HE SPARKS 
 
 LIBRARY. 
 
 [AMERICA.] 
 Collected by 
 
 JARED SPARKS, LL. D., 
 
 President of Harvard College. 
 
 Purchased by the Cornell University, 
 
 1872. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BX9815.C45 D6 
 
 Discourses, f^jafiliiiilHIIIlillS^^ ' 
 
 3 1924 029 477 191 
 olln 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924029477191 
 
DISCOURSES, 
 
 REVIEWS, AND MISCELLANIES, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PUBLISHED BY GRAY AND BQWEN. 
 
 M OCCC XXX. 
 
^ORNELlX- 
 
 
 
 
 DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT : 
 
 ■^ District ClerJc^s Office. 
 
 Be it remembered, that ontbe si^eenth day of April, A. D. 1830, in the fifty-fourth year 
 of the Independence of the United'^tates of America, Jomit Baker of the aaid district, has 
 deposited in this office the title of a.book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in 
 the words following, to wit : 
 
 " Discourses, Reviews, and Miscellanies, by William Ellery Channing.'* 
 
 In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, *\Aji Act for the en- 
 couragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books^ to the authors and 
 proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned :" and also to an act, entitled, 
 "An Act supplementary to an act, entitled, An Act for the encouragement of learning, by 
 securing the copies of maps, charts, and books^ to the authors and proprietors of such copies, 
 'during the times therein mentioned; j.nd extendmg the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, 
 engraving and etching historical and other prints." 
 
 JOHN W. DAVIS, 
 Clerk of the District of Massachusetts 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY LYMAN THURSTON AND Co- 
 BOSTON. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface. ..... v 
 
 Remarks on the Character and Writingsof John Milton. 
 
 From the Christian Examiner for 1826. . 1 
 
 « 
 Remarks on the Life and Character of Napoleon Bona- 
 parte. From the. Christian Examiner for 
 1827-8. . . Part I. 67 
 
 Part II. 135 
 
 Remarks on the Character and Writings of Fenelon. 
 
 From the Christian Examiner for 1829. . 165 
 
 The moral Argument against Calvinism, illustrated in a 
 Review of a Work entitled, 'A General View of 
 the Doctrines of Christianity,' &c. From the 
 Christian Disciple for 1820. . . 216 
 
 Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. John Emery 
 
 Abbot.— Salem, 20 April, 1816. . . 239 
 
 Discourse before the Congregational Ministers of Massa- 
 chusetts.— Boston, 30 May, 1816. . . 259 
 
 Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. Jared Sparks. — 
 
 Baltimore, 5 May, 1819. . . .289 
 
 Discourse on thfe Evidences of Revealed Religion, deliv- 
 ered before the University in Cambridge, at the 
 Dudleian Lecture.— 14 March, 1821. . 333 
 
 Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. E. S. Gannett. — 
 
 Boston, 30 June, 1824. . . .366 
 
 1* 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 Discourse at the Dedication of the Second Congregation- 
 al Unitarian Church in New York. 7 Decem- 
 ber, 1826. . . . .391 
 
 Discourse at the Installation of the Rev. M. I. Motte. — 
 
 Boston,21 May, 1828. . . .435 
 
 Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. F. A. Farley. — 
 
 Providence, R. I.- 10 September, 1828. . 455 
 
 Discourse at the Dedication of Divinity Hall. — Cam- 
 bridge, 1826. . . 483 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 Daily Prayer. ..... 513 
 
 Means of Promoting Christianity. . . .621 
 
 Importance of Religion to Society. . . 529 
 
 Memoir of John Gallison, Esq. Published, 1821. . 532 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Extracts from Observations on the Proposition for Increas- 
 ing the Means of Theological Education at the 
 University in Cambridge. Published, 1816. 551 
 
 The System of Exclusion and Denimciation in Religion 
 
 considered. Published, 1815. . . 557 
 
 Objections to Unitarian Christianity. Published, 1819. 671 
 
 Extracts from Sermons preached on days of Humiliation 
 and Prayer appointed in consequence of the De- 
 claration of War against Great Britain, 1812. 583 
 
 Extracts from a Sermon delivered 18 September, 1814, 
 when an Invasion by the British Forces was ap- 
 prehended at Boston. ~ . . . 591 
 
 Notice of the Rev. S. C. Thacher. . . 698' 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The present volume, is, with the exception of one discourse, a 
 republication of various tracts, which were called forth by particu- 
 lar occasions, and which were never intended to appear in their 
 present form. — The reader cannot be more aware than I am, that 
 they need many and great changes; but they would probably have 
 never been republished, had I waited for leisure to conform them to 
 my ideas of what they should be, or to make them more worthy of 
 the unexpected favor which they have received. The articles, in 
 general, were intended to meet the wants of the times when they 
 were written, and to place what I deem great truths, within reach 
 of the multitude of men. If the reader will bear in mind this 
 design, some defects will more readily be excused. The second 
 review, in particular, should be referred to the date of its original 
 publi,cation. 
 
