the necessities of the case. When these necessities shall cease, then the work of the Society is done, and the Society will die. In that wide field of the West, colleges and seminaries were springing up 25 in great numbers ; more than were needed ; more than could be sustained. Many institutions were commenced without counting the cost. They could not hope to live a year without aid. Immediately, agents came from every part of the West. Our Churches were beset with innumerable applicants. Many of these^ applicants collected scarcely enough to pay the expense of their agencies. Sums were collected large in the aggregate, but being divided into innumerable parcels, were frittered away and lost. One after another of these hastily projected institutions died. The friends of education at the West were discouraged. The charities of the East, under such a system, dried up. The more import- ant and indispensable seminaries at the West began to despair. Then this Society was formed ; that, by selecting a suitable number of institutions in the right locations, and formed under right auspices ; by restoring confidence to the Eastern Churches, and inspiring courslge among the friends of education at the West, these selected institutions might live, till the Churches around them should be so far establish- ed as to be able to rally for their support. The effortTias already been crowned with eminent success. Several institutions of incalculable value have been saved, when, otherwise, all would have fallen into one indiscriminate ruin. The mischiefs which must have resulted from such a catastrophe cannot be told. They could not have been repaired in centuries. In saving these institutions, a work has been done of incalculable importance to our country and to the world. The Western Eeserve, 26 Marietta, Wabash, and Illinois Colleges and Lane Senainary have been saved. Some of them are al- ready beyond the necessity of Eastern aid. Knox College, Wittemberg College, the College at Beloit and that at Davenport in Iowa, and the Seminary of the German Evangelical Conference of the "West in Missouri, have been added to the list of institu- tions receiving aid. The last year I stood at the door of the College in Davenport, which overlooks a prospect of unlimited extent in Iowa and Illinois, along the valley of the Rock river, and of the Missis- sippi ; a prospect of beauty and richness scarcely to be surpassed. I cannot tell the thoughts that came crowding in my mind, as I contemplated the work which that institution is destined to accomplish for the many thousands of people that are eventually to cover the plains and valleys spread out in prospect from its site. I thought of the cheerful spires, the prosperous towns and villages, the plentiful farms, that are to cover these plains. I thought of the ' missionaries and pastors, of the laborers in the de- partments of medicine and law, of the teachers, and thejegislators who are yet to proceed from that in- fant College. I asked myself. Can the Eastern Churches afford to let it languish and die ? No, not for a thousand times the amount that it will require to make it live and prosper to the end of time ! Let me say something also of another of the Col- leges aided by this Society ; that of the German Evangelical Conference of the West. Some sixteen years ago, one who is now among the directors of this Society, — seeing the immense influx of Germans 27 who were as sheep without a shepherd, — took meas- ures, in connection with a few friends, to procure, through the late lamented Mr. Gallaudet, two evan- gelical missionaries from the Missionary Seminary in Basle in Europe. They came, and have labored with patient and unwearied devotion with great suc- cess, and with the warm approval of all the Ameri- can pastors arid Churches who have been conversant with them and with their labors. Others have come to their aid, till they now number more than thirty evangelical ministers, and twice as many Churches, on a basis of faith and order very nearly resembling that of the Churches of Connecticut. Nearly all these ministers are supported by their congregations with- out Home Missionary aid. They assured me that if they had suitable men, they could at once place fifty in fields where nearly all would be sustained by the people who should receive the benefit of their labors. They suppose that there are two hundred thousand Germans- in Missouri, and the number is rapidly increasing : many of whom are earnestly desiring a pure Gospel, and longing for some one to break to them the bread of life. But such laborers are not to be found. Under these circumstances the Conference has erected the Seminary, to train up laborers for that wide arid promising field. Should they have done otherwise ? Ought they not to be . encouraged and sustained? It was my privilege to meet some of their pastors, to visit some of them at their homes, to enter some of their Churches, and to pass over the rich rolling prairies, and through the . forests that border the Missouri to their seminary in 28 the remote wilderness. There one learned profes- sor, a man eminent in his native country, was labor- ing on a salary of three hundred dollars a year. Another, a polished, courteous, learned and devoted man, was laboring for simple food and shelter. The Churches, as they are able, send in'k supply of food. All take up a collection once a year for the semina- ry. But the poverty of many of their people upon their first planting themselves in the wilderness can scarcely be understood by people dwelling at the East. The difficulties and hardships of new settle- ments in the wilderness are theirs in full measure : though their proverbial industry and frugality must ere long place them in abundance ; and then their beloved College will live and prosper. But in the mean time they are in deep waters, in need of every thing. I slept one night in their Seminary, and when I parted from these dear brethren, I left them with the deep conviction, that the small amount of aid for which they ask, will be as judicious and as productive an investment of funds for the promotion of the cause of Christ in the Great Valley, as can possibly be made ; and that the friends of our coun- try, and the friends of the Redeemer, who care for the salvation of the future millions of the descend- ants of these Germans, can by no means afford to let their infant Seminary die. These two were the only institutions under the patronage of our So- ciety, which a hasty tour at the West permitted me to see. It is well known that the others are of equal, or of still greater importance. If our country is to be evangelized, if the great West is not to be given 29 up to Infidelity or to Popery. ; if the thousands of in- fant Churches planted in that field, at so much cost and suffering, are hereafter to be supplied with a competent ministry; if the educated minds, not only in the ministry, but in the other public callings, — ■which are hereafter to mould the sentiments of the people of the great West, and so to il-ule our country and the world, — are to be trained under Christian auspices, these institutions must be sustained. As I passed for more than two thousand miles along the mighty rivers, through the vast forests, and over the ocean-like prairies of the West, how often would my fancy move forward one hundred, sometimes three hundred, or five hundred years. In imagination I saw these woodlands and prairies teeming with inhabitants. The land was a garden ; fertile and easy of cultivation, almost beyond the power of those who have always remained on the Eastern shore of our country to imagine. I saw the dwellings embowered in trees ; the highways lined with venerable elms ; the school-house and the house of God rising in every village ; in one word, the fairest village on the most beautiful intervale of New England, repeated, enlarged, and spread out over fields broader in extent than forty New Eng- lands. I fancied these seminaries, now fostered in infancy with so much pains, then established in strength and grown venerable with age. Genera- tions of their alumni had served Christ and their country in their day, and had gone down to the grave, leaving the fruits and the monunlents of their labors behind them. I fancied this ; but it was 30 scarcely fancy : time will realize this picture, and more. In that day the names of the early mission- aries, who toiled and suffered as pioneers in that field, will be had in remembrance. It will then be told what these have done for our country, for the world, and for Christ. In that day the seat of influence and power in a nation of two hundred millions, or of three, or four hundred millions, will be there. And then it wiU be known, that next to the direct work of rearing and sustaining Churches in that field, was the work of planting and sustaining the Colleges and Seminaries which gave to these Churches their perpetuity ; and which trained the men, in the various professions, whose influence fashioned and controlled society there when it was in the forming state. The Lord prosper this work. The Lord bless those who have it in their hearts to aid in laying thus the foundations for many, genera- tions. Amen. ADDRESS TO THE CITIZENS OF NORWALK, ON THE SUBJECT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The undersigned, having been appointed by a meeting of the citizens of Norwalk, a committee to examine and report concerning the state of our public schools, and what should be done for their improvement, would respectfully represent — ' 1. That the number of scholars in the nine school districts of Norwalk, according to the enumeration of 1850, is 1169 ; and that the increase for the last three year® has been at the rate of 49 scho- lars a year : . That owing to this increase, nearly all our school-houses are top small to accommodate the scholars of, their districts. The Over River District has 217 scholars. The school-house has but 60 com- fortable seats, a part of which ought not to be occupied in winter on account of their prossimity to the stove. There are on the list of attenda,nts this winter, 124 scholars — the average attendance is 80. Last winter it. was 90. There are sometimes nearly 100 present at a time. Of these, all above the number of 60 are crowded upon uncomfortable'benches around the stove a,nd in the narrow passages. The ceiling of the room is low, and the ventilation insufficient. In this district, there is no permanent private school, and few of the scholars go out of the district to school. , , The Old Well District numbers 219 scholars ; and has in two rooms, very poor accommodations for 80, The main room, being seven feet between joints, and having none of the modern improve- ments for seating. One hundred and twenty-four have entered the two public schools this winter ; the average attendance is 80. In this district there are an academy, and two private schools, which accommodate many of the scholars. The Main Street school-house is the best in town. It can seat 64 scholars ; the enumerated number of scholars in the district is 120 ; ninety have entered the school ihis winter ; the average attendance is 60 ; when the greatest number is present, the room is much crowded. Considerable time is spent day by day, in assigning the seats of such as are absent to such supernumerary scholars as happen to be present. The same is true of all the schools where the num- ber on the list of attendants is greater than the number of seats. The South Centre District has 190 scholars, and accommodation in two rooms for 100. Ninety have entered the school the present term; many aie drawn off to the private schools within the district. The N'orth Centre District has 109 scholars; it can seat 35 at the_^ desks next to the wall, on seals so high that their feet aie dangling in the air. Some twenty-five or more can be seated on benches in the centre. If the house were comfortably seated in the modem style, it might accommodate 50 scholars. ■ The Down Town District numbers 95 scholars ; accommodates 30 at the desks against the wall, and some 30 moie on the benches in the centre. Seated as it should be, it might accommodate 50 scholars ; seventy-seven are on the list of attendants this term. It will be seen from these facts, that the Over River and Old Well Districts are under the necessity of building, or of making some other arrangements immediately. The accommodatiofis of tSe other districts specified, are also inadequate ; they will be compelled very soon greatly to enlarge, or to build anew, k slight increase of the population will render this inevitable. Unless some better plan can be devised for the organization of our schools, there must.soon be a general rebuilding of school-houses in nearly every district in town. The present is, therefore, thg time to look about us, and to inquire whether some better plan than the present cannot be devised. If we wait till two or three districts have built anew, a remodelling will be diflScult, and for a time perhaps impossible. 2. The committee beg leave to represent further, that the present organization of our schools is necessarily attended with great waste of time and money, and fails to give to our children so good a com- . mon school education as the times demand ; this would seem to be obvious upon a bare inspection of the schools.' For example : Over River School had at the beginning of the teEcn, from 8 to 10 scholars who could not read simple sentences, and these were in various stages of advancement. An average.- of 70 scholars are to be heard in reading twice a day, and in spelling. Fifty-three of those on the list of attendants, study arithmeti;?. 'ilj^ete are 40 in geography, 45 in writing, JK) in grammar, 9 jn history^ and 2 in surveying. The occasional absence of some of tjiese does not relieve the pressure of business, but deranges the ^lassiftcatipn and increases the diffi- culty. The Main-street School, had, at the commencement of the term, eight who could not read simple sentences. Seventy study arithmetic ; there are 30 in geography, 40 in writing, 20 in gram- mar, besides the reading and spelling ; the other schools do not differ essentially from these in the number of classes and studies. Now place any teacher in a confined and over-crowded room, com- pel him" to hasten from one thing to another, vnih such rapidity as he must to get through with such numbers in such a multitude of classes and studies, and no matter what his capacity and diligence, he can- not give thorough instruction. No part of his time is spent to good advantage. The pupils fgel the effect of the impure air and crowded room. Often the foundation is laid for feeble health and impaired constitutions. The pupils are not trained to habits of carefiil study and vigorous application, nor do they learn to express their thoughts with readiness and accuracy. If we estimate the value of the school by the attainments made in a given time, more than half the time and money is worse than wasted. It is no fiction, that elsewhere, under a different system, such attainments are more thoroughly made in half the time. But mental habits and discipline are of more im- portance than the amount of attainments, so that more is wasted than time or money. No teacher can do justice to more than thirty-five miscellaneous scholars, such as are mingled together under one teacher under the present organization of our schools. All above this number is loss and damage, which is by no means compensated by the diminished expense. We hesitate not to say that the advan- tage of the public money should be no inducement to any parent to send a child to an overcrowded miscellaneous school, unless com- pelled so to do by hard necessity. 3. We beg leave to represent further, that the experiment of a better classification, and of a suitable division of labor, has been tried in many places elsewhere, and with the most satisfactory results. In large towns and villages which will admit of it, the districts are thrown together ; a large building, with suitable apartments and fixtures, is prepared; the scholars are classed according to their studies and attainments ; more time is allowed for recitations ; each teacher has his department, ibr which he is responsible ; the scholars are advanced from class to class, according to their progress ; the same number of teachers will give more than twice the amount of instruction than can be given undei the miscellaneous system, and the scholars advance with proportionate rapidity. Where the system has been tried, the people would no more think of returning to the old method, than they would think of throwing up their machinery and returning to the hand-loom and spinning-wheel. So great is the advantage, that it is said that in the same city, and in the same street, real estate has greatly advanced on the side of the street which has the privilege of such schools, over the side which is without this privilege. The matter is no longer a matter of experi- ment. In the amount of studies accomplished in a given time, and at a given expense, and in the thoroughness with which they are ac- complished, the scholars educated under the old system can enter into no competition with those educated usder the new. In a large establishment, at a small expense to each, philosophical, chemical, and astronomical apparatus, can be provided, lectures can be given, libraries can be furnished, the pupils can be trained in the sciences to fit them for machinists or engineers, or they can be fitted for col- lege, or for mercantile life. What is more to the purpose, the chil- dren of the poorest possess equal advantages with the children of the rich. None can do better than to send their children to the pub- lic school, for the same want of classification and of division of labor which now troubles our public schools, is the bane of most acade- mies and boarding schools, which for that very reason are unable to furnish instruction equal to that which may be given at a trifling expense in well organized public schools. 4. We beg leave to represent further, that a very large amount of money is annually sent out of Norwalk every year for the education of children abroad, who, upon a proper organization of our schools, might be better educated at home. Upon a slight inquiry, the com- mittee are satisfied that not less than forty thousand dollars have been expended by inhabitants of Norwalk for the education of their chil- dren abroad in the last ten years. How much would it have added to the advantage and thrift of the place if this sum had been retained and distributed among our own mechanics, merchants, farmers, and laborers ! How much would it add to the thrift of the place to establish schools which shall attract scholars from abroad, instead of adhering to our present organiza- tion, which will inevitably continue to send away so liduch of our re- sources to build up other places, of vastly inferior natural advantages, but of more sagacity and public spirit ! We beg leave further to represent, that numerous families, having secured a competence in th6 city of New- York, are every year re- tiring into the country ; and others are looking for places in the vicinity of the city, where they may locate their families and educate their chil- dren. The location of Norwalk, directly on the Sound, and on the rail- road between New Haven and New- York, with another railroad in progress leading back into the country ; together with the proverbial healthfulness of the place, and the unequalled beauty of its situation, among all the beautiful towns on the shore of Long Island Sound, have already attracted the attention of numbers of people who are preparing to retire from the city. Some have already fixed them- selves among us, who are deeply pained with the contrast between the advantages furnished by our schools, compared with those of the schools which they have left behind. Several instances have come to our knowledge of families, whose residence among us would have been greatly to the advantage of the place, and who on other accounts would have preferred to settle in Norwalk, but who went elsewhere solely on account of the condition of our schools. Some are, to our knowledge, even now wishing to come to Norwalk, but are suspend- ing their decision, until it shall be known whether the effort which we are now making to improve our school system shall be successful. We leave it to you to calculate the pecuniary advantages of bringing in numbers of families of liberal resources, to spend their m^ans among us, or of having not only these turned elsewhere, but of having our own people, who have the ability, . continue to withdraw their children from the public schools, and to send so many thousands of dollars out of the place annually, for their education elsewhere. We admit, however, that the business and thrift of the place is the very lowest consideration. The great argument is the advantage of our own children, and the levelling up of the children of the poorest, to equal advantages for education with the children of the richest. Fellow Citizens : We have very briefly stated a few of the facts and 6 arguments which should induce us to attempt a better organization of our schools. With our 1169 children, and over $2000 of public money a year, — ^both of which are rapidly increasing as the town rapidly increases in population, — it is in our power to enable every poor man among us to give his children as good a practical education as money can ptocure. No place in the country ought to have better schools. No railroads that can be built, no manufactories that can be established among us, would, at the present time, give such an impulse to the thrift and improvement of the place, or confer such lasting advantages upon our children, as the enterprise of putting our schools upon the best footing possible. Shall it be done 1 The only difficulty in the way is to persuade every voter among us to come to the place where the decision is to be made, and say, with all bis heart, " Yes, it shall be done." We put the question to you ; we lay this matter before every man in Norwalk, and ask a response from each. Shall it be done ? It is a question which appeals to the intelligence, the public spirit, and to the self-interest of every citizen. It is a question which every man will probably be called on ere long to decide by his vote. To prepare the way for this, we ask that public meetings may be called for mutual consultation, for diffusing infor- mation, and for discussion, in each school district; and that, when the time comes for decision, every man will present himself and vote according to his best judgment. Yea or Nay. The Committee, in fulfilment of the duties of their appoint- ment, do therefore call a meeting of the citizens of Norwalk, to be held in the Town House, on Thursday, the 20th of March, at 7 o'clock in the evening, for the purpose of con- sidering the matters herein set forth, and of taking such measures as shall appear to them expedient. Stephen Smith, Stiles Curtis, James Reed, Edwin Hall, . /-. Wm. Cooper Mead,/^"'"'"*"''^- Newell Boughton,\ Samuel W. King, Stlvanus Haight, TriEf^|pliEICAN« N/^TJOifAL>REACHER ORIGINAL-MONTHLY, FKOM LIVING MINISTEES OF THE UNITED STATES. EDITED BY REV. W. H. BIDWELL. VOL. XV. NEW YORK: rtdljSHED BRICK CHOKCH CHAtEL. Entered' according to the Act of Congress, in tHe year 1841, By W. H. BIDWELL, In the Clerk's^ffi^ of the District Court of the United. States fos the Southern ^ District of .New York.. THE JPMEEICAN NATIONAL PEEACHER. No. 12. Vol. XV.) DECEMBER, 1841. (Whole No. 180. SERMON CCCXIII. BY REV. GEORGE B. IDE, PASTOR OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. MORAL INSANITY OF IRRELIOtOCS MEN. " Madness is in their heart." — Ecclesiastes ix. 3. The language of the sacred writers is no ^!vhere more awful, than when they describe the character and the condition of imgodly men. In the deep emotion which this subject awakens, they reject the ordi- nary forms of expression, and resort to the most glowing4p'agery, to give utterance to . the fearful thoughts which crowd upon them. Agreeably, they represent the wicked as " dead in trespasses arid sins," — " sowing the wind, and reaping the whirlwind," — " treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath," — ^tossed on a " troubled sea," where raging waves, and hidden rocks, and whirlpools, and darkness surround them, — or standing upon giddy and shppery heights, beneath which yawns the gulf of perdition. But in thi^ accumulation of dreadful metaphors none are more ter- ribly significant than the one contaiaed in the text What spectacle can be more appalling than that of madness l Look at the -man, in whose mind the golden cord, which holds tlie intellectual powers in harmony, has been broken, and left him a maniac. What a wreck of all t]|at is lovely, and valuable in humanity does he exhibit ! To the o^lm control of reason, have succeeded the dominion of passion, the empire of fancy, and the anarchy of delirium. The eye, which once shone with the clear light of thought, now gleams with unnatu- ral fire, or is fixed in the unmeaning gaze of idiocy ; and the counte- nance, once beaming witl^ intellect, and radiant with the glow of every nol&a%ption, is vacant ?^with stupor, or convulsed with the - : - -7 .. :~ .. : \.._-:.:_3e and recklessness m^k liis 270 THE NATIONAl PREACHER.. actions r Behold him bartering his dearest mterests- far a cMldish. toy — laboring to accomphshj enterjMises in their nature evidently unattainable, or using the greatest exertions to effect the most.frivo— Ictfis purposes — continually mistaking the objects around him, esteem- ing those valuable which are really trivial, and rejecting as -worthless those of the highest value — ^flying from his friends and relatives as, enemies, and caressing strangers and enemies as friends — rejoicing when Ms situation is most melancholy, and weeping when he has ^o cause for sorrow — ^wantonly exposing himself to dangers ; and, per- haps, in the frenzy of distraction, leaping from a precipiee, or plung- ing a dagger into his bosom. Who, without a &rill of horror, can witness a scene like this 1 Yet such is the image which% inspiration has selected as emblematical of the conduct of impenitent sinners. Having surveyed^ with a rapid and comprehensive glance, the histoiy of those who live " without God in the world," it has sketched the portraiture of their character, in few, but fearfully graphic words. "Madness is in their heart." Surely, nonebut a pencil dipped in heaven, could have flung upon the canvass so vivid and so trua a likeness in. so brief a compass.. The sentiment, which the text presents as the subjeafcof discourse, is the moral insanity of irreligious men. In the illustration of this topic, it is my purpose to mention some of the prominent characteristics of insanity, and- to show that the views and conduct of the wicked, with respect to rehgion, exhibit the same melancholy tokens. I. It is a mark of insanity to he insensible to the force of evidence. A sound mind is open to conviction, — perceives the proofs-submitted' to its examination, — estimates their value,— and regulates its conclu- sions according to their clearness and cogency. Wherever, therefore, an utter inapprehension of argument and testimony is- discovered, it is.; manifest that there folly has usmped the " intellteGtual' throne." If a man, in defiance of his consciousness, should asswt that^s own exis- tence was imaginary ; — that the sun did not shine, nor the seasons change, — or that the living and real world around hint, was, only a vast panorama of magical illusions, — the most unreflecting observer would, at once pronounce him insane. Bat the infidelj who d|jaounces reli- gion as an imposture, betrays an, infatuation equally unequivocal. He rejects the being and government of God ; denies the future existence and accountability of man ; discards, as baseless dreams, the momen- tous facts, sublime precepts, and stupendous disclosures of Revelation; and charges the beUever in these doctrines with a bUnd deyotion to absurd and incredible dogmas. But notwithstanding the confidence with which he avows his skepticism, a slight survey of the grounds on which it rests, will demonstrate that he has little claim to the boast of sagacity. The truths which he repudiates, are surrounded by a body of evidfence so decisive as to rendgr them no less certain and* irresistible than the plainest subject of pure intuitio% ^d has im- print£d his. signature.upon the-broad PYnansp-nf tVip nniiroi-oo -i?oy.+u • ; MORAL INSANITY OF IKREMGIOUS MEN, 271 'with its rarieS bvelmess and fertility — ocean, in the sublimity of its storms, and the majesty of its repose^^and heaven, with the me- 'chanism of its countless worlds, — proclaim his wisdom, power, and goodness. The whole creation, from the smallest flower that blushes in the valley, to the mightiest globe that wheels through the firma- nent, sends up a ceaseless anthem to its Maker and Governor ; and calls, with every voice of its unnumbered choir, upon revolted, ingrate man, to acknowledge and adore his perfections. Superadded to this 'testimony of external nature, God has implanted in the human bosom an innate consciousness of his existence and sovereignty — a feeling of responsibility to him — and a vivid presentiment of final retribu- tion — which,endure through every change, unextinguished and inex- tinguishable. Darkness cannot conceal, infideUty cannot stifle, the constant corrosion of sin cannot destroy them. Tbey live in the deep fountains of the soul; and there are moments in the history of the most hardened imbeliever, when they break, with irrepressible force, through all his opposing sophistries. Nor is this all. With a view to illustrate more fully what reason, instructed by his works, and the moral sense of his creatures might teach, and to disclose what lies beyond their vision, he has given to the world a perfect revelation of •all that is necessary for the subjects of his government to know during their earthly probation. He has unveiled, in the most luminous man- ner, his character and will ; his relation to men, and his claims to their obedience; their entire and universal apostasy from him, and exposure to the sentence of his violated law ; the provision of infinite love for their restoration to' his favor by the blood of his Son shed upon the cross ; the eternal felicity of those who embrace this mercir ful overture, and the inevitable perdition of all who neglect, it. The Volume, in which these aflfectihg disclosures are promulgated, is evinced to be of divine authority by. an overwhelming accumulation of the most conclusive proofs. Its agreement with secular history ; its accordarjge with the physical and spiritual coiidition of the world; its exact prediction of numerous events ages before their occurrence ; its impressive display of unquestionable miracles ; the holy lives, supernatural gifts, fervid zeal, untiring labors, and voluntary sufferings of its.writer|=; the ethereal beauty of its style; the moral elevation of its sentiments; the harmony, unearthly purity, and sanctifying influence of its doctrines ; all conspire to attest its heavenly origin. Thus inscribed with the name, and stamped with the seal of God, it has passed victorious through every trial of its troth, and every attempt to refute its pretensions. Deathless as the Eternal Spirit from i^hom it emanated— invulnerable as the sacred bush, burning but not consumed— 4t has survived, imharmed, the fires of persecutionj and the ravages, of time. Opposition, in every form, has been arrayed, against it. Wit and ridicuje — perverted learning and misguided talent — ^secret treachery aqi^ open malice — dungeons, racks, and flames — and ev&ry weapon which human ingenuity could devise, or .. .'-«".'.-j- ri Am'i-i- <5nT^.nir?~*;-a7e been combined, in one fell 272 THE NATIONAL PBEACHEK. assault, to sweep it from the earth. But, fixed on its immovable, basis, it has sustained the storm, imshaken as the fast-seated rock that hurls back the angry waves. Or if, for a moment, the swelUng flood has seemed to overflow it, it has arisen from the temporary submer- sion in serener majesty, and with more impregnable strength. If, then, the witnesses to the trulJi of reUgion are so numerous and irrefragable, how infatuated is the man who discredits their testimony. Such incredulity can proceed only from that madness of the soul which the text describes. In unison with this statement, an inspired writer declares, that ■" in his heart" — not in the deliberate conviction of his understanding — " the fool hath said. There is no God." And how universally is this declaration exemplified in the process by which infidels are made. By far the larger portion bf those who become such, have scarcely ever read the Bible, and know as httle of its contents as of the Koran or the Shaster. Delirious with the love of sin, and impatient of every check to its indulgence, they reject with- out ceremony a book, whose precepts contravene their inclinations, and whose sanctions reprobate their profligacy. And even the few who have pretended to examine it, have been so strongly biased by a laitent enmity to its doctrines, as to be utterly incompetent to pass upon it an impartial judgment. And when we see the young, the ignorant, and the abandoned, thus wilfully turning away from the light which beams, with overpowering splendor, from the .works and the word of God, merely because they hate it, and will not come to it, lest, in its all-disclosing radiance, their " deeds should be reproved," can we doubt the insanity of their hearts 1 They may exult in their unbelief as a proof of their triumph over vulgar prejudice, and glory in their freedom from the restraints of conscience and revelation ; but to the spiritually instructed mind their conduct appears inde- scribably preposterous. It is the madness of the mariner, who, casting away his chart and compass, and extinguishing every beacon that can guide or warn him, launches his vessel upon a sea wild with tempest, and covered with darkness. Nay more, it is the madness of the man, who, if he were able, would blot every limiinary from the sky, and shroud the universe in eternal midnight. II. It is a mark of insanity to be unconcerned while in a state of doubt with respect to momentous interests. If a man, wno considered his temporal circumstances in such a critical posture, that the next hour might sink him in the lowest poverty and disgrace, or elevate him to the pinnacle of wealth and honor, should make no exertions to remove their uncertainty, but recklessly leave them to take their course, he would be deemed utterly destitute of common sense and .prudence. And yet there are multitudes, who, with reference to the ■^elfare of- their souls, exhibit a similar fatuity. They are not abso- * lute unbelievers. They confess themselves unable to prove that religion is false ; but, at the same time, 'aver, that they find it equally impossible to demonstrate its reality, lliey waver between infidelity aaitd faith j, and j,ustify their indecision bv asserting: tliat eVerv thimr MORAL -ftjSANITY OF IHEELIGIO0S MEN. 273 connected with the spiritual world is enveloped in obscurity. That their only difficulty, however, lies in the waywardness and obliquity of their hearts, is evident from the fact, that while a sUght examina- tion would convince them of the* truth of the gospel, they refuse to investigate its claims, but treat the " great salvation" with contempt, when pressed upon their notice. They acknowledge that the period of their earthly sojourn, is brief and precarious — that a life, frail as a thread of gossamer, is the only barrier between them and heaven, or hell, or annihilation — and that death, which threatens them every moment, must, in a few years, and may, in a few days, place them, unchangeably and forever, jn one of these conditions. Their doubts^ therefore, are upon a subject of most tremendous consequence — a subject relatog, not to the affairs of their fugitive existence here, but to their eternal destiny beyond the grave. From this destiny it is in vain for them to turn aside their thoughts, as if they could avert it by denying it a place in their imagination. In spite of their heedlessness, it advances certainly and speedily; and soon the curtain which con- ceals it vrill be lifted, and disclose to their view an endless state of ineffable bhss, of burning agony, or of nothingness. Now, surely, in a dubious point of this solemn nature, it might be expected that every rational man would endeavor, if. possible, to obtain a rehef from his doubts ; and that he could not remain an instant at rest, while in suspense about a question of such transcendent importance, that, in comparison with it, every sublunary interest dwindles into insignificance. Impelled by . the stupendous magnitude of the problem to be determined, he would concentrate every faculty upon its solution, and manifest an all-absorbing sohcitude, till he had brought his inqui- ries to a satisfactory issue. But, instead of this, the individuals we are describing, take no pains to settle their doubts. They appear easy and composed with respect to them. They may even avow them with levity, and perhaps gratify their pride in professing them, as if it were an indication of superior wisdom to be uncertain whether their ultimate award sha:ll be a throne of joy, a rack of punishment, or a dreamless oblivion. What language can supply a name for such inconceivable folly ? Yet, in relation to worldly objects, you see them very different men. They use the utmost diligence to secure their property. They guard, with anxious care, against the remotest contingency of bodily suffering. They fear the smallest inconven- iences, see them as they approach, and feel them if they arrive. They pass whole days and nights in chagrin and despair at some frivolous disappointment in their secular pursuits, or some imaginary blemish in their reputation. And still. While they admit the appalhng possibility that the terrors of perdition hang over them, they contiaue without disquiet or emotion. This wonderful insensibility to condtns of the highest moment, and that, too, in minds so keenly alive to the meanest tril3es, is an astonishing prodigy-^a. preternatural hallucina- tioii— an unparalleled and deplor^e anomaly — which can be 274 THE NATIONAL PREACHEK. accounted for only by the fact, that " the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart." III. Insanity is characterized hy false, perceptions. As the eye, clouded by disease, sees the objects^presented to it in vague and dis- torted attitudes ; so the mind, bereft of reason, mistakes what it per- Eeives, and gives an unnatural aspect to every thing "which it contem- plates. The same feature is eminently conspicuous in the views of the wicked with respect to religious subjects. They entertain erro- leo'us conceptions of God. Bhnd to the discoveries of his character md the proofe of his ubiquity, which meet them on every side, they regard him rather as the unknown sovenB^n of some distant world, svh'ose relation to themselves and whogi^claims to their^. services are remote and indefinite, — than as the Being in whom 'they live, by ivhose goodness they are sustained, by whose all-pervading presence :hey are surrounded, whose law they are sacredly boimd to obey, and it whose bar they must receive their final and irrevocable sentence, ilis dispensations and govermnent appear, to their darkened vision, in ;onifused and unreal colors. They consider him as cruel and tyran- nc.il, demanding what they have no power to perform, and he has 10 right to require; or else, as so lenient and flexible in his nature, md so indifferent to the conduct of his creatures, that he will never nflict upon them the punishment due to their sins. Thus they deem he holy and infinite Jehovah " altogether such an one as themselves." Equally absurd are their views of Christ. The adorable Redeemer, n whom every divine perfection is embodied, whose beauty is the ight and the bUss of heaven, and whose smile fills with inexpressible apture the bosom of the highest angel, — ^possesses, in their jaimdiced yes, no excellence to excite their admiration, and no charms to ittraet their love. His cross, around which, as their common centre, ill the glories of the Godhead cluster, has for them no interest. They ook upon his gospel as replete with severe restrictions, painful sa- rifices, and repulsive duties^revile its disciples as the votaries of a [loomy fanaticism — and scorn the heavenly graces it inculcates and iroduces, as the offspring of bigoted ignorance, or designing hypo- risy. Nor is the estimate which they form of their own condition and irospects, less unfounded and extravagant. Like the maniac, who, a the vagaries of his distempered fancy, imagines his cell a palace, lis rags a royal robe, his crutch a sceptre, and himself a king, they herish the fatal delusion, that they are pure in the sight of God, avested with a title to his favor, and travehng to the mansions of his Dve, while they are deeply stained with the guilt of Worgiven sin, ,nd hurrying, with ever-quickening speed, to the consummation of heir doom in the lake of fire. Now, when we see men, in other res- lec'ts clear sighted and sagacious, — gifted, it may be, with a keenness nd accuracy of perception, that enable them to penetrate, at a gTajMip. lie most difficult questions in secular affairs;— thus losing, w^iriPES" bieir attention is directed to reMfcoh.all their wonted acuteness, commSt- MOiAL INSANITY OF IRRELIGIOUS MEN. 275 ting the most egregious mistakes, confounding the most dissimilar things, and betraying an utter want of discrimination and judgment ;-it is impossible to resist the conclusion,, that some great moral derange- ment-has impaired their understanding, and blunted tl^ visual faculty of the soul. IV. It is a mark of insanity to waste noble powers upon trivial objects. The mam whose intellect is disordered, doei not distinguish between things which are important, and those that are frivolous ; and, consequently, employs himself as readily upon the 'latter as upon the former. Thus Shakspeare describes the frantic Lear as gathering straws with the hand that M^. wielded a sceptre, and devoting to the follies of driveling idiocy a mind which once gave laws to a kingdom. And, in like manner,, the sacred historian inform us, that the monarch of Babylon, when smitten with mental aberration, abandoned the occupations and abodes of men, and betook himself to the pursuits and the companionship of irrational animals. But however painM it may be to witness such a debasement of the human faculties, it is far more so to contemplate that to which depravity has subjected them : because the one, being involuntary, may exist without crime, and is limited in its effects to the present life ; while the other is wholly the result of a guilty choice, and in its consequences takes hold on eternity. Men are formed with capacities which render them susceptible of the knowledge and love of God, of increasing conformity to his will and devotion to his service,— till, being prepared, by the atoning and purifying grace of the Redeemer, "for the inheri- tance of the saints in light," they enter upon that infinite course of intellectual and moral improvement, in. which the glorified spirit, freed from the encumbrance of flesh, and the blinding influence of sin, shall learn more and more of its adorable Creator, exhibit an ever-growing resemblance to his character, and rise, through all the ages of its immortal career, to a higher and yet higher elevation in wisdom, holiness, and felicity. But these vast capacities — so legibly inscribed with the benign intention of their author — so expressive of the original dignity of man — and? so pregnant with bliss or wo to their possessor — the unconverted thoughtlessly neglect, or wantonly squander. Look abroad through society, and see, in what innumera- ble instances, the powers ani facilities, which God has conferred on men to enable them to obey his Gospel, promote his glory, and work out their own salvatiouj are lavished on the paltry objects of this sordid world. Behold, the vcrtaries of wealth, in their struggles for the gold that eludes their grasp,, or, when obtained, cankers and corrodes their bosoms, displaying an ardor, and diligence, • and carefulness, which, if devoted to the attainment of the " true riches," might give them a title to that "treasure in heaven," which no rust can soil, and no accafent destr&y. Observe with what a concentration of their ener- gii^iithe devotees of ambition toil for the fame which a breath creates, and a breath may extinguish— -evihciMa prudence and foi'ecast, a "-• Jvj^js, is.i'jL--^ sirjB'is^B of purpose, worthy of a 276 THE NATIONiX PREACHER, pp ' nobler aimj and which, employed upon the concerns of the soul, . would raise them to the glory and immortality of the sons of God. Survey, too, the crowds of giddy tpflers that flutter in the train of fashion, or coi\gregate at the shrine'bf gayety. See them expending upon the decoration of their persons, or in the pursuit of empty amusements, pains and labor, which, if directed to a religious end, might clothe their guilty spirits in the spotless robe of a Savior's righteousness, and fit them for that " presence in which there is fulness of joy," and for that " right hand where there are pleasures forever- more." These are only a few aihong the almost numberless examples of perverted talents and wasted opportui^ties, with which the hist^ of an apostate world abounds. And what pious and contemplative observer, when he views such examples, and sees the heirs of eternity degrading their lofty faculties from the glorious purposes for which they were given, to the vile service of vanity and sin, is not filled with amazement at their infatuation 1 Can they be intelligent and rational beings, who thus cherish the body, but neglect the soul — court the approbation of men, but disregard that of God — and drink at the streams of pollution, while they shun the pure fountains of life and joy? Are they endowed with minds designed for everlasting growth and expansion, and able to soar, with a strong and unfaltering wing, upward to their Eternal Source, and vie with angels in their flight 1 How mournful, then, is that madness of the soul, which palsies such ethereal powers, and chains to the dust a creature capable of such an exalted destiny ! V. Insanity betrays itself by an indifference to' happiness. Every sane man is prompted by the instinctive principle of self-love, to desire his own welfare. If, therefore, you saw an individual, in opposition to this impulse of his nature, careless alike whether he enjoyed or suffered, resisting every attempt to improve his circiun- stanc'es, and rejecting as worthless the richest blessings, you would justly consider him deprived of his senses. A similar, though far more fatal want of reason, is visible in the apathy of impenitent sin- ners with respect to their eternal happiness. The bodies, which they here inhabit, must soon be laid in the grave; but their imdying spirits, with all their mighty and evei^increasing susceptibilities of joy and of sorrow, will survive the stroke of death, and be ushered into the unchanging realities of heaven or hell. While unregenerate, they are at war with their Maker, and condemned by his righteous law to endless punishment. But to reclaim them from this guilty and perilous state, God has shed the blood of his own Son as an expiation for their sins, and, on the terms of repentance and faith in the Mediator, offers them full and free forgiveness, the consolations 1 of his grace on earth, and interminable bliss in his kingdom above. This overture of matchless compassion is urged upon their acceptance by the most impressive motives. In language of melting kJiJflness their Heavenly Father addresses them — ^points them to the sun-bright summit, where angelic thnpes a'^siit tbeir ?!?"iy='' — nrnfFera tVipm hio MORAL INSANITY OF IRRELIGIOUS MEN. 277 own wisdom to guide, and his own power to strengthen them in the arduous ascent— bears long and patiently with their grievous provo- cations — holds back the uplifted thunder, and cries, " How shall I give them up 1 How shall I make them as Admah ? How shall I set them as Zeboim 1 My heart is turned within me, my' repentings are kindled together." With a persuasion equally subduing the Savior pleads with them. He presents his Godlike form scarred with the scourge and the cross. He displays to their view the crowns of life and the seats of Paradise which he has made accessible to , mortals; and entreats them, with all the eloquence of his boundless •^love, not to reject the inestimable benefits purchased for them by his dying agonies. The Spirit, too, speaking in the voice of providence, the whispers of conscience, and the messages of holy truth, calls upon them to come to the " waters " of salvation : while the Bride, the regenerated church of Christ, repeats the call, and prolongs it in her efforts and prayers. Thus are the wicked pressed on every side to turn and live, by incentives and solicitations that might move a heart of adamant. But amid these multiplied and cogent appeals, they remain unaffected, despise the joy that is " full of glory," and trample on the priceless boon of divine beneficence. And why 1 Is it that they are already sufficiently happy 1 Be it so, that basking in the sunshine of prosperity, rioting in affluence, and cheered by the flatte- ries of a delusive world, they live at ease in their possessions. Is this happiness 1 Can it satisfy the yearnings of thqjr immortal nature ? Can it secure them from outward calamity, or inward disquietude? Will it support them when the touch of the Almighty withers their hopes ; or soothe the anguish and allay the terrors of their dying hour 1 No ; the earthly enjoyments of irreUgious men are not happiness. Their cup of pleasure is mingled with gall. The chaplet of honor on their brows is interwoven with thorns. Their highest worldly advantages are only a source of splendid misery. There is, there can be, no peace to the wicked. Wherever they turn, a dreadful sound is in their ears. Amid the din of business, the sluniber of carelessness, the song of mirth, and the whirl of dissipation, they hear a voice of warning and see a hand writing their doom, in characters fearful as those which were traced by the finger of God on the wall of Belshaz- zar's palace. Why, then, do they neglect the blessings of the gos- pel? Is it that they have no power to obtain them? Are they compelled to behold them from afar, as we gaze upon those remote stars which, however they may be the bright abodes of other beings, can never be purs ? No. Christ has brought these blessings within their reach; They have only to believe in him, and heaven is theirs. And yet, though salvation is thus easy, and though they are wretched without it, they will not come to' the Redeemer, that they may have life. Do they say that they intend to apply to him at a more conven- ient season ? But are they certain of living tiUfthat season arrives ? Who has given them a guaranty, that the pulse, which now beats — !ii-;._ J^ — „,;ii „„(. f^^^^wrj-nr })q gtiU jn death, the color of 278 THE NATIONAt PREACHER. v** their cheek exchanged- for a mortal paleness, and their bodies at^red for the sepulchre 1 Or, if this should not be the case, what assurafice have they that the period of their probation will not then be closed 1 Even at the moment when they are resolving to presume yet longer upon the divine forbearance, and to suspend their eternal felicity on the issue of that presumption, their insulted God may give them up to their own hearts' lust, and swear in his wrath that they shall not see his rest. Where, then, can we find a parallel to the infatuation of sinners, while they thus trifle with the welfare of their souls ? There was a profane Esau who sold his birthright for a morsel of meat, and a heathen Lysimashus who renounced his kingdom for'a draught of water. But their folly was wisdom compared with that of those who barter the. bliss of immortaUty for the gratifications of sense. VI. Insanity is evinced by a recklessness of dcmger. If you saw a man standing on a volcano, and manifesting no alarm, while the restless. heavings of its imprisoned fires gave indubitable presage of an eruption at hand, you would, without hesitation, conclude that he was insane. But incomparably more amazing is the indifference of the unconverted to the far greater perils by which they are encom- passed. He, whose declarations will infallibly be fulfilled, has said, that "the wicked shall be turned into hell" — that " they, who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, shall be punished with ever- lasting destruction." — that " he that believeth not, is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him." By these circum- stances of imminent jeopardy all the impenitent are surrounded. Above them hangs the bolt of vengeance suspended by a single hair. Behind them a hfe stained with sin follows them to the judgment. Before them blazes the sword of inexorable justice. Beneath them rolls the blackness of darkness. And yet, in this appalling condition, they dream of safety, and walk undismayed on the brink of wp. With terrific rapidity, they float down the stream of sin towards the gulf of despair. But though the current, as they advance, grows deeper and stronger ; though the roar of " the troubled lake," in which it terminates, becomes, every moment, nearer andii louder; though Infinite Love calls upon them to return while yet they may, reminds them of the millions who have perished on that river of death, and discloses to their view the abyss at its end; — still they pursue their fatal voyage, and glide merrily along the treacherous waters that are fast sweepmg them away td perdition. What illus- tration can be found for insanity hke tins 1 Behold on the top of that burning building, an individual surveying, with careless uncon- cern, the progress of the flames, making no effort to escape firom his hazardous position, and even repelUng the exertions and ridiculing the anxieties of the friends who are endeavoring to save him. What madness! you exclmm".' Yes — but far more dreadful is his madness who is thoughtless and at ease, while Hable, every hour, to plunge, body and soul, into the fire that shall never be quenched^ See that MORAL INSANITY OF IRRELIGIOUS MEN. 279 her. Her strained masts " quiver as a reed," her sails are torn and shivered, and \?ith the abandonipent of a doomed spirit, she drives upon the foaming breakers. But hark ! from her deck there comes a sound of revelry. Her intoxicated crew are carousing in the very jaws of destruction. And yet, infatuated as their conduct is, it is immeasurably more rational than that of the sinner who sports and trifles in a situation so solemnly critical, that, perhaps, the next instant may wreck his immortal hopes on the rocks of ruin. VII. The last mmck of insanity, which I shall mention, is sdf- «)^rder. — The instances are not rare, in which men, in a paroxysm of elirium, have violently terminated their own lives. Equally despe- rafe is the course which the wicked pursue. They, too, destroy them- selves, and become the voluntary and efficient instruments of their own damnation. They might be saved if they would, even though the sentence of their condemnation is already passed, and the war- rant for its execution written and sealed. For Christ has died to procure their pardon, and nothing but their own refiisal can defeat his gracious mediation, But ' they will not be pardoned. They choose death rather than life, and, vsdth suicidal hand, thrust from them the charter of forgiveness. So strongly, indeed, are they bent upon ruin, that, in effecting it, they surmount innumerable obsta- cles, and overcome the mostpowerful resistance. They employ every artifice to avoid conviction, to stifle serious feeling, and to counteract the agencies exerted for their conversion. They spurn the counsels of age, and the dictates of experience ; scoff at the admonitions of the Bible, the lessons of the sanctuary, and the entreaties of pious friendship ; press onward in their career against all the barriers of a Savior's love, and all the strivings of his Spirit ; and rending away eVery cord which God-has, in mercy, thrown around his wandering creatures, to draw them back to himself. — leap vsdlfuUy into the open pit. Their destruction, isj therefore, wholly self-induced. They perish as wantonly as the man who plunges a knife into h& bosom. They are as really the authors of their own doom, as if the soul within them were a pearl, and they should cast it into mid- ocean ; 4)r as if it were a . combustible world, and they with a torch should set it on fire. And when we see all this — ^when in the light of inspired truth we behold the earth thus filled with moral sui- cides, who despise the patience, and tantalize the compassion, and dare the vengeance'of the Eternal — we cannot, without the utmost violence to reason, avoid the conclusion, that impenitent sinners are spiritually mad. Having thus enumerated some of the principal tokens of insanity, and shown that they all exist, with moiu-nful prominen^e'J'.in the character of irreligious men, the subject vnUnow-be closed tpith iAree brief reflections. 1. How great is the depravity of the human hmrt. On every^gide we se£ immortal beings reasoning and acting like the merest idiots, '■ V '■ ■ - "- - rV^TCf:"; +T-Vtt2f *>e?d-??.s of their highest good, unp iujv/it.ciiTr«cimraim«BimKt«ir'oniipinincr evils. Jr.' however. thiS 280 THE NATIONAL PREACHER. conduct -were the result of any derangement of their natural powers', sad and disastrous as it is, it -would not be criminal. But the distem- per -which produces these effects, is seated, not in the intellect, but in the affections, and springs, not from necessity, but from choice. That this is true, is evident from the fact, that they manifest no -want- of sa- gacity in relation to objects with which their inclinations accord. It is -with reference to religion, alone that all their -wisdom is seen to forsake them. Their imbecility upon this subject, therefore, emanates entirely from the voluntary sinfulness of their hearts. It is this which has darkened their understandings, distorted their perceptions, robbed them of their celestial birthright, and rendered them the abject skffel' of unhallowed passions. It is this, in short, which has transformgl a world, originally the scene of order and beauty, into a moral bedlam, dug deep the pit of hell, and peopled it -with millions of undone im- mortals. Well, then, may inspiration declare, as it does, that "the heart of the sons of men is fiall of evil, and madness is in their heart." 2. The final condition of those who die impenitent f vnll be unut- terably dreadful. So great, even in this world, is the power of sin, that it has converted the earth into an arena of violence, where hatred and revenge, oppression and cruelty make happiness an alien ; where justice bleeds at every pore, and virtue weeps over her fallen altars. Yet here numerous causes conspire to soften its -virulence, and obstruct its operation. The social affections, which still bloom in the waste of our degenerate nature, like lonely flowers upon a mouldering ruin — the force of public opinion — the intercourse and example of the pious — and, above all, the counteracting principles of the gospel — continually exert upon it a repressing and modifying influence. But in the abodes of endless punishment all these restraints will be re- moved. There the corruption of ungodly men -will have free scope ; and their passions, which are now comparatively in their infancy, will start up into giant strength, and rage uncontrolled. How terri- ble, then, must be their state, when they shall be thus abandoned to the unbridled workings of their own depravity ! Suppose a company of maniacs, s^arated from all communion with the sane and rational, confined together in a gloomy cell, and left to the raving impulses of delirium, — and you have but a feeble emblem of the bitter execra- tions, the wild uproar, the raging madness, which will fill the prison of despair, when the wicked, of all ages, and from all quarters of the world, shall be shut up in its bottomless dungeons ; and when — ^shorn of every amiable quality that adorned them here, exiled from hope, pursuid»by the furies of remorse, and tortured into phrensy by the view onthe far off heaven which they have lost forever — ^they shall curse thMselves and each othfer, and lift up their eyes, and blaspheme their Maker bedause of their plagues ! From a spectacle so replete with horror, who m us must not turn shuddering away, and fervently implore Almighty God to prevent us, by his grace, from realizing it 4n our own esjjjerience ? * ' 3. How unS^kably precious, MORAL INSANITY OF IKRELIGIOUS MEN. 281 does the Savior appear. He alone can heal the insanity of sin, and quench the incipient hell which it has kindled within us. And this he ,js not only afele but wiUing, to do for all who truly apply to him. It is his own declaration, " 0, Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thy help." It is his own invitation, "Look unto me, all ye ends of the earlh, and be ye saved." It is his own promise, " He that believeth in me shall never perish." As he calmed, with a word, the fury of the demoniac among the tombs, and placed him at his feet, " clothed, and in his right mind ;" so he re- moves the moral madness of those who seek him by faith, washes tlt^ in his blood, and prepares them, by his Spirit, for heaven. To Tilm, therefore, I would most earnestly invite you. Repair, without delay, to the fountain which he has opened, and bathe your distem- pered hearts in'its healing waters. Hasten, this very hour, to the great Physician, lest. While you linger, the malady now preying upon your souls, reath that incurable malignity, which is the sure precur- sor of the second death. Will you, can you, feel secure in a situation so perilous 1 Can you sit still, and hope that all will be well, and cry, " Yet a little more sleep, a little more slumber," while the lep- rosy of sin is raging through all your faculties, and the angel of mer- cy — loiig grieved and resisted — stands ready to take his returnless flight, and leave you to incorrigible impenitence'? Shall God com- mand and intreat you in vain ? Shall the Redeemer stoop from heaven, and die for your salvation — and yet will you spurn his grace, and trample on his bleeding love 1 0, be persuaded to re- nounce, at once, this desperate and unnatural conduct. Seek the Lord while he may be found — call upon him while he is near. List- en to the voice of infinite compassion, cast yourselves, in penitent sul> mission, at the feet of the omnipotent Savior — and he will renew your polluted natures, forgive your aggravated offences, and deliver you from the utter ruin, in which your present course must inevitably terminate. Followers of the crucified Jesus ! Professed disciples of him who poured out his blood to cure the madness of rebelUous men ! Is it from such a doom as, we have described that his grace has rescued you 1 What gratitude, then, to the Author of your redemption should you- feel and exhibit ! What intense devotedness — ^what holy spir- ituality — what estrangement from the world and its follies — should pervade and influence all your actions ! How should your views, your aflections, your purposes, and your whole lives, prove, that you are illumined by celestial light, and guided by heavenly wisdom. What deep and active solicitude, too, should you cherish fcr the con- version of the impenitent around you. Thesigh,t of a worWl^'^Jying in wickedness," and rushing to perdition, led the Son of .God to ex- change a throne for a cross, and drew tears from his eyes, and blood from his heart. And if you have aught of his Spirit, you will follow ■with yoTir efforts and. prayers the perishing multitudes of yoiur fellow ■.•vi '%.;,, .j'-i'iav mBiil TiRfaffe in Christ, or sink- bevond reach SERMON CCCXI'^. By Eev. EDMN HALLj TKE MANNER. OF WORSHIPING 60D. " Keep tiiy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and Be more ready W hear than to give the sacrifice of fools ; for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let jiot thine heart be hasty tautter anything before God : for God is in heaven, and- thou upon earth ; therefore let thy words be few." — Ecclesiastes v. 1, 2.. These vf Olds concetn the manner of worshiping God. I shall, I. Mention some reasons why we should be exceedingly cautious and watchful over ourselves while engaged in the worship of God : and , II. Make some particular remarks relating to the manner of wor- ship. I. Reasons, 8fe. When the Lord descended upon Sinai, and the ■whole moimtain was filled with a cloud and thunderings and light- ning, and the' voice of the trumpet exceeding loud — " the trump of God," probably, that which shall waken the dead, and call the world to judgment ; the people trembled and removed and stood afar off; and said to Moses, " Speak thou with us, but let not^ God speak with us, lest we die." We come into the presence of the same God. We are not indeed' come to the mount that burned with fire ; we are come imto mount Sion. But the Lord God is still a jealous God ; he hath not abated, aught of his majesty or his holiness. " The Lord is in his holy tem- ple, let all the earth keep silence before him." Were the angels to come iijjjo' the sanctuary, thfeir eyes would behold the King; they would •veilr their faces and cry, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." The Lord is here ; hating irreverence- and presumptioit as much as when he commanded Moses to go dima to charge the people not to come near the mount, or break throughto touch it, lest thdydie. Christ hath opened for us a new and living v^Tay within lihe veil, to thevery mercy seat; but wp. shnnlrl i-BirKsmVinr tivat ^t ja THE MANNER OF WORSHIPING GOD. 283 the holy of holies still. The L'ord is still a holy and jealous God. He seeketh such to worship him as worsljip in spirit and in truth. He searches the heart ; he trieth the reins. " The Lord is a great God, and a King above all gods." " The Lord your God, is God of gods, and Lord of lords ; a great God, a mighty and terrible, which re- gardeth not persons nor taieth reward." "The great, the mighty God, the Lord of Host is his name." An earthly king will be served in state. Shall we come to worship, and to petition the living God in matters for which he is angry ] for which he has sentenced the world to death j for which he will cause the .very earth which has been de- filed by our wickedness, to be burned up ;; shall we, worms of the dust, and ready to perish under his frown, come into his presence, and come thoughtless and irreverent, as though we beheved the Lord no God, or as though we were approaching a dumb idol 1 Shall we come rudely before him, with vapid and empty words ; indulge in slovenly attitudes, and remain in a slovenly frame of mind; while engaged in. a work. which would fill the highest angels with awe? " Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling." " God is greatly to be feared, in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him." " I will be sanctified in them that come nigh unto me," saith the Lord. How dangerous it was to Uzzah to put forth an irreverent hand to ike ark, otherwise than God had commanded. Remember how Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, offered strange fire before the Lord, which he com- manded them not. " And there went out fire from the Lord, and de- voured them; and they died before the Lord." The day of such mir- aculous interpositions is past ; but these are left on record to teach the 1 world forever, how solemn and reverent it becomes those to be, who \appear before the Lord. It should be remembered, too, that we are hot holy beings, who come, like the angels, to render homage to their Creator, who takes pleasure in them. Even they veil their feces when they come into his presence. But we are sinners, altogether unclean. It does not become us to be bold, and to ofier the sacrifiqe of fools. It does not become us to be rash with our mouth,'or to let our heart be hasty to utter any thing before God. We have another errand before his throne than that of the angels. We are to be reconciled to an offen- ded God, and to be cleansed from our iniquities, or we are soon to perish from the way ; then how solemn should we be, when we come into the presence of the Lord ! Think not, when you come into the sancturary with scarcely a thought of God ; think not, while yOu take an apparent part in the worship of God, but with no design of wor- shiping in spirit and in truth j think not, while your thonghts are on your business, or meditating sin, or roving with the fool's eyes to the end of the earth, that the Lord is as indifferent and as dioughtless of your conduct as yourself. He searches your heart. He is proving you. Not the least part of your probation is going on ; you think little of it ; but not so the Lord. He regards that insensibility -. .. f.. .1 17. -.--.^--a <> ,;jRt irreverence toward God | •284 THE NATIONAL PKEACHER. that -want of fear ; that -want of fe^h. He marks the insult. He marks the awful profaning of tfcings sacred. You tread ufon holy ground ; you stand in an awful place. If you felt it aright, you would say with Jacob, " Behold, God is in this place, and I knew it not. How awful is this place ; this is none other than the house of God ; this is the gate of heaven." Whether you feel it or not, the Lord regards it. Scarcely can you have a more solemn ac- count to render concerning any part of your life, than that which you must render concerning the manner in which you have attended on the worship of God. II. Partiadar remarks concerning the manner of worship. Here I remar^, 1st. we should make our attendance upon the house of God a matter of principle. It would be a good thing to worship God, and to give thahks ; and praise would be comely, were it not required. But God requires solemn and public worship of all men. He is jealous for his honor. He will be reverenced : he will be obeyed : and more than this, he will be worshiped. Doubtless public worship is necessary for maintaming a suitable regard for God among men ; and necessa- ry also, for keeping alive among men upon the earth, a knowledge of the great truths of religion ; and for impressing these truths upon their consciences and their hearts. It is beneficence in the great Creator, not less than jealousy for his own honor, that has required of all men solemn worship, and that they set apart one day in each seven as sa- credly devoted to that worship of God, and to the care of their souls. People greatly err, when they think it is left at their option, whether to go up to the house of God and join in public worship or not. Many seem to consider it a matter left entirely to their caprice, where to attend ; how often to attend ; or whether they attend on public ■worship at all. It is true, that man may not dictate to their conscien- ces in this inatter ; but God has required solemn and stated worship ; and while God allows not one man to meddle with the conscience of another, he will vindicate his own right to be Lord of the conscience ; and he will hold every man to answer concerning the matter of at- tendance upon public worship, at his bar of final judgment. It is not, therefore, a matter left to any man's caprice, whether he attend pub- lic worship at all. He sins if he neglects it ; he wrongs his God ; he ■wrongs his own soul. The eye of God is upon him as he contemns the sanctuary of the Lord. It is not left to his caprice, how often he attends ; his attendance must be regular, or he sins and wrongs his God and his own soul. , The providence of God that disenables him, excuses his attendance ; but he has no right to disenable himself by previously exhausting his body or his mind. He is not at liberty to give way to an inconvenience, which would not hinder him from at- tending to his ordinary important business. If he indulges his sloth- fulness or his caprice, he sins. He contemns the authority of God and contemns his institutions and his worship ; besides fostering his own depravity, cutting himseK off from the divine blessino-. an.fl trPQc_ THE MANNER OF WOKSHIPING GOD. 285 uring up for himself the divine tengeance. People who attend only once in a while, or only half a day, would do well to think of this. Is it piety, or is it wickedness, that gives rise to the practice 1 Is it de- votion, or is it caprice and contempt of God "? It is not left to a man's caprice where he shall attend. Many roam about from one place to another, consulting now their fancy, now their caprice ; now desiring to relieve the tedium of attending public worship by variety, and now changing ■ the place of attendance, to avenge some petty personal grievance. This is all wrong. No man may judge for another where he shall^ attend, except where God has put children and minors in the charge of others. But if no man may dictate to another, eyery man is bound to de* cide for himself, and on principle. He may not, without gtiilt and danger to his soul, consult his fancy or caprice. His inquiry should be : Where is God worshiped according to his word 1 Where is the S)spel held and proclaimed in its purity 1 Where can I worship od according to his word and my own conscience ; where will it be be the pleasure of God, and to the profit of my soul, that I give my attendance 1 There he should fix, there he should remain. No ca- price, no trivial grievances, no inferior considerations, such as popu- larity, fashion, exemption • from burdens, should ever be allow- ed to come in to weigh upon the question. Where shall I worship God 1 Let God and conscience be consulted, and these alone. Let the question be settled on principle, and let principle keep it settled. A man is very likely to make shipwreck of his soul who begins by sacrificing principle here to his passion, to his pride, to his avarice, or to his whim. The first point, then, concerning the manner of worshiping God, is to make that worship a matter of principle. Indulge fancy*, exer- cise caprice in other matters if you. will.; but let nothing less than your soundest judgment, and the most unwavering principle, have any thing to do in these great concerns with God. Here, if any where, a man should be thoughtflil. Here, if any where, he should be sober minded and discreet. Here, if any where, he should act wisely and in the fear of God. The 2nd remark which I have to make on the manner of worshiping God, is that we should do it with prefaration. Time should be taken to compose the mind ; to call in the thoughts ; to reflect upon the en- gagement upon which we are to enter, so as to be suitably impressed with the avrful solemnity of coming into the immediate presence of God. If we go into the house of God reeking from the world, neither our hearts nor our thoughts will probably be -withdrawn from the world while we should be engaged in worship. Let us say to pur- selves, Now we are about to approach the King. Let the loins, of . our mind be girt up. Let all vain thoughts, and all vain cares be put Bway. Xet us stir up our hearts, that,,We may render an acceptable , offering to him who looks upon the heart,jand seeketh such to wor- Let us reflect how import- 286 THE NATIONAL PREACHEB. ant^ our errand to the mercy seat ; of what import, grace, forgive- ness and salvation are to us. Xet us remember how often our vaid' hearts have left us to an unprofitable service in the sanctuary. Let us pray ; let us read some portion §f the word of God, and meditate in secret, till we are prepared to appear before God with solemnity and with holy fear. Why should we rash into the presence of God, as the horse rusheth into the battle ? Do we so lightly regard the pres- ence of the Lord 1 Is it so light a matter in our eyes, to appear be- fore the King 1 Is our errand so light, that it should lie with no more weight upon our minds 1 Is this our dread of hypocrisy '2 Is this our fear of provoking the Lord to jealousy, and of hardeaing our Bvwi hearts, by attenfing listlessly upon the solemn worship of God 1 How solemn would our assemblies be, if every heart were collec- ted and deeply iixed on God ! How impressive would be our songs of praise ! How powerful would be the word of God ! How ready would the great God be to come down to meet and bless •& people "whose hearts were ell prepared to^eek the Lord ! This would indeed be to us the house of God, and the gate of heaven ! But what is the actual preparation with which we appear in this house 1 How many come with a set design to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness'? How many come with a holy jealousy over their own hearts 1 How many come— having charged their souls to be solemn and devout ; and anodous lest they displease the Lord, or fail to secure some blessing from their attendance On the sanctuary this day ? How many come from their closets 1 How many have made a single petition this inorning, for grace to worship God in the sanctuary acceptably, with reverence and Godly fearl If you go away with the full design accomplished which y«u had in your thoughts before' you came to the house of God ; if you go away with the . full blessing which your soul desired, and for which jou asked the Lord before you came ; what will you carry away with you when you leave the house of Godl Wonder not if your sabbaths are profitless, and if the gospel be hid from you as it is hid from lost souls, if your attendance in the house of God is so light a matter as to lie with no weight upon your mind, and to draw from you no preparation beforehand, to meet Ihe Lord. 3dly. We come now to the mcrnier of worship. Are we ever engaged in a work so solemn and. awfrd as when we are attending to the worship of God in his holy house 1 How careful should we be to " keep our foot !" How jeulous over our hearts ! How careful to make . it worship which can be accepted of him who searches the heart 5 What an alteration would it make in our worship, if every psabn were sung with the spirit and with the understanding ! But how often do those who sing, feel more concerned to perform well to the ears q$. man, than to appear sinj^re and devout in the si^t of Godi' How large a portion of tli^. whose voices do not join the;;Song, do not join it with their hearts ! 'They are thinking.^w they are€nteiof the children, were not some- times so thoughtless and irreverent as to indulge in whisperings, which ought never to be heard, during the worship of God. Once for all let the children remember it ; this ougjht never to be in the house of God. Let every thing here be solemn. Let no other engijjilnent or thought intrude while we are in the presence of the LordaOvor- shipers. ♦ Finally. As it will not do for us to neglect the worship of God, and as all hypocrisy is abomination in his sight, it will be well for us to inquire how we can properly worship God without true religion. You praise God; you make confesaon of sin; you pray for pardon and grace ; but what does it all mean while the heart is in rebellion, im- penitent, disobedient, and unbelieving ? " Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldst take my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee." Oh! how dreadful to praise God, and make supplication before him, and then go away and reject his whole autho- rity, and his salvation! "These things hast thou done and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself ; but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes." There is to be hereafter a general assembling of . all holy beings : the general assembly of the church of the first born in heaven. They will worship and praise God, forever and ever. God shall dwell with them and be their God. The Lamb shall feerl them and lead them unto living fo^^tains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. We may each of us judge from the interest which we take in the worship of God here, whether we are likely ever to be ^dmitted to that blessed assembly of worshipers ig^ the kingdom of God. ' i THE NATIONAL PREACHER CONTENTS OF*^OL. XV. SEHMOir. PAGE. CCXCI — CpXCVI. — Revivals of RUigion in Cities and large Towns. • ^ By Rev* Albert Barnes. CCXCI.— i. The Theory.of Revivals. 1 CCXCII.— 2. Vindication of Revivals. 11 CCXQIII. — 3. The Importance of'Revivals. 25 CCXCIV. — 4. The Desirableness of Revivals. 36| CCXCV.— 5. The Hinderances to Revivals there. 49 CCXCVI. — 6. The Duties of Christians jn regard to Revivals there. 62 CCX(|5giI.— The Methdte of tfie Adversary.— By Prof George Shepard. 73 CC2SyP"in. — The Causes of Superficial and Transient Religious Experi- ♦ en^. — By Rev. Lyni.an H. Atwater. 86 CCXCIX.— On the Death of President Harrison.— By Rev. William Adams. • . • 97 CCG. — Human Agency in the Evangelization-of the World. — By Rev. Prof H. P.Cappan. .* 106 CCCI.^1. The Primitive Christians. . 125 CCCn. — 2. What is it to become a Christian ? — ^By Rev. Leonard Bacon. 141 CCCHL- 1. God Exalted in the Discipline of Nations. 149 CCCIV.— 2. The Issues of the Final Judgment- By Rev. J. H. Water- bury, D. D. 164 CCCV.— 1. Means and Mode of the World's Conversion.— By Rev. Chas. rflall. _ 173 CCCVIs^g^Liviji and Walking in the Spirit.— By Rev. I. S. Spencer. 186 CCCVIIJStIA Prpiching of Another Gospel "Accursed.- By. Rev. Wm. , R. Williams. 197 CCCVIII.— A Vain Religion.— By Rev. William Hague. 211 CCCIX. — The Spirit of the Lord the Builder of his Spiritual Temple. By Rev. Justin Edw£«rds, D. D. 222 CCCX. — The Promised Advent of the Spirit.— By Rev.' Rufus Ander- son, D. D. -. . 3^4 IPCCXI. — The Connection of Religious Doctripe. — By™ev. L. F. Dim- mick. 245 ^CCXII. Coihpleteness of Christian Character. By Rev. J. B. Condit. 260 CQgSiII. Moral Insanity of Irreligious Men. By-Eev. Geo. B. Jde. 269 CCCXIV. 4Kte Manner «f Worshipping God. By Rev. Edwin Hall. ^82 THE 4JVIERICAN if" -NATIOTXAL PREAOHER. * No. 3. Vol, XIII.] ' %AI*CH, 1839. [VS^ole No. 147. , ■» . SERMON CCLXI*- # » • BY r6v. EDWIN HALL, » NoRWALK, Conn. ^VBIpSSION- TO GJVlt. AUTHORITV. 1st Pbt. ii. 13 — 17. — Submit yoursetves to w^ry ordinance of man for the Lord's sake ; whether it be to th^king, as supreme ; or wnto governors* a^unto flifriiUiai are sent by j^im for the punishment of ev^doers^nd for ihe .vraae of them thStk^noell. For so is th0 ' will of God, that with wett-dml^ ye yiri^f^t to silence t!^ i^omme. of foolish men: as fr^ and .not using your liberty for^^iKlmk of malicious^ess^ut as the servants of M, God.-*Jjamr all men. Love the brotherhoo^ft Fear God. Honor the king. ^' «-•'■ • ; ■ The duty here inculcated is that of submission to civil au- thority. We shall notjc^ I. The ground on which the scriptusres rest the obli- gation TO obeuience. *t II. Inquire to what extent obedience is REauiRED. 1. Th^^ ground on which the scriptures rest tJ^ obligation to obedience. ' j * Why must I obey the laws of the land 1 ' " Because," say some, " in entering into society, you promised to yield to |he conditions of that society." 'Aie people are supposed to have assembled ; to have yielded, each, a portion of his natural righjg ; to have established some form of polity, under which the governm^t assumed certain responsibilities, and the people promised, to a certain extent, obe- ^ence. , _ , • • •'By others this theory has been rejected as inadequate and unsound. Inhere never was such'a compact. A fiction conveys no rights and imposes no obligation. . If there had Jbeefli such a compact, it might be just as difficult to tell why the individuals who made it were Vol. XIII. No. 3. 3 . • 34 THE NATIONAL PKEAGJttlSK. ♦obliged to keep their engagements, as to answer the original ques- tion. Suppose a htujidred men had stood put against the compact, and reserve^all tfie'ir original rights ; are they under no obligation to forbear such acts as by the laws of the newly, fofiued community are prohibited, a^. theft, robbery, .arson, and murder ? Can we sup- poSl that men f oming together from a state of nature, with all theit original rights,, |fe competent to form a-scheme of polity under which such acts shall be declared lawful ai^ right ? Has the community, in^ne, a right to come together, and, (even if unanimous,) to^dis- •H^olve all obligations, an»ul all law, and declare it right for every one to do whatever suits^his pleasure ? Is there no obligation, back of all this voluntary coiifl'pact, which conscience acknowledges,, which ,^0 mind can ever sli||'^e off, and ftom which no agr^ment' among men can absolve th^soul ? , " ' « We need not havg gone so far to show the absurdity of this theory of compact. W^9 we inquire after the obligation to abide by the supposed compaci^ it is percei^red at once, that the obligation is shifted back to remoter ground. ,p The question remains : " Why am I obliged to yield obedience to thflaws of th^tod?", -"Becaule," answers anothe^ "you will be punished if yorf'-do not." Am 1 t^^en a brute, «vithout reason, with- out honor, without' conscience ? If I can hope to rob or jnurder with impunity, may I as well do it as let it alone ? If i can sucf cessfuUy levade or reMst'the penalty of the law, am I guiltless*ih dis- obeying it? Is there no^righi or wi-ong about it, save only the consideration of punishment ? .J[ am irfquiring after that right to punish, and thft obl^ation to obey, which makes the failure to obey guilt, — such as should distress i^y conscience arid cover me with shame. If a foreign tyrant overruns our country, plunders, devas- tates, butchers} lays our altars, firesides and laws in ruins, there comes no shame or remorse to the noble band who ' stand in the breach and jeopard their lives in defence of their homes and their country. Wh^not ? If they are overcome, and perish on the scaf- fold, they perish without shame and without remorse. Why so 7 It is not enough ^ biftd conscience under an obligation of obedience, to show her that punishment will be the consequence of disobedience. She does not acknp^ledge the nmxim that might gives right, and that weakness imposes obffgation. Compulsign and obligation are different terms in her vocabulary. On what, then, rests* the obligation to. civil authority? On thfe ground that it is the will of God. Here is authority to which reason bows, and conscience submits. If that be a first principle, SUBMISSION TO CITIL AUTHORITY. 35 which the soul feels instinctively ; for which she requires no proof and no instruction, and which she cannot shake off if she would ; then this is a first principle ; to obey God is right ; to disobey CrOD IS wrong : and that beeause he is God ; and his will, the will of PERFECT WISDOM and perfect GOODNESS. Conscience so de- cides, and cannot decide otherwise. That God wills the establishroent and maintenance of civil au- thority, we might gather ffom the light of nature, and from the les- sqns of experience ; but argument is unnecessary. God has declared it in his word. " The powers that be, are ordained of God. Whos(?*» ever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." " Where fore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for con* science' sake." " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for th( Lord's sake ; for so is the wifl of God, that with well-doing ye ma) put to silence the ignorance of foolish men." The im'^ortance of the question concerning the obligation to obe- dience is this : — other grounds of obligation are fictitious and athe- istic ; they take no hold upon the conscience ; they are created by a breath, and by a breath are they destroyed. They are no fouff^a- tions on which to rest a nation's virtue and a nation's peace ; they are utterly powerless in time of need. This binds the conscience. This takes hold upon the soul and its eternal destinies. You are bound, not simply t)ecause you have promised ; whether you have promised or not, you are bound. You are under obligation, not simply be- cause you will meet with civil pains and penalties if you disobey. God will punish you, if you shufile yourself away from the ven- geance of civil authority ; and when you have suffered the penalty which human laws inflict, you have a still more dreadful account to answer at the bar of God^ You perceive, here, into what a dreadful error those fall, who contrive to do the very thing which the laws prohibit, while they do it in such a way that, owing to the technicalities of law, they cannot be punished. They may keep out of the reach of the civil power, but they fall into the hands of the living God ; and that under the ♦ double guilt of disobedience and fraud. Many a villain has rejoiced in the success of such an evasion' of law, while,' in evading the law^ he has brought upon his soul the damnation of hell. Of this nature are all those villainous contrivances for evading the laws concerning the sale of intoxicating drinks ; evasions to which, it should seem, none but the most abandoned of the vile could ever descend. Of this nature are those evasions of the laws concerning usury. Many seem 36 THE NATIONAL PREACHER. to think that there is no guilt in doing these things ; and-that they may do them provided they are willing to risk the penalty. But if human laws sleep, the law of God does not. These gains are, like the gains of Judas, the wages of iniquity. If not the price of blood, they are the barter taken for integrity, for duty to the law, and for the salva- tion of the soul. This is what they gain, who deal in arts of eva- sion and shuffling with law. It is no game of chance : win or lose ; no matter what the immediate issue,— only try the game and you forfeit your soul. But if evasions of law are so dangerous, what shall be said of the open and palpable disregard to law which is sometimes witnessed? What shall be said of the wanton disregard of such laws as those made for the defence of suifering humanity, and for the protection of the virtue and the peace of the community — by pro- hibiting, save under certain regulations, the traffic in intoxicating drinks ? Magistrates, upon whose souls rests the oath of God, may be unfaithful to their trust ; jurors may trample on their oaths ; the community may wickedly endure the wrong ; but all together will be confronted with the widow and the fatherless at the bar of God ; and how think ye this unfaithfulness to the authority of law will fare at that tribunal ? If " the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it," against him that " coveteth an evil covetousness" to his house, by thriving on the gains of an un- lawful and murderous traffic ; how will the voice of the betrayed law, and the voice of violated oaths, mingle with the cries of widows and orphans against the unfaithful magistrates who bear the sword in vain, and against the community that silently tolerate the wrong 1 Will there be no account in the judgment for such things as these 1 Having shown the foundation upon which the scriptures rest the obligation of obedience, we inquire, 2. To what extent obedience is due. "Without limit," say some ; and back up their declaration by repeating the passages : " submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake : whoso resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." This doctrine goes against all resistance to arbitrary power ; against all non-conformity to civil or religious establishments ; it annihilates all constitutional rights, and gives tlie world over to hopeless despot- ism. As our Puritan fathers resisted such claims, as our fathers of the Revolution rebelled against them, and as the people of these United States deem such sentiments subversive of all political and religious freedom, it becomes a matter of interest for us to inquire whether for DTHORITY. 87 all this we are liable to be condemned at the bar of God. Are we, and were all our fathers wrong on this fundamental principle ? What is the design of these scriptures, which enjoin obe- dience to civil authority. Is it to enjoin submission in general, or do they speak especially of the extent of a submission whose obligation in general is not doubted ? The questions are en- tirely distinct : — Is submission a duty 1 — Is unlimited submission a duty ? If a child inquires, " Must I obey my father 'P I answer, yes ; and repeat the authority — " Children, obey your parents in all things." He goes away, and the next news I hear is, that his abandoned father has ordered him to commit murder, and he has obeyed. I talk with him, and try to show him the enormity of his guilt. He replies. Sir, you taught me that it was my duty to obey my father, and I have but obeyed the word of God, which' requires me to obey my father " in all things." These are the words of scripture ; they teach the duty of filial obedience ; but they do not teach an unlimited obedi- ence, to the destruction of the authority of the great moral law of God. It is altogether a perversion of these words of scripture, to allege them in justification of the crime of murder. So in the present instance, if the design of the scripture is to teach the duty of obedi- ence, it by no means follows, of course, that they teach unlimited obedience. The passages to which we have referred, are evidently treating of the duty of submission in general ; they are not agitating the ques- tion of unlimited submission. We have numerous approved examples to the contrary of such a doctrine. The rulers, elders and scribes, with the high-priest, - once commanded the apostles not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. The apostles took no exception to the authority of the tribunal, as not being the proper body to take cognizance of proper matters; they would have yielded to no authority. They simply answered, " Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." They disobeyed the mandate. When Nebuchadnezzar commanded Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to fall down and worship the golden image, they replied : " We are not careful to answer thee in this matter : — Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." God delivered them from the fiery furnace, and justified their disobedience. Daniel chose to be cast into the lions' den, rather than yield obedi- ence to a command that put it at his option either to give up his re- 88 THE NATIONAL PKEACHEB. ligion or lose his life. God justified his disobedience, and delivered him. When Jeroboam set up priests " for the high places, and for the , devils, and for the calves which he had madfe," most of the ten tribes siibmitted to his new institutions, and God punished them for yield- ing obedience, because they " left all the commandments of the Lord their God," in obeying this ordinance of man. For disobedience to human laws, when human laws conflict with the laws of God, it is a sufficient justification to say, as Peter did '"when called to an account by the Jewish Sanhedrim, " We ought to obey God rather than man." The Bible is no instrument of tyranny. The firiiiest, boldest, most enlightened champions of freedom, have been such as submitted their consciences to the word of God. But while the Bible is the best friend to liberty, it is also the best friend to law, and the surest support of civil authority. A consistent Christian can never be a turbulent citizen. A Chris- tian community will always be a community of order and law. If Christian missionaries follow the instructions and the exam- ples of Apostles, they will never encourage their converts to at- tempt a subversion of the government under which they live. If they go to the Sandwich Islands, to Persia, to Turkey, or Siam, they will never make a direct assault upon the civil insiitutions of the land, however absurd and despotic they may be. Christianity will break the yoke of thraldom, but it acts upon civil institutions only as an alterative, by a silent, gradual, irresistible impulse. Upon the individual Soul, the gospel is like a fire and a hammer ; political and civil improvements are fruits which it does not attempt to gather beforie they are ripe. JBut if the scriptures furnish instances of approved resistance to human authority, let it be remembered that these were cases where human authority came into direct conflict with the rights of con- science and with the law of God. The warrant of disobedience should be of a nature like this, and undeniably plain. We must be able to plead that we could not yield obedience, without rebellion against obligations of higher and paramount authority. In such a land as this, where those who make laws are to share ia their opera- tion ; where thos6 who make, and those who execute the laws, are soon to return to the common level, and are at any moment liable to impeachment and removal ; where there is an independent judiciary ready to step in between the humblest citizen and the exercise of ar- bitrary power, or the operation of unconstitutional law; where no man is condenmed without a trial by a jury of his countrymen, or UTHORITY. 39 without the aid of learned counsel to secure him whatever aidv^ritagi? there naay be in any, the least, irregularity in the prpsecution ; — what plea in the wide world can be brought to justify disobedience to law, or the withholding. of the deference due to the proper authorities 1 If they who " resisted the power," under the despotism of Nero, " resisted the ordinance of God, and should feceive to themselves damnation," what vengeance will God visit upon hina who is a cpi^r temner of law under such a government as this ? In conclusion, it is proper briefly to advert to a few things incom- patible with the spirit of these instructions. 1. All captious railing at the properly constituted authorities is in- consistent with these commands, if not indje.ed directly prohibited. " Honor all men : Honor the king ;" or, by implication, tre^t all in authority with the respect due to their office. " Render to al^ their dues : Honor to whom honor." A Christian citizen shoulid always be pleased with th,e management of the poyvers that b§, where it is possible to be so, and bp true to the constitution ?ind tlj^ best interests of the country. Captious fauU-finding is not only pro- hibited by the scripture under consideration ; it defeats its own end. The hoy in the fable who was always cryipg out, " The wolf," " The wolf," was not believed when the wolf came in eeirnest. So cap- tious fault-finding defeats its own end, and repders it the ipore diffi- cult to correct the evil when evil really exists. 2. This injunction of holy writ is scandalously disobeyed in those caricatures with which reckla^s partizans on either side assail the leaders of the opposite party, and especially the magistrates of the land. Oh what monuments of a nation's shame ! What marks of loose morality, of corrupt taste, and of low scurrility, are those dishonorable prints that appear so often in the windows of the shops, and attach themselves so prominently to the walls of places of public resort ! What a sha^ie to a comniunity it is, that self-respect and good taste — not to say respectable morality — do not thunder out in a voice that will not be disobeyed, take these things hence ; let not the purveyors of politics and amusements cater for us as though we were a nation of blackguards. Finally, nothing can be more directly incompatible with the spirit of these injunctions, than that usurpation of the functions of civil authority, which l^^s so ofjten begiji ^j^itriessed in our country iij these days of excitement. The thief, the highwayman, the assassin, may glUin4eir property Bind destroy life. JgiUt ^hey do uot'^tr^iie ^t the jf^undpitions of all order and all lavy. They who t^^s. it u,pon the^ s?lwsi tp £^dIpinister \y^at h^ beeifi termed " Lynp^ l^" §x^§^ts^ 40 THE NATIONAL PREACHER. ing the very foundations of all security for,property or life. No other acts are so deadly to civil liberty. All history*shows, that a few short months of such misrule are enough to make a people tired of a government of law in form, but of the despotism of the mob in fact. The only remedy ever found, when such disorders could not be repressed, has been to hand over the liberties of the people into the keeping of a master. Anarchy is always, and of necessity, fol- lowed by despotism. If there be any crime that deserves to be pun- ished with death, for the mischief which it works, it is the crime of usurping the prerogative of law ; — joining with the mob, in the as- sumption of all the powers of lawgiver, judge, jury, accuser, witnesses, executioner. There is no greater foe to his country or to man, than the one who joins in a mob or abets it : — save perhaps the per- jured magistrate who forbears to do his utmost to put it down. No matter what the cause ; no matter how odious the conduct of them against whom the popular tumult is stirred ; such things must cease, or we need no other judgments of God to bring us to speedy ruin. Now, our duties in all these matters, are matters of religious con- cern. God requires them. If we fail in these, he will bring us to account in the day of judgment. It may be that some among us have thought this field of civil duties exempt from the supervision of the law of God. If so, oh fatal mistake ! Let us see to it that we have, in this department of duty, no accounts with God left un- settled till the judgment ; for " God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." SERMON CCLXII. BY REV. EDWIN HALL, TRUE rREzmoiKi. John viii. 36.— y «Se Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. There are those, who imagine that the religion of Christ is made up of little else than unwelcome and onerous restraints. " The truth shall make you free ?" They think, rather, that if Christianity be truth, it will bind them, and letter them, and make this pleasant earth in the pleasant light of the sun henc^orth a gloomy prison. If, for fear of worse evils, they think of turning to Christ before they die, they think of it as putting off their liberty, and taking up a yoke, which, for its own sake, they would never choose to bear. The Lord Jesus Christ, however, declj^es that his " yoke is easy" and his " burden is light." He declares that if we " know the truth, the truth shall make us free ;" and that " if the Son shall make us free, we shall be free indeed." He does not mean that he has no laws. He has laws, which are to be obeyed under the most dreadful of all penalties. His does not mean that his yoke is easy and his burden light, because he requires little and gives large indulgences. He requires much. He gives not the least indulgence to the least transgression of any one of all his commandments. He requires perfect obedience. The wonder with many is, how men can come fully under this holy government of Christ, and yet he free. The wonder is, how those who are completely subdued to this au- thority are said to be " called unto liberty ;" and to be brought into the " glorious liberty of the children of God." Now, how is this 1 Why are not our " Free-thinkers" as they vaunt themselves, the true freemen? Why are not the men who scoflf at all religion, the truly free ; and, what they claim to be, the best friends of liberty, having, of all things, the greatest horror of religious restraints, lest they should in time grow into a coalition of church and state, or into something else equally destructive of freedom ? In order to arrive at just views concerning these matters, we will I. Inquire into the proper idea op liberty ; and II. Show that the liberty wherewith Christ maketh FREE IS true freedom. 1. The proper idea of liberty. I once heard an aged man, who had kept a dram-shop unlawfully, inveigh with great bitterness against the law that punished him, and against the men who were instrumental in bringing him to justice. " I fought for liberty" exclaimed he ; " / have a right to do what I please.'^ " This is a free country." The notion appears to be becoming quite common, that, in a free country, every man ought to be allowed to do just what he pleases ; and that just so far as this liceilse is curtailed, freedom is taken away. Many seem to think there is no freedom unless men can be free from all obligation, human or divine. It is to be granted, that every man ought to be allowed to do what 42 THE NATIui^au f^^^^^^^... he pleases, provided he pleases not to do what is wrong in itself, or what injures his neighbor or the community. From doing what is in itself a moral wrong the laws of God ought to prohibit him ; from working mischief to his neighbor, to society, or to the state, the laws of man oqght to restrain him. These laws should be armed with penalties sufficient to coerce the lawless and the disobedient. This is freedom. Without this there is no freedom. If a company are on ship-board in the middle of the ocean, I sup- pose no one would be allowed to blow up the ship, or sink it, under the notion of having a right to do what he pleases. No one of that ship's company would think his freedom infringed upon, if debarred from setting the ship on fire ; or from throwing the provi- sions overboard ; or from drenching them with sea-water ; or from maiming his ship mates, or throwing them overboard ; or from fur- nishing strong drink to those who manage the ship, and who are known to be grossly addicted to intoxication. A man complain that his liberty is infringed upon, because he is debarred from doing these things ! No. If he has a particle of common sense he will see that his liberty consists in these laws, which do not so much re- strain him as defend him, and secure to him freedom to preserve his life, and to use it in the pursuit of happiness. It would be proper for that ship's company to make additional laws concerning their general policy : — for example, — that none should use fire carelessly ; that in a savage port none should leave the ship, or engage in tre^ffic, save under certain regulations ; and these regulations do but enlarge and secure freedom, provided they are wise and good. None but a vil- lain could desire a liberty to do the things which such regulations forbid. To none other would they be any restraint. " The law is not made for a righteous man." It is no restraint or embarrassment to him. The law is made "/or the lawless and disobedient^' If any num- ber should be disposed to do what such regulations forbid, then law is needed ; and its arm, should be strong.. If there may be no law ; or, if the law may not be enforced, then there is no longer liberty, nor is life itself desirable. That fated ship would be but a floating hell ; and the sooner some explosion rends it to atoms, or some con- flagration consumes it, or some tempest hurls it to the bottom of the ocean, the greater the mercy to its wretched inhabitants. There is no liberty — there is no living without law. Every community is in the condition of that ship upon the ocean ; save only that, in a community upon land, there is no tornado, nor conflagration to prove the last refuge from anarchy. There is no deep to open her mouth in mercy and put an end at once to the LA«>wi:t f j^jiiUijUfV/XU* 43 community and its miseries. Here law is doubly important ; and if there may not be law, there must be despotism or lingering ruin. If any sober man were to form a plan of a community, ordered under the fullest regard to liberty, he would not allow treason, or murder, or theft, or perjury, or arson, or kidnapping, or forgery. Why not 7 If he has fought for liberty, and means To he free, why not allow people to do as they please in such matters ? It would destroy free- dom. Allow every man to do as he pleases in the simple matter of punishing those who fnjure or insult him, as he thinks they deserve, and there is no freedom. No one has any longer any liberty to speak his opinion, or to utter or publish most wholesome and necessary truths. No one can be safe in pursuing his own righteous bnsiness, or in seeking his own happiness. The absence of law destroys his freedom. Law gives him his rights ; law secures them,. Law gives him, his liberty ; law secures it. He has no rights, he has no liberty, without law. Let reason answer, whether he who de- mands the liberty of doing what he pleases, without the restraints of law, is a friend of liberty. The old man, who had " fought for liberty," did not consider how the law which forbade him to keep a tippling house, defended him and the rest of the community from pauper taxes, and from the mis- chiefs of a general licentiousness. He did not consider to how many families such a law was even more necessary than one to protect them from violence or murder. He did not consider, that, but for such a law, there might soon be no libcrtjr; that a corrupt people might soon sell him and his children, and his whole country into the hands of despots : — or worse, that general licentiousness and depra- vation of principle would take away the liberty of travelling the high ways in safety ; of working in the fields in security ; or even of lying down in bed at night without the danger of being murdered and burnt up before morning. The old man had " fought for liber- ty," and surely, had he thought a little further, his patriot soul would have been ready to enter the field once more, to contend for the liberty of law. Sure, he would not have taken part with the ene- mies of his country in the revolution, and why should he now 1 The people of this country, for the very purpose of enlarging and enjoying their liberties, have framed for themselves laws. We have laws against blasphemy and profane swearing ; laws against printing or distributing obscene books ; — against purchasing them, or introducing them into schools or families ; laws against lewdness j laws against lotteries, or selling lottery tickets ; laws against horse- f&cing, or abetting the same ; laws against gaming ; against selling 4A THE NATIONAL. fbe:ach£;k. playing cards, or havirtg them in possession for sale ; laws against taverners keeping any implements used in gaming '. laws against ma- king or using any circus of any description ; laws against mounte- .. banks and tumblers, and against suffering such persons to exhibit their tricks in our houses; — in fine, the people of this land have found it indispensable to the possession and enjoyment of liberty, to have regulations of law on all subjects touching wrongs against persons or their property ; on all subjects touching tSe public poli- CI/ or the public morals. Who is it that pleads that all these laws should be swept away, under the notion of enlarging our liberties ? What honest man and good citizen, feels his liberties infringed upon by these laws ? Who but villains want a liberty to do the things which these laws forbid ? The principle illustrated by these views, is this : — that wise and necessary laws are not inconsistent with liberty, but essential to it : that liberty to do in a community, what every one may please to do, without any restraint of law, is an absurdity ; that both righteous- ness and mercy demand that wise and just laws be armed with penal- ties amply sufficient to coerce the wicked. Such a government of law is the only perfect, and the only possible freedom. The same holds true, in relation to the government of God.. Admit that his laws are " holy and just and good," and they are not only not incompatible with perfect freedom, but essential to it. No righteous and benevolent being will desire to do what these laws for- ^ bid. To righteous and benevolent beings, therefore, they are no re- straint or incumbrance. If any desire to indulge in unrighteousness and malevolence, then laws are indispensible, and must be maintained by adequate penalties, if the great Jehovah is just and good. The highest offence in any community, is that which strikes at the foundations of government. If God, therefore, were to tolerate im- piety towards himself, this would be to tolerate contempt and disloy->. alty towards the Supreme Ruler and his whole authority. And if these " Foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do ?" There is no power beyond His throne ; there is no future existence beyond the life to come, to which the groaning v/orld may look for relief. Offences against our neighbor may be heinous, but as offen- ces against our neighbor, they are only partial and limited wrongs. Their damning guilt, is their relation to the law and the authori- ty of God. As SIN, they strike at the foundation of all government and all happiness, in this light, simple impiety rises into an evil which nothing less than infinite can measure. Sin, the offence against God ; is the deepest guilt that can darken the character of man ; the most heinous wrong which the universe knows. It is with infinite reason that the " First and the great commandment" requires pieti/ to God ; and that, in the eye of the divine law, no virtue, no goodness, nothing but entire and damning corruption is attributed to beings destitute of piety to God. Nor does it appear that the perdi- tion to which divine justice dooms the incorrigibly wicked, is at all worse, even for the wjpked themselves, than it would be to sweep away the divine, laws ; or, which is the same thing, to sweep away their awful sanctions. And these laws are " holy, just, and good." No upright, pure- minded being can possibly feel that they infringe upon his liberty. They forbid nothing in which he desires to be allowed ; they re- quire nothing from which he would desire to be excused. Does any one of you think it essential to his freedom, that he be allowed to lie, to deceive, and to defraud ? Does your idea of liber- ty involve a notion that you ought to be allowed to be revengeful and malicious, a slanderer, a thief, or a murderer,'? Does your notion of liberty demand a freedom to contemn God ? to blaspheme his holy name ? to scoif at his authority, to set at nought his laws 1 Is your heart so disposed, that you feel your liberty infringed upon by the prohibition of such things ? Would you use the liberty, if the prohibition were removed ? Have you no love, no virtue, does no- thing but the terror of Hell deter you from the perpretration of such wrongs? Would you feel freer and happier, if such things were i^slerated in the government of God ? Who wants a liberty to hate the truth* to hate righteousness, and to be impious ? ^ Who is it that finds it essential to his happiness, to have such a license permanent and universal 1 Miserable man ! Is there nothing that can give full loose to the feelings of your heart, but to hate, and to destroy aU righteousness ; to destroy the laws, and overturn the very throne of God ? Is this your freedom ! Is this your good ? It is even so, " The carnal mind is enmity against God. Wonder not that there are laws ! Wonder not that there is a hell ! And what do our " Free-thinkers^^ want? The liberty of think- ing that falsehood is truth, and truth is falsehood — that truths proved by demonstration are doubtful, if they threaten evil to. evil-doers? Do they want a freedom to think that two and two are not four ; that there are no seas ji or mountains upon the earth ; that the worlds do not move ; that in the machinery of the heavens, asd ir? the beauties|> ' of the earth there are no tokens of the knowledge and'powlr, ancL skill, and taste, and §podness of the Creator ? freedom to think that 46 . THE NATIONAL PREACHER. there is no right, there is no wrong, there is no truth, no error, no reason, in the universe ? ^ '.'