 Certain tracts, which drew a degree of attention on their first 
 appearance, have been excluded from this volume. My reasons 
 for so doing are various. Some have been omitted, because they 
 seem to me of little or no worth; some, because they do not ex- 
 press sufficiently my present views; and some, because they owed 
 their interest to events, which have faded more or less from the pub- 
 lic- mind. In their present form, I wish none of them to be found 
 in a collection of my writings. 
 
 I esteem it a privilege, that my writings have called forth many 
 strictures, and been subjected to an unsparing criticism. I know 
 that in some things I must have erred. I cannot hope, that even in 
 my most successful efforts, I have done full justice to any great 
 truth. Deeply conscious of my fallibleness, I wish none of my opin- 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 ions to be taken on trust, nor would I screen any from the most 
 rigorous examination. If my opponents have exposed my errors, 
 I owe them a great debt; and should I fail, through the force of 
 prejudice, to see and acknowledge my obligation to them in this 
 life, I hope to do so in the future world. 
 
 I have declined answering the attacks made on my writings, 
 not from contempt of my opponents, among whom are men of dis- 
 tinguished ability and acknowledged virtue, but because I believed 
 that I should do myself and others more good, by seeking higher 
 and wider views, than by defending what I had already offered. I 
 feared that my mind might become stationary by lingering round 
 my own writings. I never doubted, that if anything in these 
 were worthy to live, it woulS survive all assaults, and I was not 
 anxious to uphold for a moment, what was doomed, by its want of 
 vital energy, to pass away. •• * 
 
 There is one charge, to which, it may be thought, that I ought 
 to have replied, — the charge of misrepresenting the opinions of my 
 opponents: When I considered, however, that in so doing, I should 
 involve myself in personal controversy, the worst of all con- 
 troversies, I thought myself bound to refrain. Had I entered on 
 this discussion, I must have spoken with great freedom, and should 
 have caused great exasperation. I must have set down as a grave 
 moral offence, the disingenuousness so common at the present day, 
 which, under pretence of maintaining old opinions, so disguises 
 and discolors them, thai they can with difficulty be recognised. I 
 must have thrown back the charge of misrepresentation, and shown 
 how unfairly I was reproached with ascribing to my adversaries 
 opinions, which I supposed them to reject, and which I only af- 
 firmed to be necessarily involved in their acknowledged doctrines. 
 I must have met the quotations from their standard authors, which 
 were arrayed against me, by showing, that these were examples of 
 the self-contradiction, or inconsistency, which is inseparable from 
 error. What kind of a controversy would have grown out of such a 
 reply, can easily be conjectured. I certainly did not think, that, by 
 provoking it, I should aid the cause of good morals or good man- 
 ners, of piety or peace. That I have never been unjust to those 
 who differ from me, I dare not say; for in this particular, better men 
 than myself often err. Perhaps, too, I ought to apprehend, that 
 I have .sometimes wanted due deference to the feelings of those, 
 whose opinions I have called in question; for I have been loudly 
 
PREFACE. VU 
 
 reproached with the want of christian tenderness. I can only say, 
 and here I speak confidently, that I have written nothing in anger, 
 or unkindness; and that I now retain the strong language which 
 has given offence', only because it seems to me to be demanded by 
 the greatness of the truths which I defend, and of the errors which 
 I oppose. 
 