• , For my part, I know not what free thinking is, save to be free to love and pursue the truth ; I know not what freedoin is, but to lov^^ and obey the Lord. If it were forbidden to love truth, to hate falsehood, to be grateful, to be kind, to follow the dictates of reason, or to live at peace with our own conscience, this would be an in- fringement upon liberty. If it were required of us to blaspheme the adorable name of God. or to be undutiful to him as our sovereign; this would be tyranny. It would be hard living under a government which should forbid us to love God or our neighbor. But to require what is right, and to forbid what is wrong, is no curtailment of lib- erty, unless, indeed, some one should wish a liberty to be an enemy of all righteousness, and a child of the devil. But this is not liberty. It is not a change from bondage to freedom, but from freedSm to bondage. " Know ye not, that his servants ye are to whom ye obey ; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" The desires of an evil heart are now the masters of the soul that has thought it freedom to break away from the government of God. He is " sold under sin ;" " led captive by Satan at his will." He is not free to love and obey the truth. His imperious lusts will not allow him to follow his own better judgment. He often struggles with his appetites, like a captive who would have liberty or death ; — but they drag him along, force him into warfare with his conscience and with God, make his soul a cage for every unclean bird, and final- ., ly compel him to sacrifice honor, integrity, life, and his very"salvation, to a bondage from which he shall not be free till he dies, nor while eternity endures. He is in " the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." «. We have now looked at these things sufiicientlv to have formed proper ideas of the nature of true freedom. II.' The liberty wherewith Christ maketh free is true FREEDOM. He brings us under the government of law, but it is " the perfect law of liberty :" liberty to love man and to love God ; liberty to follow the dictates of reason and of eonscience ; liberty to pursue our highest dignity, and our highest good ; entire freedom to trample under our feet every fetter of vice, and every bond of Satan, and of sin. Fol- ^ low his instflfictipns, and every veil of prejudice and error shall be remold fisvery delusion, every snare shall be revealed. He will ^teach us how to break every yoke, and how to^anquish every enemy. " Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." He Tyill bring us into the " glorious Ijjjerty of the children of God ;" and y|t the chiMren of God a-re under law. Heaven itself is under law. The law that reigns there is perfect. Obedience is perfect. All disobedience is excluded. Every desire is conformed to the law. This is t^ue fre^om ; this is-^erfect liberty. More particularly, the way in which the Son of God makes us free is this : — 1. He opens the prison doors. We were already condemned ; convitts shut up, without the possibility qf escape, to be brought forth only to execution. The world was but a prison. Ascend to heaven, make our bed in hell, dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, it wasfsimpossible to flee from the presence of an oflended God. It would be impossible to escape his notice amid the convulsions of the last day. The earth would melt with fervent heat ; the heavens would pass %way with a great noise ; but the eye of God would be upon every guilty soul, and he could by no means escape. The pity of all created beings could not save him. No cries, no tears could dis- pose the Judge to reverse or abate his heavy sentence. But " Christ hath redeemed its from, the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.^^ He came " to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Fellow, sinner, if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free iHdeed ; if not, there is no other arm that can save ; there is no other redemption for your soul. 2. He breaks our fetters. By his spirit, he slays the sins that have kept us in bondage. We are no longer to be led captive at the will of Satan. We are to be no longer the servants of sin. We feel that a heavy load is taken off. As a man who Ma been pinioned for years, feels relieved when his manacles are broken, so tb^soul that has been delivered from the dominion of sin feels light,^d in the'possession of a freedom of which it had formed no conception before. 3. He SETS us FREE ; by creating in us a new heart ; and re- newing in us a right spirit. Now we loathe the bondage which we loved. Now we understand the excellency of his laws ; now we love them. Now we " hunger and thirst after righteousness." We feel that we shall be satisfied when we §re completely renewed after the image of him who created us, and made completely holy. The laws of Christ are no restraint to us now ; we love the things which tlje law requires ; we abhor the things which it io^^id^ We want,, no other liberty. We should abhor ourselves if we coiffil usse any ■ qfher liberty. . •* i So Christ makes fr#e ; not by annulling law ; not by lowering rfow?i|tWb demands of lavv^ qjpt by disarming the |aw ; but by re- deeniihg us from its curse ; by disposing ns to love ri^hteoj^snegs and SDontaneously to pursue the path which the law requires. , Our rea- son, our conscience; our inclination.- all agree wil^the law. We are delivered from the misgivings, ij^e self-cond*nnatipg, and the fears of them that are in bondage to sin. £ut, 4. He admits its to the glorious franchise of the " sons of God.'^ " The servant abideth not in the house forever." The servant of sin is not to abide in this earthly house of God forever ; much less in that building of God eternal ia the heavens. As an undutiful and wicked servant is to be turned away in disgrace and sorrow ; so the sinner is to be driven away from the preselice of God# The time of retribution will come ; " and they shall gather out' of his kingdom all them that offend, and them that work iniquity ; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." " But the Son abideth forever." They whom Christ maketh free are henceforth privilged with the franchise of sons. They are to abide in the house of their father. They shall go no more out. They shall receivB an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Oh the liberty wherewith Christ maketh free ! Oh the eternal chains and darkness reserved for them who wear the diiins of sin upon the earth ! Dying fellow ■sinner, wilt thou be released from bondage ? Wilt thou be delivered from condemnation ? Wilt thou be saved from everlasting captivity in an eternal prison ? Wilt thou be enfranchised with the glorious, liberty of the children of God ? Christ can make you free. He died for you. tIc has compassion on you. Come to him: come in all ^mai' pollution ; come with all your guilt and chains upon you ; onljnKtme, repenting and believing, and you shall be set free. REMONSTRANCE AND COJTPLAINT ASSOCIATION OF FAIRFIELD WEST, HARTFORD CENTRAL ASSOCIATION: TOGETHER WITH THE REPLY OF THE HARTFORD CENTRAL ASSOCIATION. PRINTED FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF FAIRFIELD WEST. NEW YORK : S. W. BENEDICT, No. 16 SPRUCE STREET. 1850. MINUTES The Association of Fairfield West met at the house of Rev. L. H Atwater, in Fairfield^ Jan. 8, 1850., at 11 A. M., to con- sider the sentiments of Dr. Bushnell, as published in a book entitled " God in Christ," and also the action of the Hartford Central Association thereon. Wei-e present — Rev. Elders Nathaniel Hewit, D:D., E. D. Kinney, E. Hall, D.D., T. Smith, L. H. Atwater, C. T. Pren- tice, T. B. Sturges, L. B. Burr, I. Jennings, and S. J. M. Merwin. Opened with prayer. Proceeded to consider the subject before us. Heard and considered several documents on this subject by members of the Association. Voted, that these documents be referred to a committee consisting of Messrs. Hall, Smith and Atwater, to report thereon at an adjourned meeting. Adjourned to meet at Stamford, at the house of Rev. Isaac Jennings, on the 29th inst., at 11 A. M. Closed with prayer. Attest, Theophilus Smith, Scribe. The Association of Fairfield West met at Stamford, Jan. 29, 1850, at 11 A. M., according to adjournment. Were present, Rev. Elders N. Hewit, D.D., J. H. Lins- ley, D.D., E. D. Kinney, E. Hall, D.D., T. Smith, L. H. At- water, S. B. S. Bissell, T. B. Sturges, I. Jennings, S. J. M. Merwin, G. M. Porter, A. B. Rich, and G. Hall. Opened with prayer. Dr. Hall, in behalf of the committee appointed Jan. 8th, made a report in the form of a Remon- strance and Complaint from this Association to the Hartford Central Association. Proceeded to iiear, discuss and amend this report. Tiie roll was called, and each member expressed his views. Whereupon, it was Voted, that this Remonstrance and Complaint be adopted by this Association ; that it be signed by the Moderator a:nd Scribe, and sent to the Mode- rator of the Hartford Central Association. Adjourned. Closed with prayer. Attest, • Theophilus Smith, Scribe. The Association of Fairfield West met at the house of Rev. Dr. Hall, in Norwalk, March 19th, 1850, at 11 A.M., to hear the answer of the Hartford Central Association to our Re- monstrance and Complaint, and to take such action in the premises as might be deemed expedient. Were present, Rev. Elders S. Haight, M. Mead, N. Hewit, D.D., E. D. Kinney, E. Hall, D.D., T. Smith, D. Mead, L. H. Atwater, S. B. S. Bissell, C. T. Prentice, T. B. Sturges, I. Jennings, S. J. M. Merwin, and G. Hall. Opened with prayer. The Answer of the Hartford Cen- tral Association to our Remonstrance and Complaint, was read. Whereupon it was Voted nnammouslj, that our Remon- strance and Complaint to the Hartford Central Association, and their Answer to the same, be printed, and that a copy be sent to each member of the several District Associations in the State. Voted, unanimously, that we address a letter to each Dis- trict Association (excepting Hartford Central), earnestly re- questing them to meet and consider this subject, and let us know the conclusion to which they come. The form of the letter to be addressed to each District As- sociation was read and adopted. Attest, Theophilus Smith, Scribe. REMONSTKANGE AND COMPLAINT Dear Brethren : Our relation to you as ministers of neigliboring churches which have, from their origin, been united in the closest bonds of fellowship with the churches which you serve in the ministry, and that under the acknowledged principle — and for more than one hundred years under the express stipulation [as in Chap. IV. of the Heads of Agreement] — " That they are most ready and willing to give an account of their proceed- ings to each other, when desired for preventing or removing any offenses that may arise aniong them ;" which principle established among the churches must be regarded as equally in force among their ministers ; — also our relation to you as an Association united with you in the General Association of Connecticut, — by which relation we stand or fall with you in the esteem and fellowship of the churches of this country and of the world, and by which we are so far held responsible for acts of yours which, may justly be held to forfeit that esteem and fellowship, — these relations not only give us the right, but impose upon us the duty, when we judge your proceed- ings to be at any time greatly injurious to the truth in Christ, to come before you with our earnest but brotherly Remon- strance AND Complaint. From these relations, also, we are under obligation to the churches, to the community, and to God's holy Truth, not to be silent when our silence must ne- cessarily"be considered as our acquiescence in proceedings which go to shield or to countenance destructive error. We judge that such a duty is imposed upon us by your re- cently published decisioH in the matter of Dr. Bushnell's book entitled " God in Christ." The duty appears to us now to be urgent. The doctrines of that book are not only spread abroad in the book itself, deriving no small celebrity from the celebrity of its author ; but there has also been circulated a reiteration and defense of its main positions under the sanction of honored and in- fluential names. Communications are inserted in religious papers having a wide circulation among our churches, either vindicating those doctrines, or apologizing for them — at times by impugning the faith of our churches — or raising questions as to how it can be decided whether the doctrines treated of in the book (viz., the Trinity, the Atonement, and Justifica- tion,) are fundamental, or so far forth fundamental that any manner of denial or teaching concerning them can be regarded as heresy ; or whether we have any ascertainable standard doctrines on these subjects, by which any possible doctrines concerning the Trinity, Atonement, or Justification may be adjudged heretical. One of these communications, purport- ing to be from a minister of many years' standing in Connec- ticut, declares his doubts concerning the truth of these doc- trines, as held in our churches, and affirms, on his own know- ledge, that many ministers around him are also doubting the same. All which things, with other considerations which we have not mentioned, have caused us to fear lest the doctrines of that book may be alreadj' gaining a dangerous ascendancy — especially over the minds of the young — and preparing the way for a wide-spread error, captivating to the carnal mind, but de- structive of the faith, and ruinous to the souls of men. These things have also caused ministers and churches abroad — who are in communication with us — to doubt whether there is not among the ministers and churches of Connecticut a serious and wide-spread departure from the truth as it is in Christ ; which doubts, in the continued silence of our Associations, we cannot but regard as justifiable. Under these circum- stances, the doctrines of the book now go abroad bearing the sanction of your official decision, that you regard their author " as holding whatever is essential to -the scheme " embodied in " the formulas of the church," and that, in your view, "he could, not be properly or justly subjected . to the charge of heresy, or be denied the confidence of his brethren in the ministry." Yet we find that your " committee were unanimous in the conviction," (and " all the members of the committee acceded to the proposition " so to report ; which report was read to your Association and accepted with the two other re- ports,) that the book in question " denies that the following are revealed truths,' viz. : " 1. That there is a real Trinity in the Divine nature." " 2. That, anterior to the incarnation, the personality of Christ was distinct from that of the Father." " 3. That the end sought and achieved by Christ, in making the atonement, was to cancel the penal claims of condemning law, by voluntarily offering his own sufferings and death as a sufficient satisfaction therefor, and so to redeem every be- liever from further exposure to these claims." Permit us to say, brethren, that when we consider the terms in which the book denies not only these, but other doctrines, which we hold as essential to Christianity, we are much amazed and grieved at your decision. We ask you once more to review with us the doctrines set forth in that book. We give you a statement of the doctrines which, as we believe, the book contains, with the passages which contain them written underneath. We underscore parts of these passages, to call to them your especial atten- tion. I. — Concerning the Logos, or Word. The Logos, or Word, which was in the beginning with God, [p. 145,] called elsewhere the Form of God, [p. 145,] and which, at the incarnation, was made flesh, is a capacity of self-expression in God, [pp. 187, 177, 145,] by which he can [P. 187.] " By the Word, or Word of Life, that peculiar ^otcer in the Di- vine nature, by which God is able to represent Himself outwardly in the forms of things, first in the worlds, and now in the human person" — " by this Word of Life, God has now expressed himself." [P. 177,.] " Undoubtedly the distinction of the Word, or the power of self- representation in God thus denominated, is eternal." outwardly produce himself [p. 146.] In creating the worlds, God only represents, expresses, outwardly produces Himself, [p. 145,] first in the worlds, then in men, [p. 146,] and at the incarnation, as God has before produced himself in all the other finite forms of being, and as he has before appeared in the human, so now, yet more of God is exhibited in the human frrm, in the person of Jesus Christ, [pp. 145, 146, 147, 151, 152.] [Pp. 145, 146.] " There is in God, taken as the Absolute Being, a capa- city of self-expresswn, so to speak, which is peculiar — a generative power of form, a creative imagination, in which, or by aid of which, He can produce Himself outwardly, or represent himself in the finite. In this respect God is wholly unlike to us. Our imagination is passive, stored with forms, co- lors and types of words from without, borrowed from the world we live in. Bui all such forms God has in himself, and this is the Logos, the Word, else- where called the Form of God. Now, this Word, the Form of God, in which he sees himself, is with God, as John says, /rom the beginning. It is God mirrored before his own understanding, and to be mirrored, as in fragments of the mirror, before us. Conceive him now as creating the worlds, or creating worlds, if you please, from eternity. In so doing, he only represents, ex- presses, or outwardly produces Himself. He bodies out his own thoughts. What we call the creation, is, in another view, a revelation only of God, his first revelation " " Now as John also declares, there was light, the first revelation was made, God was expressed in the forms and relations of the finite." " One thing more is possible that will yield a still more effulgent light, viz., that, as God has produced himself in all the other finite forms of being, so now he should appear in the human." - " Indeed, He has appeared in the human before, in the same way as He has in all the created objects of the world." [P. 147.] " But there was yet more of God to be exhibited in the Human Form of our race." " Now, therefore, God will reclaim this last type of Himself, possess it with his oyfn life and feeling, and through that, live himself into the acquaintance and bio- graphic history of the world." — " This is Christ, whose proper deity or divi- nity we have proved." [P. 151.] " But the human person, it will be said is limited, and God is not. Very true. Sut you have the same objection in reference to the first revelation, the Word, in the world." " Besides you have a special de- light in seeing God in the smallest things, the minutest specks of being.. If, then, it be incredible that God should take the human to express himself, be- cause the human is finite, can the finite in the world, or in a living atom., express him more worthily, or do it more accordantly with reason ?" [P. 152.] " For it no more follows that a human body measures God, when revealed through it, than that a star, a tree, or an insect measures him, when heis re- vealed through that. " RE M AK KS. 1. These representations of the Word and of the incarna- tion appear to us to teach that the Word is no person in the Godhead, but only a power, or capacity, viz: : the power of outwardly expressing, or producing himself; and that in ac- cordance with this teaching, the Scriptures should not say " The Word was God," but " The Word was a power in God." 2. The passages referred to, as they stand in their connec- tion, appear to us to teach that the Logos had as really ex- pressed and outwardly produced God, in the world, (viz. : in its rocks, rivers, mountains, forests, beasts, stars and storms,) as in Jesus Christ ; and that God had before appeared in men as really, though not in the same degree, as in Christ. Ac- cording to the doctrine of the book, we do not see why it would not be as proper to say concerning each mountain, river, beast or man, " This is the true God," as to say it con- cerning the Lord Jesus Christ. In our view, the book repre- sei;its the works of God to be as truly the Godhead as Christ; the Word, which became incarnate in Jesus, having been be- fore embodied in the material creation, and having been as truly made flesh before — ^in beasts and men — as in Jesus Christ ; the only difference being, that in Christ there is ex- hibited more of God, [p. 147.] II.— Concerning the Teinity. The Trinity is a three-fold impersonation which appears at the incarnation ; not an essential Trinity in the Divine Being, but only a Trinity in the mode of representation, as related to our finite apprehension, [pp. 147, 148, 175, 176. As the power of self-representation in God is eternal, if God [Pp. 147-8.] " Prior to this moment, [the incarnation,] there has been no appearance of trinity in the revelations God has made of his being ; but just here, whether as resulting from the incarnation or as implied in it, we are not informed, a threefold personality, or impersonation of God begins to offer itself to view." " In these three persons or impersonations, 1 only see a revelation of the Absolute Being, unde* just .such relatives as by their mutual play, in and before our imaginative sense, will produce in us the truest knowledge of God." [P. 175.] " Do you then ask, whether I mean simply to assert a modal tri- nity, or three modal persons .' I must answer obscurely, just as I answered in regard to the humanity of Christ. If I say that they are modal only, as the word is commonly used, I may deny more than I am justiiied in deny- ing, or am required to deny, by the ground I have taken." " Perhaps I shall come nearest to the simple, positive idea of the trinity here maintain- ed, if I call it an ih-strumental triwity, and the persons iwstrtjmemtal PERSONS. There may be more in them than this, which let others declare when they find it." [P. 176.] " I perceive, too, that God may as well offer himself to me, in these persona, as through trees, or storms, or stars." 10 has eternally revealed himself, then this Trinity is likely always to have been, and in like manner it may always continue to be. Yet it may be, even as a representation, occasioiial and to be discontinued, [p. 177.J The Scriptures discourage the idea that it is to continue, [p. 177.] It is a trinity of repre- sentation only, produced by a process of revelation, [p. 178.] There is no original triad (or Trinity in the Godhead) back of this that is so produced ; and people had better keep their discretion than to seek for one. — [178, 179, 180.] [P. 176, 177.] " Meanwhile, if our feeling is, at any time, confused by these persons or impersonations, we are to have it for a fixed, first truth, that God is, in the most perfect and rigid sense, oneheing — a pure intelli- gence, undivided, indivisible and infinite ; and that whatever may be true of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it certainly is not true that they are three distinct consciousnesses, wills, and understandings. Or, speaking in a way more positive, they are instrumentally three — three simply as related to our finite apprehension, and the communication of God's incommunicable na- ture." [P. 177.] "But some one, I suppose, will require of me to answer, ic4e- ther the three persons are eternal, or only occasional and to be discontinued 7 Undoubtedly the distinction of the Word, or the power of self -representa- tion in God thus denominated, is eternal. And in this we have a permanent ground of possibility for the threefold impersonation, called trinity. Ac- cordingly, if God has been eternally revealed, or rCTeaZmg Himself to created minds, it is likely always to have been, and alwa,ys to be as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Consequently, it may always be in]this manner that we shall get our impressions of God, and have our communion with Him. As an ac- commodation to all finite minds in the universe, it may be the purpose of Jehovah to be known by this divine formula for ever. That vrhich most dis- courages such a belief is the declaration of Paul — " When all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that did put all things under him, that God may be all, and in all." [P. 178, 9, 180.] (After a citation from Neander.) " If now it be inquired whether, beginning with a doctrine at txiwXy produced by the process of reve- lation, and adequately accounted for as necessary to that process, I would then turn to hunt for some " analogy" in myself , and try to climb up thus, through myself, into a discovery of are original triad in God — convincing myself, nXao, that John and Paul give • jraiimaiioras' of such a triad, I frankly answer, no. The expression of such a hope might comfort some who would other- wise be disturbed, but it will only mislead a much greater number, who had better keep their discretion. If God has given us an instrumental inad which is good for i\a purposes of revelation, there can be no greater fraud upon it than to set ourselves to the discovery of an original triad back of it, that has no instrumental character, and has nothing to do with revelation. [P. 180.] " This view of Christ and the trinity differs, I am aware, in some respects, from that which is commonly held ; but I hope the difference will not disturb you. I have known no other since I began to be a preacher of Christ, and my experience teaches me to want no other. If it has delivered me from agonies of mental darkness and confusion concerning God, which, at one time, seemed insupportable, it cannot be wrong" to hope that God will make the truth a deliverance, equally comfortable and joyful to some of you." 11 REMARKS. 1. We regard these passages as teaching unequivocally, that there is no Trinity in the Godhead. 2. According to the teaching of the book on the subject of the Trinity, we see not why the representation of the scrip- ture might not have been, — so far as the Godhead itself is concerned — of aQuaternity as well as of a Trinity, a Myriad, as well as of a Triad : nor why there might not have been any number of Christs, as well as the one who is styled " The only begotten Son of God." 3. As no real sacrifice, or work of atonement, can be per- formed by a mere representation of a person, without the re- ality, it appears to us that this denial of the Trinity in the- Godhead, is necessarily followed by a denial of any real work of Redemption by the blood of Christ. The doctrine of Justi- fication by faith in that atoning sacrifice must, also, inevitably be denied : as we shall see (hat both are denied in the book in question. It is from this necessary connection of the doc- trine of the Trinity, with the other fundamental doctrines of Christianity, that the doctrine must needs become an article of faith; and is not, and cannot be, a point of mere speculation,, but becomes a doctrine in the utmost degree practical and. vital. III. — Concerning the Law of God. God does not, without the provisions of the Gospel, hold every transgressor to punishment according to the letter of his law. The law has no certain claim of punishment upon the sinner, any longer than till he repents. It needs no atoning sacrifice to satisfy its penal demands, or to vindicate the jus- tice of God while he passes by the transgressions of the sin- ner. It is a groundless assumption to suppose that it does so. — [p. 198.] Christ did nothing to satisfy any penal demands [P. 198.] "First, it [the more mitigated orthodox theory] assumes that, jis punishment expresses the abhorrence of God to sin, or, what is the same, \aa justice. He can sustain his law, and lay a ground of forgiveness without punishment, only by some equivalent expression of abhorrence — an assumption that is groundless and without consideration, as I may cause to appear in another place." 12 of the broken law, nor to vindicate the iustice of God ; ail that he did, and all that needed to be done, was to make men penitent. — [pp. 216-219.] Indeed, if the doctrine were that the Law, without the provision of the Gospel, holds every transgressor to punishment, according to its declared penalty, we should reason the doctrine away, and reject it as incredi- [Pp. 216-219.] " But what, in this view, some will ask, becomes of the law and justice of God ? First, we have Christ, interrupting the flow of justice by delivering men, or assisting them to deliver themselves from the penal consequences of transgression ; trom the blindness, bitterness, DEADNEss, AND OTHER DISABILITIES IT PRODUCES. Secondly, there is made out, or given to men, a coNriDENCE equally repugnant to justice, that God will freely accept, embrace, and even justify the transgressor who forsakes his SIN. Where, now, it will be asked, is government? What becomes of law ? And since God's love of right, or, what is the same, Tiis justice, was evidenced by his law, and the penalties added to enforce it, what shall save the obliga- tion of the law ; what, indeed, shall displace the ambiguity that shades the divine character itself? Hence the necessity, it is argue'd, of some vicarious suffering, or expression made by suffering, that shall vindicate the law as effectively as the penalties remitted would have done, and thus shall save the moral rigor of God's integrity, in the view of his subjects. But, grant- ing this, it does not follow that the new vicarious expression of God must be made by a process equally vindictive vnth punishment ; or that God's abhor- rence to sin must be poured out upon Chrisfa awn person." " If a vindication of God's law is wanted, in order to the offer of for- giveness, it is wanted here, and for effect in this world. And if we nar- rowly inspect the case presented, we shall be at no loss in regard to the real ground of such a necessity. For it is even a fundamental condition, as re- gards moral effect on our character, that, while courage and hope are given us, we should. be made, at the same time, to feel the inteusest possible sense of the sanctity of the law, and the inflexible righteousness of God. What we need, in this view, is some new expression of God, which, taken as addressed to us, will keep alive the impression in us that God suffers no laxity. In a word, we must be made to feel, in the very article of forgiveness, when it is offered, the essential and eternal sanctity of God's law — His own immovable adherence to it, as the only basis of order and well-being in the universe. " As to the manner in which this desired result is effected, since it presents the hinge question at issue between TJnitarianism and orthodoxy, I will dilate upon it here as the gravity of the question demands. " On one side, it is afSrmed that God could not forgive sin, either without an equivalent suffering or an equivalent expression ^abhorrence to sin made by suffering, in the place of punishment. On the other side, since this doc- trine, in either form of it, seems to involve something offensive to our moral sense, or repugnant to our ideas of God, it is affirmed that God, out of his simple goodness or paternity, can forgive, and will forgive every truly penitent sinner. Satisfied with neither doctrine, for the reasons urged by one against the other, and, perhaps I should say, with both, for the reasons urged by each in its own behalf, I venture to suggest, as the more real and reasonable view, that, in order to make men penitent and soto want forgiveness, — that is, to keep the world alive to the eternal integrity, verity, and sanctity of God's law, — that is, to keep us apprised of sin, and deny us any power of rest while we continue under sin ; it was needful that Christ, in his life and suf- feringSj should consecrate, or re-consecrate the desecrated law of God, and give it a more exact and imminent authority than it had before — this, too, 13 ble ; so that it would have no verity, and, of course, no sa- credness at all. — [pp. 228, 229.] vnthout anything of penal quality in his passion, without regarding him as bearing evil to pay the release of evil, or as under any infliction or frown of God, and yet doing it by something expressed iu his life and death." [Pp. 228, 229.] " This suffering [of Christ] is expressive, because it is in- cidental to an effort to reveal the love of God, and bring the eternal life into the closest possible proximity to our human hearts." — " If we look upon It as the very end p,nd aim of Christ's mission to recover man to God and obedience; or, what is the same, to re-establish the law as a living power in his heart ; then, of course, everything he does and suffers, every labor, wearinessv self-denial, and sorrow, becomes an expression of his sense of the value of the law — every pang he endures, declares its sacredness. So that if he offers pardon, free pardon, to every transgressor, we shall never connect a feeling of license, but shall rather feel a sense of the eternal sanctity of the law, and have a more tremulous awe of it in our conscience, than we should if every transgressor were held to punishment by the letter of it. Indeed, if that were the doctrine, we should reason away and reject the doctrine as in- credible ; so that it would have rio verity, and, of course, no sacredness at all. Whereas, having seen, in the pains-taking, suffering life of Jesus, what God will do for the practical establishment of his law, we are seized with a deep apd a-ye-felt conviction, that if we do not return to it according to his call, there is yet something , different that must assuredly follow. AH this, you perceive, without anything said of a penal quality, in the sufferings of Christ. JVo evil is laid upon him as evil, by the Father, to be endured retributively. He only suffers the ills that lie in his way, and endures the violence that hu- man malignity and cruelty heap on his head." REMARKS. While the author, in these passages, confesses the necessity of keeping up an impression of the eternal sanctity and verity of the law, he teaches that this object is effected by a scheme es- sentially diflFerent from that which God has revealed, and utterly subversive of the great central and fundamental truth of the Gospel. We regard him as denying the vindicatory power o( the law, stripping it of its sanctions, and leaving it mere ad- vice, and no longer law. Indeed, he declares, that if God were to instruct us that every transgressor is, by the power of law, and by the divine justice, without the Gospel, held to punishment according to the declared penalty, we should reason away and reject such a declaration as incredible, so that it would have no verity, and of course no sacredness at all, 14 IV. — Concerning the Fall. The fall of man was, from the nature of the case, an a priori necessity ; and, of course, a historic certainty. It was to be expected that the soul, under a simple commandment of God, would yield to the instigation of her curious nature, and try the bad experience of evil. We accordingly look, reason- ably and necessarily, for a lapse under the first discipline of law.— [pp. 238-240.] [Pp. 238-240.] " The first stage of government is the stage of law. But law, taken by itself, can establish nothing. There is an a priori necessity, and, of course, a historic certainty, that the training of an empire of free be- ings, and the final and complete union of their will to God, tmll require a double administration." — " Under the first stage, that of commandment, the soul makes her acquaintance with obligation, comes at the terms, so to speak, of her existence, lays her hands lipon the iron-fences of law that stiffen round her. Will she keep within her inclosures .' If we speak of a naked possi- bility, she doubtless may. But it will be wonderful if she does not some- times yield to the instigatio'n of her curious nature,' and try the bad ex- perience of evil. Or if she does not, if she stays within her iron inclosure, only because it is iron, she would seem to be governed in the good she fol- lows, by constraint; which can hardly be regarded as a state of perfect vir- tue — it is a prudential, and even a cringing virtue, more than a virtue of liberty. " Accordingly, we look far a lapse, under this first discipline of law. Feeling its bars, as the bars of a cage, about her, the soul begins to chafe against them, and so she learns the law — first, by attrition against it, and then by bondage under it. This is her fall." REMARKS. We regard this, 1, As setting forth the principle that a simple commandment of God is, with holy beings, no sufHcient ground of obedience : but if left with this alone, and put upon their simple love, faith, and duty, they are to be expected to transgress : 2. As palliating the guilt of the fall, by representing it as reasonably to be expected — an a priori necessity, arising from a natural curiosity and irksomeness of restraint, which, even in holy beings, naturally required a second administration be- fore complete obedience is to be expected : 3. That for holy beings to obey God, simply because he is God, and because, as such, he commands, is a prudential and even a cringing virtue. The whole goes to teach men lightly to esteem the Divine authority ; and to vindicate crea- tures in rebellion against the law of God, until some other further dispensation is given to restrain them, than the dispen- sation of law. 15 ■V. CoNCEEMNG THE AtoNEMENT. Christ did not die to redeem us from the penalty of the law. He did not bear our sins in the sense of delivering us from the penalty by his sufferings. His blood was not, truly, shed for many for the. remission oi sins. — [pp. 218, 219.J He did not die a vicarious sacrifice, the just for the unjust. — [p. 189.J He is not in that sense the propitiation for our sins. There was no design of expiation, or of vicarious or penal suffering, in His death.^pp. 236, 237.J He did not come into the world for the purpose of dying for us : that would have been ostenta- tious and absurd. — [pp. 201, 202.] If God could for one mo- [Pp. 218-219.] " On one side, it is affirmed that God could not forgive sin, either without an equivalent suffering, or an equivalent expression of ab- horrence to sin made by suffering, in the place of punishment." — [P. 219.] " I venture to suggest, as the more real and reasonable view , that, in order to make men penitent, and so to want forgiveness — that is, to keep the world alive to the eternal integrity, verity, and sanctity of God's law — that is, to keep us apprised of sin, and deny us any power of rest while we continue under sin, it was needful that Christ,. in his life and sufferings-should, con- secrate or re-consecrate the desecrated law of God, and give it a more exact and itnminent authority than it had before — this, too, withMit anything of a penal quality in his passion, without regarding him as bearing evil to pay THE RELEASE OF Evii,, Or as under any infliction or frown of God, and yet doing it by something expressed in his life and death." P. 189.] Christ enters into human feelings by his incarnate charities and sufferings, to re-engage the world's love, and to re-unite the world, as free, to the Eternal Life. To sum up all in one condensed and luminous utterance, every word of which is power, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. The apostle says nothing here, it will be observed, of recon citing God to men, he only speaks of reconciling men to God. Had he said, the Life of God was manifested in Jesus Christ, to quicken the world in love and truth, and reunite it to himself, he would have said the same thing under a different form. I am well aware that, in offering such a statement, as the true doctrine of Christ and his work, I affirm nothing that is distinctively orthodox, and shall even seem to rule out that view of Christ " as a sacri- flce, Wi expiation for sin, a vicarious suffering, '?iiii.\he view of most or- thodox Christians, contains the real moment of his work as a Savior." P. [201.] "Once more, it is to be- noticed, as a law of expression, that when evil is endured, simply and only for what it expresses, it expresses no- thing. If a man wades out upon some mountain, in the snows of a wintry night, to carry food to a perishing family, then what he encounters of risk and suffering, being incidentally encountered, is an expression of charity. But if he calls upon us to observe his charity expressed in what he will suf- fer, and, waiting for a stormy night, goes forth on the same expedition to the mountain, he expresses nothing but ostentation. So if Christ comes into the world to teach, to cheer, to heal, to pour his sympathies into the bosom of all human sorrow, to assert the integrity of truth, and refiw^e ' the wick- edness of sin ' — in a word, to manifest the Eternal Life, apdparing it into a quickening union with the souls of our race, then to suffer incidentally, to die an ignominious and cruel death rather than depart from his heavenly errand, is to make an expression of the Heart of God, which every human 16 ment lay his frown (or penal suffering,) upon the soul of the innocent, He can be no such Being as the author of the book in question has loved and worshiped. — [pp. 198-201.] No governmental reasons can justify such a substitution of the innocent for the guilty. If the great Redeemer, in the excess of His goodness, consents freely to offer Himself to the Father, or to God, to receive the penal woes, or some suf- ficient part of the penal woes, in his own person ; and if the Father accepts the sacrifice, then the Divine government, in- stead of clearing itself, assumes the double ignominy, first, of letting the guilty go, and secondly, of accepting the sufferings soul must feel. And this expression may avail to sanctify the law before us, even though there be no abhorrence expressed in his sufferings. But, if Christ comes into the world, invoking, as it were, the frown of God, and undertaking to suffer evil as evil, that he may express God's justice, or His ABHORRENCE OF SIN, then ho cxfiresses nothing. The very laws of expres- sion, if I understand them rightly, require that suffering should be endured, not as suffering, or as evil taken up for the expression of it, but that the evil be a necessary incident encountered on the way, to some end separate from expression some truth, benefaction, or work of love." [P. 198-201.] " In the second and more mitigated class of orthodox opin- ions, a very importantand really true position is, at last, reached, viz : — that the value of Christ's life and death is measured by what is therein express- ed. Only it is needed, now, to go a step farther, investigating what he ex- presses — whether, possibly, it be not rather to accomplish these ends, and that, too, without any imposition or endurance of evil in the penal form of evil, any suffering or pain which is undertaken for effect, as being a direct ex- hibition oy God's justice, or juijicial abhorrence to sin." " The objections I have to that more mitigated theory, are these : — First, it assumes that, as punishment expresses the abhorrence of God to sin , or what is the same, his justice, he can sustain his law and lay a ground of for- giveness without punishment, only by some equivalent expression of abhor- rence — an assumption that is groundless and without ctinBidera,tion, as Imay cause to appear in another place. " Secondly, this latter seems to accord with the former view in supposing that Christ suffers evil as evil, or as a penal visitation of God's justice, only doing it in a less painful degree ; that is, suffering so much of evil as will suffice, considering the dignity of his person, to express the same amount of abhorrence to sin, that would be expressed by the eternal punishment of all mankind. I confess my inability to see how an innocent being could ever be set, even for one moment, in an attitude of displeasure under God. If He could lay His frown for one moment on the soul of innocence and virtue. He must be no such being as I have loved and worshiped. Much less can I imagine that He should lay it on the head of one whose nature is itself co- equal Deity. Does any one say that He will do it for public governmental reasons? JVo governmental reasons, I answer, can justify even the admis- sion of innocence into a participation of .frowns and penal distributions. If consenting innocence says:—' Let the blow, fall on me,' precisely there is it for a government to prove its justice, even to the point cf sublimity : to reveal the essen- tial, eternal, unmitigahh distinction it holds between imuocence and sin, by declaring that under law and its distributions, it is even impossible to suffer any com- mutation, any the least confusion of places. 17 of the innocent. — [p. 196.] It did not please the Father to braise him, and to put him to grief. — [pp. 228, 229, 230.] When Christ cried out upon the cross, the Father had not for- saken Him. — [p. 230.] Christ died only incidentally, with no [P. 200.] — "According to the supposition, the problem here is to produce an expression of abhorrence to sm, throxtgh the sufferings of Christ, iw PLACE of another, through the sufferings of the guilty. Now, the truth of the latter expression consists in the fact, that there is an abhorrence in God to be expressed. But there is no such abhorrence in God toward Christ, and, therefore, if the external expression of Christ's sufferings has no cor- respondent feelings to be expressed, where lies' the truth of the expression ? And if the frown of God lies upon his soul, as we often hear, in the gatden and on the cross, how can the frown of God, falling on the soul of itmocence, express any truth, or any feelings of justice ?" [P. 201.,] " Thirdly, if dJirist Jie himself, in the highest and truest sense, the Eternal Life, God manifested in the flesh, then every expression of justice or abhorrence to sin, which is made by his death, as a mere endurance of evil, is in- volved in yet greater obscurity and confusion." — " He is, in fact, the embodiment, as he is the representation of God and divine Government ; he must be taken , in all that he does, as something which is properly referable to God. No theory of three metaphysical natures, called persons, in God, can at all vary this truth. The transactions of Christ, must still be taken as transactions of God. The frown, then, if it be said to be of God, is quite as truly on God. The expression of justice or abhorrence is made by sufferings that are en- dured, not out of the circle of divine government, but in it. And thus we have a government realizing its penal distributions or their equivalents ; that is, ifs_;^s*M;e, its significations of abhorrence, wholly within itself and apart from all terms ojT relation, save as the subjects, so called, are to be spectators ! Whatever speculations we may hold, in regard to modes of expression, can we "hold such a view of divine government without some uncomfortable suspifiiou of mistake in it !" [P. 196.] — " A,nd if the great Redeemer, in the excess of his goodness, consents, freely offtos himself to the Father, or to God, to receive the penal woes, or some sufficient part of the penal woes of the world, in his own per- son, what does it signify, when that offer is accepted, but that God will have his modicum of suffering somehow — if he lets the guilty go, will yet satis- fy himself out of the innocent ? In which the divine government, instead cf aearing itself, assumes the double ignominy, first of letting the guilty go, and secondly of accepting the sufferings of innocence." [P. 229.] — "But this, it will be apprehended by some, destroys the whole import of such scenes as the agony o/nd the crucifixion. It may require a different construction of these scenes, but I hope it will not be too hastily concluded that a different construction robs them of their sacred import and power. It is itoagined by many, that what is called ' the agony' of Jesus, was caus- ed by the penal attitude in which he found himself before the Father, and the consequent sense of the iesertion he felt." — [p. 230.] — " It was not that the sonl of the sufferer was racked, by a sense of the withdratvment of the Father. How could the Father vnthdraw from, so great excellence and purity, under so great a burden of sorrow ? — what end could it serve thus to falsify his character ? — It is also re- presented, by Luke, that an angel is sent to strengthen and support him — sent by thfi Father to suppc^rt him itnder his own displeasure ! Sometimes the ex- clamation, which he uttered afterwards, on the cross, is ihade to assist the interpretation of the agony also — ' My God ! my God ! why hast thou forsak- en me !' But this is only the language of intense suffering, an interjection, so to Speak, of anguish." — " To take this language of passion, this common outcry of distress, and hold it in a cool, historic^ or dogmatic sense, is to violate all dignified laws of interpretation." 2 thought of a penal quality in his death — [pp. 219, 228, 229.] 01' of any divine abhorrence of sin exhibited by sufferings laid upon his person. — [pp. 236, 237.J Everything done by Him was done for expression before us, and thus for effect in us :~ [pp. 236, 237,] only that he might enter into human feelings by his incarnate charities and sufferings, to re engage the world's love, and to re-unite the world, as free, to the Eternal life — [p. 189,] to set before us the value which God puts upon law, by the' import of His life taken in the simple aspect of a free, faithful, loving obedience. — [p. 226, 227.] His work was the [Pp. 228, 229.] — " This suflFering [of Christ,] is expressive, becausfe it is in- cidental to an effort to reveal the love of God." — " All this, you perceive, vnthout anything said of apenal quality, in the sufferings of Christ. No evil is laid upon him as evil, hy the Father, to be endured retrtbutively. He only suffers the ills that lie in his way, and endures the violence that human malignity and cru- elty heap on his head." — [See this passage cited more at length, under article " Concerning the Law."] [Pp. 236,237.] — "The effect depends, «oi o« any real altar-ceremony in his death, butit depends, 'artistically speaking, in the expressive power of the fact that the Incarnate Word, appearing in humanity, and having a ministry for the reconciliation of men to God, even goes to such a pitch cf devotion, as to yield up his life to it, and allow the blood Of his mysterious person to redden our polluted earth." — " My doctrine is summarily tbis^-that, excluding all thoughts of a penal quality in the life and death of Christ, or of any divine abhor- rence to sin, exhibited by sufferings laid upon his ^erson-'-excluding points like these, and regarding everything done by him as done for expression before us, and thus for effect in us, he does produce an impression in our minds of the essen- tial sanctity of God's law and character, which it was needfal to produce, and without which any proclamation of pardon would be dangerous, any attempt to subdue and reconcile us to God, ineffectual. Meantime, it may comport some to add, that he does by implication, or inferentially, express in all that he does the pro&undest abhorrence to sin ; for if, he will endure so much to re-sanctify his law and renew us in the spirit of it, how intensely signified is the abhorrence of his nature to the transgression of his law — more intensely than it would be by the punishment even of us all !" [P. 226,227.] — " Regard him as coming under the desecrated law" — " then consider the import of his life, taken in the simple aspect of a free, faithful^ lov- img, unfaltering obedience — obedience unto death. And then, if the speculative in- Btinot rushes in to insist on the absurdity of obedience in a being whose nature is essential deity, let it be enough to reply that there is no being in the universe, of whom obedience can be predicated in so vast a sense as of God. For though God is under no obligations to another. He is yet under obligations to goodness to devise, do, bear, forbear, suffer, all which the conception or idea of infinile goodness and love contains. He isreally under the same law of obligation that we were jmrf«- ffimd casi oj', and it is the glory and greatness of his nature that he de- lights eternally to aclinowledge this law. Christ is the manifested life rei>eal- ing this everlasting obediejice of the divine nature. AU that he does and suffers is but an expression of the homage, rendered by, God himself, to that which we reject; and the only object of his mission is to bring us back into a like free obedience to the same, lovely requirement. His poverty and patience, his weary, persecuted life his agony, his cross, his death — exclude from these all thmtght of penal suffer- ing or vindictive chastisement, regard him simply as thtjs suppokting the CALL OF DUTY, and signifying to mankind the self-renouncing and subliine obedience of the divine nature," 19 fulfilment of His own eternal obligation — in which, by simply supporting the call of duty, and signifying to man- kind the self-renouncing and sublime obedience of the di- vine nature, [p. 227,] He aimed to bring us, by this example, back into a like free obedience to the same lovely requirement ; and incidentally he died rather than depart from this work. -[201.J ^^ VI. — Justification by Faith. 1. The Object of the Faith. 2. Nature of the Justification. 3. The Ground of Justification. 1. The object of the faith by which the sinner is justified, is not Christ as the Redeemer whose blood was really shed for the remission of sins ; for no such sacrifice was rendered, and none was needed, in order that God might be just, and the justifier of the sinner. If God had accepted such a sacrifice, it would have been both unjust and absurd, and a sufficient ground for rejecting him as the God of our love and worship [pp. 199-201.] [See under Atonement.] 2. The sinner has no remission of sins through the merits of Christ's atoning blood : nor is Justification " An act of God's free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and ac- cepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone ;" nor for any consideration based on any vicarious or atoning sacrifice of Christ. If the sinner believes in such a sacrifice, and rests his soul upon it, this is not believing and resting in the truth, but in error [p. 268]. The sinner is to understand by the suf- ferings and death of Christ, that God had proposed to express — not penalty or abhorrence of sin, but — only his love, and what God will do, without punishment and without the expression of penalty or abhorrence, for the practical establishment of his law. [See under Atonement.] Coming with this undfer- [P. 268.]— " First, we have whatmay be called the Protestant form, whioh takes the ritualistic side of the Gospel, the ohjeotive side, turns it into dog- ma, and repeats it as a theoretic or theologic truth. And then though -U be no longer a truth, the/orwiof a truth, and so far a, divine power lingers in it." 20 standing to the spectacle of Christ's life and incidental death, the sinner is to take courage and receive assurance, being eon* vinoed that his terrors of the condemning sentence of the law are groundless, and that visibly God is not the implacable avenger his guilty fears had painted [pp. 213-216]. This belief is saving faith [p. 214]. This assurance is Justifica- tion [p. 214]. / [P. 213-216.] " An indescribable dread of eril still overhangs the human / spirit. The being is haunted by shadows of wrath and tries all painful me- , thodsof self pacification. Vigils, pilgrimages, sacrifices, tortures, nothing ; is too painful or wearisome that promises to ease the guilt of the mind.' Without any speculations about justification, mankind refuse to justify them- selves. A kind of despair fills the heart of the race. They have no cour- age. Whether.they know Grod or not, they know themselves, and they sen- tence themselves to death. If they have only some obscure notions of a di- vine Being, then they dread the full discovery of him. If he lurks in their gods, they fear lest their gods should visit them in vengeance, or plague them by some kind of mischief. The sky is full of -wrathful powers, and the deep ground also is full. Their-guilty soul peoples the world with venge- ful images of its own creation." [P . 214. ] " And here,'iiow, if we desire to find it, is the true idea of Christian Justification. We discover what it is by the want of it. Justification is that which vrili give confidence, again, to guilty minds ; that which will assure the base and humiliated soul of the world, chase away the demons of wrath and despair it has evoked, and help it to return to God in courage, whispering still to itself — soul be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee." -'' In short he [Christ,] lives confidence into the world. Apart from all theologic theories, we /enow, we see with our eyes, that God will justify us and give us still his peace. And then , when we truly come unto him , believing that Christ the Word is He, when forsaking all things for him, we embrace him as our Mfe, thenare ■^e practically justified. It is impossible for us to fear. No guilt of the past can disturb lis ; a peace that jpasseth understandiug fills our nature. Being Justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. " Or, if we advert, iu'this connection, to the sufferings and death of Christ, we shall see how these, without the imputation of any penal quality or frown of God upon his person, have a special efficacy in fortifying our assurance, or hope of justification with God. Dismiss all speculation about the mode, pos- sibility , interior reality of this suffering ; understand that God, having propos- ed,"in this manner, to express his love, ali logical, theological, ontological, phy- Sioiogioal qu'estions are, by the supposition, out of place. Come, then, to the spectacle of Christ's suffering life and death, as tp a mystery wholly transcend- ent, save in what it expresses of Divine feeling. Call what oithisjeeling you receive, the reality — all else the machina Dei for the expression of this. With deepest reverence of soul, approach that most mysterious sacrament of love, the agony of Jesus ; note the patience of his trial, the meekness of his sub- mission to injustice, and the malignant passions of his enemies ; behold the creation itself darkening and shuddering with a horror of Bensibili*y at the scene transpiring in his death ; hear the cry of the crucified — " Father, for- give them, for they know not what they do ;" then regard the life that was manifested, dropping into cessation, and thereby signifying the deposite of itself in the bosom or that malSgn world to whose enmity it is yielded, — ^who, what man of our race beholding this strange history of the Word, will not feel a new courage enter mto Am soul ? Visibly, God is not the implaca- ble AVEN&ERHis guilty FEAHs HAD PAINTED. But He isiafrieud, he SsloTe And so great is this change, apart from all theology, that I seem even to see 21 3. The ground of Justification is not the sacrifice which Christ has made to answer the eoncfemning sentence of the law, but it is the righteousness which is prepared in us [pp. 254-258]. Christ is riot really our sacrifice or atonement, another ciaraoter produced t>y it in the Christian nations. They dare toJaype. God is closer to them, and in a way to inspire courage. They are not with- ered, humiliated even to baseness, under those guilty and abject fears, thattake away at last the spirit of other nations. It is not that they have all a theory of justification byfaifh, but that their current conceptions of God are such as the history of Jesus, the suffering Eedeemer, has imparted. They have a feeling of something like justification, even if they never heard of it — a feel- ing, which, if it were to vent itself iu language, would say — Therefore we are freely justified by grace. It is not that the suffering appeases God, but that it expresses God« — displays, in open history, the unconquerable love of Gods Heart." [P. 254.] "The moral propriety, then, or possibility, nay, in one Tiew, THE GROTJWD OF JusTiFicATioW, is Bubjectirely prepared in us; viz., in a state or impression, a sense of the sacredness of law, produced in tjs, hj Christ's life and death. But we cannot think of it in this artificial way ; most persons could make nothing of it. We must transfer this subjective state or impression, this grounh of justification, and produce it outwardly, if possible, in some objective form; as if it had some effect on the law or on God. The Jew had done the same before us, and we follow him ; representing Christ as our sacrifice, sin-offering, atonement, or sprinkling of blood. Now in all these terms, we representa work as done outwardly for us, which is really done in us, and through impressions prepared in us, but the more ade- cpiately and truly still, for the reason that we have it in mystic forms before us. These forms are the objective equivalent of our subjective impressions. Indeed, our impressions have their life and power in and under these forms. Neither let it be imagined that we only happen to seize upon these images of sacrifice, atonement, and blood, because they are at hand. They are prepar- ed, as Gods form of art, for the representation of Christ and his work ; and if we refuse to let him pass into this form, we have no mold of thought that can fitly represent him. And when he is thus represented, we are to under- stand that he is our sacrifice and atonement, that by his blood we have re- mission, not in any speculative sense, but as in art. We might as well think to come at the statue of Aristidea speculatively, interpreting its power by geometric demonstrations, instead of giving our heart to the expression of integrity in the form, as to be scheming and dogmatizing over these words atonement, sin-offering^ sacrifice, and blood, which are the divine form of Christianity. [P. 255.] " Itis only another aspect ofthesametruth, when Christ is repre-^ sented, objectively, as our righteousness. As the sacred blood, yielded for sin, stood in the place of a righteousness, in virtue of the impressions produced by it, so also does Christ; and as the offering was a Uturgic exercise of faith and penitence, so likewise Christ is a power to regenerate character and restore us to righteousness of life. What, then, shall we call him, if not our righteousness ; TRANSFEBRiNG, again, what is only subjective, in us, and beholding Jt in it* objective source — that is, in the form of divine art and expression, by which it is wrought. 7 This is the true attitude of faith ; for if , in the utmost sim- plicity, we thus believe in him, if we take him, objectively, as a stock of righteousness for us, and hang ourselves upon him for supply, we can scarcely fail to have his life and character ingrafted in us. We may take his obedience as accruing to our benefit — we may see onr righteousness in Mm, just as we say we see our pity in things that we say are pitiful. If we go farther, if we speak of his righteous;iess as imputed to us, it will not be ill, 22 nor liave we bj his blood any real remission of sins ; these are onl)' terms, as in art, transferring objectively to Christ, the ground of justification, which is really subjective in us ; the eflFect of his death being not upon the sentence of the law, in case we hold the representation as in art^ and not as a dialectic or dogmatic state- memt. " Or, adverting to the affecting truth that Christ has come between us and our sins in his death, we shall see our sins transferred to him, and regard him as loading himself with our evils. And then, as if we had put our sins upon his head, we shall say that he bears our sins, suffers the just for the unjust, is made a curse for us. All those terms of vicarious import, that were generat- ed under the ritual sacrifice, will be applied over to him, and we shall hold him by our faith, as the victim substituted for our sins. And so, with the humblest and most subduing confessions, we shall deposit our soul tenderly and gratefully in his mercy. [256, 7,8.] " Or we may take the general doctrine affirmed as the subjec- tive verity of the Gospel, viz., that God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Then all the sacrificial terms, that represent pacification with God, will came into application at once ; Christ will now be called our priest ans- wering for us, our sacrifice, passover, lamb, blood of sprinkling. Here, too, the word propitiation, as used (I John ii. 2,) — a different word, in the original, from that which we found in the third chapter of the epistle to the Romans — will get its proper objective sense. Viewed thus objectively, Christ will be a propitiation, a piaoular, expiatory, vicarious offering, and, embracing him in this altar form, there will be a simplicity in our moral attitude, such as will favor the transforming and reconciling power of his life, as no attempt to apply him artificially and reflectively would do — therefore witli a more .certain and deeper effect. " Or, if we are occupied more especially with the desire of purification, or with present, actual deliverance from evil, and the new purity and cleanness of our heart before God, we shall speak of Christ as a lustral offering that re- moves our defilement, and declare that the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin. All things, we shall say, in our deep gratitude, are purged Tvith blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. " You perceive, in this mariner, and as a result of our experiment, that as soon as we undertake to throw the elements of our subjective doctrine into an objective representation, it passes immediately into the view commonly desig- nated by the phrase vicarious atonement, only it rather becomes a vicarious religion. And thus, after all, it proves itself to be identical, at the root, with the common Protestant doctrine — identical, I mean, not in any ■rigid and ex- act sense, but in such a sense that one is a more didactic and reflective, the other a more artiitic representation of the same subject matter. There is no conflict, UNTIL WE BEGIN TO ASSERT THE FORMER AS THE ONLY TRUTH OF THE Gospel, or to work up the latter by itself, into a speculative system of dogma, or of moral government. If we say that Christ is here, reconciling men to God, it is, for just that reason, necessary to have a way of representing that God is conciliated toward us. If we say that Christ is a power, to quicken us into newness of life, and bring us out of the bondage we are under to evil, for just that reason do we need to speak of the remission of sins obtained by his blood ; for the two seem to be only different forms of one and the same truth, and are often run together in the Scriptures — as when the blood of Christ, ' who offered himself without spot to God,' is said to ' purge the conscience from dead works, to serve the living God.' The two views are not logically or theologically equivalent, but they are not the less really so on tljat account. An objective religion, that shall stand before me, and be operated or operative for me, excluding all subjective reference of thought, must take such forms, most obviously, as are no logical equivalents 23 but upon us, making impressions on us, and working charac- ter in us [p. 255]. So we call Christ our rigliteousness, transferring to Christ, as in art, what is only subjective in us ; the righteousness by which we are justified being not in Christ, but in us [p. 255]. We only see our own righteousness in him, just as we see our own pity in things that we call pitiful [p. 255]. In no other sense or manner do we see our sins trans- ferred to Christ, or regard him as loading himself with our evils. As if we had put our sins on his head, we say that he bears our sins — suffers the just for the unjust. It is not so ; he does not bear our sins, nor suffer vicariously the just for the unjust ; but we are justified by actual righteousness wrought In us through the impressions of the sacredness of law and of the love of God, made upon us by the manifesta- tion of the same in the life and death of Christ [pp. 255, 266]. VII. — Objective Foems op Subjective Truths. The objective form, if regarded as the truth, is not true [pp. 257, 268], the representation bearing no true correspondency to of the same, considered as addressing and describing Qur internal states : for, by the supposition, an objective artistic power is siibstituted for those methods of address which appeal to consideratiori, reflection, and self-regulation." — " It is the Divine Form of Christianity, in distinction from all others, and is, in that view, substantial to it, or consubstantial with it. It is, in fact, a Dimne Ritual for theworking of the world's mind." — " The Christ must become a religion for the soul and before it ; therefore, a Rite -or Liturgy for the world's feeling, — otherwise Christianity were incomplete, or imperfect." [P. 266.] "If the soul, then, is ever to get her health and freedom in goodness, she must have the gospel, not as a doctrine only, but as rite before her, a righteousness, a ransom, a sacrifice, a lamb slain, a blood offered for her cleansing before Jehovah's altar. Then, reclining her broken heart on this, calling it her religion — hers by faith — she receives a grace broader than consciousness, loses herself in a love that is not imparted in the molds of mere self-culture, and without mating folly of Christ bj^ her own vain self-appli- cations, he is made unto Aer -wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and re- demption." , [P. 257.] " There is no conflict" [between this doctrine and " the common Protestant doctrine"] " until we begin to assert the" [latter] " as the only truth of the Gospel." [See the pasage under Justification.] . [P. 268.] " First, we have what may be called the Protestant form, ■which. takes the ritualistic side of the Gospel, the objective «ide, turns it into dogma, and re-asserts it as a theoretic or theologic truth. And then, though it be NO iiONGEK A TRUTH, the form of a truth, and, so far, a divine power lingers in it. I say a divine power; for this holy form of sacrifice is no child of hu- man art or reason, but the body prepared of God to be the vehicle of his love to men. But, alas ! the Protestant world have not been able to content them- selves in it, or to think it sufliciently wise, till they have changed it into 24 any thing real. It is only a fornn, or representation, or litargy, by whicJi impressions are produced in us. Thus, there being no real sacrifice, nor any real remission of sin as the effect of sacrifice, and the atonement being no propitiation to the di- vine justice, but a simple at-one-ment — having alt its effect upon us [see pp. 236, 237, under Atonement] not by any real altar ceremony, but only by an artistic display — a liturgic form [see pp. 252-255, under Atonement] for an effect in the direct manner of art, — to tarn these representations into dog- ma, and represent them as realitieSj is to represent as truth that which is not true [pp. 268, 257] ; and the Protestant world, who have taught that these representations of atone- ment and remission by the blood of Christ have a true corres- pondence with any thing real, and so are the truth, have done what they could to set themselves between God's wisdom and man's want [p. 268.] Howbeit, there are beams of light yet shining by them, and some, it is to be trusted, shine through » inasmuch as what they set forth as truth, though no truth, is yet a Divine Form — the body prepared by God to be the ve- hicle of his love to men. The particle of truth which Pro- testants hold, is no reason for their contending about the faith, either with Papists or Unitarians, who also hold their particle : — on the basis of this doctrine of objective forms of subjective truths, Protestants, Romanists, and Unitarians, may all unite> universalize their feelings, and become brothers [pp. 269-270]- dogma, and made it human ; in which they have done what they could to set themselves between God's wisdom and man's want. Still there are beams of light shining by them, and some, I trust, shine through." [P. 269.] " Secondly, on the left of this Protestant form, we have the speculative or philosophic form." — " Under this, as one of its varieties, the unitarian doctrine is included. Nor is there any doubt that we declare a great and real truth, when we say that the reconciliation of ma» to God ra the sole object of Christ's mission." — " Keason is not confused and baffled here, as in the Protestant dogma, but the altar of self- renunciation, and faith, she has taken down." P. 270.] " Thirdly, on the right hand of the Protestant view, we have the Romish form, the form of the mass. Here the ritual, objective view, is all in all — nay, somewhat more than all."—" We deal with blood, not as a symbol to faith and feeling, but as a real and miraculous entity. But here, again, a Ught will sometimes stream by the miracle, into the worshipper's heart— -gen- uine light from Christ our peace, and the Lamb that taketh away our sin." — " Seeing thus how at-one-ment and atonement and the mass, all, lie about the Christian tmth, receiving something from it which belongs to its verity, re- jecting much that is essential to its value and power, is it better to busy our- 35 VIII. — CiiEiSTfANiTT Esoteric and Exoteeic. There may be a true Christian experience when one rejects the altar form, both as a truth and as a form without truth [p- 264, 265]. It will add greatly to the comfort and true under- standing o? the preacher, if he has in his mind this solution of the form, viz., that it is art and not truth [p. 271], and prob- ably the philosophic or subjective view (which rejects the doctrine of vicarious atonement as a reality, andvipws it as a liturgy or form of art) may be allowed to come into a some- what more prevalent use among a cultivated, philosophic peo- ple [p. 271], and in a philosophic age of the world. Yet such people will, fromjheir infirmities, continue to have some need of the sacrificial or ritual view [p. 271]; and the rude masses would be much injured by the discovery that these represent- ations are not realities; and would make a sad figure in ap- plying a gospel of philosophic causes to their own nature, for they hardly know as yet that they have a nature [p. 267]. selves for the next eighteen centuries, in quarreling, each for the particle of truth he has, because it is a particle, or, to come back, in shame and sorrow, and receive enough of God's truth to enlarge our consciousness, universalize our feelings, and make us brothers r" [P. 264-3 " I do not say here, it will be observed, that no one can have a true Christian experience, who does not find it in the embrace of Christ as a sacrifice, or a vicarious religion ; I only af&rm that no one ever becomes a true Christian man, who does not rest himself in God, or give himself over to God in objective faith and devotion, somehow. He may do this, regarding simply the essential truth and goodness of God as revealed in Jesus Christ !" — " And here it is that the objective view of C%ns«. holds a connection so profound, with all that is freest, most unselfish, and most elevated in Christian experi- ence. There may be a Christian experience where it is rejected" [p. 265.] [P. 271.] " An interesting question remains, which I can only reply to just far enough to save from misapprehension, viz., how ought Christ to be preached ? Not, certainly, as a theory, nor in the half scholastic manner in which I have here exhibited the Christian doctrine. I only think it will add greatly to the comfort and true seLf-mderstandi/ng of the preacher in his wfHrka, if he has,mAisoM>«mimrf,some such solution as this. Meantime, he is to preach much as the Scriptures themselves speak, blending the two views of Christ t<^ether. Sometimes he will be more in one,and sometimes more in the other. Probably the philosophic, or subjective view, may be allowed to come into a somewhat ilwre prevalent use among a cultivated, philesophie people, cmd in aphilomphic age of the world. But it must never exclude and displace the sacrificial or ritual view ;1 for even the Christian philosopher himself will need often to go back to this \ holy altar of feeling, and hang there, trusting in Christ's offering ; there to • rest himself in the quietness of faith, getting away from his care and reflec- i tion, and his troublesome self-culture, to be eared, for and clothed with aj righteousness not his own." P. 267.] " I niight speak also"—" of the sad figure that would be made by 26 They want an altar, and at least a form of Christ's blood sprinkled on it ; he must, though not in reality, yet in their apprehension, bear their sins for them. He must be a stock of righteousness before them, and be, in fact, their religion- They, then, taking him by faith to he all this before and for them, though, in reality, he is nothing of all this at all, — the Divine Art hidden in it transforms their inner life, in the im- mediate and absolute manner of art; and seeing now their new peace, not in themselves, where it is, but in God (where it is not,) they rejoice that God is reconciled, and his anger smoothed away ; being equally under an illusion in supposing this last to be true as the first [p. 267 ; see 213-216, under Justification]. the rude masses of the world, in applying a gospel of philosophic causes to their own nature ; for they hardly know, as yet, that th§y have a nature. How manifest is it that they want an altar, set up before them, and if they cannot quite see the blood of Christ sprinkled on it, they must have it as a Form in their souls ; he must be a stock of righteousness before them ; he must bear their sins for them, and be, in fact, their religion.. Then, taking him, by faith, TO BE all this before and for them, the Divine Art hid in it, transforms their inner life, in the immediate, absolute maimer of art ; and seeing now their new peace, not in themselves, where it is, but in Wed, they rejoice that God is re- conciled, and his anger smoothed away. "However, there is no such difference of class among men, that the most cultivated and wisest disciple will not often need, and as often rejoice, to get away from all self-handling and self-cherishing cares." — " The mind becomes wearied and lost in its own mazes, discouraged and crushed by its frequent defeats, and virtue itself, being only a conscious tug of exertion, takes a look as unbeautiful as the life is unhappy. Therefore we need, all alike, some objec- tive religion ; to come and hang ourselves upon the altar of sacrifice sprink- led by the blood of Jesus; to enter into the Holiest set open by his death; to quiet our soul in his peace, clothe it in his righteousness, and trust him as the Lamb of God that taketh away our sin. In these simple, unselfish, un- reflective exercises, we shall make our closest approach to God." REMARKS. According to this scheme, we are both justified and sanc- tified, by embracing as truth that which is no truth ; and though the more " cultivated and philosophic " might become so even under a knowledge of the truth, yet it is essential to the " rude masses " to be thus deluded. Accordingly, God prepares a Divine Form, a form not corresponding to the reality of things, and which, regarded as the truth, is not true,, by which, through an illusion — not to say deception — prac- tised on their understandings, he moves their feelings to loves 27 aad righteousness. This illusion is far more effectual than truth ; indeed the rude masses would have made a sad figure with the truth; and even the cultivated and philosophic stand in much need of the illusion. God therefore , persuades men that Christ died to atone for their sins to his offended justice and to his injured law ; but this is not so. He makes them believe that Christ is the propitiation for their sins, and that Christ is their righteousness ; but it is not so. Taught to ap- ply to Christ "all these terms of vicarious import" [pp. 255- 258], they hold him hy faith as the victim substitutedi'or ihe'ir sins [p. 267]. Holding thus, by faith, to an untruth, under the illusion; — or delusion — that Christ bears their sins [p. 256]i suffers the just for the unjust, is made a curse for them — " with the humblest and most subduing confessiobs, they de- posit their souls tenderly and gratefully in the Divine mercy " [p. 256]. Thus by Divinely prepared Forms, or Liturgic exer- cises wrought before them, and by Divine Art hid in forms de- void of truth, God converts and sanctifies the soul. And, what is even more remarkable in this scheme is, that God so deludes men by representations of vicarious suffering, which have in them, "when speculatively regarded," that which is "' repugnant to the most sacred instincts or sentiments of our moral nature," and which " dissolves itself at the first approach of rational inquiry " [p. 203]; and by which, if we once regard these representations as true, he forfeits our es- teem as the God of our love and worship [p. 199]. Our Lord Jesus Christ says, " Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth." No, says this book, sanctify them thi'ough illusions. It will not do for the rude masses to kiiow the truth. Besides, " thy word " — in its representations of vi- carious atonement, and as it is necessary to be understood by the rude masses — is not " truth." The Savior says, " Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." No, says this book ; truth cannot be known ; language is inadequate to allow of any written and external revelation which shall truly and intelligibly declare the mind and will of God to his creatures. What we want 28 is not truth, but impressions from litur^es and forms of art. Doctrinal statements of truth are mere dogma, fraught with error and mischief Ye shall not know the truth; ye shall receive impressions from Forms of Art, and embrace by faith things which are not truths; and error " shall make you free." We had indeed read of some, that God should send them " strong delusion that they might believe a lie ; that they all might be damned who believe not the truth ;" and that for the very reason, that they " received not the love of the truth,. that they might be saved." But according to this theory, God has beforehand prepared Forms of Art, to bring upon men strong delusion, that they might believe a lie, and embrace it with faith, that they might be saved. We cannot receive such a scheme. We regard it as a corruption of God's holy truth — a subversion of the most fundamental and vital doc- trines of Christianity ; as destructive of all confidence in re- velation itself; in one word, as "another Gospel." IX. Has Dr. Bushnell retracted any of these doctrines ? Has his communication, embodied in the report of the Ma- jority, contradicted them ? We inquire, 1st, Concerning the Trinity. In that commu- nication Dr. Bushnell says : " I start with the conception of the One God, different, I suppose, in no wise, from the one substance or homousion of the Church, — which one God is developed to us, or becomes a subject of knowledge under the conditions of a three-fold personality. I take the three, therefore, in their threeness, as distinct grammatical personalities, as they are practically employed in the Bible, acting and interacting mutually to- wards each other, as the Bible represents ; only refusing to investigate their interior mystery— believing that in such a use of them, I receive in the truest and fullest manner the One God. The Trinity and Unity as thus set forth, I constantly preach in public, regarding it as necessary to the efficacy of the Gospel, in saving souls. I love this Trinity, I live upon it. Without it I feel that I could not work my mind and hear! in the private exercises of my own Christian fife." Is there here any retraction of what Dr. Bushnell has 29 taught in his book ? It is not pretended that there is. Is there here any contradiction of what he has taught in his book ? Not even the shadow of it. Nor does it appear that such was his design, or that he would allow it to be the fact if it were so charged. The only difference is, that in this com- munication, he has dealt in general terms, which in his book he has fully explained ; and that explanation is, that there is no Trinity in the Godhead, but only an instrumental Trinity, produced and adequately accounted for by a process of reve- lation,— a Trinity which, even as a representation, is probably casual, and finally to vanish away. The only thing insisted on in the report is, that Dr. Bush- nell preaches the Trinity, and lives upon it in his Christian experience ; just as he finds it revealed in the Bible ; and that a minister should be held responsible, not for his theories, but for his preaching, and for holding the facts of the Gospel. But Dr. Bushnell has set forth in his book, what facts, and what Trinity, he finds in the Bible. Are we to understand that his preaching is contradictory to these ? or does his ex- planation imply that his preaching is even different from the representations which he has given in his book ? We see not the slightest reason to suppose so. We regard the book, therefore, as the true explanation of the more general state- ments of the communication embodied in the report ; and we have already declared, that in our view, the doctrine of the book is a denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, as it stands in the formulas of our churches, and as it stands connected with the other fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. We inquire, 2d, of the explanation concerning the doctrine o^ Justification hy Faith. The communication inserted in the majority report is in these words, viz. : " I hold most emphatically the doctrine of Justification by Faith, and that any and every form of religion which propos- es to save mankind, on terms of merit or desert, is not Chris- tianity. As regards the ground of Justification, I believe that without somefthJng done, which in Christ is done, to declare 30 the righteousness of God, and maintain the sanctity of law, a free pardon offered to sinners would be nearly equivalent to a dissolution of Government. At the same time I look upon Christ as fulfilling the highest and principal office of his Mes- siahship by means of the incarnation itself, that is, by the rev- elation he makes of God's feelings towards us, in and through the human state assumed, and the immense power he exerts, or is to exert, in this manner, over our spiritual character. He is then emphatically 'The Life,' the new-creating grace of God — the wisdom of God and the power. To preach him in this character, is my deepest study, and my in tensest love to him centers here." Now when one declares, in a formal explanation of his views, upon their being called in question, that he holds most emphatically " The doctrine of Justification by Faith," he is bound to use the terms, Justification and Faith, in their cur- rent sense, as he knows they will be received by those whom he addresses, and by the intelligent Christian community be- fore whom that explanation is to be spread and have its effect; that is, in the sense in which they are current among the or- thodox churches, the orthodox ministers, and in the orthodox standard writers and formulas. To use them in a sense fun- damentally different from this, when they can exonerate him from heresy only by being understood in the current sense, is to pass off a counterfeit as current and genuine coin. Does Dr. Bushnell then mean by the words " Justification by Faith," what those words mean in their current sense, and what they will commonly be understood to mean by our min- isters and churches ? If so, then he has retracted and renounced all that he has taught on this subject in his book. If this be so — if your As- sociation have received evidence that it is so — ^we shall greatly rejoice, and only demand that the evidence of such retraction be made as unequivocal and as public, as your re- port, and as the book itself If this be not so, then we re- spectfully submit, that our brethren of the Hartford Central Association have inadvertantly accepted a spurious Justifica- tion by Faith, instead of the true one ; and have been made the instrument of passing off upon the Christian public, a Justifi^ 31 cation by Faith which the orthodox Christian public have only to know, to pronounce it spurious. If Dr. Bushnell has retracted the doctrine of his book, on the subject of Justification by Faith, it is well. If he has not, then we refer to those doctrines in the passages which we have cited, in proof of the justice of our conviction, that he does not hold " The doctrine of Justi- fication by, Faith," which those terms currently represent, and which they will by our ministers and churches be understood to indicate : but that he holds to a Justification, and a Faith — and to a Justification by Faith — diametrically opposed to the common orthodox doctrine known by that name, and utterly subversive of it. It is on this account that we regard the book as the more dangerous, and the more reprehensible, — that while it denies the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, and substitutes in their places dogmas which are contrary to and subversive of the same, it stillemploys the words Trinity, Atonement, Redemp- tion, Faith, Justification, as though it were not denying, — but as though it were inculcating, — the great truths which these terms currently represent. In our view, therefore, it is not by any deep " Chetnistry of thought," but by a simple and un- warrantable change of names, that the book proposes to fuse down, and unite in one homogeneous substance, systems of faith as irreconcilable as the doctrine of Christ and the docr trine of devils; calling evil good, and good evil ; putting bit- ter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. We beg leave, alsoj to call your attention to another im- portant error — on pp. 97, 98 — viz., that a man is not responsi- ble for his belief, whether he holds the truth or rejects it. The passages are in these words : — " I suppose it is proper to say, that I did not prepare the occasions on, which, these Dis- courses were delivered, and seem scarcely to have chosen the subjects themselves. Indeed) I seem, too^ as regards the views presented, to have had only about tlis same agency in forming them, that I |y;e in prepar-ing the blood I circulate, and the anatomic frame I occupy. They are not my choice, or invenMon,.so much as a necessary growth, whose process^ I 32 can hardly trace myself. And now, in giving them to the public, I seem only to have about the same kind of option left me that I have in the matter of appearing in corporal mani- festation myself, — about the same anxiety, I will add, concern- ing the unfavorable judgments to he encountered ; for though a man's opinions are of vastly greater moment than his looks, yet if he is equally simple in them, as in his growth, and equally subject to his law, he is responsible only in the same degj-ee, and ought not, in fact, to suffer any greater concern about their reception, than about the judgments passed upon his person." • We also call your attention to the views of the author of the book on the subject of Creeds, — on p. 82 — viz. : " Per- haps it is on this account that I have never been able to sym- pathize at all with the abundant protesting of the New Eng- land Unitarians against Creeds. So far from suffering even the least consciousness of constraint, or oppression, under any creed, I have been readier to accept as great a number as fell in my way : for when they are subjected to the deepest chemistry of thought, that which descends to the point of re- lationsSiip between the form of the truth and its interior formless nature, they become, thereupon, so elastic, and run so freely into each other, that one seldom need have any dif- ficulty in accepting as many as are offered him." We deem that we might justly advert to other important matters contained in the book : its views of language, which we view as teaching men lightly to regard the difference be- tween truth and error, and as i«ipugning the sincerity and sufficiency of the revelation given to us by God ; its teachings with regard to inspiration, and its implication relative to the renewing of the Holy Ghost, whose essentia] personality the book denies. We, however, waive all consideration of these topics further than to request you, — ^if you skall see cause to reconsider your doings — to give to these matters the attention which their importance demands,., n Such, in our view, is the scheme ordoctrine to which your decision has given your sanction, as lot inconsistent with the 33 faith of our churches so far as justly to subject one who teaches it even to a trial for heresy. In our view, so far as these doc- trines shall prevail, the Gospel of Christ will be as prevalently rejected and trodden down. If they pass among us not only without ecclesiastical censure, but with an express ecclesiasti- cal allowance, — and if our churches and associations shall, by their silence, acquiesce in such a decision, — then a good stand- ing in the church, and in the ministry among us, ought not, in our view, to be any longer regarded as eren prima facie evi- dence of soundness in the faith : nor could we, in such an event, desire that it should be so considered by the orthodox churches in our land. Such a wide-spread indifference to the truth we should regard as a matter greatly to be deplored. And now, brethren, with all due affection and esteem, arro- gating to ourselves no superiority or authority, and wishing you grace, mercy, and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord, we make to you this our respectful but earnest Remonstrance AND Complaint. We entreat you to reconsider your doings, and to redress the injury, which, as we believe, you have in- advertently done to our churches, to the truth, to the cause of salvation, and to our Lord Jesus Christ, the adorable Re- deemer who bought us with his blood. Edwin Hall, Moderator. Thbophilus Smith, Scribe. 34 THE REPLY. " Hartfokd, March 6, 1850. "To THE Members of the Fairfield West Association : Dear Brethren : — A special meeting of the Hartford Central Association was held in Hartford, at the house of the Rev. Mr. Clarke, on Tuesday, March 5th, to entertain your Remonstrance and Complaint in reference to the action of Association upon the book of Dr. Bushnell, entitled " God in Christ." Present — Rev. Messrs. Robbins, D.D., Porter, D.D., Hawes, D.D., Bushnell, D.D., Scranton, Bartlet, Spring, Hempsted, Woodruff, Seward, W. Wright, Riciiardson, Clarke, Patton, McLean, Raymond, Searle, Grant, and J. L. Wright. The following resolutions were passed, and the undersigned were appointed a committee to transmit them to the Mode- rator of your Association. D. M. Seward, Moderator of Hartford Central Ass'n, John A. Hempsted, Scribe. R esolutions. "Resolved, That we acknowledge the receipt of a Remon- strance and Complaint from our brethren of Fairfield Asso- ciation, on the subject of our decision respecting the publica- tion of Dr. Bushnell, entitled •' God in Christ ;" that we grate- fully accept their fraternal admonitions, and sympathize with them in their attachment to those doctrines of the Gospel which have been supposed to be controverted in the above- mentioned publication. 35 " Resolved, That, having carefully examined the book of Dr. Bushnell, and heard his vindication 'of himself against the charges of heresy brought against him from various quarters, and, after solemn deliberation, come to the conclusion of which our brethren complain, we cannot, with all our respect for their judgment, think it consistent with the established rules of judicial proceedings, or with justice to ourselves or to Dr. Bushnell, to review that decision, or institute a new in- vestigation of the case, until new evidence of a decisive cha- racter shall be presented to us. "Resolved, That we have carefully considered the statements and arguments presented to us by the Fairfield West Associa- tion ; that in making up our decision we allowed greater weight to the statement of Dr. Bushnell, as published in con- nection with it, than our brethren of that Association appear to be willing to allow it ; and that we protest against the con- clusion that we give our sanction to any peculiarities of Dr. Bushnell's scheme of doctrine." APPEAL or IBB ASSOCIATION OF EAIEEIELD WEST, ASSOCIATED MINISTERS COHKECTED WITH THE GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF CONNECTICUT. NEW YORK : PRINTED FOB THE ASSOCIATION OF FAIRFIELD WEST, BY BAKER, GODWIN & CO. Tribnn* Buildings, oppoiite City Hall. 1852. EXTRACTS FROM THE .MINUTES OF THE ASSOCIATION OF FAIRFIELD WEST. ^ ^^^ Anmeal Meeting, Fairfield, May 27, 1851. — " The letter of Hartford Central Association to this body, dated May 20, 1851, was read and referred to a committee, consisting of Messrs. T. Smith, L.BE. Atwater, and S. B. S. Bissell." Adjowrned MeeUng at New Camaan^ July 1, 1S51. — " The committee to wh6m the last communication from the Hart- ford Central Association had been referred, made a report in part, and were continued to report at an adjourned meeting. Dr. Hall was added to the committee." Adjourned Meeting at North Stamford, Oct. 15, 1851. — "The committee to 'jrhom the last communication of the Hartford Central Association had been referred, made a report in part." Adjourned' Meetmg at Fairfield, Nov. 4, 1851. — "The committee to whom the last communication from the Hart- ford Central Association had been referred, completed their report. Voted that the report be accepted." Adjourned M&eting, Norwalh, Deo. 2, 1851. — " Were present, Kev. Elders, M. Mead, S. Haight, H. Fuller, 0. Bentley, E. D. Kinney, E. Hall, D.D., T. Smith, S. B. S. Bis- sell, T. B. Stui^ges, I. Jennings, C. Clarkj A. B. Kich, Gordon Hall, "W. J. Jennings, and B. B. Beardsley. Heard that ?art of the report which relates to Dr. BushnelVs Views.on HE Atonement, as expressed in his book entitled ' Christ in TkEOLOGT.' All the passages referred to, were read from the book, and full time was allowed for comments thereon by members of the Association. Voted, that the part of the report which has b.een read at this session, be approved and adopted." Adjoined Meeting at Stamford, Deo. 16, 1851. — " "Were E resent, Eev. Elders, M. Mead, S. Haight, H. Fuller, J. H. .insley, D.D., 0. Bentley, E. Hall, D.D., T. Smith, L. H. Atwater, D.D., S. B. S. Bissell, I. Jennings, A. B. Kich, and W. J. Jennings. Heard that part ot the report which relates to Dr. BushneWs Views on The Tbinitt, and The Inoaenation, as expressed in his book entitled ' Christ in Theology ;' also that part which relates to his views on SEVEEAL coLLATEEAii SUBJECTS, as exprcssed in his books, 'God in Cheist,' and ' Cheist in Theology.' Voted unani- mously, to adopt the parts of the report which have just been read. Also heard that part of the report whicb replies to the pamphlet of ' C. C.,' and voted to adopt the same, with a view to its being printed as an Appendix." Adjova-ned Meeting at Easton, Dec. 30, 1851. — " Voted that the introduction and conclusion of the report be recom- mitted to the same committee." . . Ad^owfned Meeting at N'orwalk, FA> 3, 1852. — " "Were present. Rev. Elders, S. Haight^ H. Fuller, J. H. Linsley, I).D., E. D. Kinney, E. Hall, D.D., T. Smith, L. H. Atwater, D.D., C. T. Prentice, S. B. S. Bissell, Z. B, Burr, I. Jennings, S. J. M. Merwin, Gordon Hall,, and Martin Dudley. The committee to whom the introductory and concluding parts of the report had been referred, reported an introduction and conclusion. Voted, to accept this report. Voted, to adopt this report. Voted, that the w^hole repbrt, the several parts of which have been adopted by this body, at its meetings, December 2d, and December 16th, 1851, and at this present meeting, be printed, and a copy thereof sent to each of the Associated Ministers in the State ; and that the committee who prepared the report, superintend its publication and dis- tribution." The foregoing are true extracts from the Minutes of the Association. Attest Theophilus Smith, Eegister. APPEAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF TAIEFIELD WEST, c6j? 7li(a i^n+TT- nf an-& \iviBe es- sence," mean simple heresy, [p. 173]. This is the prevailing doctrine among us, [pp. 173-4]. It, is equivalent to the doctrine of three substances in the Divine nature, [pp. 186-7]. "We have no standard better than a residuary trithei&tic compost," [p. 175]. Dr. B. therefore peremptorily refuses to justify him- , [P. 1*72.] "Oesisiiig to coneeiye a Trinity of act, we began to assert a Trinity of persons in the Divine essence itself which is plain tritheism." [P. 1Y3.] " Our brethren of Fairfield, too, in the minute they sent to our General Association at Salisbury, complained of it as a heresy, that some are be- ginning to deiiy ' three distinct persons in the one Divine essence — ^where the particle 'in' it is true, may be explained to mean only 'pertaming to' (i e., to the divine essence regarded as a necessarily active principle), and so to be con- sistent vnth proper Orthodoxy ; but which, taken in the liTew England sense of the terms, as I have no dmtbt it was both meant and understood, is simple heresy." [P. 173-4.] " Or, if it be suggested that all these examples of crudity and con- fusion are so many casual aberrations, and do not represent the true state of doctrine among us, I reply that our ablest preachers and theologie professors are even accustomed to assert and maintain a Trinity of persons in the Divine essence. More commonly they use the word nature, by which they understand the same thing." [P. 17 6.] "I do, then, peremptorily refuse to justify myself as regards this matter of IVipity, before any New England standard. We have no standard bet- ter than a residuary tritheistic cmnpost, such as may be left us after we have cast away that which alone made the old historic doctrme of Trinity possible. I tnow not whether you design to make a standard for me of this decadent and dilapi- dated orthodoxy of ours ; but if you do, then I appeal to Csesar ; I even under- take to arraign your standard itself before the tribimal of history. "I do not undertake to say, or care to show, that the doctrine of trinity I have asserted coincides exactly with that which has been maintained in the church. I will only say that it classes with the church doctrine, while that of New England does not. The result of our comparison wiU be this. New Eng- land, as we have seen, asserts «• tries to fmd a Tirmity of persons in the Divine essence, or substance, or nature. Tliis the church doctrine formally and peremp- torily rejects as a fatal heresy ; asserting, instead, a Trinity grounded in the ne- cessary activity of God, a Trinity eternally being developed in God's necessary activity ; just as we, in virtue of our vital, conscious nature, necessarily generate thought" [Pp. 186-7.] "By this careful examination of the Nicene Couneil, which is the fountain of church doctrine as regards this particular subject of Trinity, you have discovered, I think, that our New England doctrine has little to say of Or- thodoxy ; having itself denied and oast away precisely that on which the church doctrine hangs, viz., the eternal generation and procession, and affirmed precisely that which the church doctrine denies, viz., a thre^old substance, or three substances in the Divine nature." JPp. 169-70.] "That you will be wholly satisfied with my representations, ■ trjnng them by the tests of our New England Orthodoxy, I do not expect or wish. My design was to make issue with this, and even to arraign it as a virtual heresy. "Pardon me if I speak plainly on this subject — duty compels. I take no pleasure in disturbing the feelings of my brethren ; but the struggles of experi- ence have opened to my view other disturbances, or even silent woes of feeling, 25 self before any New England standard, and , arraigns New England ministers as heretics, [pp. 169-70 ; see also 175.] EEMABKS. OuE best guiding light out of this bewildering maze will be a brief statement of the christian doctrine of the Trinity, as it is given in the Scriptures, and has ever been received by all branches of the christian church, to the exclusion of every contrary system. The Scriptures constantly and manifoldly teach : 1. That there is one and but one living and true God. 2. That the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. 3. That the Father, Son, and HolyvGhost, are severally the objects and sources of personal acts,, reciprocally as between themselves, and also as between themselves and created per- sons. 4. That the personal proiiouns I, thou, he, are properly applied to them. 6. That they are eternal. The sum of these representations is, that God exists in one undivided essence, and in three co-equal, co-eternal, uncon- founded persons ; or that " there are three persons in the God- head, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance, equal in power and glory." Under whatever diversities of mere phraseology, this is ^n substance the view given in the accredited symbols of the various branches of the Christian Church. No opposing doc- trine has gained a permanent footing within its precincts. It is true, also, that the doctrines of eternal generation and pro- cession have been by many branches of the christian church ■which, as they have 1117 sympathy and have themselves furnished to me my duty, I must not betray or, fear to redress. Yes, I frankly own to you that I accept no prevailing view of Trinity now held in New England. If I understand the sense of this doctrine, now prevailing among us (under and contrary to some of our professed formulas), I must dissent from it. I did so in my dis- course at New Haven : I continue to do it. I go hefore the Christian world and arraign its aditerents there, one and all, to make answer for its truth." 26 regarded as scriptnral. By some, they have been deemed more, and by some, less important, as collateral explanations and supports of the doctrine of the Trinity. But by few, have they been considered essential to the doctrine itself. Of this, the fact that they are contained in the larger but not in the shorter catechism of the Westminister assembly, is a familiar illustration. Indeed, while we know of no church which would allow the rejection of the doctrine of the three persons in the Godhead, as already stated, we know of none which we suppose would treat eternal generation and procession as fundamental. Certainly it has not been so treated in our own platform, which expressly provides that it shall be deemed satisfactory if we accept the shorter catechism. As Dr. B. shows, p. 187, the church doctrine of the Trinity has been and is, that the one nature or essence of the Godhead is in each of the persons. It is but another and more common form of stating the same truth, to say that the three persons are in, i. e., are inseparable from the one substance. Both forms of speech have ever been used interchangably for the express purpose of denying Tritheism, not less than Sabellian- ism. Thus, opening the first volume of divinity at hand, not of New England origin, we find that it describes the " Trinity as the substance of one nature in Three Persons, or of Three Persons in one and the same individual nature?'' {StacJc- house''s Body of Di/viniti/, p. 144.) Dr. Bushnell, pp. 187-9, argues that because Calvin taught that the whole Divine es- sence is in each of the persons, therefore he would reprobate the present New England doctrine, that there are " three per- sons in the Divine essence." Yet nothing is more certain than that he used the latter mode of statement freely, as being equivalent to the former, and as expressing the true doctrine. Thus he says, {Ins., Book I., Chap, adii., Sec. 16,) " It is quite evident that there are three persons in the divine essence." ( Unde plane constat in Dei essentia residere ires personas^ Again he says, {8ec. 22,) " The sum of Servetus' speculations is, that we make God tri partite (three substances, ir.) if we say 27 that there are three ^persons wi his essence^ and that such a triad is imaginary because it conflicts with the unity of God. * * * He would have it that the persons are certain external forms, which do not really subsist in the essence of God, but figure God to us under this or that aspect." "While this shows that the vaunted new discovery now in question is only an old heresy exhumed, it also shows beyond a perad- venture, Calvin's position on the subject. The test formula with him, is precisiely that of N"ew England Congregationalists, and of the church universal. The favorite jjhrase which we meet continually in the old Christian writers is, that " in the Godhead there is a Trinity of persons in Unity of essence." It has undoubtedly come down from the famous formula of Athanasius, which was his triple shield against Tritheism, Arianism and Sabellianism ; " We worship one God in Trin- ity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." This very formula suggested the phraseology of this association, " Three distinct perso^is in the (me essence of the Godhead," which, as we have seen, Dr. B. condemns as having been meant for " simple heresy." And because New England teachers use similar language, he charges that they are guilty of heresy, " PLAnsr teitHeism," p. 172. There may have been, possibly, occasional individuals in New England as elsewhere, who have had a tritheistic or a Sabellian leaning in their speculations. But beyond the shadow of a doubt, the faith of the great body of New Eng- land'ministers,-and the standard of doctrine among them, are truly expressed in the language of the "Westminster Catechism, already cited, and are essentially identical with those of the whole Christian world. Justice to this large body of Christian people and ministers constrains us to pronounce the charge of holding " tritheism," *'. e., that there are three Divine sub- stances or Gods, preferred against them by Dr. B., a gratui- tous calamny, unsupported by any proof which would not convict all Christendom of tritheism. This manoeuvre of Dr. B. must fail either to satisfy or si- 28 lence the friends of truth. He avowedly makes war upon the doctrine of the Trinity as held among ourselves ; and, as we think we have shown, to an equal extent, he assails the doc- trine as set forth in the Bible, and held through all Christen- dom. Does he show the contrary ? He claims, indeed, on p. 175, that the Nicene creed gives us a " Trinity generated by the essential activity of God's na- ture." But in what sense, if in any, is this so ? Does not Dr. B. himself show that, call it activity or what you will, it is such that the Three distinct persons are eternally subsistent or immanent in the Godhead, and. inseparable from it, as Radiance with respect to Light and Form to Substance ? p. 180. And does he not avow, p. 184, that he himself " begins with a Trinity generated in time," and assure us, p. 133, that his position "requires him to controvert all arguments which prove or disprove an immanent Trinity ?" Does he not de- clare himself too " modest" to believe in such a Trinity ? p. 120, If the New England standard on the Trinity condemns his views, much more does the Nicene, which simply adds to the eternal personality of the Son and Spirit, their eternal gen- eration and procession, in a sense which he does not claim that he adopts. Sabellianism allows but one real person in the Godhead. So far as three Divine persons appear in Scripture, it holds that they are merely modal, i. e., media or instruments of re- vealing God, but having no correspondent reality in the being or nature of God. So Dr. B. states the issue, p. 119. He adopts the Sabellian view as far as it goes, i. e., that the. three persons are instruments of revelation. But whether they are more, he can not affirm or deny. His position requires him to controvert all arguments that go to peove that they are im- manent in the Godhead, p. 133. This is but the most decisive way of saying that there is no peoof of a Trinity that is more than modal. But if there be no evidence of it, how can it be an object of faith ? The only Trinity, then, which Dr. Bush- nell leaves to our faith, is the merely modal or dramatic one of Sabellius. 29 He further assures us that his object is to forestall the con- troversy between the Orthodox and Sabellians, p. 118. This cannot be, unless the Orthodox cease to believe that which distinguishes them from the Sabellians. He can scarcely "speak with respect," p. 163, of the protestations of Ortho- doxy against Sabellianism. He signifies to us, p. 121, that the idea of a real Trinity lying back of that produced by the process of revelation, " shocks the nlind by a raw absurdity :" that Orthodoxy and Unitarianism have their root in the " same vicious assumption," and are engaged in a " like futile eifort," pp. 128-9 ; that whatever impression we get of God as Three, which is other than a conception of him as One, is a " residu- um of form and ?