 It is due to myself to say, that the controversial character of a 
 part of this volume, is to be ascribed, not to the love of disputation, 
 but to the circumstances in which I was called to write. It was my 
 lot to enter on public life at a time when this part of the country 
 was visited, by what I esteem one of its sorest scourges; I mean, by 
 a revival of the spirit of intolerance and persecution. I saw the 
 commencement of those systematic efforts, which have been since 
 developed, for fastening on the community a particular creed. 
 Opinions, which I thought true and purifying, were not only assail- 
 ed as errors, but branded as crimes. Then began, what seems 
 to me one of the gross immoralities of our times, the practice of 
 aspersing the characters of exemplary men, on the ground of differ- 
 ences of opinion as to the most mysterious articles of faith. Then 
 began those assaults on freedom of thought and speech, which, had 
 they succeeded, would have left us only the name of religious liberty. 
 Then it grew perilous to search the scriptures for ourselves, and to 
 speak freely according to the convictions of our own minds. I saw 
 that penalties, as serious in this country as fine and imprisonment, 
 were, if possible, to be attached to the profession of liberal views of 
 Christianity, the penalties of general hatred and scorn; and that a 
 degrading uniformity of opinion was to be imposed by the severest 
 persecution, which the spirit of the age would allow. At such a 
 period, I dared not be silent. To oppose what I deemed error was 
 to me a secondary consideration. My first duty, as I believed, was, 
 to maintain practically and resolutely the rights of the human mind; 
 to live and to suffer, if to suffer' were necessary, for that intellect- 
 ual and religious liberty, which I prize incomparably more than my 
 , civil rights. I felt myself called, not merely to plead in general for 
 freedom of thought and speech, but, what was more important and 
 tryingj to assert this freedom by action. I should have felt myself 
 disloyal to truth and freedom, had I confined myself to vague com- 
 monplaces about our rights, and forborne to bear my testimony 
 expressly and specially to proscribed and persecuted opinions. The 
 times required that a voice of strength and courage should be hfted 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 up, and I rejoice, that I was found among those by whom it was 
 uttered and sent far and wide. The timid, sensitive, diffident and 
 doubting, needed this voice; and without it, would have been over- 
 borne by the clamor of intolerance. If in any respect I have 
 rendered a service to humanity and religion, which may deserve to 
 be remembered, when I shall be taken away, it is in this. I be- 
 lieve, that had not the spirit of religious tyranny been met, as it 
 was, by unyieldiang opposition in this region, it would have fastened 
 an iron yoke on the necks of this people. The cause of religious 
 freedom owes its present strength to nothing so much, as to the con- 
 stancy and resolution of its friends in this quarter. Here its chief 
 battle has been fought, and not fought in vain. The spirit of intol- 
 erance is not indeed crushed; but its tones are subdued, and its 
 menaces impotent, compared with what they would have been, had it 
 prospered in its efforts here. 
 
 The remarks, now offered, have been intended to meet the 
 objection whijh may be made to this volume, of being too contro- 
 versial. Other objections may be urged against it. Very possibly 
 it may seem to want perfect consistency. I have long been con- 
 scious, that we are more in danger of being enslaved to our own 
 opinions, especially to such as we have expressed and defended, 
 than to those of any other person; and I have accordingly desired 
 to write without any reference to my previous publications, or 
 without any anxiety to accommodate my present to my past views. 
 In treatises, prepared in this spirit and at distant intervals, some in- 
 congruity of thought or feeling can hardly fail to occur. 
 
 By some, an opposite objection may be urged, that the volume 
 has too much repetition. This could not well be avoided in arti- 
 cles written on similar topics or occasions; written, too, without any 
 reference to each other, and in the expectation that each would be 
 read by many, into whose hands the others would not probably fall. 
 I must add, that my interest in certain great truths, has made me 
 anxious to avail myself of every opportunity to enforce them; nor 
 do I feel as if they were urged more frequently, than their impor- 
 tance demands. 
 
 I ought not to close this Preface, without expressing my obliga- 
 tion to two of my most valued friends, the Rev. Dr. Tuckermanof 
 Boston, and Professor Norton, of Cambridge, without whose solio- 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 itations and encouragements, I might have wanted confidence, un- 
 der the lassitude of feeble health, to attempt the little which I have 
 done for the cause of religion and freedom. 
 
 I will only add, that whilst I attach no great value to these 
 articles, I still shguld not have submitted to the labor of partially 
 revising them, did I not believe, that they set forth some great 
 truths, which, if carried out and enforced by more gifted minds, 
 may do much for human improvement. If, by anything which I 
 have written, I may be an instrument of directing such minds 
 more seriously to the claims and true greatness of our nature, I 
 shall be most grateful to God. This subject deserves and will 
 sooner or later engage the profoundest meditations of wise and 
 good men. I have done for it what I could; but when I think of 
 its grandeur and importance, I earnestly desire and anticipate for 
 it more worthy advocates. In truth, I shall see with no emotion 
 but joy these fugitive productions forgotten and lost in the superior 
 brightness of writings consecrated to the work of awakening 
 in the human soul a consciousness of its divine and immortal 
 powers. 
 
 W. E, C. 
 
 Boston, April, 1830. 
 
REMARKS 
 
 ON THB 
 
 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 1826. 
 
JOHN MILTON. 
 
 A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, implied from the Holy Scriptures alone. 
 By John Milton. Translated from the Original by Charles R. Sum- 
 ner, M. A. Librarian and Historiographer to His Majesty, and Preben- 
 dary of Canterbury. From the London Edition. Boston. 1825. 
 2 vols. Svo. 
 
 m- 
 
 , The di'scovery of a work of Milton, unknown to his 
 own times, is an important event in literary history. 
 The consideration, that we of this age are the first read- 
 ers of this Treatise, naturally heightens our interest in 
 it ; for we seem in this way to be brought nearer to the 
 author, and to sustain the same relation which his co- 
 temporaries bore to his writings. The work opens 
 with a salutation, which, from any other man, rnight be 
 chargeable with inflation ; but which we feel to be the 
 natural and appropriate expression of the spirit of Mil- 
 ton. Endowed with faculties, which have been 
 imparted to few of our race, and conscious of having 
 consecrated them through life to God and mankind, he 
 rose without effort or affectation to the style of an 
 Apostle. — ' John Milton, to all the Churches of 
 Christ, and to all who profess the Christian 
 Faith throughout the world, peace, and the re- 
 