^^«m5er belonging not to the truth, but to the vehicle of truth," p. 126 ; that the admission of a three-fold distinction in the Divine nature " means nothing," p. 147 ; that every honest debater must be defeated in an attempt to maintain the three persons, p. 147 ; that he himself can ac- count for a Trinity, because a representative multiplicity is the best means of expressing unity of substance, pp. 164-5. "When, in addition to all this, he repeats the stale charge of all rejecters of the Trinity, that what proves to be the doctrine of the whole trinitarian world is " plain TErraEiSM," p. 172, what does he leave us of that doctrine but the name? After all this, to tell us that the Trinity Tnay be immanent in the Godhead as all number, form, family, sex, &c., are, pp. 144-5 ; that God must reveal himself by antagonisms, as man reveals himself by contrasts, pp, 150-1, is to efface any shadow of this adorable mystery left by his previous speculations. Nor does he elevate his dogma above Sabellianism, by telling us that God has an eternally self-revealing nature, while he contends that we can know nothing of any Trinity not "generated in tiine" by the process of actual revelation. "What we know nothing about cannot be an article of faith. Did Sabellius or any theist ever deny that God has eternally that nature whereby he not only reveals himself, but creates, upholds and governs all things ? "Withal, a trinity made by revelation can be etei'ual only by virtue of an eternal revela- so tion. This is possible only on the supposition, that the crea- tures to whom Grod reveals himself, have themselves eternally existed. Thus we have the Pantheistic doctrine of an eternal creation, which makes God and the creation one. We know not that Dr. Bushnell is prepared to take these consequences of his doctrines. Yet the following passages from his first book, " Ood in Christ" look strongly that way. " Conceive of him (God) as creating the world, or creating worlds, if you please, from etsrnity. In so doing he only represents, pro- duces, or outwardly expresses himself" p. 146. Also, p. lYT, " If God has been eternally revealed or revecdvng himself to created minds, it is likely always to have been, and always to be, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." This may satisfy Pan- theists. To all others, it looks worse than the Sabellianism it is offered to screen. Thus we see the Scriptural doctrine of Trinity discarded, and assailed with whatever ingenuity he can command. All that remains more than Sabellianism, is, in our view, not worth contending for — the mere shadow of a shade. This de- fence in no manner relieves the book defended. It is only a more elaborate plea for the heresies of that book, aggravated by the groundless accusation that New England Congregation- alists are Tritheists. INCAKNATION. Dt. BushneWs view of the Inca/rnation, as presented in Ms hook entitled '■'•Christ in Theology^'' The union of tlie human and Divine in Christ is only for expression. We have no right to inquire whether he had a human soul, [p. 96.] Christ did not, as to his human soul, grow in wisdom and favor with God. When the Orthodox argue from those portions of Scripture which attribute to Christ the mental limitations peculiar to humanity, that He " became man by taking to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul," they show the smallest possible insight. The less insight they have, the more likely are they to draw such inferences, [pp. 96-7, 114.] Christ is no more or better for such a drop of hu- [P. 96.] " The union of the Diyine and human, being only for expreesion, what is there in it for us beyond the expression ? There may be a human soul here or there may not — ^that is a matter with which we have nothing to do, and about which we have not only no right to affirm, but no right to inquire." [P. 96-7.] " If there be passages of Scripture which go beyond external expres- most certainly is language only of external description ; for it is also declared, in the same breath, that he increased ' in favor with God,' which can not be taken in any other sense than the sense of external description. The meaning of the language is exhausted when we understand the writer to say that the infant Christ, grew up, as outwardly regarded, in a course of regular develop- ment in knowledge and character, increasing, as we say of other children, in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. If we say that this lan- guage refers to the distinct growth of his human soul in wisdom arid in favor, with God, then manifestly we do it by an inference of our own, for the worch affirm no such thing. Besides, the conclusion itself is not Orthodox ; for the unfolding of wisdom and character are th« truest and most fundamental incidents of distinct personality ; and Orthodoxy asserts, not two distinct persons in Christ, but 'two natures and one person.' " [P. 114.] "The doctrine I have asserted refuses, either to deny or to affirm, to know or to attempt to know, any thing which the church doctrine establishes, concerning the human soul of Chris^ by inferences drawn from the words 'child,' 'man,' 'growth,' and the like." [P. 97.] "Now it seems to be a very simple thing to infer, in a logical way, that 32 manity in him, [p. 95.] To say that the Divine person suffers because he suffers in his human nature, and to offer to the world a salvation, purchased by such sufferings, as the very essence of the Gospel, is to reduce the Gospel to a residuum of scholastic subtleties, [p. 103.] The idea is ridiculous that Christ took a distinct human nature that was not a distinct human person. It is taking the mere timber of a man, a wooden humanity to bear the cross, [pp. 109-10.] It requires a cresdulous theologian to believe that Christ will forever remain incarnate, [p. 112.] Our churches had come to regard Christ ■when Christ is said to grow in -Wisdbta and fa^or with God, there must be a dis- tinctly active and distinctly conscious human soul in his composition — at any rate a human soul. Almost any body could draw such an inference. Just as easy is it also to infer, with the Unitarian objector, when the Saviour himself says in his age of maturity, 'the Son can do nothing of himself,' that the Son has no power but such as is derivative ; for if he were essential Deity, or an omnipotent co- equal person with the Father, then he could do something of himself as well as the Father ; and since he can not, he is confessed to be no more than a creature. All stick inferences, I say, are easy. It requires the smallest possible insight to draw them ; and the less of inMght on£ has, the more likely he is to draw tlwm." [P. 95.] " For if the reality of Christ be God, and God is infinite, what more or better is he for this drop of humanity that is merged thus eternally in the boundless ocean of his nature?" [P.103.] "To solve a difficulty by throwing it into a shnfHe where no one can catch it ; to argue that the one Bivine person suffers without Divine suffering ! because he suffers in the human nature, which is impersonal and can not suffer ! and then to offer to the world, as the very essence of the gospel, a salvation purchased by the vicarious penal sufferings of the Son- of God — ^is reducing the Gospel to a residuum of scholastic subtleties, which is likely enough, doubtless, to be hid in the world, but as unlikely as possible to be an active leaven of grace after it is hid." [P. 109-110.] " What a discovery now is this for theology ! that Christ took a human nature that had no personality and is not any constitutive part of his own personality when taken, and never will have any humanly personal exis- tence or character to all eternity ! What is this, in fact, but to discover that the matter of a human creature has been somehow absorbed or hid in Christ's person, with which we can of course have no one feeling of personal sympathy, because it exists in the impersonal way, as being simply the matter of a man, and not a man ? Which of the two views gives our mind the liveliest human sympathy with the Saviour's person, which brings him closest to our human feeling, — to receive him as containing in himself an impersonal man, the mere timber of a man, referring all he suffers to that unconscious, wooden humtmity lie has taken up to bear the cross and die as an impersonal sufferer ; or, refusing all such vain philosophy, to receive him as the mcarjiate Word,- one person, the great mystery of Godliness, a,nd to say in simple, childlike trusty at the foot of his cross, Herein is love — our God is love ?" [Pp. 112.] "That theologian must be gifted with a remarkable facility of faith who has never yet found a difficulty in supposing^ either that the one God, or that an eternal person of the Divihe Three, the Son of God, underwent a permanent change of state before all worlds, -in the year 1 of our Christian era; that in this particular q)eck of the system of the universe, at a certain date in 33 as two persons. Dr. B. denied it, and hence was charged with heresy. His accusers hold to two Saviors, [pp. 106-7.] EEMAEKS. 1. Dr. B. denies that thei-e is evidence that, Christ, in be- coming mail, took, to himself a "reasonable soul," and insists that this is not even a proper subject of investigation.. He thus repudiates it as an article of faith, and contends that it is wrong for us to accept it as such. 2. Onthis scheme, it did noi^ "behoove" Christ to take upon himself the nature which he came to redeem, or " to be made in all things like unto his brethren, that he might be a mer- ciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." Heb. ii. 13. The Scriptures set forth that he assumed the nature not of angels, but of the seed of Abraham, of the race which he undertook to redeem. If he took only the body, the inferior part of our nature, we see not but his brotherhood with us, his feeling of our infirmities, his redemption and salvation of us, are limited to this. 3. According to this view, all the ignorance and mental agony of Christ must be referred to his Divine mind or na- ture, for he had no human soul. Thus God is divested of his blessedness and omniscience, -essential perfections of his na- ture; or, 4. God suffered a change in his essential properties in the incarnation, and became neither God nor man, nor both God the parish register, if I may so speat, of the town of Bethlehem, he entered into union with humanity, and is hereafter and for ever to reign over the known uni- verse of angels and all the populations of the sky, in the humanity then assumed and shortly after glorified." [Pp. 1G6-7.] "The manner had been to speak of one thing in the life of Christ as referrible to the action or choice of his human, and of another to that of his Divine nature ; till finally, all guards and correctives being omitted, the churches had begun, really and praotioally, to hold a bi-personal Savior, Im- pressions thus taken up, directly against the orthodox formula, were crossed by the strong assertion I made of Christ's personal unity, in exact coincidence with it ; and so I fell into an accusation of heresy, for no other reason than because I was more orthodox than I should be. Meantime what has befallen my accu- sers ? Something far more deplorable, I answer, than a defect of orthodoxy. Having lost out of mind the distinction between a twofold nature and two dis- tinct personal activities, their Savior is two, and not one any longer." 3 34 and man, but a iertium quid, a compound or identification of the two, styled sometimes the "divine-human." Thus our Savior is no longer very God, and God is no longer immut- able. 6. It is a natural consequence, that the doctrine of vicarous atonement should be denounced as a " residuum of scholastic subtleties," p. 105, and that there should be scepticism as to the perpetuity of such an incarnation. 6. All this seems to show that the Scriptural and Orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation should be, as it ever has been, re- garded and treated as fundamental, viz : " Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to Himself a true body and a EEAsoiTABLE soTTL, and SO was and continues to be God and man, two distinct natures and one peeson foe evee." ATONEMENT. ^ t^hlt Section I. Showing that the doctrine of the vicarious sufferings of Christ, as a sacrifice or propitiatAon for our sins, is an absurdity / that such a sacrifice or propitiation was not needed y and that if God could accept the sufferings of the just for the unjust, and so remit the penalty due to transgressors, it would indicate in him the confusion or loss of all moral distinctions ; a readiness to let justice perish hy a double sacrifice. Also, that the Priesthood of Clvrist has no pecu- liar relation to our wants as sinners, hut has its foundation in the natnire of God ; that Christ did not come to die for our sins, nor to suffer for our release ; the only expression of his death that a/uails for our justification, lies in the virtue of the fact that his death was incidental; and that the whole scheme of suffering in Christ svbsinMted di/rectlyfor penal suffering in us, is a hare assumption, justified hy no Scripture authority whatever. There is absurdity in the thought of Christ's bearing our penalty, [228-9]. If God be willing to accept the sufferings of the just for the unjust, it indicates in him the loss or confu- sion of all moral distinctions ; a readiness to be satisfied with the stipulated quantum of woe, and to let justice perish by a double sacrifice ; first, by releasing the pains of guilt, and again by receiving the pains of holiness, [271]. To say that [Pp. 228-9.] " If Christ bears the penalty, then Christ in bearing it, were there any thing but absurdity in the thought," — [P. 271.] "The former doctrine I reject, because of the necessary insignifi- cance of any scheme, which represents God as executing penalties on himself and realising public retribution for sin, by transactions mthin the circle of his oan 36 God, by the sacrifice of Christ, satisfies his own justice, and works out the terms or even the awards of government, is the simplest form of absurdity, [229]. There was no need of such a propitiation, [243, 30Y; God in Christ^'' 198-9 ; aZso, for more ample proof, see If&te at the end of this Section']. To say, with the common evangelical doctrine, that the one Divine person suffers, because he suffers in the human nature, and so to offer to the world, as the very essence of the Gospel, a salvation purchased by the vicarious penal sufferings divinity ; also because, if it eould be significant, if we could either undeify Christ, or throw the penal burdens of justice upon his humanity, taken separately from his Divinity, the willingneas of God to accept the woes of iniwcence, instegd of the woes of guilt, wondd only indicate the confusion or loss of all moral distinctions ; a readiness to be satisfied with the stipulated quantum of woe, and let justice perish by a double sacrifice ; first by releasing the pains of guilt, and again by receiving the pains of holiness. [P. 229.] "It will also be made clear, by a much shorter method, that the immediate or first effect of Christ's work, can not -be on God ; for the pimple reason that Christ, in the highest .import of his person, is God. For, take what view we may of the three persons, he is not other than God. Then, it we hold this point firmly, and do not intermit our faith ; to ssty that God, by acting on himself, by acting right and left in himself, sictisfss his own justice and worjes out the terms or even the, awards of government, wholly within the circle of Deity f with- out passing out of that circle, will dppiar to evity one to be the simplest form of [P. 243 1 " But we go back now, once more, to the Hebrew at his sacrifice, and finding him engaged, as we jUst saw, to propitiate God, we venture to ask him whether, after all, it is God that wants propitiating, or himself that wants recon- ciling to God ? If he be a man of the earlier ages under the ritual, he is likely not to understand the question. But if he be a worshipper of the later times, the time, for example, of David and the prophets, when the reflective habit is a little more unfolded, and piety is gfowing more subjective, he will begin to revolve the question internaUy, and will finally reply that he finds the need of a sacrifice in himself, and the wants of his own character as a sinner, and not in God. He will also bring into view the fact that God is unchangeable, ' No, I do not suppose,' he will answer, ' that God wants propitiating so much as I want Changing in my spirit' " [P. 307.] " These words, I say, hang all their virtue on the assurance that God only waits to be merciful ; that he is not estranged from lis, but we averse from him ; and that Christ, in his death and sacrifice, came to assure us of this, and so to bring us to God." "God in Christ^', [P. 198-9] "First, it assumes that, as punishment expresses the abhorrence of God to sin, or what is the same, his justice, he can sustain his law, and lay a ground of forgiveness without punishment, only by some equiva- lent expression of abhorrence — an assumption that is groundless and tdthckit con- sideration, as I may cause to appear in another place, " Secondly, this latter seems to accord with the former view in supposing that Christ suffers evil as evil, or as a penal visitation of God's justice, only doing it in a less painful degree ; that is, suffering so much of evil as will suffice, considermg the dignity of his person, to express the same amount of abhorrence to ^iii that would be expressed ty the eternal punishment of aU mankind. I confess my inability to see how an innocent beiiig could ever be set, even for 37 of the San of God, is reducing the Gospel to a residuum of scholastic subtleties,' [101 — 3]. ' The Peiesthood of Oheist has no peculiar relation to the wants of sinners, but is on this wise ; Christ is the Word of the Pather [" or the power of self-representation so denomi- nated," Ood in Christ, ITY], before all worlds; and in that sense a medium of knowledge and approach to the Father ; and so the eternal Priest of the uniyerse, making eternal in- tercession (eternallj interrening or coming between) for us and all created minds ;" " for the sinless and pure, if such there be, as sinless, for sinners as sinners." His Priesthood has its ground, [not in the work of atonement or propitiation, {see the passages cited), but] "in the nature of God," [263-4.] one moment, in an attitude of displeasure under God. If he could lay his frown, for one moment, on the soul of innocence and virtue, he must be no such being as 1 have loved and worshipped. Much less can I imagine that he should lay it on the head of one, whose nature is itself co-equal Deity. Does any one say that he will do it for public governmental reasons? No governmentm rea- sons, I answer, can justify even the admission of innocence into a participation of frowns and penal distributions. If consenting innocen,ce says, ' let the blow fall on irte^ precisely there is it for government to prove its justice, even to the point of sublimity ; to reveal the essential, eternal immitigable distinction it holds between innocence and sin, by declaring that as under law and its distributions, it is even impossible to suffer any commutation, any the least confusion of places." See, also, tfie note at the end of this section. [P. 101-2.] "Or, if this be avoided, the -whole matter of the life and passion of Christ will be tortured out of its value and even its dignity, by duestions and arguments and dialectic quibbles, that are only continuances upon nis Gospel of the crucifixion perpetrated oil his body. Thus, to give an example, we find Mr. Symington asserting, first, in his work on the Atonement (p. 154), that 'Jesus had no personal existence as a man,' which is proper orthodoxy ; and then, shortly after, when the question rises, ' who suffers in the suffering death of Christ ! we have the following dismally wise sohition or answer : ' Although the hurdEin nature was alone capable of suffering, it was never- theless the person to whom this nature belonged, who suffered. It tnay be thought that, atihis rp,tp,.as the person was Divine, such an assertion involves the blas- phemy that Deity suffered. By no means. When a person suffers, it does not follow that he suffers in all that pertains to him. He may suffer in his property, and not suffer in his honor ; he may suffer in his happiness, and not in his cha- racter ; he may suffer in his body, and not in his soul; still it is the person who suffers. So m the case before us, while the Son of God suffers in his human na- ture, it is still the person that suffers.' — {Atonement, p. 164)" [P. 103.] "To solve a diffieijlty by throwing it into a shuffle where no one can catch it ; tb argUe that the one Divine person suffers without Divine suffer- ing 1 because he suffers in the human nature I which is impersonal and can not suifiFer I and then to offer to the world, as the very essence of the Gospel, a sal- vation purchased by the vicarious penal sufferings of the Son of God I is re- ducing the Gospel to a residuum of scholastic subtleties, which is likely enough, doubtless, to be hid in the world, but as unhkely as possible to be an active leaven of grace after it is hid." rp 9fiS-4..1 " Ab- in TOv diaoourae at Cambridge, I discarded the common 38 It waa not the object of Christ's mission to die for our sins,- or to suffer directly for our release. The only efficacious ex- pression of his death lies in the fact that it is incidental. [God in Christ, 201, 218.] He came into membership with us under the corporate law of evil in the race, for some benevo- lent end or reason apart from the ostentation of suffering ; and what he suffers is in no way penal in the experience, save as the currents of causes under which he suffers are themselves penal, as related organically to the sins of the race, [285-6]. idea that the death of Christ "was required to fortify the righteousness of God in the forgiveness of sin hefore other vorlds, it may comfort the disturbed feeling of some, if I add, that the institution of priesthood and sacrifice does appear, in certain intimations of Scripture, to be a transcendental and, possibly, m some qualified sense, a uniTcrsal mstitution. Undoubtedly, Christ is Word of the Fa- ther before all worlds ; and, in that sense, a medium of knowledge and approach to the Father. And as the principal idea of the priestly ofiSce is, that the priest is medium, or mediator, between souls and God ; the Word is thus the Eternal Priest of the universe — a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek ; mak- ing eternal intercession [eternally intervening or coming between] for us and all created minds. So he is figured, standing before the Father, as the unseen spiritual Majesty, to open the way and be, as it were, their advocate, to bring them near. In this view, he will manage for all according to their state and ne- cessity ; for the sinless and pure, if such there be, as sinless ; for sinners as sin- ners ; though by us, under sin, the ofiice of the priest is commonly supposed to be inherently related to sin ; because, in our case, it practically is and must be. But according to the more general conception, just suggested, the institution of a priesthood (including sacrifice where sacrifice is wanted) has its trancendental ground in the nature of God ; that is, in the Word, as the form, or visible glory of the Father." Compare Heb. vii. : 24-27 : " But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood; wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a priest became us — who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up saceifice, first for his own sins, and then for the peo- ple's ; for this he did once, when he offered up himseljf." Heb. viii. : 3 : "For every high priest is ordained to offer gtfts and sacrifices ; wherefore it is of ne- cessity that this man have somewhat also to offee." Heb. x. : 12: "But this man, after he had offered one saceifice foe sins." [P. 218.] "But I have said that the expression of God, which is made in the sufferings of Christ, and which avails to our justification, is real and efficaciarus only in virtue of the fact that it is incidental (pp. 201-2), being what he sufi'ers not in the ostentation of suffering^ or having that as the direct object of his mission^, but what he suffers in his grand attempt to regenerate the world and reestab- lish the lost union of souls with the Divine nature." [P. 201.] God in Christ. " Once more, it is to be noticed, as a law of expres- sion, that when evil is endured simply and only for what it expresses, it expresses nothing. If a man wades out upon some mountain, in the snows of a wintry night, to carry food to a perishing family, then what he incurs of risk and suflfer- ing, being incidentally encountered, is an expression of charity. But if he calls upon us to observe his charity expressed in what he will suffer, and, waiting for a stormy night, goes forth on the same expedition to the mountain, he expresses nothing but ostentation. So if Christ comes into the world to teach, to cheer, to heal, to pour his sympathies into the bosom of all human sorrow, to assert the 39 The whole scheme of suffering in Christ, substituted directly for penal suffering in us, Is a bare assumption, justified by no Scripture authority whatever, [284 ; " Qod m Christ" 98-19. 201.] integrity of truth, and rebnke the ■wickedness of sin, in a word, to manifest the Eternal Life and bring it into a (juiokening union with the souls of our race, then to suffer incidentally, to die an ignominious and cruel death rather than depart from his heavenly errand, is to make an expressiou'of the Heart of God, which every human soul must feel. And this expression may avail to sanctify the law before us, even thouqh there be no abhorrence expressed in his sufferings. But, if Christ comes into the world invoking, as it were, the frown of God, and undertak- ing to suffer evil from, God, that he may express God's justice, or his abhorrence of sin, then he expresses nothing. The very laws of expression, if I understand them rightly, require that suffenng should be endured, not as purposed, or as evil taken up for the expression of it, but that the evil be a necessary incident en- countered pre the way to some end separate from expression — some truth, bene- faction, or work of love." [P. 285-6.] " If we choose to say that Christ came into membership with us, under the corporate law of evil in the race, and let the currents of penal causes roll over him in waves of temptation and suffering ; showing thus how immov- ably fixed the laws of retribution are, in the fact, that they will not stay the qualified action they have in our system, to spare even innocence when it comes in their way ; there is nothing incredible in this, if only it be said that Christ . put himself in their way for some benevolent end or reason, apart from the osten- tation of suffering, and that what he supers is no way penal in the experience ; save that the currents of causes under which he suffers are themselves penal, as re- lated organically to the sins of the race." [P. 284.] " Besides, I feel bound to say, yet more emphatically than before, that whole scheme of suffering in Christ, substituted directly for penal suffering in us, is a bare assumption, justified by no Scripture authority whatever." "God in Christ," [P. 198-9.] "In the second and more mitigated class of orthodox opinions, a very important and really true position is, at last, reached, viz., that the value of Christ 8 life and death is measured by what is therein expressed. Only it is needed, now, to go a step farther, investigating what he expresses, how or under what esthetic conditions the expression is made, and the object for which it is made — ^whether it be to express God's character, and bring the Eternal Life into visible evidence and social relation ; whether to sanctify and set in honor, before mankind, the broken law of God ; whether to bring God as a renovating power into union with our human nature ; whether, possibly, it be not to accom- plish all these ends, and that, too, without any imposition or endurance of evil in the penal form of evil, any suffering or pain which is undertaken for effect, as being a direct exhibition of God's justice, or judicial abhorrence to sin. " The objections I have to this more mitigated theory, are these : " First, it assumes that, as punishment expresses the abhorrence of God to sin, or what is the same, his justice, he can sustain his, law, and lay a ground of forgive- ness without punishment, only by some equivalent expression of abhorrence — an assumption that is groundless and without consideration, as I may cause to appear in another place. " Secondly, this latter seems to accord with the former view in supposing that Christ suffers evil as evil, or as a penal visitation of God's justice, only do- ing it in a less painful degree ; that is suffering so much of evU as will suffice, considering the dignity of his person, to express the same amount of abhorrence to sin thjit would be expressed by the eternal punishment of all mankind. I confess my inability to see how an innocent being could ever be set, even for one moment, in an attitude of displeasure under God. Ifffe could lay his frown 40 N^oTE. — Showmg more, fully that there was no need of an atonmg, saorifioe. Condemnation passed for sin, is simply being in a state of spiritual death ; [p. 288,] the penalty of the law consists in the fact that sin is a law of bad cansation; [p. 259,] so that subjectively to justify (to recover to actual righteousness), is for one moment, on the soul of innocence and virtue, Me must he no mch being as I have loved and worshipped Mucli less can I imagine that He should lay it on the head of one whose nature is itself co-equal Deity, Does any one say that He will do it for public governmental reasons ? No govermenial reasons, I answer, can justify' even the admission of innocence intp a participation of frowns uud penal distritm- tions. If consenting innocence says, "let the blow fall on me," precisely there is it for a government to prove its justice, even to the point of sublimity ; to reveal the essential, eternal, unmitigable distinction it holds between innocence and sin, by de- claring that as under law andits distributions, it is everp imjpossible to suffer smj com- mutation, any the least confusion of places." [P. 201.] '"Thirdly, if Christ be himself, in tlie highest. and truest sense, the Eternal Life, God manifested in the flesh, then erery expression of justice or abhorrence to sin, which is made by his death as a mere endurance of evil, is in- volved in yet greater obscurity and confusion. He says himself, that all power is given unto Him in heaven and on earth. He is, in fact, the embodiment, as he is the representation, of God and Divine government -j he must be taken, in all that he does, as doing something which is properly referable to God. No theory of three metaphysical natures, called persons, in God, can at all vary this truth. The transactions of Christ must still be taken as transactions of God. The frown, then, if it be said to be of God, is quite as truly on God. The expression of justice or abhorrence is made by sufferings that are endui-ed, not out of the circle of Divine government, bxit in it. And thus we have a, government real- izing its penal distributions or their equivalents, that is, its justice, its significa- cations of abhorrence, wbolly within itself and apart from all terms of relation, save as the subjects, so called, are to be spectators! "Whatever speculations we may hold, in regard to modes of expression, can we hold such a view of Divine government witlout some uncomfortable suspicion of mistake in it ! [P. 288.] "The objeetive forensic justification is nothing, in fact, but a mode of conceiving the inward subjective deliverance. One is, in real truth, the other; just as condemnation, passed for sin, is a state of being, called the state of condemnation, or spiritual death." [P. 259.] "But remission again is another of the terms on our list. And this too the Hebrew worshiper holds in a form of thought wholly objective. It is an absolution promised on the part of God, and pronounced by the priest. Ask him now what effect or value this formal remission can have ? Perhaps it never occurred to him before, that his sin is a law of bad causation, a law of sin and death in his soul. And, if so, he is likely to be perplexed again, even worse than before. _ But he will gather np himself, at last, and say, ' God promised to give me remission, and clear me of my sin, and since he is faithful, I will trust him to make it, somehow, a reality in me. Nay more, I found as I went away from the sacrifice, that I was not under the power of sin as before ; I had a better con- science, a freer spirit of obedience, a new desire after Ood aad purity of life. Therefore! believe that my sin is somehow broken in its power, and that what I experience within answers to the remission, I sought.' "And BO, again, of the remission offered in Jesus Christ. Objective in form of thought, it has its reality in an internal absolution from the law of sin ; a rege- neration of the spirit in duty, love, and purity." 41 to remove the condemnation, [p. 269.] Forensic justification is nothing, in fact, but a mode of conceiving of the inward deliverance, [pp. 288'-9.] Justification, forgiveness, and re- pentance, are only different conceptions of the same thing, [p. 289(Z.] The forensic justification many speak of, is only an objective conception of. an inward change; for to renew and clear a soul of (inward) death, is to roll back justice from it; that is, to roll back the currents of judicial causes in it; which is the only real justification, [289j. 312-13, -293, 293a, 294, 294a, 259.] [p. 269.] " Th6 doctrine then ia that faith in him is to regenerate, or to be a Bubjeotively regenerated life ;, and eo is to suhjfictivdy juslifij, or remove condem- nation. Let ns see if we can trace the method." . - [P. 289.] " Instead, therefore, of stating an alternative betiveen. repentance, er a new birth in spiritual freedom, on one side ; and forgiveness, or justification, on the other, after the manner of Bishop Butler in the extract just now cited; they are only to be taken as different conceptions of the same thing. To deliver a soul from spiritual death and bondage, siai. quicken it in freedom and new capa- city, is, so far, taking it away from its deserts, , or disappointing the claims of justice and retributive ojder." [P., 289.] "Xo renew and clear a soul of death is to roll iacJc justice from it, or the currents, of j\Idici£^l causes in it, and, in that view, is a grace dispensed against justice ; and the forensic justification many speak of and think of, regard- ing notliing else, is yet only an. objective conception of an inward subjective change, which, on that account, is called "justification of life." [P. 312-13.] "Or ta,ke the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Christ, in the way just described, comes in place of a righteousness in ourselves ; and then we see, or by faith embrace him as a righteousness imputed to us. And then, if we ask what is the real truth, or verity of this imputation, it is that in holding it we are set in just the attitude of mind, by which the grace and passion of Christ wiU most effectually work, ,in our. subjective experience, that reversal of the law of sin and death, that deliverance of the Judicial consequences of sin, which is the basis of reality in what is called justification. The Eomish doctrine is that Xihrist brings justification to sinners, by making them just or righteoua The Protestant appears to be that he does it, by his righteousness, imputed to them. The true doctrine appears to be, neither exactly one nor the other; or rather "to be both; viz., that sinners are made subjectively righteous by receiving Christ as an objective or imputed righteousness. For, to make a sinner righteous, it will be seen, involves a deliverance from the judicial consequences of ill desert and sin; which is a disturbance of God's retributive order, and a rolling back of causes that were vindicatory of the Divine justiee." [P. 293.] "Are we to conceive that God passes an objective sentence of jus- tification upon them that believe, which is followed by an internal and experi- mental dehveranee; or that, executing this deliverance, in and through the faith of them that believe, we apprehend the fact, or conceive it, in a way of ob- jective representation that supports onrfai,th? The former is ithe conception of Tholuck and other distinguished theologians of Germany." [P. 293-4.] "I differ from this representation, as far as I can see, only in saying that, instead of conceiving the condemnation or the free gift of justifica- tion to be passed objectively and then to issue or be, executed in subjective misery or bliss ; we are sir/iply to conceive the misery or the bliss, executed in us, under these objective forms, oondeminationj or justification; seeing thus in Qod, or in the will of. God, that which has its reality in ourselves." [P. 294'.] "Which is the same as to say, 'I ani not condemned of God any 42 There is no other remission of eins, of any effect or value, than simply having a better conscience, a freer spirit of obe- dience, and a new desire after purity of life, [p. 259.] No pro- pitiation or sacrifice was needed as an atonement for sin, [See more, but justified before him ; because I am internally delivered from the conse- quences of death that reigned, as by a law^ within me' " [P. 259.] " Only let us not be so childish, when speaMng in the manner of Dr. Tholuck, as to imagine (which I am quite certain he does not), that God takes a local seat of judgment, in some supernal region, and passes sentences there of condemnation or delivery, which he afterwards executes ; for the execution, considered as proceeding from his will, is the sentence, — except that we may need, in practice, to think of it under the former and more objective mode of representation. [P. 307.] "These words, I say, hang all their -virtue on the assurance that God only waits to be mercifid ; that he is not estranged from, us, but we averse from him ; and that Christ, in Ws death and sacrifice, came to assure us of this, and so to bring us unto God. The very point of his counsel coincides with my supposed heresy, and just this heresy it was that Luther himself wanted." * The whole passage from which the citation on page 307 is taken, reads thus, — "If I had time and leisure, I would go into the doctrine of justification by faith as maintained by Luther, and would undertake to show that the pre- cise operative truth of it, that which made it true to him, is no other than the doctrine I have stated, however different it may at first view appear. But I will only refer you, here, to the fact that the famous words of Staupitz, which are said to have shed-such light on the distressed mind of Luther, and finally to have led him out of his bopdage into the liberty of Christ, — words that were, in fact, the beginning at once of his grand mission as a reformer, and of the justi- fication of life in his heart, the very point of his counsel, — coincides wititi my supposed heresy, and just this heresy it was that Luther himself wanted. These words, I say, hang all their virtue on the assurance that God only waits to be merciful ; that he is not estranged from us, but we averse from him ; and that Christ, in his death and sacrifice, came to assure us of this, and so to bring us unto God. He was not in trouble because he wanted some theory of compensa- tion for sin or punishment ; but his trouble came of the fact that he was afraid of God, and could not find how to assure himself before God, or how to make, himself, what he evidently must be, to be accepted of God. Staupitz, therefore, says : ' Why do you distress yourself with these speculations and high thoughts I Look to the wounds of Jesus Christ, to the blood which he has shed for you ; it is there you will see the mercy of God. Instead of torturing yourself for your faults, oast yourself into the arms of the Redeemer. Trust in him, in the righ- teousness of his life, in the expiatory sacrifice of his death. Do not shrink from him. God is not against yod ; it is tou who ake estranged and aveese from God. Listen to the Son of God. He became man to assure you of the Divine favor.' — (Luther's Works, vol. ii., Liepsic Ed., p. 264.) " These fragrant words of life, out of which, as a consecrated parentage, sprang both the faith of Luther and his doctrine, affirm precisely all that is most distinctive in my supposed heresy ; that God is not to be conciliated to us but we to him ; and that Christ came, not literally to appease his justice, but to ' assure us of his favor.' " Dr. B. cites the language of Staupitz to Luther as afiirming "precisely all that is most distinctive in his supposed heresy," viz., that God is not to be concili- ated to us (meaning that there was no need of an atoning sacrifice or propitia- tion); that without this " God is not estranged from" the sinner, but only wants to be merciful ;" and that Christ did not die to make atonement for our sins ; that he " came not literally to appease" the "justice of God, " but to assure us of his favor." 43 pp. 243, 307, and God in Christ, 201, 198, already cited.] God was, without this, ready to pardon, whenever men were penitent, [p. 307* ;] and had no use to make of the blood of atonement, [p. 257.] Wow, who does not know that Luther, instead of denying the reality and the necessity of a Ticarious atonement, held that doctrine as the corner-stone of Christianity; declaring "justification by faith" (viz., faith in the atoning sacri- fice of Christ), as " tlie article of a standing or of a falling church ?" And does Staupitz teach Luther, in his distress, that " there is no need" of some " compen- sation for sin or punishment f — no atoning sacrifice and no need of one ? Is this Luther's doctrine ? Is it the doctrine of Staupitz ? Is this the answer to be given to a distressed sinner : Christ did not die for you ; God is not angry with you ; the Christ of God " came not to appease his justice, but to assure us of his favor ?" There is no justice of which a sinner need be " afraid," that he should want a "theory of compensation for sin or punishment !" The counsel of Stau- pitz is exactly the opposite of this. In the clearest and most earnest terms he holds up to Luther's distressed mind the very atoning sacrifice of Christ which Dr. B. denies as unnecessary and absurd : " Look to the wounds of Jesus Cheist, to the blood which he has shed foe tou ; rr is there you will see the MEEct OF God. Instead of torturing yourself for your faults, cast yma-self into the arms of the Redeemer. Trust in him ; in the righteousness of his life ; in the expiatoey saceifice OF his death." It is through this expiatory sacrifice, and through this alone, that Staupitz says, " God is not against you ; it is you who are averse from God." And now when Staupitz says, with such emphasis, "Trust in him; in ^e righteousness of his \\k; in the expiatory sacrifice of his death" Dr. B. would persuade his readers that the "expiatory sacrifice of his death" was the very thing which Staupitz would show to be unnecessary, and so remove the very idea of it from Luther's mind. Nay, that the belief that no atoning sacrifice was needed, was the very thing that brought relief to Luther's mind ! [P. 257.] "If now we take the word atonement in the sense of expiation, and put it through the same process that we have traced in the word propitiation, we bring it to the same result. The Hebrew worshiper comes to expiate, or atone, or make amends for his sins. As in propitiation his thought was objectively occupied with propitiating God, so here it is objectively occupied with giving him that compensation that will make him propitious — expiating the sin that angers him. If now you ask him whether he really supposes, that offering his animal makes amends for his sins, your question may perplex him ; and, if he is a rude man, little exercised in tracing distinctions, he may feel obliged to say that it does. And yet, if you press him with the absurdity of supposing that Ood has any use to make of the blood of bulls and goais, such that he is willing to accept his victim in commutation for his sins, he is likely to say," ui every man a Ua/r." ■ If God says it and calls upon us to believe it, then what is it that we a/re to believe, save what God hath set forth / and in the manner and form in which he hath set it forth to he helievedf By what authority does any man tell us that it is untrue ; " the simplest form of absurdity ;" indi- cating " the loss or confusion of all moral distinctions" in the Godhead ! and incurring for the Lord " a double ignominy?" If God has set forth Christ " as bearing our sins in a way of vicarious substitution," and calls upon us to exercise faith in him as such, then he who brings us a Gospel in which the doc- trine is " discarded" as untrue and absurd, assuredly brings us " ANOTHEE GosPEL," another than that which God hath set forth. Whoever shall countenance such a preacher, or hold him in fellowship, the Scripture declares, [2. John, 9 — 11,J to be " partaker of his evil deeds," and requires us, [Gal. i., 6 — 9,] to withdraw from him and reject him from our fellow- ship as a thing accursed, even though he were an apostle or an " angel from heaven." What can be " another Gospel" if this is not ? What may we not retain in fellowship, if we are allowed to retain this ? In what case can discipline for heresy ever be called for, if it be not required here ? 2. The Lord may speak in figurative or in hyperbolical language, or employ the representations of imagery ; but in all cases what he intends we shall understand and believe, that is the truth ; and no deception is either practiced or suffered,. The meaning of such figures or images is, in general, under- stood as certainly as though the meaning had been declared in literal terms. But when language, either figurative or lite^ ral, or when imagery is employed with the intention oi caus- ing that to be believed as truth which is not true— this is the very essence of a lie. Nor does it exculpate one, in such a case, to say I deceived you by a figure, and not by a lie direct; for the deeper the " Aet," the deeper the giiilt, as being the. 52 more guileful, the more studied and deliberate. Nor does it- alter the character of the transaction to plead that it is told for a useful or pious end ; for this is the very doctrine of Eo- manism concerning pious frauds. Nor does it change the character of the transaction to say that though as an "objec- tive form" (the form in which it is to be believed), it is not true, yet it is a " substantial verity, ^^ because of its useful and pious effects. What is this but the doctrine that "the end sanctifies the means ?" — the doctrine of them that say " Let us do evil ttiat good may come / whose damnation, is just.^^ "We know, therefore, that the Gospel which God has called upon us to believe, with the declaration, " He that helieveth shall be saved ; he that helieveth not shall be damned," — ^we know that this Gospel is true, for it is the Gospel of " God, who camnot lie ;" of him who is "The Amen, the faithful and true witness." " And w;e know that na lie is of the truth." Hath God said it ? Does he call upon us to believe it ? Then who is it that calls upon us to " discard" it as untrue~and " absurd," even the " simplest form of absurdity ?" To raise a question concerning the truth of any thing which God de- clares, and calls upon us to believe as we would be saved or lost, seems to us like blasphemy. 3. On what ground are we called upon to reject it as un- true ? Has God so declared it ? Declared that he has called upon us to believe a lie, and that under pain of damnation ! Has he at any time intimated that such is the chai-acter of his communications in the Gospel? Does such a conclusion stand in his word ? But how, then, could any thing stand in his word after this ? Not a particle of Scripture is brought to prove it. The reasons assigned for such an implication against the veracity of the Most High, are all drawn from philosophy. The author of this scheme seems to us to sit in judgment upon our Maker, and to decide that that which the Lord calls upon us to believe concerning the vicarious sacri- fice of his Son, and which he has set forth as the way and means of our salvation, is untrue and absurd, even the sim- plest form of absurdity ; indicating in God, if it were true> 53 " the loss or confusion of all moral distinctions ;" a " readi- ness to let justice perish by a double sacrifice ; first, by re- leasing the pains of .guilt, and again, by receiving the pains of holiness." But God does declare that " Christ hath once suffered for sins — the just for the unjust — that he might bring us to God." 1 Pet. iii., 13. " For he hath made him to he sin for us,- who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v., 2. " Christ hath redeemed us from the cwse of the law, being made a cuese FOE us." Gal. iii., 13. If we may, on the simple strength of human philosophy, conclude either that this is not true, or that God has lost or confounded all moral distinctionsj then on what declaration of the word of God may we not sit in judgment ? Of what value are the Scriptures to us after this ? Or how are we any longer to have any confidence in the Lord himself, after we have dared to convict him, before the tribunal of human philoso- phy, either of having declared an untruth, with regard to the very essence and vital matter of the Gospel, or of having lost or confounded all moral distinctions ? After such a decision, neither are the Scriptures our guide, nor is the Eprd our God. We have exalted philosophy above revelation ; we have set our own wisdom above the wisdom of the Lord ; and we have taken to ourselves another God before Jehovah, as the God of our faith and confidence. Nay, what if one should — on condition that the Lord has ever made or accepted a vicarious atonement, even in the most mitigated form (viz., simply to express his regard to justice and his abhorrence of sin), — what, if on this condition, one should make the rejection of the Lord explicit and direct ? "What if he should declare that " No governmental reasons can justify even the admission of innocence into a participation of frowns^and penal distributions ;" not "even if consenting Innocericb says. Let the blow fall on me ;" and that " it is impossible to s^er a/ny commutation ; any, the least, confusion of places;" and that, if H@ (God) "should (even in this manner) lay his fi'own for one moment on the Si Boul of innocence and Yirtue, he must be no such, being as," he who makes the declaration, "has loved and worshipped!" "We do not stop here to say what an .unequivocal rejection this is of the vicarious sufferings or atoning sacrifice of Christ, and how it sweeps away every possible vestige and ground of a vicarious atonement; but we ask, in fearful amazement, what if now it shall prove that the Lord has done this very thing, and that Christ has " suffered, the just for the unjust f" — then has not philosophy openly and explicitly rejected the Lord our God ? But the Lord has done this thing, if his word be true, Dr. B. himself being judge ; for, he declares (p. 241) that God has set forth the death of Christ before us as "as sacrifice, an offering, a propitiaUon ; de- clares the remission of sins in his Hood/ represents him as hearing the sins of mankind, i/n a way of vicarious svhstitu- tion;" and that, "then he invites, us to come and exercise faith in him as ieing all these." IsTow, what God has so set forth and called upon us to believe, is the very condition on which, if it be true, Dr. B. declares his rejection of the Lord our God, [God in Christ, p. 193.] Thus does his system, [P. 198.] "In the second and more mitigated class of Orthodox opinions, a very important and really true position is, at last, reached ; viz : — that the value of Christ's life and death is measured by what is therein expressed. Only it is needed now, to go a step farther, investigating what he expresses, how or under what esthetic conditions the expression is made, and the object for which it is made — ^whether it be to express God's character and bring the Eternal Life into visible evidence and social relation ; whether to sanctify and set in honor, before mankind, the broken law of God ; whether to bring God as a renovating power into union with our human nature ; whether, possibly, it be not rather to ac- complish all these ends, and that, too, without any imposition or endurance of evil in the penal form of evil, any suffering or pain which is undertaken for effect, as being a direct exhibition of God's justice, or iudicial abhorrence to sin. " The objections I have to this more mitigated theory, are these : — " First, it assmnes that, as punishment expresses the abhorrence of Ood to sin, or what is the same, his justice, he can sustain his law, and lay a ground of forgive- ness without punishment, only by some equivalent expression of abhorrence — an assumption that is groundless and without consideration, as I may cause to appear in another place. "Secondly, this latter seems to accord with the former view in supposing that Christ suffers evil as evil, or as penal visitation of God's justice, only doing it in a less painful degree ; that is, sufiFering so much of ^vil as will suffice, con- sidering the dignity of his person, to express the same amount of abhorrence to sin, that would be expressed by the eternal punishment of all mankind. I con- fess my inability to see how an innocent being could ever be set, even for one moment^ in an attitude of displeasure under God. If he could lay his frown, 65 notwitlistanding its claims to produce more powerful effects, and to promote a higher style of piety, not only sweep away every form and vestige of a vicarious atonement, but it rejects the word of God, and takes philosophy for its guide instead. Nor does it cease its hostility to the doctrine of a vicarious atonement short of a rejection of the Lord from being God ; leading inevitably (even in the conclusions drawn by its author) to the results of infidelity and atheism. Dr. B. him- self escapes from the fathomless abyss yawning on one side of his alternative, only by plunging into a gulf that is bottomless on the other. He admits that God has set forth the doctrine of a vicarious atonement to be believed; but he maintains that the doctrine is not true : saving himself from his proposed condition of rejecting God only by making God a liar. 4. The author of the scheme claims that his views " can lead, in their practical adoption, to no such diversity in preaching as can properly disturb the peace and' comfort of the churches," [p. 332] ; and holds that ministers of the Gos- pel are to preach a vicarious atonement, with the intent to make it believed as the truth, even if they themselves regard the doctrine as untrue and absurd. [See pp. 241, 242, 243, 247, 332, 245, 246, 255.] But if a minister of the Gospel shall preach the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, intending to make his hearers believe it as true, while he himself holds the mental reservation that it is really (in the manner and form in which it is to be believed) untrue ; then, although he may think that he is doing God service (as doubtless many Eomanists have done, while practicing their lying wonders and pious frauds), we nevertheless declare and protest, that for one moment, on the sold of innocence and virtue, he tmist be no such heing as I have loved and worshipped. Much less can I imagine that he should lay it on the hsad of one whose nature is itself co-equal Deity ? Does any one say that he ■will do it for public governmental reasons ! I^q governmental reasons, I answer, can justify even the admission of innocence into a participation of frovms and penal distributions. Jf consenting innocence , says, 'let the blow fall oil me,' pre- cisely there it is for a government to prove its justice, even to the point of sub- lirmty; to reveal the essential, eternal, unmitigable distinction it holds between inrtocence and sin, by declaring that as wider law and its distributions, it is even impossible to suffer any commutation, any the least confusion of places." See Uie «xtraci; on page 16, of the Remonstrance and Complaint. 56 this is not consistent either with Godly sincerity or with com- mon honesty ; but that it ought to be regarded and treated as an immorality, for which, whoeyer avows such a practice, ought to be deposed from the Christian ministry. All confi- dence, either in the preaching or in the integrity of Christ's ministers, must be destroyed if it be once understood that they regard such a course of conduct with approbation, or even with allowance. We regard the principle in question as "idestroying the foundations of all truth and all morality; as justifying all manner of prevarication and fraud, whenever ,men can imagine it conducive to a usefuLand: pious end; and representing the I^ord our God as setting the example,, and .leading oif this game of hypocrisy and deception, in the very matter .which is of vital importance to the salvation of dying men ; and in which, if any where, his own awful truth and iholiness should shine most conspicuous. We ask,- with earn- estness and. amazement, is such a principle to find allowance -and fellowship among our ministers and churches ? Have we not a right to, demand, that any minister in our connection, who shall, avow it, and avow also that he so preaches a vicari- ,ous atonement while he holds it as untrue, be subjected to discipline for a further oflFense than for simple heresy? 5. If these divine forms are to be preached and believed as the, truth, then how comes it that their power is gone when he who preaches them believes that they are really true ? How is it that they become so much more efficacious when he who preaches them holds them as untrue and absurd? Has a mental reserve of untruth in the preacher so great an advantage over Godly simplicity and sincerity ? But if these Divine forms are necessary to be received "with faith, and are to enter "even as a necessary element into the practical economy of the Christian life," then has not the author of this scheme, by i-evealing their objective falsity, for ever put it out of the power of those who shall receive his scheme to believe in them ? What is more certain than that no man can possibly believe that which he knows to be un- true, how much soever he may talk about '^Divine forms," "Divine art^'' and objective falsities, which hecome verities in their effect, and so turn to subjective truths? Can even ■Dr. B. himself, on his scheme, tell an inquiring sinner what he must do to be saved ? Suppose a case : • Inqitieeb. — ^What must I do to be saved ? De. B. — Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. God hath set him forth "as ^sacfrifice, a propitiation ; decla/res the remis- sion of sins in Ms hlood y represents him as heariMg the sins of manTcind in a way ofvioa/rious substitution.^^ " And then he invites us to come and exercise faith in him as being all these, and so a complete salvation.-". So come and believe on Christ, and hang your soul upon him in simple faith. \, . Inquieee. — ^But is this "a faAthful saying and worthy of all mceptatiomV Is all this true, in the manner and form in which God hath set it forth to bo believed? De. B. — ^No, not a word of it ; bnt " the simplest form of absurdity," which, if it were true, would indicate in God *'the loss or confusion of all moral distinctions." If God could do this " for one moment, he is no such God as I have loved and worshipped." : Inquieee.