COGNITION OF THE TRUTH, AND ETERNAL SALVATION IN 
 
 Goi> THE Father, and in our Lord Jesus Christ.' 
 Our ears are the first to hear this benediction, and 
 it seems not so much to be borne to us from a dis- 
 tant age, as to come immediately from the sainted 
 spirit, by which it was indited. 
 
 Without meaning to disparage the 'Treatise on 
 Christian Doctrine,' we may say that it owes very much 
 of the attention, which it has excited, to the fame of its 
 author. We value it chiefly as showing us the mind 
 of Milton on that subject, which, above all others, pres- 
 ses upon men of thought and sensibility. We want to 
 know in what conclusions such a man rested after a 
 life of extensive and profound research, of magnanimous 
 efforts for freedom and his country, and of communion 
 with the most gifted minds of his own and former times. 
 The book derives its chief interest from its author, and 
 accordingly there seems to be a propriety in introducing 
 our remarks upon it with some notice of the character 
 of Milton. We are not sure that we could have ab- 
 stained from this subject, even if we had not been able 
 to offer so good an apology for attempting it. The in- 
 tellectual and moral qualities of a great man are attrac- 
 tions not easily withstood, and we can hardly serve 
 others or ourselves more, than by recalling to him the 
 attention which is scattered among inferior topics. 
 
 In speaking of the intellectual qualities of Milton, 
 we may begin with observing, that the very splendor of 
 his poetic fame has tended to conceal or obscure the 
 extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and 
 attainments. To many he seems only ^ poet, when in 
 truth he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass 
 of thought, imbued thoroughly with all ancient and mod- 
 
ern learning, and able to master, to mould, to impreg- 
 nate with his own intellectual power, his great and va- 
 rious acquisitions. He had not learned the superficial 
 doctrine of a later day, that poetry flourishes most in 
 ai) uncultivated soil, and that imagination shapes its 
 brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious age ; 
 and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest it 
 should oppress and smother his genius. He was con- 
 scious of that within him, which could quicken all 
 knowledge, and wield it with ease and might; which 
 could give freshness to old truths and harmony to dis- 
 cordant thoughts ; which could bind together, by living 
 ties and mysterious affinities, the most remote discov- 
 eries, and rear fabrics of glory and beauty from the rude 
 materials, which other minds had collected. Milton had 
 that universality which marks the highest order of intel- 
 lect. Though accustomed almost from infancy to drink 
 at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing 
 of the pedantry and fastidiousness, which disdain all 
 other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, 
 on whatever soil, or in whatever age, it burst forth and 
 poured out its fulness. He understood too well the 
 rights, and dignity, and pride of creative imagination, 
 to lay on it the laws of the Greek or Roman school. 
 Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of ge- 
 nius. He felt that poetry was as a universal presence. 
 Great minds were everywhere his kindred. He felt 
 the enchantment of Oriental fiction, surrendered him- 
 self to the strange creations of ' Araby the Blest,' and 
 delighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, 
 and in the tales of wonder in which it was embodied. 
 Accordingly his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which 
 adds to its own boundlessness contributions from all 
 regions under heaven. Nor was it only in the depart- 
 1* 
 
ment of imagination, that his acquisitions were vast. 
 He travelled over the whole field of knowledge, as far 
 as it had then been explored. His various philological 
 attainments were used to put him in possession of the 
 wisdom stored in all countries, where the intellect had 
 beem cultivated. The natural philosophy, metaphysics, 
 ethics, history, theology, and political science of his 
 own and former times, were familiar to him. Never 
 was there a more unconfined mind, and we would cite 
 Milton as a practical example of the benefits of that 
 universal culture of intellect, which forms one distinc- 
 tion of our times, but which soiiie dread as unfriendly 
 to original thought. Let such remember, that mind is 
 in its own nature diffusive. Its object is the universe, 
 which is strictly one, or bound together by infinite con- 
 nexions find correspondences ; and accordingly its natu- 
 ral progress is from one to another field of thought ; and 
 wherever original power, creative genius exists, the 
 mind, far from being distracted or oppressed by the va- 
 riety of its acquisitions, will see more and more common 
 bearings and hidden and beautiful analogies in all the 
 objects of knowledge, will see mutual light shed from 
 truth to truth, and will compel, as with a kingly power, 
 whatever it understands, to yield some tribute of proof, 
 or illustration, or splendor, to whatever topic it would 
 unfold. 
 
 Miltori's faine rests chiefly on his poetry, and to this 
 we naturally give our first atteiition. By those who 
 are accustomed to speak of poetry as light reading, Mil- 
 ton's eminence in this sphere may be considered only as 
 giving him a high rank among the contributors to public 
 amusement. Not so thought Milton. Of all God's 
 gifts of intellect, he esteemed poetical genius the most 
 transcendent. He esteemed it in himself as a kind of 
 
inspiration, and wrote his great works with something 
 of the conscious dignity of a prophet. We agree with 
 Milton in his estimate of poetry. It seems to us the 
 divinest of all arts ; for it is the breathing or expression 
 of that principle or sentiment, which is deepest and sub- 
 limest in human nature ; we mean, of that thirst or 
 aspiration, to which no mind is wholly a stranger, for 
 something purer and lovelier, something more powerful, 
 lofty, and thrilling than ordinary and real life affords. 
 No doctrine is more common among Christians than 
 that of man's immortality ; but it is not so generally 
 understood, that the germs or principles of his whole 
 future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudi- 
 ments of the future plant in the seed. As a necessary 
 result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved 
 by these mighty though infant energies, is perpetually 
 stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling 
 against the bounds of its earthly prison-house, and 
 seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen and ideal 
 being. This view" of our nature, which has never been 
 fully developed, and which goes farther towards explain- 
 ing the contradictions of human life than all others, car- 
 ries us to the very foundation and sources of poetry. 
 He who cannot interpret by his own consciousness 
 what we now have said, wants the true key to works 
 of genius. He has not penetrated those sacred recesses 
 of the soul, where poetry is born and nourished, and 
 inhales immortal vigor, and wings herself for her heaven- 
 ward flight. In an intellectual nature, framed for pro- 
 gress and for higher modes of being, there must be 
 creative energies, powers of original and ever growing 
 thought ; and poetry is the form in which these energies 
 are chiefly manifested. It is the glorious prerogative 
 of this art, that it ' makes all things new ' for the gratifi- 
 
8 
 
 cation of a divine instinct. It indeed finds its elements 
 in what it actually sees and experiences, in the worlds 
 of matter and mind ; but it combines and blends these 
 into new forms and according to new affinities ; breaks 
 down, if we may so say, the distinctions and bounds of 
 nature; imparts to material objects life, and sentiment, 
 and emotion, and invests the mind with the powers and 
 splendors of the outward creation ; describes the sur- 
 rounding universe in the colors which the passions throw 
 over it, and depicts the soul in those modes of repose 
 or agitation, of tenderness or sublime emotion, which 
 manifest its thirst for a more powerful and joyful exist- 
 ence. To a man of a literal and prosaic character, the 
 mind may seem lawless in these workings ; but it ob- 
 serves higher laws than it transgresses, the laws of the 
 immortal intellect ; it is trying and developing its best 
 faculties; and in the objects which it describes, or in 
 the emotions which it awakens, anticipates those states 
 of progressive power, splendor, beauty, and happiness, 
 for which it was created. 
 
 We accordingly believe that poetry, far from injur- 
 ing society, is one of the great instruments of its refine- 
 ment and exaltation. It lifts the mind above ordinary 
 life, gives it a respite from depressing cares, and awak- 
 ens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure 
 and noble. In its legitimate and highest eiforts, it has 
 the same tendency and aim with Christianity ; that is, 
 to spiritualize our nature. True, poetry has been made 
 the instrument of vice, the pander of bad passions ; but 
 when genius thus stoops, it dims its fires, and parts 
 with much of its power ; and even when poetry is en- 
 slaved to licentiousness or misanthropy, she cannot 
 wholly forget her true vocation. Strains of pure feel- 
 ing, touches of tenderness, images of innocent happi- 
 
ness, sympathies with suffering virtue, bursts of scorn 
 or indignation at the hollowness of the world, passages 
 true to our moral nature, often escape in an immoral 
 work, and show us how hard it is for a gifted spirit to 
 divorce itself wholly from what is good. Poetry has a 
 natural alliance with our best affections. It delights in 
 the beauty and ' sublimity of the outward creation and 
 of the soul. It indeed portrays, with terrible energy, 
 the excesses of the passions ; but they are passions 
 which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, 
 which command awe, and excite a deep though shud- 
 dering sympathy. Its -great tendency and purpose is, 
 to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, 
 weary walks of ordinary life ; to lift it into a purer ele- 
 ment ; and to breathe into it more profound and gene- 
 rous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, 
 brings back the freshness of early feeling, revives the 
 relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the en- 
 thusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, 
 refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human 
 nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest 
 feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of so- 
 ciety, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, 
 through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps 
 faith to lay hold on the future life. 
 