— So I have understood. How, then, can I be- lieve it?' De. B. — " It is necessary that Christ, or the given historic matter of his life and death should be set before us in the ob- jective mystic forms of the altar — -an offering, a sacrifice, rendered up to God, a propitiation , for our sins," [p.- 247.] "When God represents the ' history under these altai" forms, an impression is made that is both impossible and inconceiva- ble under any other," [p. 246.] " Tell the sinner that Christ -is offered once for all as a propitiation for our sins. Call upon ,him to come and helieve on Christ, as being a sufScient and everlasting propitiation," [p. 242.], Then, "when he comes to hang himself in faith upon Christ, as his altar of peace, trusting in his blood for the remission of sins, the faith ha exercises will be found to have carried a total subjective -change," [p. 245.] And so the " Divine art" hid in it trans- 58 forms his inner life. In this way Christ is the life ; " the new creating grace of God and the power." LsTQuiEEE. — I have already understood as mnch ; but the question remains, How am I to believe what I know to be untrue ? De. B. — How believe ? Inquieeb. — ^Yes, how am I to believe, and hang my soul upon, what I know to be untrue and absurd — even the sim- plest form of absurdity ? De. B. — It is the " Divine form." " If we refuse to let Christ pass into this form, we have no mold of thought that can fitly represent him." It is, in fact, " a Divine ritual for the working of the world's mind ;" " a rite or liturgy for the world's feeling," \^God in Christ, p. 258.] "If the soul is ever to get her health and freedom in goodness, she must have the Gospel, not as a doctrine only, but as a rite before her, a righteousness, a ransom, a Mood offered for her cleansing be- fore Jehovah's altar. Then reclining her broken heart on this, calling it her religion, she secures a grace broader than consciousness, loses herself in love," [^Qodin Christ, p. 266.] I myself find that I could not work my mind and heart in the exercises of my own Christian experience without this. Inquieeh. — Oh, then you believe in a vicarious atonement yourself, notwithstanding its untruth and absurdity? De. B. — Not at all, speculatively. I " discard" it, [p. 247.] It is insignificant, untrue, and absurd, indicating a loss or con- fusion of all moral distinctions, [p. 271.] But it is necessary to give up the faith and feelings, to be run in this mold. It is the *' Divine form of Christianity." The Unitarian rejects it, arid has nothing left but a sxibjective truth, the most impo- tent and inefficacious of all forms of thought [pp. 254, 248], though it is the real truth. Inquieer. — How is this? Eeceive it with faith as true, and yet discard it as urilij^'ne ? De. B.— •" Though I coincide with the speculative absurd- ity of imputation, I undertake also to show how these objec- tive conceptions get their proper validity, and so enter, even 59 a8 a necessary element into the practical ecoBomy of the Christian life;" [p. 333.] Inqtjieee. — ^Yes, I understand how these objective concep- tions get their validity when once received with simple faith ; and I see no difficulty in the way of faith, on the Orthodox theory that they are true. The difficulty is to exercise faith in what I must regard as untrue. Since you have shown me the falsity and low absurdity of these dogmas, the difficulty is how to believe them. To be plain, Dr. B., by revealing the falsity of what God calls upon me to believe as the truth, you have rendered faith impossible. I cannot believe what I know to be untrue. De. B. — But " True Evangelism" believes. She " goes to Christ in perfect simplicity, to believe in him as the propiti- ation, the sin offering, the expiatory sacrifice, the blood of remission ; taking these objective forms according to their most natural power and expression, to hang itself on them as the altar of peace and' forgiveness ; self is forgotten ; and the soul, breathing out her contrition by the altar against which her faith is leaning, feels a change transpire within. She is free. In the name of Christ she lives," [p. 255.] Inquieee.— Does true Evangelism do all this, knowing all the while that what she so receives, in perfect simplicity, is untrue and absurd ? De. B. — ^Have I not said (p. 271, God m Christ), that " Probably the philosophic or subjective view may be allow- ed to come into a somewhat more prevalent use among a cul- Uvated peojale, and in a philosophic age of the world ?" Have I not said also (p. 267, God in Chrisf), that " I might speak also" " of the sad figure that would be made by the rude masses of the world, in applying a Gospel of philosophic causes to their own nature, for they hardly know as yet that they have a nature ?" Inquieee. — Can a " cultivated and philosophic" mind be- lieve what he knows to be untrue and absurd ? Can he pious- ly and in faith work his mind and heart in forms which he knows to be not only untrue and absurd, but destructive of 60 the Divine justice and morality, and which cast a "double ignominy on God?" Dr. B., do you so believe, and so work your mind and heart, in what you regard as untrue, and de- rogatory to the righteousness and goodness of the Lord? Dr. B.^ DO YOU BELIEVE, or do you NOT BELIEVE, what you have de- clared to be so untrue, absurd, and abominable ? It matters not which alternative Dr. B. shall choose to adopt ; he either believes or he does not believe. If he really does believe what he has with so much contempt and scorn discarded as untrue, then it is time for him to renounce his scheme with the deepest repentance, and with the amplest confessions both towards God and man. If he does not be- lieve what he admits that Gcid has set forth to be believed, then has he an account of imhelief to answer before God; for " He that helieveth not, God hath made him a liar, he- cause he BELIEVETH NOT THE EECOED THAT GoD GAVE OF HIS Son." 1 John, v. 19. Nor is it possible, on his scheme, to tell a sinner what he must do to be saved; for no man, even under peril of his soul, can possibly believe what he knows to be untrue. It is idle for any man to say that he works his mind and heart in forms^ the truth of which he utterly dis- cards. 61 Sec. ly. Showing how the author of the scheme^ having dist;arded the doc- trine of an atonement by the vicarious sufferings of Christ as untrue and absurd ; [271] and having declared still more em- phatically than before, that the ijohole scheme of suffering in Christ substituted directly for penal sufferings in us, is a bare assumption, justifed by no Scripture authority whatever, [284] reclaims and restores all that is essential in that doctrine; and holds as earnestly as others, though under a different form, all which they suppose him to deny. Moreover, that he is more Orthodox on the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, than most of the Orthodox teachers in New England ; since his doc- trine coincides with the real truth of imputation, justifying a qualified assent to that doctrine, requiring it in the practical uses of life, and containing all that has made it true to its adherents ; precisely that neither more nor less ; while never- theless he coincides with those who regard that doctrine as un- true and absurd. Also that the Gospel, as commonly set forth in our treatises of theology, is no Gospel, but only a dull me- chanical contrivance of theology, a speculative figment, cold and dry. "While the author of the scheme discards the doctrine of a vicarious atonement as untrue and absurd, [see 211, 247;] he seems to himself to hold all that those who coinplain of him suppose him to deny; the matter of their Gospel is the mat- ter of his ; and the only reason they do not see it is, that ■when that matter is set forth apart from the tiny measures of their system, the quantities are so large, and the riches so va- rious, that the matter of their system appears to be lost; they cannot find it,, [212, 213.] He only sweeps away the logical mat- [P. 212-13.] "On the contrary, I seem, in almost every case, to hold, as ear- nestly as they, though under a different form or a different resolution of the subject, all which they suppose me to deny. The matter of their Gospelsepar- ated from their Kgical or theolo^eal system, is : the matter of mine ; and the only reason why they do not see it to be so themselves is, that they have reduced 63 ter of their representations to assert again, with greater force, all which constitutes the inmost and proper evangelic sub- stance of their belief in the use of them, [pp. 214-14a.] Dis- carding the opinion that Christ suffers evil in direct substi- tution for the evil that was due to us, he agrees, as he suppo- ses, with most of the teachers in New England, that God only esspresses in the sufferings of Christ, what he would have ex- pressed by our punishment ; and that one expression is sub- stituted for the other as a ground of justification'. The only difference is, that he does not exactly agree as to the mode in which the expression is made, [211.] His doctrine is, not that Christ by tiis sufferings and death has atoned to divine justice for our sins, for this he declares to be absurd, [p. 271,] but that Christ is " wholly a power," " a convincing, constraining, justifying grace of love, offered to thought without, and oper- ating formatively with the undistinguishable grace of the spi- rit within." In this doctrine Christ is seen in all that he does, to be acting (not as a propitiation to God, but) as a power, a renovating and quickening power. " All results he accom- the matter to the tiny measures of their system ; so that wheii it is set forth apart from the meastireSj-Hnot as expiation only, but as the Eternal life that ■was with the Father, and was manifested unto us ; Christ the Wisdom of God and the Power ; God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, — ^the quan- tities are so large, and the riches so rarious, that the matter of their system ap- pears to be lost ; they can not find it. And what, then, shall they infer but he- resy ? Much as if some child, or over siniple person, were to judge that immense piles of coin, at the mint, must be counterfeit, because he cannot find his particu- lar dollar among them." [P. 214.] " I was only sweeping away the logical matter of these representa- tions, to assert again, with greater force, aU which constitutes the inmost and properly evangelic substance of their beliefs, in the use of them." [P. 214.] "Meantime, I am going on myself, as just having come to the sub- ject, to 'reclaim and restore' (p. 203) every thing that has been cast away ; that IS, every thing but the points of theory rejected." [P. 217.] " Descending to the notice of a few points of difficulty or censure that are more subordinate and particular, it is often alleged, as a fatal heresy, that I reject the opinion that Christ ' suffers evil in direct substitution for the evil, or penal suiiering, that was due from us,' (p. 194.) Doubtless, this may well enough be taken as a heresy, by those who beUeve that Christ was literally punished for our sins, or suffered penally on account of them. But this is a doc- trine openly discarded by most of the teachers of New England. They hold, instead, that God only expresses in the sufferings of Christ what he would express by our pwnAshmmft, and that one expression is substituted for the other as a ground of justification. And exactly this is what I have asserted. The only dif- ference is, that we do not exactly. agree as to tJie mode in which the escpression is made." 63 plishes by wliat lie does in us," [pp. 298-9.] Christ, the Hying "Word, is lifted up to be a Gospel of power in the world's feel- ing; becomes an active force in the outward history of the race, God manifested to feeling, and breathed, as an atmosphere of life, into the world ; and " hiding the all regenerating leaven of Divinity in the alienated and better history of the world," [p. 221.] In all this the demonstration, was not made by penal suffering, nor by the, expression of suffering as laid on Christ to manifest God's abhorrence of sin, [see p. 218,] nor by any intent of benefiting us directly by designed death, nor having suffering or death as the direct object of bis mission; but, as the author has before said, " The expression of God which is made in the sufferings of Christ, and which avails for our justification, is only in virtue of the fact that it is inciden- tal" in the prosecution of " his grand attempt to regenerate the world, and so reestablisb the lost unison of souls with the Divine nature," [p. 218(Z.] [P. 298-9.] "Meantime Christ is seen, in all that he doe's, to be acting as a power, a renovflting and qui<;leening pmoer ; just as he is constantly represented in the Scriptuf es. All results,' whether of justification or sanctification, for they are essentially implicated one with the other, he accomplishes, by what he does in us, and not by something done upon God. And so that large part, that almost body itself of the Christian doctrine of grace, which has fallen, so generally, out of place in the meager terms of our speculatiTC theolo^, is restored It is not said that Christ ha^ opened a passage through the law, by some action on one side of us, and bought the Holy Spirit to lead us th/i'ough it ; and that this is the whole plan of salvation — which, m fact, no preacher, though he affirm it a hundred times a day, can really adhere to so as not to break over it, in appeals that offer Christ to Idve and feeling — but the doctrine is, that Christ is wholly a power, the wisdom of God and the power ; a convincirig, eonstrainiiig, justifying grace of love offered to thought witlf^ut, and operating formatively with the undistingmsnable grace of the Spirit within ; so that wheii the soul receives him and rests her faith in him, Christ is.formed within as the principle of eternal life and beatific union with God. If this be heresy, it is yet the truth of Scripture, which if any man deny or cannot preach, he disallows the corner stone itself." [P. 221.] "Christ, the Living Word, appears, and is lifted up to be a Gospel of power in the world's feeling." ■ [P. 221.] "Here preeminently is that Christ whom we preach — God with men ; God in his love and essential divinity, organically united with the hnman state, and become an active force in the outward history of the race ; God mani- fested to feeling, and breathed, as an atmosphere of life, into the world." [P. 221.] "Tliat Christ came to bring God's pure love and presence down to our human feeling, and hide the all-regenerating leaven of Divinity in the alien- ated and bitter history of the world." [P. 218.] " What now if I have denied that this ' demonstration' was made in a given way ; that is, by penal suffering, or by the expression of suffering, regarded as a laying on upon Christ of the direct abhorrence ^ God to sin?" [P. 218a.J "But I have said that the expressioa of God, which is made in 64 In doing this, he by implication or indirectly expresses the abhorrence of God to sin, as profoundly as It is possible to be done even by punishment itself, [p. 218.] Meantime the author of this scheme coincides with the real truth of im- putation, and actually maintains whatever is vital and practi- cally valuable in it, [pp. 308-9, 317, note.] Nevertheless he discards the doctrine of imputation as untrue and absurd, [p., 333.] Our common treatises of theology, in the doctrine of vicarious atonement, human depravity, and the sovereignty of God in the renewing of the Holy Ghost, as they lift up no Son of Man to draw us to God, set forth a Gospel which is no gospel, but only a dull mechanical contrivance of theology. the Bufferings of Christ, and Tvtich arails to our justification, is real and effica- cioua only in virtue of the fact that it is incidental, [pp. 201-2,] being Tvhat he suffers, not in the ostentation of suffernig, or having that as the direet object of his mission, but what he suffers in his grand attempt to regenerate the world and reestablish the lost union of souls with the Divine nature." [P. 218.] "Agreeing, meantime, that by 'implication' or indirectly, he does express the abhorrence of God to sin as profoundly as it is possible to be done, even by punishment itself." [P. 317.] Note. — "The doctrine of imputation, as contained in the'Catechism, was voted by the General Association of Connecticut, at their last meeting in Litchfield. I refused concurrence in the vote, in the distinct understanding that as regards my own position, I might probably affirm it with greater propriety than any other five persons present. But as the vote afiirmed what I supposed was universally known to be untrue — viz., that the churches and ministers of the State hold the doctrine — I feel obliged to decline it" [Pp. 308-9.] "That the subjective-objective, or representatively objective doctrine I have asserted, coincides with the real truth of imputation; justifying a qualified assent to that doctrine; requiring it in the practical uses of life; and con- taining, I suppose, all that has made it true to its adherents; — precisely that, nei- ther more nor less. Thus it will be found that, while the greater part of the New England teachers reject this doctrine, which ho one can deny is a doctrine of the Reformation, and with Dr. Emmons declare it even to be ' absurd ;' / am actually maintaining it, in a form that preserves whatever is vital and praictioally valua- ble in it. Instead of allowing the oft reiterated declaration, that there is no such thing as imputation in the Scriptures, they seem to m,c, on the contrary, to leful^l of it. The whole objective side of the Scripture doctrine of Christ — "bearing our ' sins," **made sin for us," "having th^ iniquity of us all laid upon him^" **wound- ed for our transgressions,'' "our ramom," "our righteousness imputed without works" — in all these objectivities the mind is occupied with notions of a puta- tive or imputed grace. Neither are these barren notions, but they have all a sound reahty and force ; and they are even necessary, in that view, to the full power and easy working of the grace of the Gospel in us." [P. 333.] "For the latter dismisses, under sentence of 'absurdity,' all those conceptions of imputation, which figure so largely in the teachings of the Re- formers, and even constitute the staple of their doctrine ; while I, coinciding in the speculative absv/rdity of imputation, undertake also to show how these olyjec- tive conceptions get their proper validity, and enter, even as necessary elements, into the practice economy of the; Christian life." 65 It is not the Gospel jit is only a specnlatire figment, cold and dry, whicli scholastics have schemed for us in the petty measures of the scientific understanding, [pp. 219, 220 ;] while in Dr. B.'s scheme, " Christ the living Word appears, and is lifted up to be a Gospel of power in the world's feeling," [pp. 220-1.] EEMAEKS. 1. It is true : that those w^o are called orthodox, do hold, 1st, "That Christ has come between us and the judicial de- sert of our sins;" which (coming between) "they call dis- tinctively the atonement ;" and 2d, " that he has purchased the Holy Spirit, who after pardon has been made possible, is by his secret " (inscrutable) '^efficiency to renew such as he vnll to salvation." It is also true that not only " many " but all who are re- garded by the churches in our connection as orthodox, do hold, according to the Westminster Confession, that by the [Pp. 219-20.] "I look into our treatises of theology, and they tell me that these two elements constitute the Gospel of our salvation. First, that Christ has come between us and the judicial desert of owr sins, which they call distinctively the atonement. Seoondljr, that he has purchased the Holy Spirit, who, after pardon has been maide possible, is by his secret efficiency to renew such as he will to salva- tion. Connected with this, it is held as a theory by many that human character, ■under sin, is wholly disabled, as regards any quickening influence addressed to thought, and discovered in that way to feeling. Ifo approach, in this direction, of the Divine love and patience is means to an end, they say, as regards the re- generation of the soul, or can be of any avail, save to exasperate the malignity of sin. On one hand, then, we have a gate of pardon opened oy a legal prdvision; on the other, the Holy Spirit blowing where it listeth; but there is no Son of Man lifted up between, to draw us unto God, and impregnate our fallen affec- tions with the Divine love. The two dry factors above named cohititute the Gospel. "It is no Gospel, but only a dull mechanical contrivance of theology. Christ the wisdom of God and the power ; Christ the manifested life ; Christ the image of the invisible God, who is to shine into our hearts and give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God ; Christ lifted up to draw all men unto him ; Christ in whom we are to be changed from glory to glory ; God manifest in the flesh ; God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, — is not here. Therefore, J lay, this is not the Gospel; it is only a speculative figment, cold and dry, which scholastics have schemed for us, in the petty measures of the scientific understanding." ' ' [P. 220-l.J "Between the two points here affirmed, justification on one side, and the grace of the Spirit on the other — ^that a mere possibility, as it is com- monly regarded ; this an inscrutable subjective s^ency — Christ the Living Word appears, and is lifted up to be a Gospel of power in the world's feeling." 5 66 " original corruption," into which men were brought by the fall, " we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to evil ;" for Christ has said, " No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him ;" and Scripture expressly declares that "The carnal mind is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be ; so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." There is therefore no hope for us, but in the sovereign grace of God in the " re- newing of the Holy Ghost." It is' assuredly true that they do not regard these doctrines as " dry factors ;" nor does it ap- pear to them when Christ crucified is preached, that " God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, is not here ;" for though " the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, unto them that are saved it is the power of God." " But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God ; becaute the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." When we preach Christ, "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, thi-ough faith in his blood," we do not admit that it is either false or absurd. We declare it " a faithful say- ing worthy of all acceptation ;" nor do we admit that " It is not the Gospel," nor a mere " speculative figment ;" but we hold it as the truth of the Lord our God, which no man may impugn, or pronounce " the simplest form of absurdity," with- out bringing his soul into danger of the judgment. That those who hold these doctrines leave out that part of the Gospel which lifts up the Son of man as exhibiting the love and mercy of God, and so drawing all men unto him, is an announcement that fills us with amazement. To the best of our knowledge and belief, the statement is utterly errone- ous and iintrue. Who that holds the doctrine of a vicarious atonement has not always been ready to exclaim, with an emphasis coming from the very depths of the soul, " Herem is love ! Wot that we loved God, lut that he loved us, and 6f ga/ve Ms Bon to ie the propitiation for our sins "f And this they have constantly used as the most common and the most powerful argument in beseeching men to be reconciled to God. Dr. B. is mistaken when he fancies that this is peculiar to his scheme, or that he has in this restored any part of the Gospel, which had fallen into disuse. Nor do the orthodox hold, as the representations of Dr.' B. constantly imply, that God needed to be propitiated to simple love and pity ; or his simple " anger " to be " smoothed away " by a " stipulated amount of suffering," so that he " would have his modicum of suffering any how." Directly contrary to this, they hold, not that the atonement moved hiin to love and pity, but that love and pity moved him to the atonement. " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," because otherwise he could not " be just " and justify the transgressor; for God is our Kuler and Judge as well as our Father. Moreover, the love of God is enhanced beyond expression, in its power to touch the sin- Rer's heart, by the very fact which Dr. B. denies : viz., that Christ died to redeem us by his blood, offering up his life a vicarious sacrifice, rather than incidentally dying as a mis- sionary or a martyr. Ilow tame the expression of love con- tained in the latter, compared with that of the former ! " For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly ; for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 'But God commendeth his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us?'' Is there any view which so overawes the sinner's soul with the frowns of Di- vine lustice and the terrors of the law, as that which shows him the Son of God expiring on the cross, and " redeeming us from the curse of the law, being made a cuese foe us " ? At the same time, is there any view which so penetrates him with a sense of- the wonderful love and mercy of God? God so loved the world/ " 68 " Here the whole Deity is known ; Nor dares the creature guess Which of the glories brightest shone, The justice or the grace." Even if we consider the atonement in the simple aspect of its power to move the sinner, Dr. B., in taking away the vica- rious sufferings of Christ, has taken away precisely that which gives the Gospel its vitality and power; and. then he coolly declares that his "offense is simply this, that he makes so much more of Christ than is sometimes made in our meager theories, as to reflect dishonor on them by the excess." [p. 219.] 2. Dr. B. seems to himself to hold, under a different form or resolution of the atonement, all that those who complain of him suppose him to deny. The substance of his argument to substantiate this claim may be stated thus : Most of the New England teachers discard the idea that Christ was literally punished for our sins ; and hold instead, that God only ex- pressed, by the vicarious sufferings of Christ, that abhorrence of sin, and that regard to the sanctions of the law, which he would have expressed by our punishment. But Dr. B. also holds that God expresses the same thing, only in a different way ; viz., without any suffering to express directly by suffer- ing the Divine abhorrence of sin, or suffering as a substitute for penalty. He holds that the expression was made, 1, by revealing God in the incarnation, humanizing the idea of God, and bringing him into union with humanity ; 2, by ex- pressing his love, and exhibiting his regard for the sanctity of the law, through an example of obedience ; an example car- ried out even to the point of dying rather than forsake it; and of falling in the discharge of duty, even as a martyr falls. But even so, the difference is fundamental ; for it is the dif- ference between believing in a vicarious atonement and reject- ing it with scorn and contempt. If any of the orthodox hold l^at the ultimate use of the atonement is to impress men or other beings with a sense of the sacredness and vindicatory power 69 of the \kw, and of the awful vigor of divine justice, they still hold that this impression is made by the actual sacrifice of Christ, as a sin offering, in the sinner's stead, to divine jus- tice ; which Dr. B. denies and discards as not only untrue but absurd.* Hotr then can the matter of their Gospel be the matter of his ? The claim that it is so, is a simple claim that the matter of the Gros|pel is the same with an sttonement and without one : the same whether the atonement be received as the corner stone of Christianity, or rejected as a " dry factor," an untruth, an absurdity. Moreover, !Dr. B. himSelf ad- mits that God has set forth the work of Christ under the form of a vicarious atonement, and requires it so to be believed ; and that the sinner cannot be relieved from his death in sin, nor Christ become The Life to him, without his believing it; and that this doctrine, even in the form of imputation, must enter as " a n'ecessaryr element in the practical economy of the Christian life ;" only what God has so revealed,— what is so indispensable to be received in the faith for justification of the sinner,^ — what is to enter as a " necessary element " in the Christian life, — ^Dr. B. has denied as untrue, ridiculed as the simplest form of absurdity, and pronounced incompat- ible with the moral character of God. Does he still hold "under a different form or resolution " of th6 atonement, all that those who complain of him suppose him to deny,— the form of a vicarious atonement, with the assurance that the form is a lie, and more absurd and hateful still than common lies as being so derogatory tb the character of God ; the carcass bereft of life,— ^alid that carcass not a real one, but a body that never had life ? Is this all ? "When this is left us, are we * On pp. 273, 284, Br. B. endeavors to press Drs. Griffin and DwigHt into the support of his views; But who does not know that these venerated men wonld have abhorred the very thought of denying the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ? So (p. 321) John Howe is represented as' looking "upon propitiation itself" as " a subjective power;" whiohi in Dr. B.'s use of the phtase, means that he re- garded the death of Christ as hot in reality a propitiatory sacrifice. So (pp, 322, 323, 324, 325,) Baxter and Symington are represented as "sanctioning and for- tifying" Dr. B.'s " supposed departures fi-om orthodoxy" — i. e. as sanctioning and ifortifying a denial of the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. It would scarcely be more amazing or unjust if one had represented these men as Atheists. ro to rest satisfied that all is left us which we have ever claimed as belonging to the atoning sacrifice of our Lord? In reclaiming all that he had seemed to cast away, Dr. B- has not reclaimed or restored " Christ cfruaijied" as the Ke- deemer " whom God has set forth to ie a propitiation through faith in his hlood for the remission of sins that are jpastP The vital part of the Gospel he has taken away and has not restored. He has not restored what God hath set forth as essential to vindicate the divine justice — '■'•that he may be JUST." Nor has he restored, as we apprehend, any thing to establish the vindicatory justice of the law. He even denies that any thing penal, or that any abhorrence of sin is expressed by the death of Christ. Eut the question is not whose opinion is correct as to what is necessary to make the needed expression or impression, but what God taught? "What means has He provided and set forth ? "What object has He ofiered to our faith ? Not Christ simply incarnate ; not Christ the excellent example of obedi- ence ; not Christ the wonderful teacher ; not Christ as simply expressing or declaring the love of God, and assuring us that God is not angry with the wicked, and needs no propitiation ; not Christ, as by all these means of moral suasion drawing men to repentance and to God ;-^-all these the Socinian be- lieves and teaches as strongly as Dr. Bushnell ; — but God has set forth as the object of faith, in order that he may justify the sinner and be just, precisely that which Dr. B. as well as the Socinian has taken away, and rejected with abhorrence : " Cheist oeuoified," "the peopitiation foe oue sins" — " THEOUGH FAITE IN HIS BLOOD," " hoW that he DIED FOE OtTE BINS AccoEDiNG TO THE SoEiPTUEES." Cbrist crucificd, iu this sense. Dr. B. has taken away and has not restored. And in this the Socinian has this advantage over Dr. B., that when the Socinian takes away Christ, he avers that he takes him away because God hath not so set him forth ; and so endeav- ors to save the veracity of the Lord ; while he himself is not driven to the hard necessity of believing what he holds as an absurdity and a lie. Dr. B. admits that God hath so set forth 11 Christ to be believed, but teaches that what is to be be- lieved, as necessary to salvation, is untrue ; and so renders faith impossible, and makes God a liar. With what propriety can he claim that he holds " all the essential truths of evangel- ism,"— all that New England teachers hold as essential, — ^nay, that the very matter of his Gospel is the matter of theirs ? And we ask, with earnest and deep solemnity, are we to ad- mit, on the force of such claims, that a minister of the Gos- pel holds all that is essential to the faith of our churches, — all that is essential to the Gospel of Christ, — when he has most fully, in every shape and modification, and in terms of the deepest scorn and contempt, denied the doctrine of the vicari- ous sufferings and sacrifice of Christ to atone for the sins of mankind ? Sec. V. 1. Whether Dr. B., in his second book, has taken "higher grounds" or made statements which "relieve " or " contra- dict " the teachings of the first book. It may be supposed by some, that although Dr. B., in his first book, denied the vicarious sufferings and sacrifice of Christ ; yet, in his second book, he has " taken higher ground" or made statements which " somewhat relieve " the force of his denial, or which are " contradictory " to it, or at least " incon- sistent " with it. The following passage, p. 215, has been cited, in support of this supposition. " Or, if it be said, that they have no meaning, it is not because they do not recognize, in the fullest manner, the necessity of a ground of justifica- tion, and show as fully what that groimd of justification is — '•'• Christ ov/r righteousness, Christ sOmdtifying by his death and sacrifice the violated law, and preparing thus a way • of par- don, tliat makes it not an act of license, but of ^ustificationP Other passages have been cited, as on p. 235, showing that Dr. B. holds to the necessity of " a ground of justification^'' that " the law desecrated by sin," may be " vindicated in al^- thority " by some " other manifestation of God's righteous- 72 ness, in place of that which punishment would have yielded ;" and p. 237, that " no salvation is adequate, save that which can open a passage through government, without any breach npon its integrity and order," and p. 269, that " God^ as gov- ernor of the world, presides in justice, connecting evil withi transgression; vindicating thus his own character, the integ- rity of his governmental order and sanctity of his law ;" and that he still vindicates the same in the " incarnate mission of Jesus Christ ; " and p. 284, that he " still adheres as firmly as others, to the necessity of a grmmd of j%tstificaiion jpr^ared in the suffe^i-mgs Affl« we call our Christicmiti/ is only a pro- duct of the organising force of human dogmd^tism. Christ in Theology, [p. 70.] These formulas are impostures of precision. The maker of such solidifies the smoke he is in, by the con- centrSitive force of his own dullness. Christ in Theology, [pp i 70-1.] "€foi in Christ." [P. 801.] "Two elements then, as I conceive, enter into the notion of dogma ; first, an opinion, which is some decision of natural judgment, or some merely theologic conSusion; seoqndlj, the pro{>iSunding or holding of that opinion as a Me to the opinions, the faith, or the Christian experience, whether 01 ourselves or of othera " God in Ghrist." fP. S26.] It needs, at the present time, to be a leading topic of inquiry among religious teachers, and especially in our schools of theology, what are the capacities of scientific or propositional theology, which, for the sake of brevity, ind inithout amy reference to the matter of authority, we will call dogma ?" / " Christ inweology." [P. "TO.] "And it will be found, as a matter of fact, that all the strons1l)odies of Protestant believers — ^the Lutheran, the Reformed Church, the Scotch, ^e Methodist, and, in fact, the Independent connection — ^have been organized in and by the strong ligaments of formulas, taten as being the very es- sence and literal being of the truth. In their formulas, these bodies or churches have all their distinct characteristics, and, as it would almost seem, a vital force eq uallr di^iiotive and peculiar to themselves. They seem, in fact, to be different organizations, and many wiU even praise the stem; uncomplymg rigor of their doctrinal' for the very reason that it is seen to have an organizing power so effi- cigntlr and broadly characteristic. "S'ow, if there be something agreeable in this, which I will not deny, it does not seem to me to be any thing that is properly Christian. On the contrary, though we love to see organic vigor and lively characteristics, it is not pleasant to see Christian bodies animated by distinct varieties of life. Such appearances awaken the painful suspicion that what we call our Christianity, is a product only of the organizing Wee of human dogmatism." " Christ in Theology." [Pp. 70-1.] "It wfll alsooccurto every thoughtful person, that the constructive energy of formulas, thus evinced, is not caused by their definite hold of the literal truth, for then they could not differ so remarkably from each other ; but by the fact rather that they are impostures of precision, so effective in blinding or limiting the vision both of their authors and their disciples. Indeed, it can be no secret that the eplid, scientific look of dogmatism, by which we are so apt to be impressed, is due simply to the fact that the dog- matizer solidifies the smoke he is m, by the concentrative force of his dullness; becoming the most precise of teachers, because he is so mystified by his own vagueness that he hews it into solid bloeks of knowledge — which, then, others 82 The scriptural texts supposed to commeud sound doctrine, are scholastic misapplications and mistranslations. Christ in Theology^ [p. 74]. Christian theology is the speculative or logical exposition (npt of the word of God) but of Christian consciousness, considered as containing the Divine. Id., [p. 84]. It, therefore, fluctuates with the temperament of each ex- pounder, and never can obtain a fixed authoritative statement. Id., [pp. 86-6]. The head is not to regulate the heart, nor opinions, faith. God v)i Christ, [p. 328]. The Gospel is a work of art which must be interpreted, not by reason or logic, but by the heart, a right sensibility, an aesthetic talent. Id., [p. 302.] accept it, in the certainty that they must be solid, because of the exactness of their shapes." " Christ in Theology." [P. 74.] " The texti constantly cited in commendation of ' sound doctrine,' and supposed to be injunttions that maintain the necessity of being grounded in theologio articles, are fomd, when narrowly inspected, to be only scholastic misapplications or mistranslaVions — ^tokens of the universal imposture regarding this matter of doctrine that, long ages ago, had gotten pos- BCEsion of the Christian mind." " Christ in Theology," [P. 84.] "The ablest, exposition I have seen of this sub- ject is that of Dr. Rothe, translated in the Postoript to Mr. Morell's 'Philosophy of Religion.' His object is to find a place, or show atrue ground, for speculative theology. And, Uiou^h he does not intimate, what I belieye to be just, that the true line of direction in all fruitful study is that which proposes rather divinity than theology, he yet lays down the distinction under other terms, and makes it the center of his exposition. And he brings his exposition thus to the true con- clusion, that Christian .theology is the speculative or logical ea^osition of the Christian consciousness, considered as containing the Divine." " Christ in Theology." [P. 85^6.] "Is it probable that theology, being one in its method with philosophy, and under the same speculative conditiong, however distinct in the matter of it and the Scripture ground of fact in which it is based, can ever become a science, or attain to a fixed and properly authoritative state- ment! "That the Christian, or Divine consciousness, of which speculative theology is to be the expounder, differs from the natural consciousness in the fact, that it is no constant quantity ; that it fluctuates with the fidelity of the man and the spiritual temperament of his life ; that it is always a mixed and never a pure state, mixed with lies, sensualities, and all manner of undivinities, and these so cunningly inserted as not to reveal their presence ; that sometimes the investi- gator comes under the power of the world, stolen away from himself, and then, as the Divine can not be held in the memory a moment after it is gone from the heart, he swings to a new center of motion, according to the balance of matter left in his consciousness. This being the true state, out of which a science or theory is to come, and which it is to represent^ what is that science like to be ?" " CM in Christ." [P. 328.] "We seem also to imagine, which is worse than all, that the head is to take care of the heart, the opinions to regulate the faith — that we are first to fill the head or natural understanding with articles and dogmas, and then that the head is to shape the experience of the life, and even to be a Jaw to the working of the Spirit. Exactly this, indeed, when baldly stated, is the theory of Christian education held by many parents. True Christianity holds a very different opinion." " Ood in Christ." [P. 302.] "And the whole Gospel of Christ is subjectj in a 83 SucH system as has prevaile4 in theology gives only petty for- mulas, minima, segments, specks of truth. Christ in Theology, [pp. 32-3], a dead body of abstractions, the mere exuviae of reason. Oodin Christ, [p. 106]. We may look for the time when no creeds will be wanted to preserve i}xQ purity of the Chv/rck. Id., [p. 342]. The Ohiirch may probably be kept pure, 1st. by the volun- tary withdrawment of hypocrites from its pale ; and 2d, by the intuitive discerning of spirits. Id., [pp. 342-3]. The views of Inspiration, the Personality of the Spirit, "Regeneration, Atone- ment, Justification, heretofore prevalent, are destructive of spiritual religion. Id., [pp. 350, 349-50, 344-5]- Unitarian- reat degree, to the same conditions. It requires a heart, a good, right-feeling heart, to receive so much of heart as God here opens to us. Indeed, the Gospel is, in one view, a magnificent work of art, a manifestation of God, which is to find the world, and move it, and change it^ through the medium of expression. Hence, it requires for an inlet, not reason, or logic, or a scientific power, so much as a right sensibility. The true and only suflSoient interpreter of it is an sesthetic talent, viz., the talent of love, or a sensibility exalted and purified by love." " Christ in Theology." [P. 82-3.] "I supposed that, if we can but quit our over theoretic and abstractive wisdom, make- a great deal less of the plausible' in- genuities of system, be simplfe enoUgh to think more of receiving and less of con- structing, and to ofi^er a living ingenious heart to what God expresses to us, we should be no longer drawn off into petty formulas, to fight for the mere ininima of truth, arrayed as in starvation against each other, but should receive so much more of God's fullness, and spread ourselves in such a breadth of comprehension as to find the unity whose loss we deplore, in simply receiving truths whose loss was unknown, — ^hidden from us, by the party zeal we had for systems that con- tained only a few small segments or specks of truth:" " Oodin Christ," [P. 106.] "Nothing, in fact, is so unsolid, many times^-no figment so vacant of meaning, as that dead body of abstractions, or logical propo- rtions, called theology ; which, professing to give us the contents of God's truth, puts us off, too generally, with the mere exuvim of reason; which extinguishes the living fires of truth to show us the figures it can draw in the ashes." " God in Christ." [P. 342.1 "I will go farther; I will venture to suggest the doubt, whether a state of spiritual elevation, light, sobriety, and freedom from passion, may not finally be reached, in which the " unity of the Spirit " wUl suf- fice, without any human formulas, to preserve the pwrity of the Chv/rch. Manifestly we preserve no true semblance of purity now, by our formal standards; for the worst kind of impurity is practical, not theoretic, the impurity of a selfish, un- spiritual, undevout life ; and this will shelter itself as quietly under the platforms of orthodoxy, as if it were even acceptable to God." " God in Christ." [P. 842-3.] "Is not possibl«; under the double action of a two-fold process named by the Apostle John, to have a pure church kept in pre- servation by mere spiritual affini,ties ! First, in virtue of the fact that those who are not of the church, viill go out from, it themselves, because they are not of it ? And secondly, by the in^itive discerning of Spirits, enabling those who are truly in the Spirit, and who, according to another apostle, 'judge all things,' to perceive the spirit of other minds ?^' "Oodin Christ." [P. 350.] " We have also raised a theologicdbtinction, under the word inspiration, which, it is very eleai' to me, is operating a sad depression 84: ism was needed when it came. iS., [pp. 338-9]. Whether the principles thus propounded are true or false, Dr. Enshnell is no more responsible for them than for his anatomic frame. Id.^ vn our modem piety, even if originallj there Traa notliiiig false in the distinction ;: for we haye now taken it, practically, in such a sense as cuts ns off from the holy men of Scripture times, and ■works a feeling in us that God is now more remote, and, of course, that it is no longer permissible to realize the same graces, and ex- pect the same intense union of the life with God." " God in CTirist." [P. 349-50.] "The reality and power of this limitation is displayed in other methods. In how many mindB is the Spirit -viewed or receiyed, through their speculative theology, not as maintaining any social, moral, en- dearing relations in us, but simply as an abstract and dry agency— ^mere efficien- cy, running out from God's decrees, .to execute them Jn us by an ietic force ; or, (U best, as an effluenee or influence streaming through ««, which does not shape itself has no social consciousness, but only works, in the w^y of mere causation, like a stimulant or an opiate. This, manifestly, is not the Holy Spirit of the Scriptures, but the Holy Spirit; rather, of the schools. ATtd the difference is the more remark- able, that our dogma even goes beyond the Scriptvres in asserting the metaphysical personality of the Spirit. We call him a Person, insist on his personality, raising, at the same time, a scheme of dogma which reduces him to a something literally prur- chased for us, and dispensed as a gift to us ; or to a mere causative agency that works m us without feeUng, sociality, character, or anything which properly dis- tingmshes personality. Hence, there is scarcely produced in us at all, the sense of mutuality, lore, or inwardly abiding friendship. "In the Scriptures, on the other hand, he is even represented as being the Spirit of Christ— nay, Christ himself" " God in Christ." [P. 338-9.] " The manner in which dogmatism necessitates diyision, may be weU enough illustrated by the mournful separation which has taken place in the New Kngland churches. Had we been embodied in the sim- ple love of God, under some such badge, for example, as the Apostles' Creed, it is very probable to me that the cause of the division would never have existed. But we had an article which asserted a metaphysical Trinity, and this made the assertion of a metaphysical unity inevitable ; nay, more, even desirable. So we had a theory of atonement, another of depravity, another of regeneration, or the ingeneration of character, which required tite appearance, so to speak, of anta- gonistic theories." " God in Christ. " [P. 351-2.] " Rectifying thus, and enlar^g, our ideas of the Spirit and his relations to us, how clear is it that a new intimacy of faith and love will be visible between the church and God — ^that the old incrustation, or dogmatic shell of our piety will be melted away, and that, ceasing to see in the sparks of our own kindling, looking to God in the whole course of Kfe, there toill be unfolded a style of piety wholly unknown at present in the world" " God in Christ." [P. 97-8.] "Indeed, I seem, too, as regards the views present- ed, to have had only about the same agency in forming them, that I have in prepar- ing the blood I circulate, and the anatomic frame I occupy. Tltey are not my choice, or invention so much as a necessary growth, whose process I can hardly trace my- self. And now, in giving them to the public^ I seem only to have about the same kind of option left me, that I have in the matter of appearing in corporal manifestation myself, — about the same anxiety, I will add, concerning the unfa- vorable judgments to be encountered ; for though a man's opinions are of vastly greater moment than his looks, yet, if he is equally simple in them, as in his growth, and equally subject to his law, he is responsible only in the same degree, and ought not, in faet, to suffer any greater concern about their recyition than about the judgment^ passed upon his person." " Godin Christ.'[[F. 344-5.] "I know of no illustration of the effect of dog- matism, taken as a limit upon piety, which needs to be pursued, at this time, with more attention, than that which is turniEJied by the theory, extensively 85 [pp. 97-8]. Their prevalence will bring in a style of piety now wholly unknown. Id.^ [pp. 361-2] EEMARKS. . 1. If the Gospel, as received among our ministers and cliurches, is emptied of its life and power, in the. judgment of Dr. Bushnell, it is vain for him to pretend that there need be no difference between his preaching and that o?his brethren. There must be a heaven-wide difference, if he is an honest man. 2. The whole scope of what we have quoted goes to show that Dr. Bushnell ainis to produce changes in our practical diyinity and religion, as great as in speculative theology. ; ; 3. That " chemistry of thought," which is able to accept all creeds, may -be as easily applied to all expressions of belief. What confidence can we have, then, in any declaration of his faith whicl^ he may make ? This avowal shocks our first sen- heW, of Christ's •work, ' He U regarded riot as a pmiier, in the manner of the New T^tament, but more as a paymaster ; not as comirig to hiring us life, and take lis to his bosom, but in literal dogmatic verity, to suffer God^s displeasure in our stead, and sotorec6ncileGodious."'Takends he stands, theologically represented, there is nothing given to us of Christ, which is closer to feeling, often, than that hefUls out a judicial machinery, and is goodfxs a legal tender for our Mns. Diminished thus, by dogma, Christ ceases to be the lAfe. We only look to see how he brings us by the.law. Se is a mere forensic entity. SChen follows what otily could; — a dqetrine of justification by faith is held by many, so literal and forensic in its form, that the Gospel of -heaven's love and light is- narrowed almost to a superstition. They scarcely dare entertain the thought of a personal righteousness, or to look upon any such hope as permissible. It implies, they fear, some expeet^tions of being sarcd not wholly by the merits of Christ. They cannot even read or hear, •with- out a little jealousy or , disturbance of- mil)d, those tp^ts of Scripture that speak of assurance, liberty, a conscience Void of offense, victory over sin, a pure heart, a blameless life, and a perfected love. They are so jealous of merit, that they make a merit of not having any. They are so resolved on magni^ng the grace of God, as almost to think it a crime to believe that the grace of God can inake them any bettfer. They come before God in confession of sin so exfeavagant, so •wide of t"heir own c'onsciousness, 'that if a fellow-man were to charge upon them what they confess, they •would be mortiUy offended. And though there be no sincerity, no real verity in such confessions, 'they think it altogether safe to include enough, 'becauee it strips them df merit! Meantime their standards are let down to the lowest point of attainment; for if they deem it an essential part of their piety to keep up their confessions, it will be some'what natural, at least, to live in a manner' to do them soAe tolerable degree of justice. And, if an air of falsity or affectation is thus thrown over their piety, what, meantime, be^ comes of Jesus, the Savior — God' in Christ reconciling the world to himself! What element of life and divine eloquence is left? Where is Christ, the wisdom and the power i" 86 timents of honesty and veracity, and undermines all confi- dence. i. This, with all else that we have quoted, and much more which we might quote, manifests the deepest scorn and hate of all creeds, formulas, and theological propositions of any sort, when used as tests of soundness in the faith, or fitness for the ministry. 5. According to the principles set forth by Dr. Bushnell, taste and feeling are the guiding, while reason and intellect are the subordinate faculties of our nature. The truth of the Bible acts upon the sensibility before it is or can be appre- hended by the intellect, and upon the intellect only mediately through the heart. The feeling of truth precedes and guides the perception of it. The perception of it does not precede and shape the feeling. Hence, to apply our intellects to the Bible, and ascertain the truths it contains, and to make these truths, thus ascertained, the guide of our feelings, the mold of our religious experience, and the standard of our faith, is, as he would have us understand, dogmatism, rationalism, &c. The true course, he would have us think, is, to receive what of the Bible we may, through the sensibility, the taste, the imagination, and then construct our theology out of con- sciousness instead of the Bible. 6. Hence, theology is as variable as the experience of dif- ferent men, and of the same man at difierent times. All fixed standards, all external creeds or tests of faith, are inadmissible. The Bible itself is contradictory. " Probably the Gospel of John is the most contradictory book in the world." God in Christ, [p. 66.] On this system, therefore, the Bible cannot be a standard of faith. 7. On such a system there is, of course, need of the con- tinuance of the gift of inspiration, without cessation, in all Christians. The Church sufiers loss in discarding this belief in continued inspiration. It needs more of mysticism, which discovers divine things by immediate intuition, inspiration, or quietistic contemplation, without any external standard, to be the law of its faith. 8. If the principles thus advanced are correct, and are a 87 valid defense of Dr. Bushnell's heresies against ecclesiastical censure, they form an equally valid defense for all conceivable heresy. They protect the most unlimited license of opinion-. They open wide the door for'every heresy — " as many creeds as may be offered." Ood in Christy [p. 82.] They sweep away all known means of vindicating or maintaining truth, intelligi- bility, and accuracy in language ; logic, except as a weapon against doctrines, he dislikes ; creeds, and the normal author- ity of the Bible itself, as a standard or even iminediate source of Christian theology. Christ in Theology ^{^.^4:^ They un- dermine all foundations, and if the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do ? Certainly, if Dr. Bushnell is right, the Apostle John was wrong in charging us, " if there come any man unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, nei- ther bid him God speed ; for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." 2 Johm, 10. And why should Peter warn us against those who '■^privily bring in damnable heresies, denying the Lord who bought them ?" 2 Peter, ii. 1. Moreover, does not Paul charge us to reject a heretic after the first and second admonition ? Tit. iii. 10. And does he not beseech us to mark them which cause dimisions cmd offenses contra/ry to the doctrme' which we home learned, a/nd a/void them ? And does it in the least extenuate the sin of making these divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine of our communion which we have learned from the word of God, to say that he is no more "responsible for" his views, than for the growth of his body ? God m Christ, [p. 98.] CONCLUSION. " "We have thus presented an outline of the doctrines which we find taught by Dr. Bushnell in his " vindication of himself from the charges of heresy brought against him from various quarters," to which our brethren of the Hartford Central As- sociation. have referred in explanation of their published decis- ion by which we are aggrieved. We have also brought to view the sentiments advanced in those discourses of his first book which are designed to explain, or defend, or to show the prac- tical bearings of, his doctrinal principles. "We have thus examined this second book for three reasons. 1. The " vindication" of Dr. Bushnell is all to which the Hartford Central Association have referred as in explanationiof their decision. ■ 2. If it had contained any real justification of, his former book, or shown him to be sound in the faith, we should hare rejoiced to see it, and to withdraw our complaint against him as a. teacher of heresy, and against his Association as abetting that heresy. 