 We are aware, that it is objected to poetry, that it 
 gives wrong views and excites false expectations of life, 
 peoples the mind with shadows and illusions, and builds 
 up imagination on the ruins of wisdom. That there is 
 a wisdom, against which poetry wars, the wisdom of 
 the senses, which makes physical comfort and gratifica- 
 tion the supreme good, and wealth the chief interest of 
 life,' we do not deny; nor do we deem it the least ser- 
 vice which poetry renders to mankind, that it redeems 
 
10 
 
 them from the thraldom of this earthborn prudence. 
 But, passing over this topic, we would observe, that the 
 complaint against poetry as abounding in illusion and 
 deception, is in the main groundless. In many poems 
 there is more of trutli than in many histories and philo- 
 sophic theories. The fictions of genius are; often the 
 vehicles of the sublimest verities, and its flashes often 
 open new regions of thought, and throw new light on 
 the mysteries of our being. In poet^, when the letter 
 is falsehood, the spirit is often profoundest wisdom. 
 And if truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the 
 poet, much more may it be expected in his delineations 
 of life ; for the present life, which is the first stage of 
 the immortal mind, abounds in the materials of poetry, 
 and it is the high office of the bard to detect this divine 
 element among the grosser labors and pleasures of our 
 earthly being. The present life is not wholly prosaic, 
 precise, tame, and finite. To the gifted eye, it abounds 
 in the poetic. The affections which spread beyond 
 ourselves and stretch far into futurity; the workings of 
 mighty passions, which seem to arm the soul with an 
 almost superhuman energy ; the innocent and irrepressi- 
 ble joy of infancy; the bloom, and buoyancy, and daz- 
 zling hopes of youth ; the throbbings of the heart, when 
 it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast 
 for earth ; woman, with her beauty, and grace, and gen- 
 tleness, and fulness of feeling, and depth of affection, 
 and blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which 
 only a mother's heart can inspire ; — these are all poeti- 
 cal. It is not true that the poet paints a life which 
 does not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as 
 it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its 
 volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, 
 and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys. 
 
n 
 
 And in this he does well; for it is good to ieel that life 
 is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence, and phy- 
 sical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may 
 be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy 
 of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our 
 views of life and happiness, is more and more needed 
 as society advances. It is needed to withstand the en- 
 croachments of heartless and artificial manners, which 
 make civilisation so tame and uninteresting. It is need- 
 ed to counteract the tendency of physical science, which 
 being now sought, not, as formerly, for intellectual grati- 
 fication, but for multiplying bodily comforts, requires 
 a new developement of imagination, taste, and poetry, to 
 preserve men from sinking into an earthly, material. 
 Epicurean life. — Our remarks in vindication of poetry 
 have extended beyond our original design. They have 
 had a higher aim than to assert the dignity of Milton 
 as a poet, and that is, to endear and recommend this 
 divine art to all who reverence and would cultivate and 
 refine their nature. 
 
 In delineating Milton's character as a poet, we are 
 saved the necessity of looking far for its distinguishing 
 attributes. His name is almost identified with sublimi- 
 ty. He is in truth the sublimest of men. He rises, 
 not by effort or discipline, but by a native tendency and 
 a godlike instinct, to the contemplation of objects of 
 grandeur and awfulness. He always moves with a 
 conscious energy. There is no subject so vast or ter- 
 rific, as to repel or intimidate him. The overpowering 
 grandeur of a theme kindles and attracts him. He en- 
 ters on the description of the infernal regions with a 
 fearless tread, as if he felt within himself a power to 
 erect the prison-house of fallen spirits, to encircle them 
 
12 
 
 with flames and horrors worthy of their crimes, to call 
 forth from them shouts which should 'tear hell's con- 
 cave,' and to embody in their Chief an Archangel's 
 energies, and a Demon's pride and hate. Even the 
 stupendous conception of Satan seems never to oppress 
 his faculties. This character of power runs through all 
 Milton's works. His descriptions of nature show a 
 free and bold hand. He has no need of the minute, 
 graphic skill, which we prize in Cowper or Crabbe. 
 With a few strong or delicate touches, he impresses, as 
 it were, his own mind on the scenes which he would 
 describe, and kindles the imagination of the gifted 
 reader to clothe them with the same radiant hues un- 
 der which they appeared to his own. 
 
 This attribute of power is universally felt to charac- 
 terize Milton. His sublimity is in every man's mouth. 
 Is it felt that his poetry breathes a sensibility and ten- 
 derness hardly surpassed by its sublimity? We appre- 
 hend that the grandeur of Milton's mind has thrown 
 some shade over his milder beauties ; and this it has 
 done, not only by being more striking and imposing, 
 but by the tendency of vast mental energy to give a 
 certain calmness to the expression of tenderness and 
 deep feeling. A great mind is the master of its own 
 enthusiasm, and does not often break out into those tu- 
 mults, which pass with many for the signs of profound 
 emotion. Its sensibility, though more intense and en- 
 during, is more self-possfessed, and less perturbed than 
 that of other men, and is therefore less observed and 
 felt, except by those who understand, through their own 
 consciousness, the workings and utterance of genuine 
 feeling. We might quote pages in illustration of the 
 qualities here ascribed to Milton. Turn to Comus, one 
 of his earliest productions. What sensibility breathes 
 
13 
 
 in the descriptions of the benighted Lady's singing, by 
 Comus and the Spirit ! 
 
 '■Comus. — Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould 
 Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment ? 
 Sure something holy lodges in that breast, 
 And with these raptures moves the vocal air 
 To testify his hidden residence: 
 How sweetly did they float upon the wings 
 Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, 
 At every fall smoothing the raven down 
 Of darkness till it smiled ! I have oft heard 
 My mother Circe with the Sirens three, 
 Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades, 
 Culling their potent herbs, and baleful drugs, 
 Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul 
 And lap it in Elysium ; ScJ'Ua wept, 
 And chid her barking waves into attention. 
 And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause: 
 Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense. 
 And in sweet madness robbed it of itself; 
 But such a sacred and home-felt delight. 
 Such sober certainty of waking bliss, 
 I never heard till now.' Uines 244 — 264. 
 
 'Spirit. — At last a soft and solemn breathing sound 
 Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes. 
 And stole upon the air, that even Silence 
 Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might 
 Deny her nature, and be never more, 
 Still to be so displaced. I was all ear. 
 And took in strains that might create a soul 
 Under the ribs of death.' Lines 555 — 563. 
 
 In illustration of Milton's tenderness, we will open 
 almost at a venture. 
 
 ' Now Morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime 
 Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl. 
 When Adam waked, so customed, for his sleep 
 Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred, 
 
 2 
 
14 
 
 And temperate vapors bland, which th' only sound 
 Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, 
 Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song 
 Of birds on every bough, ; so much the more 
 His wonder was to find unwakened Eve 
 With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek. 
 As through unquiet rest : He on his side 
 Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love 
 Hung over her enamoured, and beheld 
 Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep. 
 Shot forth peculiar graces ; then with voice 
 Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, 
 Her hand soft touching, whispered thus. Awake, 
 My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, 
 Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight, 
 Awake ! the morning shines, and the fresh field 
 Calls us : we lose the prime, to mark how spring 
 Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove. 
 What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, 
 How nature paints her colors, how the bee 
 Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.' 
 
 Par. Lost, B. V. lines 1 — ^25 
 
 ' So cheered he his fair spouse, and she was cheered, 
 But silently a gentle tear let fall 
 From either eye, and wiped them with her hair ; 
 Two other precious drops that ready stood. 
 Each in their crystal sluice, he ere they fell 
 Kissed, as the gracious signs of sweet remorse 
 And pious awe, that feared to have offended.' 
 
 Par. Lost, B. V. lines 129—135. 
 
 From this very imperfect view of the qualities of 
 "Milton's poetry, we hasten to his great work, ' Paradise 
 Lost,' perhaps the noblest monument of human genius. 
 The two first books, by universal consent, stand pre- 
 eminent in sublimity. Hell and hell's king have a ter- 
 rible harmony, and dilate into new grandeur and awful- 
 ness, the longer we contemplate them. From one ele- 
 ment, ' solid and liquid fire,' the poet has framed a 
 
15 
 
 world of horror and suffering, such as imagination had 
 never traversed. But fiercer flames than those vt'hicii 
 encompass Satan, burn in his ovi^n soul. Revenge, ex- 
 asperated pride, consuming wrath, ambition, though fal- 
 len, yet unconquered by the thunders of the Omnipotent, 
 and grasping still at the empire of the universe, — these 
 form a picture more sublime and terrible than hell. 
 Hell yields to the spirit which it imprisons. The inten- 
 sity of its fires reveals the intenser passions and more 
 vehement will of Satan ; and the ruined archangel gath- 
 ers into himself the sublimity of the scene which sur- 
 rounds him. This forms the treihepdous interest of 
 these wonderful books. We see mind triumphant over 
 the most terrible powers of nature. We see unuttera- 
 ble agony subdued by energy of soul. We have not 
 indeed in Satan those bursts of passion, which rive the 
 soul, as well as shatter the outward frame of Lear. 
 But we have a depth of passion which only an arch- 
 angel could manifest. The all-enduring, all-defying 
 pride of Satan, assuming so majestically hell's burning 
 throne, and coveting the diadem which scorches his 
 thunder-blasted brow, is a creation requiring in its au- 
 thor almost the spiritual energy with which he invests 
 the fallen seraph. Some have doubted whether the 
 moral effect of such delineations of the storms and ter- 
 rible workings of the soul is good ; whether the interest 
 felt in a spirit so trariscendently evil as Satan, favors 
 our sympathies with virtue. But our interest fastens, 
 m this and like cases, on what is not eviL We gaze 
 on Satan with an awe not unmixed with mysterious 
 pleasure, as on a miraculous manifestation of the poiver 
 of mind. What chains us, as with a resistless spell, in 
 such a character, is spiritual might made visible by the 
 racking pains which it overpowers. There is some- 
 