3. If on examination, it turn out to be, what we think we have found and proved it to be, simply a reaflSrmation of the heresies of the previous volumes, then it is only a renewed as- sault upon the truth, which, so far from relieving, aggravates dll former grievances. The real question now before us is not, what are deemed among us fundamental doctrines, the denial of which is heresy, in refer- ence to the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement; — this has al- ready been declared by our General Association at its meeting in Litchfield, June, 1850 ; — ^but whether the sentiments advan- ced by Dr. Bushnell are or are not a virtual denial of these fundamental doctrines. We think the proof is abundant and overwhelming, that, in each of his volumes, he has published and laboriously advocated that which our General Association has pronounced heresy; And we shall feel constrained to be- lieve this, until the contrary is shown. This has not, asyet,been even attempted with reference to the sentiments, which in our original remonstrance we alleged, and in our humble opin- ions proved, were contained in his first book. The question, then, arises, is such a demaZ as these i)Ql'}fmes contmn of Tvha,t constitutes the essence of the great Christian Doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, hence" forth to be adjudged and treated among us as consistent with soundness in the faith, good standing in the ministry, and a full title to the confidence of our ministry aud churches ? Or, 89 stated in anothe? form, it^is this : whether, if the advocate of suqh doctrines succeed in procuring an acquittal and an indorse- ment of his soundness in the faith, by the vote of a majority of his own Association, our ecclesiastical system affords any remedy ? and whether, in such case, all other Associations are (i^bliged to recognize such deniers and impugners of the faith, as in full fellowship with themselves, and are estopped from aU further proceedings in the premises ? "We have as yet seen no argument going to show that there is, no remedy in this case, which would be not equally conclu sive in & case of avowed infidelity. None have as yet come to our knowledge, which do not go the length of maintaining that our system affords no remedy when an Association pro- tects plain and admitted heresy. Is this so ? Are we willing to avow before all Christendom and all the World that it is so ? Are we willing to plaice ourselves and our children in a com- munion, or under an ecclesiastical organization, of such a char- acter ? We are persuaded, that when these questions are dis- tinctly met, they can receive but one answer from any true Christian minister or Christian man. For to say that, in such a case, oar ecclesiastical system has no means of clearing itself of heresy and heretics, is to say that it is incapable of fulfilling some of theplainestinjunctionsof Scripture, and that a certifi- cate of good standing among us, is not evenprimdfaGie evi- dence, thait the holder thereof does not embrace "damnable here- sies." Nor, on such a supposition, have we any means of guard- ing our churches from being the sport of any heresiareh, who may choose to come among us and sap the foundations of their faith, if he can succeed in carrying a majority of a single Association. "We cannot believe that any who love the truth, and love Congregationalism, are prepared to say that our ecclesiastical system hinders ,or' prevents the application of the Scriptural remedies, in a case of plain, and incorrigible heresy. If it contains no specific written provisions for such a case, it at least leaves the way open for the application of those Scrip- tural principles, which lie deeper than all human constitutions. 90 It interposes no yeto, no barrier to the application of such principles. Indeed, under our system, we are constantly taking measures for the welfare of our churches, for which our written constitutions make no express provision. There is, then, there must be, a remedy in the case supposed. "What this remedy is, what precise steps, order and method, are to be adopted in applying it, is a question of more diffi- culty and embarrassment, owing to the absence of all prece- dents. For the case has never before happened in Connecticut, in which an Association has, after regular inquiry, form- ally acquitted and recommended as worthy of public confi- dence, any who have publicly assailed the great doctrines in question. We have our own views in relation to it. But in a case so novel and untried, and withal so momentous, we are unwilling, without more extensive discussion, to trust our own isolated judgment. "We think that it demands the collec- tive wisdom of the ministry and churches of the State. We think it proper, therefore, to lay the whole subject before the General Association of the State, which being comprised of Delegates from all the District Associations, must in a good degree, and far more than any other ecclesiastical body among us, reflect the prevailing opinion of the ministry whose repre- sentatives, and of the churches whose servants, they are. We are well aware that it has been said that our General Association has cleared itself, and discharged its whole duty in the premises, by the declaration at Litchfield. This view, however, we think cannot bear examination. That declara- tion was such action as the case demanded in the posture in which it then stood. It was good as an initial proceeding. As such it was all that we then asked, and we rejoiced, in it. Had the principles of that declaration been since carried out, it would have been an adequate remedy. But if they are not carried out by the District Associations ; if they are openly and allowedly violated by them ; if, while the General Association declares that the denial of the propositions of the Assembly's Catechism on the Triaity, Incarnation, and Atonement is heresy, and is so regarded by the ministers and churches of 91 this State, it remains true, that our District Associations per- sist in recommending those who deny them as duly accredited Christian teachers who deserve puhlic confidence ; then such declarations are proved before all Christendom and all the world, to be not only vain, but false. A declaration for the mere purpose of self-clearing, which proves to be untrue, does but deepen the stain it is intended to eflPace. And such must be the efiect of the declaration in question, if the General As- sociation continues to look quietly on, while those whose good standing it certifies, openly and conspicuously deny the doc- trines which it declares fundamental, and are, nevertheless, acquitted and commended to public confidence by their own District Associations. In such circumstances, if the General Association does nothing more than declare that the ministers and churches regard the denial of these doctrines as heresy ; if it does not gp forward and take effectual measures for re- moving such heresy from its connection, all such declarations are proved to be false and insincere. They are masks, which, if they hide our shame from ourselves, do but attract the at- tention of others to it. We cannot, therefore, admit for a mo- ment, that the declaration of the General Association at Litch- field is satisfactory, unless followed up by such measures as alone are consistent with its truth. To this body, therefore, we design, unless God should show us a better way, to submit substantially the following questions, at its next annual meet- ing: 1. Has not the Hartford Central Association, in their pub- lished decision concerning Dr. Bushnell's book entitled " God in Christ," publicly given their shield and countenance to teachings which deny the fundamental doctrines of the Chris- tian religion, or " the essential elements " of fundamental doctrines, as those doctrines are set forth in our Confession of Eaith, and particularly as they were set forth by the General Association at Litchfield in 1850 ? 2. Does not the aforesaid book contain such. prmi6, fade evidence of heresy, and has not the complaint of Fairfield "West to the Hartford Central Association, set forth such^nwid facie evidence of heresy in formal specifications and proofs, that the latter Association in still holding that the author " could not justly be subjected to the charge of heresy and a subsequent trials nor be denied the confidence of his brethren in the ministry," and that said book "furnishes no sufficient ground for instituting judicial proceedings against him," while they still refuse to reconsider their decision, or to even attempt to show Fairfield West wherein -their speciflcatioBs and proofs of heresy in said book are insufflcient,-^subverted the essen- tial principles of our union as a General Association ? 3. Does not the "vindication" of the teachings com- plained of, in the volume of Dr. Bushnell, entitled " Christ in Theology," to which the Hartford Central Association has referred us, in explanation of their decision, furnish new evi- dence that he persists in holding and propagating, and that they persist in shielding, the chief heresies contained in the book entitled "God in Christ"? 4. Is it true that those who persist in advocating such views " cannot justly be denied the confidence of their brethren in the ministry " ? 6. "When any of our ministers persist in advocating, and a majority of his Association persist in shielding, fundamental error, does our ecclesiastical system affiird any remedy, and if any, what ? 6. When any of our District Associations persist, after due labor used, in violating any of the fundamental principles which lie at the basis of our ecclesiastical union, and our mutual confidence and fellowship, ought not the General Association itself to interfere, in the use of appropriate means, until the oflfense is removed ? Y. What course ought one of our Associations to adopt, when a sister Association persists, after due labor used, in shielding what the former body solemnly "believes and alleges to be fundamental error, and refuses to furnish any evidence to the Association aggrieved, that the sentiments so shielded, are not heretical? APPENDIX. c, c. Dr. Bushnkll says, {Christ in Theol.,p. 6) : " As my former volume was called ' God in Christ,' I have called the present ' Christ iw Theology,' with a design that will be sufficiently obvious. To complete the descending series begun, there is w'anted another volume, showing the still lower, and as it were sedimentary, subsidence of theology itself preci- pitated in the confused mixtm-es of its elements ; a vqlume that shall do upon the whole body of theological opinion in JTew England, what my anonymous fiiend C.C. has done with such fatal e&ct upon the particu-i lar strictures of my adversaries." Since he La, this manner endorses. C. C, and signifies ^at a simila); attempt upon the theology of New England is a desideratum, we w^ briefly consider what C. C. has done. His work or attempt upon Dr. B.'s reviewers appears to be two-fold. 1. He endeavors to show by extracts from all sorts of reviewers, whe-t ther apologetic or condemnatory, that some few passages in Dr. B.'s book have been interpreted differently by different persons. And what else could be expected, in comparing the constructions put by all sorts of critics upon a writer who glories in mysticism, paradox, and contradiction? In point of fact,, however, several of the discrepancies alleged by C. C. are merely verbal, not real. This will readily appear from extracts suffi- ciently extended to show the real meaning of the reviewers. Thus, when Dr. Hodge is arrayed against the " Christian Observatory" by C. C, in reference tp Dr. Bushnell's pantheism, it appears from the extracts them- selves, tljat the latter says that Dr. B. holds a " pantheistic form of Sa- bellianigm," while the former says, "he (Dr. B.) holds the details of a system without holding its fundamental formative principle," sc, panthe- 9i ism. But the details of a system whose "formative principle is pantheism" must surely themselves be pantheistic. But even if, owing to the incongruous mixture of pantheistic, mystic, and rationalistic elements which compose his book, some single passages have been ditferently construed by different reviewers, there has neverthe- less been a peifect agreement among them as to the cardinal points in- volved. Dr. Hodge, for Princeton, Dr. Pond, for Bangor, Dr. Goodrich, for New Haven, Dr. Tyler, for East Windsor, Drs. Adams, Albro, Beecher, Messrs. Kirk, Thompson and others, in the " Christian Observatory," Bap- tist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Swedenborgian,- and Unitarian reviewers have understood him to teach, on the subject of the Trinity, Sabellianism with a tincture of pantheism ; on the subject of the incarnation, that there is no evidence of a distinct human soul in the pereon of Christ ; on the atonement, that it is not really vicarious, although it should be preached as such. As to all that is vital, even in the interpretation of Dr. B., the agreement could not be more " certain and complete." 2. C. C. attempts to prove that there is no standard of orthodoxy on the doctrines in question, by extracts from the reviews of Dr. B.'s adver- saries, tending to show that they are disagreed in fundamentals among themselves. Here lies the force of the pamphlet, if it has any. So its en- dorsee signify, who requested its publication. We will, therefore, notice the principal instances in which, vnth an air of triumph, he attempts to prove this discord. The first is that in which Dr. Hodge, on the one part, says, it is enough to admit the three pei-sons in the Godhead with- out " investigating their interior metaphysical nature." While the " Chris- tian Observatory," on the other hand, says that this " interior metaphysical nature " is the gist of the whole subject. But we have seen in our exami- nation of Dr. B.'s views upon the Trinity, that by "interior nature" or " metaphysical nature " in God, he means a three-fold distinction in the Divine nature. Dr. Hodge, on the other hand, understood by it what it is generally understood to mean in such a connection, i. e., not only the reality of such a distinction, but the " interior metaphysical " properties which constitute it. In this latter sense, he would not investigate it. In the former sense, he plainly agrees with the " Christian Observatory," in regarding it as the " gist of the whole subject." For he says, p. 279 : " He (Dr. Bushnell) shuts us up to Tritheism or Unitarianism. Ifo three- fold distinction in the Divine nature is admitted. There can be no doubt, therefore, as to our author's rejection of the Trinity, or the purely ra- tionalistic grounds of that decision." Says the " Christian Observatory, " as 95 quoted by 0. C, " that which distinguishes a Trinitarian from a Unita- rian is this — a belief in an original three-foldness in the natm-e of God." The agreement as to things is, therefore, most " certain and complete." But C. C.'s climacteric is in reference to the word "subsistence." This, in the nomenclature of the church theology, has a technical meaning like its Greek cognate, " hypostasis." Here it signifies pei-son, or the gi'ound of pereonality. In New England, this sense of the word seems generally to have been lost. Our theologians had attached no meaning to it, in such a connection, but that which prevails in common use, i. e., being in exist- ence. Most of Dr. B.'s New England reviewere therefore asserted that Christ's human soul had a " distinct subsistence," meaning thereby " a being of its own," distibict from the Divine natm-e. The context in every case shows that they meant this, and meant no more. Not one of them ever asserted or believed that there were two persons in Christ. They only asserted, as C. C. should have known from the context, a distinct hu- man soul in Christ, which Dr. B. had called in question. Dr. Hodge, on the other hand, used the word " subsistence " in the technical theological sense, and accordingly denied a distinct human " subsistence, suppositium or pei'son " in Chiist, while he asserted a distinct human soul. Just here, then, where C. C. professes to have shown utter discord, the difference is clearly only in words, and the agreement in things is most " certain and complete." As to C. C.'s attempt in reference to the doctrine of Atonement, he disposes of it all, both for himself and Dr. Bushnell, on p. 32, where he shows that the more " mitigated " orthodox scheme terminates in sub- stantial agreement with the higher, in regarding the atonement as " evil directly suffered to pay the release of evil " i. e., as strictly vicarious, and that as such, they are both alike rejected by himself and Dr. Bushnell. Such, then, is a sample of the work which Dr. B. would have done upon our New England theology, thus " completing the descending series ' of his assaidts upon our most holy faith. Of all forms of assault upon our Chi-istianity, it is the most unworthy and dangerous. It corresponds with all his tactics thus far. The scope of these seems to be to disami op- position to his own doctrines, by sapping all confidence in any doctrine. The only tendency and effect of such efforts must be to gender a' wide, spread, all-blighting scepticism. They are the stale device of infidelity, which we had hoped had grown obsolete, and at all events would be shunned and detested by all professed ministers of Christ. THE TALUE AKD SACEEDNESS OE DIYINE TEUTH. ADD EE S S BEFORE THE SOCIETY FOR INQUIRY Theological Institute of Connecticut, East Windsor Hill, AUGirST 4, 1853. BY EDWIN HALL, PASTOR or THE TIEST CHURCH, IN NOEWAIK, CONST. NEW YORK: S. W. BENEDICT, 16 SPRUCE STREET. 1 s.«;5! New York : S. "W- Benedict, Priwt., 16 Spruce street. At a meeting, numerously attended, of Ministers from various parts of this and the adjoining States, convened at East Windsor Theological Seminary, August 5, 1 852, it was unanimously voted — That the thanks of this meeting be given to Rev. Edwin Hall, D.D., for his Address on " The Value and Sacredness of Divine Truth," and that he he re- quested to furnish a copy for the press. The undersigned were appointed a committee to confer with Dr. Hall on the subject, and provide for the contemplated publication. BENJ. L. SWAN. J. A. M'KINSTRY. ADDRESS The subject to which I would call the attention of my young friends, who have so kindly invited me to address them at the present time, is The Value and Saoebdness of Divine Truth. I do not wish to con- ceal from you, that I am led to the selection of this topic by the aspects of the times. Other ages seem to have had, each, its prevalent form of error. Gnosticism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Sabellianism, each in its turn seemed to be the great heresy of the day ; and one great heresy, like one great pestilence, seemed to overshadow and draw into itself all others. The Eeformation was a contest for Justification by Faith, in op- position to justification by priestly interventions, and the prerogatives of the Church. Striking at this principle, it struck at the root of all the corruptions of Rome ; while a series of assaults upon individual abuses, would have issued only in petty and transient reforms, leaving the great fountain of error untouched. The Puritans stood for religious purity and freedom, against the assumptions of Prelacy ; which had proved themselves equally hostile to freedom and to truth. Then came the con- test with Arminianism. Our immediate fathers were called to contend with Deism and Infidelity. In every conflict the truth was worth ten thousand times more than the cost of its defence. What mischiefs were; stayed ! What abuses and oppressions were removed ! How light and, blessedness sprung up once more in the pathway of truth ! The present age is, perhaps, more prolific than any other in multiplied forms of error ; few of which, indeedj are new in their elements; and. many of which, after having rested for some ages quietly in their graves, have at length been exhumedj and brought up once more almost in their ancient shape and feature. So rapidly have these multiplied of late, that it seems as though all the ancient extravagances and errors, which were scattered along in the history oT eighteen hundred years, have at length ■ 6 been concentrated, and poured down in one hideous legion upon the pre- sent age. Perhaps it may be descending too low, to mention here the abomina- tions of Mormonism ; a system too absurd for argument, too vile in its fruits to leave any room for mistake as to its infernal origin ; — or of So- cialism, rejecting the doctrine of the Bible concerning the native depra- vity of man ; laying the blame of human wickedness upon the organize^ tion of society as it is sanctioned and guarded in the law of God ; and proposing to regenerate society and man by abrogating in detail all the provisions of that law. Thus, the commandment " Thou shalt not steal," is based upoli the recognition of the rights of property. The new society abrogates those rights, and dispenses with the commandment. Property is no longer sacred, and theft is now an impossible crime. The new so- ciety renounces marriage, and so dispenses with the Seventh Command- ment. AH guilt by adultery, fornication, or uncleanness, is by this im- possible. The commandment of God, and the institution sanctioned by that commandment, the new society has set aside and annulled. The family relation is removed to make way for a phalanx ; there is no more any room or ground for the Fifth Commandment. What matters it now whether they also deny God, after they have broken up his institu- tions, and trampled under their feet the whole code of laws by which those institutions were guarded ? What is this system, with all its vaunted philanthropy, but a compound of lewdness and villainy ; pur- posely accommodating itself to the vile passions of fellen man, and aim- ing to set theni all free from any conscience or recognition of the perfecst law of God 1 To what demonstrable absurdities, under the name of Phi- losophy, will not human nature descend? The Phrenologists, the Mes- merizers, the Spiritual Rappers ! — ^was ever an age before so shamed with the credence of absurdities at once so monstrous and so puerile 1 But all this is in accordance with the Savior's yord : " I am oome in my Far ther's name, and ye receive me not ; if another shall come in his own oaihe, him will ye receive." Men who believe neither Moses nor the Prophets, nor regard the testimony of God, — how readily do they re- jeive the pretended revelations of the wretched creature who prates about " The Univercoelum" and " The Superior State" ! And now Philosophy, having reiected the Gospel, and done what she ten to fear up systems conttadiotory to the Word of God, strikes boldly at the foundations of all faith and all knowledge. She alleges that there is no certainty, there can be no truth. The universe without us may not exi'st, and we ourselves may be but an idea. God is, for anght we can know, but an idea which man creates ; and the Bible may be no more ! Or if there be anything real, then Everything is God, and God is Every- thing ; while the highest style and personation of the divine, is man ; and as such ma;n should learn to respect and venerate himself! From the lowest depths of universal skepticism, Philo'sophy rises to the utmost heights of Christianity. She is a Believer, a profound Believir^ of the viery highest type and tone of piety. She believes in Progress. She has penetrated into the Very shrines of Esoteric Christianity ; what it is she cannot tell ; none can understand her till they attain her spirit- uality, and look forth from her " stand-point." By quietistic oontem.' plation, by the intuitions of a sublimer spirituality, she has descended to " The point of relationship between the form of the truth and its interior formless nature." And now the Bible is not the word of God, but only contains that word. Intuitive consciousness is to judge when its narra- tives are myths, and when its dogmas are untrue. Apostles sometimes reasoned unsoundly, and often came to false cOnclusidna ; but they did well for their age, and may serve to help us on to a higher and purer in- spiration. Moses and the Prophets did well for their day ; but the pre- sent is an age of progress, when piety and intuitional inspiration are go- ing ahead ! Perhaps a new and greater Christ is to arise ; and many things which have been right and true to us, may lose their character even of truth and righteousness, and be laid aside for a Gospel of superior light and purity ! And now Philosophy descends once more fronithe clouds to find truth in a new discovered use of the word of God. The Bible ? Oh ! yes, it is as good as can be ; as good as the nature of the case allows. But it re- veals no certain truth ; and can never be made a standard of doctrine. Its sublimest revelations, and its plainest declarations, are but " repre- sentations," " paintings," the '' Machina Dei," for producing impressions ; the truth of which lies not in the objective, but in the subjective; not in the 'BibU, as though we were to search the Scriptures to find truth there ; but in the impressions wrought in our own minds. "Call what you re- 8 ceive the reality." Look into the images impressed on your own mind for truth. " Christian Theology," say these Philosophers, (I use their own words,) " Christian Theology is therefore the speculative, or logical exposition" — not of the Word of God, oh no ! — ^but " of Christian con- sciousness, considered as containing the Divine." And as Christian con- sciousness, they say further, is " No constant quantity but fluctuates with the fidelity of the man, and the spiritual temperament of his life ; is al- ways in a mixed, and never in a pure state, mixed with lies, sensualities, and all manner of undivinities," — " this being the true state of the case, out of which the science of Divine Truth is to come, and which it is to represent, what is that science like to be ?" Yea, well is the question put, " What is that science like to be ?" They say further, that creeds are " Impostures of precision." " What we call our Christianity is only a product of the organizing force of human dogmatism." No truth can be known or believed as a prepositional truth ; consequently there is no error that can be rejected and condemned. Orthodoxy and Sabellianism have no ground for dispute. Unitarianism and Orthodoxy " have their root in the same vicious assumption." " Seeing thus, how at-one-ment, atonement, and the mass, all lie about the Christian truth,"- why should we dispute with Unitarians or Papists, "for the particle of truth" which either of us holds in distinction from the others 1 Why not " come back in shame and sorrow, and receive enough of God's truth to enlarge our consciousness, universalize our feelings, and make us brethren" 1 And now Philosophy, having set all truth and all faith afloat in the ocean of chaos, and having confounded all distinction of truth and error, interposes another obstacle to toy certain knowledge or statement of truth, in the uncertainty of language. Language is incapable of declar- ing any truth on moral or religious matters ; Or to define it so clearly as to distinguish certainly between truth and error, even where the mind which wishes to make' the communication has clear conceptions, and desires ever so much to convey them to other minds. The Bible is a revelation in language ; and therefore can teach no moral or religious truth with certainty ! Whither will Philosophy go ? What is her aim in all these labors % To unsettle all faith ? To teach us to believe nothing? no: you may believe anything, and language is certain and definite enough to 9 declare anything, save Evangelical Truth. All these lines of ciroum- vallation and contravallation are drawn, and all these machines and catapults are arrayed, against the fortress of Evangelical Truth. Their aim is to lead men to discountenance and discard the received doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, Justification by Faith, •the Fallen State and Depraved Character of man, and the need of Ee- newal hy the Holy Ghost ; doctrines which the pious followers of Christ of all ages have received as the most undoubted truths, the fundamental principles of Christianity; without which, Christianity is not, but is rejected and destroyed. In the mean time we may believe, if we will only believe that Christ did not die a vicarious sacrifice to atone fbr our sins ; and that through him we have not redemption in his blood. We may believe, provided we will believe that no such sacrifice was needed, or was possible ; and that the very idea of it confounds or destroys " all moral distinctions," and casts a " double ignominy" on God ! Lan- guage is clear and precise enough to tell what the evangelical doctrines are when they are to be rejected ; but not clear and precise enough to tell what they are when they are to be believed! Faith may rear up her systems and set forth her formulas, provided she will set forth another Gospel. Alas, how fallen man hates the truth, and loves darkness rather than light ! It was so of old. " That which may be known of God," was manifest among them, for God had " showed it unto them." " The in- visible things of him" were clearly seen in the creation, " even his eter- nal power and Godhead," " being understood by the things that were made ;" so that they were " without excu^.'' Why then did they turn to idolatry 1 Did reason — did an enligRtened understanding lead them there ? Oh, no, it was first wickedness of heart, and then philosophy. They know God, but glorify him not as God, neither are thankful, but become vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart is darkened. They retire from the broad expanse of the heavens, and from the sun shining in the nlidst of the firmament ; loving darkness, they hide them- selves in caverns, and rejoice in the surpassing light of a taper. They " kindle a fire," and " compass themselves about with sparks ;" they " walk in the light of their fire, and in the sparks that they have kindled." ^'■Professing themselves wise they become fools." Doubtless they railed against the truth, as " insignificant" and " absurd." Whether they rea- 10 soned about " the objective and the subjectiT&," or about " Intuitional consciousness" or hotj is now unknown. But " holding the truth in un- righteousness," to what quarter Would they turn for instruction, save to their own darkened understandings ? They " chianged the glory of A& incorruptiblie God into an image made like tb corru|)tible man, to four- footed beasts and ofeeping things." Why these rather than God 1 Oh, these were not holy ! These could not hate or punish the workers of iniquity 1 Here is the origin of all these schemes that depart from God iaiid his truth: in wickedness of heart, framing to itself a philosophy, and rejecting the word of the Lord. So our first parents were ruined ; Satan came to them with hi^ philosophy. " Yea, hath God said, Yb shall not eat of every tree of the Garden f'-^" Ye shall not surely die : for God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be openedj and ye shall be as gods." Th'ey believed the tempter rather than God ; and oh, the sin and death that followed that dreadful error ! So in the corruption after the flood. No sooner had they changed the truth of God into a life, than, down they went (God gave them up) headlong into the filthy and abominable crimes which one can scarce read even in the Bible without a blush. One would have thought, when the Gofepel was giren to men, that mien taught of God would never be in danger of turn- ing from ftiat to philosophy. But the Holy Ghost saw fit to put the warning on record : — " As )fe have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so WALK IN HIM ; BOOTED AND BUILT XTP IN HIM, AND ESTABLISHED IN THE l-AiTH, AS TE HAVE BEEN TAtJ&HT, obovMding therein with thanksgiv- ing. BeVare lest ant man spoil votr through philosophy and vain DECEIT, AFTER the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world AND NOT AFTER Christ." Distrust the system's of theology which have treed to lay their foundations in specially iVamed systems of philosophy. The ptovince of theology is to learn what God hath taught. The best philosophy is the Gospel in its simplicity. It gives light, " but borrows hone." To think of shedding light upon it from the rays of philosophy, is fo think of holding up a taper to shed light upon the noon- day sun. Its words are not the words whioh man's wisdom teacheth, but " which the Holy Ghost teacheth." The best way to learn the truth is to receive the kingdom of God as a little child, and to become "as fools that we may be wise." Beware of that doctrine of God in 11 Christ which cannot trust plain men with the plain word, of God, with- out a previous dissertation on language, to show that what the pious followers of Christ of all ages have received as the substance of the Gos- pel, is untrue. When the aspects of the times are such as we have described; when men are thus " blown about by every wind of doctrine," " ever learn- ing, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth," it seems proper to call to mind that there are foundations, on which our souls inay rest. The Bible, not human wisdom, is the source of all knowledge of divine things. The word of God, — ^not impressions, or fancies, or phihsaphy, — is the basis of faith. Other foundation, — whether for the regeneration of society, or for the promotion of holiness, or the salvation of dying men, — can no man lay than is laid. " Thy righteousness is an EVERLASTiNa RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND THY LAW IS THE TRUTH." " We havc also a morc sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well to take heed, as unto alight shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts." The Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and who alone hath declared him, says — " Thy word is truth." And as the word of God is truth, so there are " First Principles of THE Oracles of God," which even babes in Christ must know, and which no one can reject without rejecting Christianity itself.. " Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." "God hath from the beginning chosen us to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.'''' " He that believeth ghall be saved : he that believeth not, shall be damned." Believe what ? What not be- lieve? Is there no truth? No error? No ground for rejecting any- thing as another Gospel ? Can we never know what it is that consti- tutes " The glorious Gospel of the blessed God," nor what is so contrary to it as to be another ? Away with such a philosophy ! One might as well take refuge in universal skepticism. When the word of God speaks of another Gospel, it implies that we may certainly know what that Gospel is, and what constitutes another. We are even required to judge the teacher of another Gospel, and to hold him accursed, though he were an apostle, or an angel from heaven. The man that is a here tic, we are to reject. Are we to be told that there is no heresy, or that it is impossible to define it from the truth, or to know what it is that we 12 are to embrace, and what we are to reject ? They who wouiu teach us so, methinks talk as though they were infidels or insane. " Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them V But now there come apologists for error. We are told that there are mysteries connected with the great doctrines of salvation ; that all the glories of the cross of Christ can never be comprehended in " a few words !" Who has supposed they could ? Yet, if there are things too high for us, there are also things which are revealed unto babes. If there are secret things which belong to God, there are also things revealed which belong to us and to our children. We do indeed bear in mind the amazing scope of the Gospel of Christ : " Which .things the angels desire to look into." Eedemption is to be the theme of praise and ado- ration, to afford new food for the soul, and new fuel for the fire of love for ever and ever. The song of the Lamb will never end ! What then ? If the great theme of redeeming love cannot be embraced in " a few words" are we at liberty to conclude that Christ did not once suffer vicariously for sins, " the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God V Why, even that new song, which they sing in heaven, the inex- haustible glories of which render it forever new, has for its burden, — " Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation." Have dying believers all been mistaken 1 Are the souls of the redeemed in heaven mistaken, when they have fancied that they have been redeemed, and have washed their garments and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ? Is it yet in doubt whether indeed that blood was "shed for many for the remission of sins?" Because all the mysteries of the cross of Christ cannot be em- braced in " a few words," does it follow that one who rejects the vicarious sufferings of Christ does not reject the Gospel, and that we are to remain in doubt whether such a direct and scornful denial is contrary to the faith as it is in Jesus 1 But what now, if he who tells us that this doctrine of the vicarious sufferings of Christ and of the New Testament in his blood, is an ab- surdity which confounds all moral distinctions in God, — what if he shall tell us that he, nevertheless, under another form, recalls and restores all that he in this seems to cast away ; that though the doctrine of a vica- 13 rious atonement is untrue, yet God sets it forth to be believed on account of its useful and pious effects, and that so a speculative untruth becomes most profoundly true and real in its beneficial resets! What shall I answer to this ? I answer, that he comes to me, as Satan came to Eve in the Garden, calling upon me to receive his philosophy and to reject the word of God. I answer, that this is the very thing against which Paul directed the warning : " But I fear lest, by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, through his subtlety, your minds should be perverted from the sifa- plieity that is in Christ." I answer, that he is the very first philosopher, since Satan, that ever tempted man to believe that God had solemnly called upon his creatures to believe a lie ! I answer, that one principle lies in the believer's soul, more deeply laid than all others ; one founda- tion from which he never can be moved : '■'■He hath set to his seal that God is true" — "Yea, let God be truej but every man a liar." He therefore who would persuade me to believe such a scheme, cannot be from God. I never heard anything more horrible uttered by mortal man ! I cannot imagine anything more horrible uttered by devils ! I never heard that even Jesuits, who taught the doctrine of pious frauds, ever attributed anything so horrible to God, as that in the great matter of salvation He had set forth, and called upon a dying world to believe, a stupendous lie t I know not how one can more effectually sap the foundations of all truth and all morality, than by ascribing such conduct to the Lord our God! Why should the practical regard for truth, in him who teaches this, be any purer than that which he attributes to his Maker 1 What truth or sincerity will remain among men, when they have become inured to attributing such insincerity to the Lord ! How shall men any longer believe the Gospel, when they have once learned and concluded that it is not true 1 And now there rise other apologists and defenders : one reminds us that " the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ;" and thereupon he tells us how many errors were committed by the unbe- lieving Jews, and even by the apostles, concerning Christ. I grant the premises ; but if the conclusion be that therefore I cannot certainly know that God was " manifest in the flesh," or that " Christ hath re- deemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us," then it u is enough to reply that such a conclusion is contradictory to the word of God ; and that to use Scripture for the support of such a conclusion, is to use it as Unwarrantably as did Satan in the temptation of our Lord. And now there rises another, who says, " Well, after all, you cannot make all men think alike." " If one holds that Christ is divine, and that ' without something done which in Christ is done,' salvation is impos- sible — ^you cannot demand any more." But explain : how does he hold that Christ is divine 1 Oh, as rocks, trees, and storms, are divine. He expresses God — even more of God is expressed in him than is expressed in man. What is " that which in Christ is done 1" Did he die a sacri- fice to divine justice, vicariously suffering, the just for the unjust? Oh no ; that would have been absurd, impossible, and indicative of the loss or confusion of all moral distinctions in God. He manifested " the love of God's heart." He set a good example, and " incidentally " h^ got killed by wicked meA, but with no such design on his part ; and without suffering anything as " evil to pay the release of evil " on our behalf, or even to express the " Divine justice or the Divine abhorrence of sin !" What Socinian or Arian ever believed less than this 1 One may be- lieve all this, and yet not believe the " record that God gave of his Son." This is indeed " reducing the Gospel to its last elements," and " casting away " every thing that savors of the doctrine of the cross. Why do not these apologists and defenders tell us, in plain terms, the import of their apologies ; that Arianism and Socinianism are good enough Gospel for them, and that whatever is beyond these we cannot require as terms of Christian fellowship ? But now there comes another, and pleads that he who makes the de- nials in question, solemnly affirms that his views, " as they lie in his own mind, and as he would have them understood by others," do not differ, fundamentally, from the views presented in our most approved confes- sions of faith ; and therefore he cannot consent to have such a man, ma- king such an affirmation, troubled for heresy, or disturbed in his fellow- ship with the churches of Christ. What does this avail in the mouth of one who tells us that there is no fundamental difference betw6en any creeds ; that he feels " no sense of oppression or constraint under any creed," but is " readier to accept as many as fall in his way 1" And how do his views " lie in his own 15 mind ?" How would he " have them understood hy %thexs f ' As he has repeatedly, deliberately, and explicitly told us, in sermons and books, with every effort at statement, elucidation, and explanation ; or, as he has not told us, or even attempted to tell us at all ? But now there rises another, and bids us wait for fiirther develppr ment ; and still another, who tells us that he who makes the, denials is actually rising up towards prthpdojcy ftpm still Ipwer depths. But what depths are Ipwer than to deny the doctrine of the atonement, as " insignificant" — " the simplest form of absurdity !" casting on God a " double ignominy," indipating in Him the '• loss or confusion of all moral distinctions," and rendering the Lord unworthy to be God of our love and worship ! and yet to declare that God sets forth the Gospel under this form of a vicarious atonement, and calls nppn us so to believe it in simple faith 1 What depth is lower than this ? What development of the mystery of iniquity are we to look for worse than this ? From what abyss below this has he, who holds such a doctrine ascended, that he has arrived at such a ppint as this in his upward progress 1 What is lower ? Alas, this tenderness towards error, and this indiffprence toward the truth ! This effort to shield the offender in the very act of piercing the Savior, and that in the house of his friends ! This indifference it is, after all, that constitutes the most alarming feature of the times. With- out this, assaults upon our faith would be like the waves of the ocean that dash upon the mountain rock — broken, scattered into foam and spray, and driven away by the wind. But now there comes another, with a theory that shall hnsh nearly all controversies, and build a safe and commodious bridge over the impas- sable gulf which separates between orthodoxy and the more reputable forms of error. He has invented a distinction between " the theohgy of the intellect and the theology of feeling.'" If this means simply that figurative Ifl.nguage is not to receive a literal interpretation, and that poetry is not to be confounded with prose, then it is but giving a very inappropriate and pompous title to a very old and very simple thing ; and entering upon a most elaborate disquisition and argument to prove what nobody has ever doubted. But this is not all that the inventor intended ; for he denies expressly that the theology of 16 the feelings " can be termed mere poetry." He declares that " it is no play, but solemn earnestness." — " Neither can its words be called merely figurative," but are " forms of language which circumscribe a substance of doctrine ;" so that " this form of doctrine is far from being fitly represented by the term imaginative." Be it so. Then the invention has an application wider, perhaps, than the inventor was at first aware of. Here is a hard doctrine, which the carnal mind hates, and which the unsanctified reason abhors. But it is in the catechism ; it is in the creed. It will not do to reject it ; and yet he who desires to be at peace with both catechism and creed, cannot by any means receive it as true. What shall he do 1 In times of olden simplicity a man would have had no other resource than to reject a plain, prosaic statement of the creed, if he did not believe it. But here is an invention which obviates that difficulty. Here is a doctrine. Do you receive it as true ? No, I regard it as " the simplest form of absurdity," How can I believe what I regard as untrue ? Oh, it is indeed untrue, if you refer it to the theology of the intellect. But refer it to the theology of the feelings. Eeceive it, not as truth,\i\it as true material for feeling ; " emotive theology ;" and say no more about it. What doctrine of the catechism or creed need cause any one " the least consciousness of op- pression or constraint," on this principle ? But some one will say, this is a use which the inventor never intended. I answer that he has himself indicated this use, when he has represented the soul as " quick to seize at a truth as held up in one way, and spurn at it as held up in another," as " marvellous in its tact for decomposing its honest belief, disowning with the intellect what it embraces with the actions." I answer, further, that it is the use which he has made of it. He has taken the sober, prosaic doctrines of the creed and catechism concerning the imputation of Adam's guilt and Christ's righteousness, and removed them from the theology of the intellect, as out of place in that category of truth. I answer, further, that he has indicated this use to be made of the theology of the feeling, by making feeling the test of truth ; affirming that when the words of any doctrine " make an abiding impression that the divine government is harsh, pitiless, insincere, oppressive, devoid of sympathy with our most refined sentiments, recMess even of the most delicate emotion of the tenderest nature, then we may' infer 17 that we have left out of our theology some element which we should have inserted, or have brought into it some element which we should have dis- carded.'''' And have we not men making high pretensions to piety, who, on this ground of repugnance to their feelings, reject the doctrine of a vicarious atonement 1 Are not the doctrines of the fall, of election and reproba-' tion, and of eternal punishment, " harsh, pitiless, insiacere, oppressive," in view of all Socinians and Universalists ? But are they therefore untrue ? If a man may avow his belief in the catechasca and creed, and then be at liberty to deny its doctrines in the sense which the framers of the creed and catechism intended to convey ; if he is at liberty to remove those doctrines from one theology to the other; to' accommodate his belief or unbelief, his philosophy or his fancy, then how are we to determine, when a man owns the catechism or creed, what he believes, or what he does not believe ? Under such a use, what is this new distinction, but a device for enabling all men to receive all creeds ; every man deciding for himself what in the creed is true, and referring that to the intellect ; and referring to the theology of the feelings all that he would reject as untrue ; so that, salva fide and salva conscientia, he may freely accept " as many creeds as are offered him V Admirable expedient for har- monizing all differences, believing all creeds, and transmuting all here- sies into orthodoxy ! Admirable invention ! save that, like many other pieces of theoretic machinery, it has to encounter, in practice, some troublesome amount of uncalculated friction ; and that is, the utter im- possibility that any man should believe in his heart any thing that his intellect rejects as untrue. The " tearful German," who said, " In my heart I am a Christian, while in my head I am a philosopher" (infidel), • was an infidel, nevertheless. But we have lingered too long in these dreary wastes. Let us come where we can breathe purer air, and tread on firmer ground ; to contem- plate truth in its holiness and beauty as we find it in the pages of God's Sacred Word. Here let us observe : ]. That God is a God of truth. Whoever transgresses against truth, sins against the Lord. Nor is this simply on account of the utility of truth, but because truth is a part of the Divine Holiness, and of the . 18 holiness ■which He requires in angels and men. Were truth to be re- garded merely for its utility, then there might he balancings between the profit and loss of truth or falsehood ; and virtue or vice would lie in either, or shift from side to side, according to the adjustment of the mer- cantile Taalance-sheet. But now truth is unchangeable and sacred. It is vain to plead that the falsehood concerns a matter of small moment ; that it resulted in little or no harm ; or that it was the means of avoiding much evil, or of securing much good. " All liars shall have their part in the lake •which burneth with fire and brimstone." 2. Eevealed truth reposes in the sacredness which pertains to its Author. Injuries committed against it, partake of the guilt of outrage against the Majesty t>i the Lord. Pervert that truth ; corrupt it ; hold it in unrighteousness ! — scarcely can any crime be more horrible. " I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him, the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life." 3. When truth concerns the conduct of life, or any valuable interest of life, then it is of great practical importance ; and error leads, necessa- rily, to loss or ruin. The traveller may be sincere and confident while he pursues the wrong path, but sincerity and confidence only render him the more liable to fall into some pit, or to plunge from the brink of some fearful precipice. If the mariner trusts to an erring compass, the more implicitly he trusts the surer his destruction. The merchant bases important operations upon false intelligence, and is ruined. The phy- sician believes some erroneous theory, and disease and death multiplying around him, soon convince him that all creeds are not alike profitable and safe. The lawyer mistakes a principle, and ruin falls upon his client. The statesman commits an error in political economy, and de- cay and ruin come upon manufactures and commerce. Where is not error, in its nature, destructive ? In agriculture, in mechanics, a false theory or ignorance shall bring embarrassment or ruin. How much more important is the truth when the salvation of the soul is at stake ! If error leads to ruin here, how great is that ruin ! And it does lead to ruin. " If the blind lead the blind, both fall into 19 the ditch." " There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." How many grope in darkness, and never behold the light ! How many run to false refuges ! How many build upon an unsafe foundation ! How many who have " fol- lowed after- the law of righteousness, have not attained to the law of righteousness," " because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law "! How wide the final divergency shall be from an apparently small misdirection in the beginning, no one can tell. The great principles of truth or of error send out their influences far and wide, and yield increas- ing harvests from generation to generation. Error is like sin, apparently of small moment in the beginning, but when it is finished, it bringeth forth death. Thus it proved in the first corruptions of Christianity. At first a ceremony — a ritual — an image — a garment, — a relic, — introduced at first with a pious design to foster devotion, — used next as a merit, a good work, a means of expiating sin, or of propitiating the divine favor : presently the great truth of justification by faith is lost ; men resort to justification by rituals and priestly interventions. Dependent on priests for salvation, tlxey are bound in the chains of a spiritual despotism. Intellectual vigor, courage, moral purity and strength, enterprise and energy, decay. They become slaves. Look at Italy ; look at Asia Mi- nor ; look at Northern Africa, once lined with happy churches. The broad lines of history show the consequences, even in this life, of de- parting from the truth. Over the regions once so happy, there bondage and wretchedness have prevailed from age to age ; and the land has poured its successive generations into the world of everlasting despair. On the other hand, mark how the great truth of justification by faith freed the nations who received it, from servitude, and put them forward in the career of enterprise and prosperity. The moment that this truth flashed upon the mind of Martin Luther, the power of the papacy over his mind was gone forever. That truth, as it flashed upon the minds of men, brought light and freedom together. Privileged now to come to God through the One Mediator above, they felt themselves responsible to God in matters of conscience, and not to man. Eesponsibility brought with it the consciousness of rights. The conflict with corrup- tion and despotism could not but come. Men waked up from their long slumber of a thousand years ; learning revived ; sciences, arts, 20 commerce, revived. At this day how easy it is to trace in the condi- tion and character of Christian na;tions, the regions where the doc- trine of Justification hy Faith prevails, and where the doctrine of justi- fication by the priesthood and the church. Lool^ at England ; look around you ; then turn your eyes to Spain, to Italy, to Austria. Look at guilty, miserahle France ; she cannot have freedom from the double rule of despots and priests, till the doctrine of justification by Faith shall bring the souls of the people under a sense of responsibility to God, and give them the security for virtue and order, without which, men must ever flee to the shelter of some despotism. Talk of giving freedom to Europe without first imbuing the minds of the people with Gospel truth ! The thing is impossible. Give them all that they can demand of republican or democratic freedom, and they must relapse again into bondage. It is with reason that Rome and the despots of the earth hate Protestantism — another name for the truth. Rome judges right, that it is necessary for her to suppress the Word of God, and to quench the light of truth, wherever it rises, in rivers of blood. The apostle John did but foresee the course of actual history when he said : " And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse," who " hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, " King of kings, AND LojtD OF LORDS." The same Blessed Master, who said, " The truth shall make you free," said, also, " Sanctify them through thy truth." Men must be slain by the law. Their righteousness must become as filthy rags. They must flee from condemnation and ruin to the atoning sacrifice of Christ, or they will never take the first step in the way of holiness. A true reli- gious experience 'always awakens a sense of wants and relations which the great Evangelical truths alone can fill. The " sanctification of the Spirit" is in the Bible joined with the " belief of the truth." When the Holy Spirit works in the soul, he works an experience in accordance with these truths, and never against them. The dreamy sentimentalism which many, who have never seen the deadly evil of sin, mistake for reli- gious affection, is any thing rather than true piety. Is it possible that he can have true piety, who hates the doctrine of the cross, rejects the testimony which God hath given of his Son, and counts the blood of the 21 covenant an unholy thing ? Can he be esteemed a believer, who rejects, in detail, with loathing and scorn, all the essential and precious truths of the Gospel 1 On the contrary, the Savior himself declares that such an one shall die in his sins. Such an one is nothing else than an unbeliever. There is no ei-ror of the day more false and ruinous than that -which allows men to fancy that they can have true piety, and yet reject and hate the truth. There is but one way of life. When men enter not in by the doOr, but climb up some other way, let no one think that they can be saved. The Savior said, expressly, " I am the way, the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the Father but by me." The great doctrines of the cross, though a stumbling block or foolishness in the view of the carnal mind, are nevertheless indispensable to a true conversion to God. They are still " The power of God and the wisdom of God." " Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Those who cover up or neutralize these doctrines, uader the impression that the gospel may be more palatable without them, and therefore more efficacious, are doing a work of fearful mischief to the souls of those who hear them. Those who give to such corrupted doctrines the countenanee of their fellowship, are purchasing peace at the cost of disobedience to their Lord, and of aiding to deceive and ruin the souls for whom Christ died. The wood, hay, stubble, that have been built into the Church by such teaching, encumbers the Church, introduces further error and declension, and after having wrought incalculable mis- chiefs, is" to be eventually burned up. So lax a course of dealing with the truth does not prevail long, before a species of religion prevails which is careless and confident, destitute of holy sobriety and prayer- fulness, and which is always found unprincipled in the day of trial. The few years of experience that I have had in the ministry have taught me, long since, never to entertain any high hopes of the professed Christian, nor to repose any especial confidence in that man, whose piety is not characterized by, and based upon, a love of the truth. Nothing is more precious than the truth ; no duty is more sacred than that of standing in its defence. He who corrupts it, poisons the very fountains of life. Poisoning the wells, and streams, and fountains— ^poisoning the air we breathe, is nothing. That does not bring eternal death. But what 22 misery on earth ; what ruin in eternity, do they not cause, who corrupt the truth as it is in Jesus ! There is no other work so horrible in which talents and genius may be employed. This was the way in which Satan was a murderer from the beginning ; he taught men not to abide in the truth. Abet such a work of evil ? Then there is no evil work in which a Christian, or a Christian minister, may not innocently join ! Alas ! for the souls fascinated by genius, and by polished blandishments, to come within the power of instructions that cause to err from the truth ! Alas ! for the young and experienced ; drawn by such fascinations, and encouraged by the countenance of the wise and honorable — nay, by the countenance of ministers of Christ — to put themselves under the power of a religion which turns their dying souls away from the cross of Christ, and instructs them to regard that bleeding sacrifice in the aspect in which God presents it to our faith, as an unholy thing ! But let us draw instruction from some authentic precedents in the word of God. To avoid the offence of the cross, and persuaded by certain teachers come down from Judea, some of the Galatian brethren had begun to yield a conformity to Jewish rituals. Why not 1 Why make any diffi- culty about so small a matter ? See how many of your brethren are yielding. Even Peter has yielded, and Barnabas has yielded, and will you, Paul, take this " unseemly position" of appearing to know better than your brethren ; and perhaps " drive the wedge of division" for a mere matter of doctrine or opinion on which men so honestly differ ? But Paul sees that a doctrine of the word of God is no matter of opinion ; it is either taught in the word of God, or it is not ; the only question possible is a question of fact. Paul sees that these "walk not according to the truth of the Gospel ;" and he not only withstands Peter to his face, he will withstand an angel, and count him accursed, if found guilty of betraying a fundamental truth. The error touches the doctrine of Justification ; and whatever touches that,, touches the vitals of Chris- tianity. " O foolish Galatians ! who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth ?" " That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith." " Christ hath re- deemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for ms." " Be- hold I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit 23 yo% nothing." " Christ is become of no effect unto you ; whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallm from grace." " I marvel that ye are so soon removed from the grace of Christ to another gospel; which is not another ; hut there he some that pervert the gospel of Christ." " But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him he accursed. As vre said before, so say I now again. If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed !" " Ye did run well ; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth ?" " This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." A little error, touching a fundamental principle, corrupts the whole scheme of the gospel. So a little leaven always works when it touches a fundamental of Christianity. .Say that the Bible is not the word of God, but only con- tains the word of God 1 Your feet find no resting-place till you have reached the very depths of infidelity. " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Nothing is unimportant. No stone can be removed from the arch without endangering the whole. Deny the Divinity or the Humanity of Christ, and you have no atonement. Deny the fallen state of man, his utter corruption, condemnation and helplessness, and the very ground of the Gospel is gone. Deny the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atoning Sacrifice, Justification by Christ's obedience and blood, and the whole fabric is destroyed. A little perversion of some truthful and glorious principle may con- vert it into a deadly poison. Thus that remark of Augustine : " Jlabe caritatem, et fac quicquid vis," — Have love and do what you. please. The truth and beauty of the sentiment lie in the consideration, that when one is led by love, he is always led to do whatever the law com- mands : as it is said also in the Scripture, " Love is the fulfilling of the law." But immediately some took up the notion that if they had love, they were free from obligation to the law, and might, without sin, do what the law forbids. Chastity, purity, truth, the sabbath, honesty, — the law concerning these had no longer a binding force on them ; they were at liberty to do what they pleased ! But take another example from the word of God, of the importance 24 of truths ■which many regard as speculative and unessential. A sect, like some moderns, pretending to a higher elevation of piety, and to a deeper insight, calling themselves loj the assuming title of Gnostics, arose, denying, among other things, the divinity of Christ. Christ, said they, was not eternal, but an emanation, proceeding from the Crear tor in tirne. Others of them said — Christ did not die" on the cross, it was only an impersonation, a representation, a form, an apparition ; the real being was away, and an empty form was crucified. Then the aged disciple John, moved by the Holy Ghost, lifted up his voice in doctrine, and penned the record, that men might read and be- lieve that Jesus is the Son of God. An seon, an emanation, said some, having his origin in time, and neither eternal nor divine. No, says the apostle, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." Christ did not die upon the cross, said some, — thinking to save the honor and dignity of our Lord. It was a form, a shadow, that was cru- cified. No, says the beloved disciple who had leaned on Jesus' breast : " And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." " That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the "Word of Life." " That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us ; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ." Some may ask here. Why does John insist so earnestly upon a doc- trine so very speculative and unpractical ? The eternity, divinity, and Sonship of Christ ! the union in his person of the human and the divine ! "What are these speculations to us 1 To what use can we apply them, in the purposes of holy living 1 Why does not the aged John tell us something about duties, and truths pertaining to a godly life ? Besides, are not all these whom he opposes. Christians ? If they differ about the supreme divinity of Christ, is it not because they have a tender regard for the Divine Unity 1 If they fancy that his body was but a shadow upon the cross, is it not because they have a regard, to the glory of Christ? Why raise a dispute about speculations and abstractions? 25 Why not allow some freedom, and consider that it is impossible to make all men think alike 1 If all men cannot think alike, it is nevertheless necessary that all men should believe the truth. John sees that these truths are neither unim- portant nor unpractical. If Christ were not God, then he could not re- deem us. If he were not man, he could not be under the law, nor suf- fer for us. The point which our very charitable philosophers imagine to be a point of barren speculation, the apostle John understands to be a truth, lying at the foundation of the Gospel scheme, and practical in the highest degree. He therefore lifts up his warning voice against the teachers that impugn these truths, as against Antichrist : " This is the true God and eternal Life." " And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, lutfor the whole worldP We must have not the Fa- ther only, but the Son. Here is the doctrine of the Son : his incar- nation, his divinity, his sonship, his propitiation. Deny either of these, and the apostle discerns no trait or basis of piety. But hear him: " Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son." But some will say,. Is -not this a little uncharitable ? May' not a man have piety to the Father, or even be a Christian who does not see the way clear to acknowledge the Sonship of the Messiah, or what you teach as the relation of the Father and the Son 1 The apostle gives the answer : " , WTiosofver denieth the Son hath not THE Father." " He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not THE Son, hath not life." " Let that therefore abide with you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the be- ginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue with the Son and WITH the Father." But what if some men do not see the way clear to receive the doc- trine of the Son; his incarnation, divinity, propitiation? What if these shall nevertheless regard him as something, and his work as something, without which, men could not be saved ? And what if these shall show much meekness, prayerfulness, and apparent spirituality ? Are we not urging the apostle's words too far, when we call these in question 1 The apostle goes on to speak of this very case : " Beloved, believe not 26 every spirit, hut try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world.'''' Well, some ■will answer t How shall we try them ? Can we do better than to hear how they preach and pray, and to observe how they live 1 Strange as it may appear, whQe the apostle does not disparage preaching or praying, or an apparently devout life, he nevertheless calls upon us to apply another test to try the spirits, whether they be of God. How shall we try the spirits ? " Hereby we know the Spirit of God ; Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God ; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is com^ in the flesh, is not of God. And this is that antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come." " Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." " Who is he that overcometh the world, but he thai believeth that Jesus is thr Son of GodV " This is he that came by water and blood." — ( Water, the emblem of in- ward cleansing ; blood, of the atoning sacrifice.) " This is he that came by water and blood; not by water only, but by water and BLOOD. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth ; for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the BLOOD ; and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness which he hath testified OF HIS Son." " He that hath the Son hath life, he that Jiath not the Son HATH not life." And herein the apostle does but reiterate the words of the Savior himself: " Se that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Why is it that the Savior speaks so much of false Christs, who shall deceive, if it were possible, the very elect 1 Why is it, that in almost all the epistles, so much is said to put us on our.guard against false do& trines 1 Is it not because the truth is so important, and error so danger- ous ? Thus Paul to Timothy : " Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, tliat in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to se- ducing spirits and doctrines of devils ; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having 27 their consciences seared with a hot iron." So, Peter : " But there were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." So, Jude : " Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you, that ye should contend earnestly for the faith which was once de- livered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation ; ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware, lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness," Mark here how error is to be brought in ; ^'■privily," by cer- tain men " crept in unawares," " speaking IJtes in hypocrisy," " hav- ing their conscience seared with a hot iron." Such is ever the course with error. Indeed why should not men, in the dishonest process of corrupting the truth, lose at last all just sense of truth ] Holding the truth in unrighteousness, how can they hold " the mystery of the faith in a good conscience ?" This dishonesty was observable when heresy overspread so many churches in Massachusetts. Unitarianism began in King's Chapel, under the constant use of the Episcopal forms and litur- gies, filled with the strongest recognitions of the Divinity of Christ, and of his atoning sacrifice : yet the officiating priest continued to use that liturgy, as though he believed it to be the truth ; in his hypocrisy mock- ing both God and man ! The Socinians who had crept unawares into the churches of Massachusetts, continued to own the orthodox creeds, and to employ the orthodox terms in their sermons and prayers; whilst the bitterest hatred rankled in their hearts against the truths which those terms expressed. So in a case of heresy dealt within Connecticut with- in the memory of many now living, the church declared in their narra- tive that they long believed their minister orthodox, for he constantly employed the language of the orthodox faith ; till at length a painful de- ficiency of explicit doctrinal statements' in his preaching led to inquiry ; and the fact was disclosed, that he believed neither in the divinity nor in the atonement of Christ ; and had been, while he used the orthodox 28 phraseology, but " speaking lies in hypocrisy." It is, therefore, no strange thing, if at the present day any are seen to reject with scorn every evangelical doctrine in detail, who yet continue to use the orthodox terms, and insist that they do not differ essentially from the orthodox belief. Justification by Faith ! Atonement ! Trinity ! Eegeneration ! Oh yes, they believe all these ! But examine what they mean, and they have but applied these terms to doctrines directly the opposite of those which the terms are currently understood to represent. Is there any foi-m of dishonesty that ought to be accounted baser or more criminal than this? But it is time to hasten towards a close. If the truth is so precious, then, how earnestly should we seek for it, as for hidden treasures ! With what child-like docility should we sit at the feet of Jesus to learn of him ; casting our own reason and judgment concerning the matter revealed, entirely aside. Our intuition, our con- sciousness as a source of truth on divine things, our philosophy, the phi- losophy of all mankind, has no place in this inquiry. The only use of reason here, is in the inquiry. What hath God taught ? Having found this, we should hold it fast, with absolute certainty that what God hath taught is the truth, " Buy the truth, and sell it not." Hold here : Con- vulsions may shake the earth ; the heavens may be removed out of their place; but the truth of God is a foundation that can never be moved. If the truth is so sacred, then we should beware of holding it in un- righteousness, or of incurring the curse denounced upon him who shall add to, or take from, the words of the prophecy of this book. We hold the truth in unrighteousness, if we ever set our wisdom to judge of the propriety of what God reveals. We hold the truth in unrighteousness, if we ever deny it or cavil with it. We do so, if we cover it up, or en- deavor to diminish its credit, or hinder its efficiency. We do so, if we give our attendance on false teachings, or in any way give them counte- nance or encouragement. " Cease, my son, to hear the instruction which causeth to err." If the truth is so sacred, then it is highly criminal to give to the teach- ings of fundamental error any ecclesiastical sanction, or the countenance of Christian fellowship. The word of God is peremptory here, even though the preacher of another Gospel be an apostle or an angel from 29 heaven. Hear also the Apostle John : " The elder unto the elect lady ■whom I love in the truth" — " for the truth''s sake which dwelleth in us, and shall he with us forever." — " This is the commandment that as ye have heard from the beginning ye should walk in it. For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the • flesh." This is a deceiver and an antichrist, — " Whosoever transgresseth, AND ABIDKTH NOT IN THE DOCTRINE OF ChBIST, HE HATH NOT GoD. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, hath both the Father and the Son. ^ there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not in- to your house, neither bid him Godspeed; roR he that biddeth him God SPEED IS PARTAKER OF HIS EVIL DEEDS." Why should H dlSCiple of Chrfst he partaker with him who denies the truth, any more than he should be partaker with adulterers and murderers'? To what purpose do any make provisoes that they do not receive the heretical doctrine, while they extend to the teacher of heresy the shield and countenance of ecclesiasti- , cal fellowship 1 In what way can they bid him a " God speed" more effectual than this 1 But it is too late in the day^ say some, to hold men responsible for their belief or unbelief. It is too late in the day to discipline church members, or even ministers, for heresy. Then it is too late in the day to obey a distinct command of God. Alas ! it did seem some slight indication of the character of modern Pro- gress, when men had become so wise as to sit in judgment upon the doc- trines of the Bible, and to pronounce them forms of absurdity. But what shall we say to this new notion of presuming to forbid expressly a duty, which God as expressly enjoins 1 What can we say but this.: that he who so practices, or teaches men so, is guilty of treason' against the truth, and of rebellion against God 1 But it is said that ecclesiastical organizations, other than the church, have not the power of trial or of judgment. If they have not for the church, they have, of necessity, for themselves, to remove from such countenance and fellowship as such organizations are able to give. Such organizations are under a Higher Law. No charter is warranted in the word of God in behalf of an ecclesiastical organization or association, formed for the purpose of enlarging and perfecting Christian 30 fellowship, -which shall be so constituted as to embrace and retain in the privileges of that fellowship them who reject fundamental truth. Either the law of Christ reigns, so far as that association can give the privileges of Christian fellowship, or the organization itself is but a fortress of re- bellion against Christ. So far as the privileges of fellowship, which they give, extend, they are bound either to preserve discipline, or to disband. If they do neither, then all churches, organizations, and Christians, are bound to withdraw from their fellowship and correspondence. But it is said. We must be charitable ; it is said. We must be liberal. Yes, charitable in consistency with fidelity to the truth, and not in un- faithfulness. Yes, liberal of what is our own, not of what is the Lord's. We are but " put in trust with the Gospel." It is not ours to betray. We are " set for the defence of the Gospel." If we prove unfaithful, the plea of liberality will not save us from the guilt of treason. With these provisoes I accede to all that can be said in praise of charity and liberality. When it is proper to do so, I would urge them as earnestly as I now urge the maintenance of the truth. But, if I mistake not the signs of the times, the temptation is now far stronger to prove unfaithful to the truth than to fail in charity. Let us not, however, forget that in zeal for the truth we may sin against charity. In things unessential, charity to the utmost. Any where within the bounds of truth, the most perfect liberty. But when error touches the vitals of Christianity, then not even charity pleads against the discharge of a painful duty. " I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word ; be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine : for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears." And now, my young friends, having set before you the devices of error, and the importance of truth, together with the obligations which rest upon us for the maintenance and defence of truth, shall I be tmderstood to mean that it is the great business of the preacher to be hunting up and combating the errors which may prevail around him 1 Oh, no ! This, like the judgment of the Lord, is his strange work. For the most 31 part, error is to be forestalled by pre-occupying the field, or resisted by a simple manifestation of the truth. And, in general, truth finds readiest access to the heart when most free from the aspect of controversy^ There are green pastures and still waters, where, for the most part, the shepherd may lead the flock, and to these he will ever love to retire, far from the scenes of noise and strife. There, in peaceful and pleasant labor, he may feed the flock like a shepherd and gather the lambs with his arm. There his own spirit may expand with love, and ripen for heaven. But alas ! in this fallen world, where are the pastures wholly secure from wolves 1 And what shall the shepherd, who is a shepherd, do, when he seeth the wolf coming ? " For I know," said Paul, (and the Holy Ghost put it on record for all time,) " that, after my departure shall grievous wolves enter, in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." What shall the shepherd do then? At such a time, he that is a shepherd, and not a hireling, will not flee — but with the greater delight he has fed the flock, the more he has loved to lead them into the green pastures and beside the still waters, the more earnestly will he stand in the defence, perilling, if need be, his very life. Nor should it be forgotten that, in the fierce encounters which are sometimes inevitable, a double guard should be set over the spirit, and the knee be bent thrice as frequently in prayer. Nor should we forget our own liability to err ; nor be careless whether we ourselves abide in the truth while we are jealous over others. And what is the truth, if it be regarded only as a system or science ? What is he who stands in its defence, if he never feeds his own soul upon it? Truth is to bring us to God ! Truth is in order to godliness ! It is for the edifying of the church and the salvation of dying men. It is of far more consequence for us to obey the truth than to stand in its defence. May it be your great work so to obey and to use the truth, if God shall call you into the ministry. May it be mine. " Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any ; even as Christ forgave you, even so do ye. And above all things put on charity, which is the bond of perfect- 32 ness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom ; 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 Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him." iiglteroess anl) t\t Iwlpit: DISCOURSE PREACHED IN THE FIRST CHURCH, DORCHESTER, On Sunday, Sept. 30, 1855. ! BY NATHANIEL HALL. BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 111, Washington Street. 1855. BOSTON: printed by john wilson and son, 22, School Stbebx. SosCEEBTSR, Oct. 2, 1365. Rev. N. Pall. Dear Sir, — "We, the undersigned, members of the First Parish in Dorchester, fully responding to the Christian sentiments expressed in your sermon of Sunday morning, Sept. 30, request, in behalf of ourselves and many others, a copy for the press, believing its publication will aid the cause for which you have so manfully contended ; viz., the independence of the pulpit. Very truly yours. William Pope, jun. John G. Nazro. Thomas Groom. Elisha T. Loring. Daniel Denny. Samuel Downer. Plavel Moseley. DOROBISTEB, Oct. 3, 1855. Gentlemen, I have received your communication, containing a request for a copy of my sermon, of last Sunday morning, for publication. Confiding in your judgment, that its publication may serve, in some measure, a cause I have much at heart, I place its manuscript at your disposal. Its personal allusions the dictates of good taste would lead me to withhold from the public eye; but considerations, which I deem not unworthy, prevail with me to do othervrise. With respect and esteem, yours, Nathl. Hall. ■ To Messrs. WiiiUM Popjb, Jan., John ft. Nazbo, and others. ' ' DISCOURSE. Tsalm xl. 9 : — "I have preached kiqhteousness in the qbbat CONGBEGATION." So spake the royal Hebrew, — expressing thus the chief theme and theatre of the minister of religion in all ages and lands. He is to preach " righteousness." He is to preach it " in the great congregation." The subject is given him as that pre-eminently of his sphere ; his sphere, for the sake pre-eminently of the subject. He stands as the servant of a righteous God, in the midst of an unrighteous world ; *and his mission is, first and foremost, to show the one its departure from the other, — the evil and the guilt of it, — and to persuade to repentance and return. Let the pulpit regard its purpose as less than this, and by what could it justify its existence 1 Let it preach unrighteous- ness ; or, what is in effect the same, let it be silent before the practised unrighteousness in the life around it ; the frauds and inhumanities ; the individual, the social, the legalized injustice ; the ways and instances innumerable in which men are violating the plainest of God's commandments, treasuring up thereby, for and within themselves, though they know it not, in a growing obliquity and depravity of the moral nature, a deeper evil than they can inflict on others : let it see all this, see it in the light of that righteous law intrusted to it to proclaim, and give no audible report of what it sees, pass no judgment, utter no protest ; or let it proclaim the law in its abstract- ness only, refraining from that direct and especial application of it which alone can reach the evil and amend the wrong, — and what claim would it have on men's respect or toleration 1 nay, what less would it be, in the sight of Heaven and all holy men, than an impertinence and an oifence 1 If the minister of religion cannot adopt the asseveration of the text, in its fullest and most uncompromising sense, as expres- sive at least of his determination and endeavor, he had better find for himself, forthwith, another occupa- tion, where Ijis dishonesty will be less mischievous. " I am to preach righteousness," do his most solemn obligations compel him to affirm. " It is imperative upon me. Whatever is questionable, this is not. I am to soothe the sorrowing, to encourage the disheart- ened, to strengthen the wavering, to re-assure the doubting, to meet and minister to the various needs of the human spirit ; I am to exhort to gentleness, patience, submisgion, trust, — each passive virtue, each spiritual affection, each lovely grace; I am to shovr forth the love and mercy of the infinite Father, the hopes and promises that irradiate his word ; this, and more: but with all, and as the beginning and end of all, I am to preach righteousness. I am to set forth that eternal law which congcience enforces in every breast ; which inheres in the nature of God ; and by which he will judge, and is continually judging, the universe of souls. I am to show — not vaguely, but clearly — the actual violations of it ; not those of another place and period, but those of the living world around me." Are there any limitations to the obligation thus affirmed? any considerations which excuse a minister of religion from preaching righteousness 1 which jus- tify him in withholding his condemning protest — not his, but the Being's whom he serves — against the iniquity he sees around him 1 Where and what are they ■? Will any one dare to bring them — except under cover of some specious sophism — from the regions of the politic, the prudential, the expedient? Will any one suggest that a distinction is to be observed by the pulpit, in this regard, between the several forms of unrighteousness around it, and that certain some are to be exempted from the directness df its rebuke ? those, for instance, which have connec- tion with the State, which are under the protection of law, which have the sanction of the multitude, which are upholden by the wealth and station of society, which favor the increase of a material prosperity, which have become associated with political organiza- tions, which are an exciting and disagreeable topic to some of a congregation. Will any one aver, that these consideratioBS, one or all, constitute a ^reason, valid and worthy, for ignoring the existence, or pal- liating the enormity, of the unrighteousness to which they pertain 1 But let us come directly to the point we have all in mind. Here, within the national domain, is a large number of our fellow-beings forcibly withheld from the exercise and enjoyment of some of the dearest and most sacred of human rights, — rights bestowed by their Creator, and thus naturally and inalienably theirs, — ■ and which we, as a people, have confessed to be so, on the forefront of the document which pro- claims our nationality ; withheld, in and by this fact, from all power to realize any worthy development of their intelligent and immortal natures, any worthy enjoyment and use of life ; held and regarded and used as brute property, as human merchandise, as living mechanism ; subjected, without the means of resistance or redress, to the capricious tempers, the excited pas- sions, the selfish and irresponsible wills, of those that claim them ; degraded to the rank of plantation " stock," and valued and used as such for other and viler purposes than labor ; with no accorded right to call themselves their own; with no power to make good their claim to the breathing and pulsing, the thinking and feeling, life which God has given them ; with nothing that deserves the name of home ; pub- licly bought and sold, and separated one from another in utter disregard of the ties of nature and affection. Here is no exaggerated picture, but a calm and sober statement of what all must admit as facts. Am I told of here and there exceptions to its general truth; of alleviations, of compensations, through the huma- nity of man, and the overrulings of a gracious Provi- dence 1 Of course there are these ; we should know there were beforehand ; for everywhere are human hearts that soften towards their kind, and God has gilded every lot with some gleams of brightness and of hope. But, substantially, the statement is one of facts ; and of facts not which incidentally adhere to the system, but which essentially inhere within it, — its necessary and inseparable constituents. I heap upon the system no condemnatory epithets. I refrain from all intensified expression of my own deep abhorrence of it. I simply put it to your own moral judgments, whether it be, or not, a system of unrighteousness ; whether it be, or not, in violation of God's law and Christ's commandments. And, further- more, I ask, why, in the name of all that is just and sacred, the pulpit s\iO\M. not declare it such, and echo 10 alike Heaven's verdict and the vporld's, — vrhy it should not preach '■'■ righteousness" directly and dis- tinctly, to the upholders of it, to the connivers at it, to the apologists for it, — ay, preach it " in the great congregation." There are answers to this question ; I hear them all around me; and circumstances, of which you are all aware, authorize, if they do not demand of, me to investigate before you their claim to our regard. I shall do it freely, but not, I trust, uncandidly ■ and I shall adduce, let me say, such only as have recently been addressed to me personally, and by implication reproachfully, by some among you. It is said, and continually and everywhere reite- rated, "The subject is a political one; and, as such, should be excluded from the pulpit." Would it not be better, because truer, to say, it is a great moral and religious subject, having political bearings and rela- tions % The system of American slavery, as has now been shown, is most eminently and emphatically an unrighteous one ; a direct infraction of the plainest commandments of the Almighty ; a manifest violation of the precepts and spirit of the religion of Jesus ; the offspring of selfish and sordid lusts, and the parent of evils, the least in whose lengthened train are those which fall upon the physical and dying man, — evils which attach to the moral and immortal nature, as 11 experienced both by its helpless victims and their lordly claimants. And, being this, its discussion belongs, most strictly and legitimately, to the pulpit, — yea, is bound upon it by Heaven-woven obligations. Say, if you will, that, in its political connections, it is unwise for the pulpit to attempt the treatment of it. It is saying what no one, so far as I know, is at all disposed, by word or practice, to contradict. What- ever may be true of other pulpits, I can speak confi- dently at least of one. And it becomes me to affirm, that in this, by its present occupant, however differ- ent an excited mind may apprehend the fact to be, the subject has ever been discussed in its broadest ground, with a direct reference of it to the great law of equity and mercy. All, I suppose, agree that politi- cal preaching ■ — that which takes sides with a political party as such, and advocates its measures and course on political grounds and considerations — is to be deprecated and condemned. All agree that the preacher has a separate and peculiar, a higher and holier, work; namely, the enunciation and enforce- ment of eternal principles, with a showing forth of their practical relations to individuals and communi- ties. But if, in doing this, it so happen that his views are coincident with those of a party, is he justly chargeable with preaching " politics," in any opprobri- ous and unworthy sense ] Would to God the prin- ciples and policy of political parties were so in unison 12 with the absolute right, that, in preaching the latter, one might seem to be pleading for the former ! No : a false issue is presented, ignorantly or knowingly, with regard to this matter. The issue is not, whether political preaching is bad and wrong ; whether party spirit in the pulpit, in relation to this as to qvery other subject, is bad and wrong. There is no contro- versy here. But ?Ais is the issue : whether the preach- ing of the pulpit is to have nothing to do with a great moral and religious subject, because it has come to have political bearings and associations. In other words. Is the preacher to ignore this evil of which we speak, — this crime against humanity and God ; to go on, from month to month and year to year, as though it were not ; to stand in his place, and see its porten- tous cloud spreading and darkening on his country's sky, with the rumble of distant thunder in its deepening folds ; to see increasing millions — those whom God loves, those for whom Christ died — robbed by it of their birthright, neglected, despised, degraded ; to see its corrupting influence upon those afar who cherish and those around who extenuate and defend it, — the gradual but sure debauchment of the public con- science, — the suppression in its favor, even in youth- ful breasts, of the holy instincts of freedom and the dear sympathies of humanity ; to see the kingdom of heaven hindered in its advancement, more than by aught else, by its presence and power, — is he to see 13 all this, — to see it with God's open word before him, and his secret voice within, — and keep all unspoken their united condemnation'? This, friends, is the question — stripped of its sophisms, seen in its naked- ness — which circumstances have thrust between us ; this, and this only. Say, merely, that the preacher should not be continually presenting the topic in question, — should not give it prominence among his selected topics : it is assented to. Say, further, that he should never present it with a view to political and party ends, — never with the spirit and tone of a par- tisan : it is assented to. But say that he should never present it at all ; that it should be for him an inter- dicted topic : it is denied. The assertion is most pre- posterous. It is to be instantly and earnestly repelled. r marvel at the presumption that proposes the exclu- sion of this subject from the pulpit and the church, and its surrender to the politician and to party. Yet more do I marvel that the pulpit and the church, with any living sense of their responsibilities, should ever have consented to such surrender; as, in in- stances not a few, they have, and, in so doing, been manifestly recreant to their trust. If it may be so with this evil and wrong, then why not with any and every other 1 feeding, though they may be, on the very vitals of the community, and carrying wretched- ness and degradation to uncounted homes. They, too, because legislation inay have taken them up, and par- 14 ties been formed in relation to them, may be barred out from the circle of permitted topics, and Eeligion be left to look out upon them from her sacred places, and be dumb before them, — ay, give them the ap- proval which silence, by implication, is. The very obvious fallacy which runs through much that is said and written about politics in the pulpit, in the con- nection spoken of, is the assumption that the subject of slavery is primarily and exclusively a political one, and that its discussion in the pulpit must necessarily be on party grounds and in a party spirit. Both of these assumptions being false, the cojiclusions drawn from them are therefore forceless. And, apart from all other considerations, one is disposed to but little respect for this outcry of " political preaching," at every assertion of the unrighteousness of our country's cherished institution, when he sees how many of those most forward to raise it are quite forgetful to do so in the hearing of preaching equally obnoxious to the appellation, as regards the subject-matter of it, be- sides being inhuman and atheistic, — the preaching, namely, that apologizes for this instituted oppression, and elevates its enactments above the statutes of the Almighty. ' Again, it is said, " The subject should be excluded from the pulpit because it is an exciting one : it hurts people's feelings ; it stirs bad blood ; it sets a,flame the passions of the caucus-room and the polls. Men 15 enter the church in a pleasant, amiable mood, with all their good feelings uppermost, and leave it irritated and enraged." Here is, I allow, a most lainentable result, more especially so as viewed in connection with its cause. That a protest against unrighteous- ness, that a plea for humanity, should be thus produc- tive, is the saddest part of it. But the result is actual ; and the question is, what sort and measure of regard the pulpit is to have for it. Is it so far to consult human weakness and waywardness in the selection of its topics as to refrain from the discussion of those, whatever their intrinsic claim to attention and regard, which are supposed to be exciting and offensive to a portion of its hearers 'i Where would the acceptance of such a proposition take us-'? What, adopting it, would the pulpit hel Apply it to the case in ques- tion ; and tell me, is it a reason, which God and con- science accept, for being silent in the presence of this gigantic wrong, that all rebukeful mention of it dis- turbs and angers a few, or many, of a congregation 1 May not the state of things thus indicated have come to ekist through that very negligence on the part of the pulpit for whose continuance it is made a plea ? It would seem the thought of some, that the preacher is responsible for the ill temper thus ex- cited ; as if he created it, — as if he put it within the heart. But was it not all there, in its elements, before ] Has he done aught but show it forth, — but 16 bring it to the birth. ? Beneath that bland and placid surface lay coiled those ugly passions, slumbering and silent, which, at the preacher's word, awoke, and forthwith spake in their vernacular. What great gain were it, if they had been allowed to slumber on, and their possessors had gone to their homes, uncon- scious of their presence, with unwarranted self-gratu- lation"? The pity is that they are there, not that they were put into temporary activity. That, for its self-revelation, may prove a blessing. But the preach- er, I hold, is not to concern himself about effects. They are not his guide to duty. He is a servant of the truth; and his foremost obligation, having pre- pared himself through its own consecrating influence, is to bear witness to it, — alike to willing and unwill- ing ears, to receptive and repellent hearts. He has a word given him, if he be a living man, which he must speak ; in the exercise, of course, of a thought- ful wisdom as to times and modes. But speak it he must, whether men hear, or whether they forbear. Do you think the great Teacher of Nazareth withheld the truth that was given him because there were those in hearing whom it offended % On the contrary, I read that he drove men from his presence by his hated words ; in the excitement of their wrath, seek- ing how they might destroy him. And' where and what had we been, spiritually, if that holy brother- hood in the past, fellow-laborers with him for a 17 world's redemption, — apostles, confessors, reformers, — had retained the truth intrusted to them until no prejudice, and no selfishness, and no evil heart of unbelief, had offered it resistance ] until, like the whispering breezes of a summer's evening, it had ruf- fled not a feather of self-complacency or sfelf-love '? And, if we will look at effects, let us look at all. Let us consider that there are those who gladly welcome what to others is offensive ; those who are needing its utterance, — for the confirmation of a previous con- viction, or the removal of a lingering distrust, or the awakening of a holier interest, or the incitement to a neglected duty, with regard to it. Kut it' is further said, " The introduction of this subject into the pulpit destroys the peace and har- mony of a society ; fomenting discords and animosities between its members, and ill feelings and distrusts towards its minister ; hindering thus his influence, and lessening his usefulness." Admitting the truth of this, what, I ask, is a minister to do \ With con- victions which he cannot stifle in relation to slavery, — seeing, feeling its inherent wrongfulness and its resulting evils, — what is he to do % Regard policy 1 take counsel of expediency "? and give or withhold his convictions as these — blind guides that they are — shall seem to direct him "? Or, purging himself of all personal and worldly aims ; casting himself, in humble confidence, — himself and all his interests, — upon a 18 spiritual Providence, shall he speak as God in that same hour shall teach him ? assured, that, whatever the immediate effects, none other than good can ulti- mately ensue. Harmony in a parish is a good thing. But its value depends upon its quality, — upon the basis on which it rests. That harmony, methinks, is of but little worth whose continuance is conditioned upon the minister's repressing in aught his honest convictions, — which a manly, outspoken word can break. At any rate, the minister has a higher work than to keep peace. He was not ordained for that. He is to deal with truth. If the truth agitate, let it agitate. Agitation is not the worst of conditions. Nature teaches us better when she sends down her storms upon the stagnant peacefulness of her waters. Agitation is often a process, and the only possible one, in the moral as in the natural world, to purifica- tion; and the only peace the pulpit has a right to seek, as a specific aim, is that which comes of purity. " First pure, then peaceably." And as to a minister's influence being hindered by his faithfulness, I believe it not. , It is a suggestion of the tempter. By a " Get thee behind me, Satan ! " would I put it by. I believe in a Providence ; I. believe in man, and that, in the secret depths of each human soul, there is a respect for the honest and faithful man, however much his honesty and faithfulness may cause offence. Clouds of prejudice may, for a time, surround him, and the 19 sun of his influenee seem hopelessly obscured; but sooner or later, while he is living or when he has gone, it shall again break forth, and all the brighter for its temporary eclipse. Again, it is asked, "What good can the pulpit promise itself from a discussion of this subject 1 The harm is evident. Where is the good % " And where is it 1 I do not know ; I do not care to know. Ask Him who formed the soul for truth, to find therein its sustenance and salvation, and whose kingdom is to come in the world only through his blessing upon the spoken and the manifested truth. Ask him who " for this end was born, and for this cause came into the world, that he might bear veitness to the truth," and who bore witness to it against scoff and sneer, the frown of power and the threatening of hate, in the sublime faith that it would win for itself, at length, a universal triumph. Ask the thousands who, in a like faith, have lived and died for it, — lived in persecution, died in martyrdom ; scattering as they went, on the world's bleak waysides, its celestial seed, to spring and bloom above their graves. O friends ! if we really believed that that kingdom of God for which we pray were indeed to come only through the fidelity of individual man, we should not ask, of the simplest word, from the humblest lips, in the narrowest sphere, spoken from the fulness of a loyal heart, "What good will it do?" 20 Again, it is said, " The evil you thus force on our attention, however great, is a distant one. What have we to do with it 1 How can we reach it 'i Surely, there are evils enough that are near, and, as such, more nearly concern us. Why will not the pulpit keep itself, to these 1 " The evil is distant as an insti- tutional existence ; but, as an influence and a power, is it not all .around us 1 Yea, is it not enthroned as such in our republic, and feared and flattered and fallen before and worshipped, by tens of thousands, in every part of if? — What have we to do with it ? Alas ! it has much to do with us. But, were it not so, the question is heartless, is heathenish. There is no warmth in it of Christian faith or love. Have we not learned that the opprfessed through all the world have claims upon us to the extent of our power to help them ? claims, at least, for our sympathy, — the word, ,the plea, the prayer, which it shall dictate ] — How can we reach it'? Through the force of a Christianized public sentiment, in the want of which alone it has extension and existence, — a public senti- ment which each individual helps to form. -^ Are there not evils nearer ] Yes : and let the pulpit be faithful also with them as with this. But it is said, " There is a great diversity of opinion in relation to this subject — as there always has been, and , always will be — among those equally qualified every way to judge of it. How presumptuous in 21 the pulpit to dogmatize about it, — to think to throw any new light upon it, — to undertake to discuss what the most eminent statesmen have differed about ! " There is a fallacy here, which is easily exposed. What does the pulpit undertake to discuss ] Not the ways of getting rid of slavery, about which men differ ; but the moral character of the system itself, about which, essentially, they agree, — and most earnest de- nunciations of which have come from some of those very statesmen, born and living in the midst of it. The charge against the pulpit of a dogmatic utterance of its opinions in the face of those who have an equal right to theirs, and are as competent to form them, has no meaning. The pulpit has no " opinions " on the subject. It but enunciates plain and incontro- vertible truths and universally-admitted principles. Thank God ! among all that is uncertain, there are some things sure, which one can no more doubt than his own existence ; and, among them, this, — and it is all we care to oppose to slavery, — that there is a righteous God, and that his will and law is right- eousness. But here it is urged, " If the pulpit has nothing to propose in the way of methods for abolishing slavery, why discuss it at all ? We are all right in sentiment with regard to it. We all believe, that, abstractly and in principle, it is wrong. We want to know what to do. When the pulpit can tell us this, it may, with 22 some reason, speak on the subject." Would that the almost universal profession of antislavery sentiment might be more substantiated by deeds ! though the profession is worth something, as a hopeful sign and indication. But who can observe the course of politi- cal parties, and the tone of the secular press, without feeling that this community — even this — needs yet to be baptized into the true spirit of this reform ] Men ask for methods. They know, in their secret hearts, that they are not ready to use them if they were proposed ; they are not, at heart and in princi- ple, — as their doings testify, — with the cause they have nominally espoused ; they have not sworn fealty to it before high Heaven, to be maintained at what- ever sacrifice ; they love money more ; they love distinction more ; they love social position more. What comes of the indignant feeling that flames forth at each fresh outrage of the slave power ] What 1 -Words unbacked by deeds, vows that never see fulfilment. Could it be, if the feeling were based in principle I if the cause had been religiously em- braced'? And is it so, that, for the sake of the material prosperity it helps to foster, this Christian community isi consenting to the continuance and growth of this enthroned oppression 1 consenting — r yes — to crucify afresh the Saviour in the person of the slave ■? — Tell us ,what to do 'i Learn to sympa- thize with the oppressed ; learn to hate oppression ; 23 renew within you a declining love of freedom and appreciation of its worth ; study the first principles, drink into the spirit, of the religion of Christ ; cherish a reverence and love of righteousness, — until you shall have some adequate and feeling apprehension — which you have not now — of the essential character of this accursed system, and have a will for its re- moval. " Where there's a will, there's a way." Let statesmen discuss modes and methods : the pulpit has enough to do to create the feeling that would employ them. Once more, it is urged, " If a minister feels that he must speak on this subject, let him do it elsewhere than in the pulpit. Other places are open to him. Why insist upon that ] " Because the minister of religion has the pulpit as peculiarly his sphere of action and influence. Whatever within him is plead- ing for utterance, as a matter of right and of duty, should have utterance there. Moreover, the pulpit stands before the community as the visible representa- tive, the public organ, the accredited voice, of its reli- gion. Should it fail of bearing testimony, openly and unequivocally, against this wrong, what would be the not unauthorized inference from such failure, — the natural language of it ■? Would it not be, that reli- gion, as such, had no rebuke for it, — had nothing to do with it 1 No : the minister of religion is not only 24 to preach "righteousness ; " he is to preach it "in the great congregation." I cannot close this already too protracted discourse without a more direct allusidn to that state of things among us which called it forth. After what has occurred within the last few weeks, and in the pecu- liar and trying position in which I have thereby been placed, I could not feel it right or well to be longer silent with regard to it. Knowing that I was misun- derstood, or at least misrepresented ; that feelings of displeasure and disapproval were cherished on the part of many of yoU towards me, — feelings whose expres- sion has come to me in no scanty measure or equivo- cal tone ; and that a barrier was thus interposed, here and elsewhere, to my access to your hearts, to my attempts at usefulness, — I felt that, in justice to myself, and yet more to a committed trust, I was bound to speak. Yet when to speak, and how, it has been most ditiicult for me to decide. Discarding, by an earnest effort, all personal considerations ; putting a guard where I felt my weakness lay, — I have endeavored to yield myself to a higher than human guidance. And again and again, even at the approach of each returning sabbath, has a restraining sugges- tion prevented the doing of what I now have done. 25 Friends! as I look back to the time, not four months ago, when I returned among you from a long absence, and think how all was kindness and cor- diality towards me, with not a whisper of disaffection from any quarter, and then contrast with it your pre- sent feelings, as indicated by the facts to which I have alluded, I am constrained to ask before you, What have I done ? leaving it with yourselves to answer, as I leave with you also, and most confidingly, the judg- ment, whether the offence was deserving its visitation. I speak in no spirit of complaint. I come not to whine myself into your compassion, nor even to seek the return of a departed popularity. Let it be as it is. Having nothing to regret, but much to congra- tulate myself for, in what I have done, I cheerfully accept its consequences. Had I seen those conse- quences beforehand, — yea, had all that is adverse iu them been aggravated to my foresight in a tenfold measure, — I should have done the same. An impression, I learn, exists with some of you, that, in allowing the antislavery enterprise to find continued advocacy in this pulpit, I have been untrue to some expressions in the sermon at my return, — expressions which were understood, most strangely, to involve a confession of regret at my past course in relation to this enterprise, and the avowal of a pur- pose to avoid its repetition. I desire to say, that not the slightest shadow of such an idea ever entered my 26 mind. No! No! Among the things in the past which I regret, and they are many, this, helieve me, is not one. Among the resolutions with which I crossed anew the threshold of my work, there was none of desistance froba the advocacy of this holy cause. Its summoning trump, heard long years ago, — heard, and, I bless God, heeded, — wakes still its echoes in my soul ; and, when I shall willingly be disobedient to it, may the earth miss me, and its befriending turf conceal me ! Circumstances require that I should be explicit^in this matter. This, therefore, I desire to say, that I stand here in perfect freedom, or I stand not here at all ; and that, in the exercise of that freedom, among the subjects that wUl be introduced here is that of "righteousness," in its application to the gi;eat sin of the nation, — to American slavery. Friends ! let not a demanded plainness of utterance - be deemed inconsistent with a due respect. Respect, be assured, I feel, as I look around on many a familiar face, many a manly and gentle spirit ; yea, more than respect, — a grateful and affectionate regard. The memories of the past are with me. But you would not, I am sure, desire, as you could not expect, that, through any perspnal regard, I should be untrue to myself. Nor can I believe that it is the wish of most of you to have this pulpit other than a free one. The experience of the past forbids me. And now, one word more, a hopefid one, for that 27 cause which many of you, I know, though with dif- ferent degrees of feeling and different convictions of duty with regard to it, have truly at heart. Let us take courage in the assurance of its Tiltimate success. It is the cause of Christ and of God, and cannot fail. Does man think, by all his power, to restrain it? Let him first essay an easier task, and turn back, with his puny palm, the rushing waters of Niagara. Forces the most potential are enlisted in its behalf, — thought, sentiment, love, faith. It has an advocate in every generous breast, however prejudice and passion for a time may silence it. The literature of the age is in sympathy with it. The lyre of each noble poet is struck for it. Every exile that comes panting from the despotisms of the older world blesses it. The prayers of all the oppressed in all the earth go up for it. Heaven sends down to earth, and earth sends back to heaven, the prediction of its triumph.