16 
 
 thing kindling and ennobling in the consciousness, how- 
 ever awakened, of the energy which resides in mind ; 
 and many a virtuous man has borrowed new strength 
 from the force, constancy, and dauntless courage of evil 
 agents. 
 
 Milton's description of Satan attests in various ways 
 the power of his genius. Critics have often observed, 
 that the great difficulty of his work v/as to reconcile 
 the spiritual properties of his supernatural beings with 
 the human modes of existence which he is obliged to 
 ascribe to them. The difficulty is too great for any 
 genius wholly to overcome, and we must acknowledge 
 that our enthusiasm is in some parts of the poem check- 
 ed by a feeling of incongruity between the spiritual 
 agent, and his sphere and mode of agency. But we 
 are visited with no such chilling doubts and misgivings 
 in the description of Satan in hell. Imagination has 
 here achieved its highest triumph, in imparting a char- 
 acter of reality and truth to its most daring creations. 
 That world of horrors, thoug^h material, is yet so re- 
 mote from our ordinary nature, that a spiritual being, 
 exiled from heaven, finds there an appropriate home. 
 There is, too, an indefiniteness in the description of 
 Satan's person, which excites without shocking the im- 
 agination, and aids us to reconcile in our conception of 
 him, a human form with his superhuman attributes. To 
 the production of this effect, much depends on the first 
 impression given by the poet ; for this is apt to follow 
 us through the whole work ; and here we think Milton 
 eminently successful. The first glimpse of Satan is 
 given us in the following lines, which, whilst too in- 
 definite to provoke, and too sublime to allow, the scru- 
 tiny of the reason, fill the imagination of the reader 
 with a form which can hardly be effaced. 
 
17 
 
 ' Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate 
 With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
 That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides 
 Prone on the flood, extended long andiarge, 
 Lay floating many a rood.' 
 
 Par. Lost, B. I. lines 192—196. 
 
 ' Forthwith upright he rears from ofli" the pool 
 His mighty stature ; on each hand the flames. 
 Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and rolled 
 In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale.' 
 
 Lines 22)— 224. 
 
 We have more which we would gladly say of the 
 delineation of Satan ; especially of the glimpses which 
 are now and then given of his deep anguish and des- 
 pair, and of the touches of better feelings which are 
 skilfully thrown into the dark picture, both suited and 
 designed to blend with our admiration, dread, and 
 abhorrence, a pleasure of that sympathy and interest, 
 with which every living, thinking being ought to be 
 regarded, and without which all other feelings tend to 
 sin and pain. But there is another topic which we 
 cannot leave untouched. From hell we flee to Paradise, 
 a region as lovely as hell is terrible, and which to those 
 who do not know the universality of true genius, will 
 appear doubly wonderful, when considered as the crea- 
 tion of the same mind, which had painted the infernal 
 world. 
 
 Paradise and its inhabitants are in sweet accordance, 
 and together form a scene of tranquil bliss, which calms 
 and soothes, whilst it delights the imagination. Adam 
 and Eve, just moulded by the hand, and quickened by 
 the breath of God, reflect in their countenances and 
 fornis, as well as minds, the intelligence, benignity, 
 and happiness of their Author. Their , new existence 
 has the freshness and peacefulness of the dewy morn- 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 ing. Their souls, unsated and untainted, find an inno- 
 cent joy in the youthful creation, which spreads and 
 smiles around them. Their mutual love is deep, for it 
 is the love of young, unworn, unexhausted hearts, which 
 meet in each other the only human objects on whom to 
 pour forth their fulness of atfection ; and still it is 
 serene, for it is the love of happy beings, who know not 
 suffering even by name, whose innocence excludes not 
 only the -tumults but the thought of jealousy and shame, 
 who, ' imparadised in one another's arms, ' scarce 
 dream of futurity, so blessed is their present being. 
 We will not say that we envy our first parents ; for we 
 feel that there may be higher happiness than theirs, a 
 happiness won through struggle with inward and out- 
 ward foes, the happiness of power and moral victory, 
 the happiness of disinterested sacrifices and wide-spread 
 love, the happiness of boundless hope, and of ' thoughts 
 which wander through eternity.' Still there are times, 
 when the spirit, oppressed with pain, worn with toil, 
 tired of tumiilt, sick at the sight of guilt, wounded in 
 its love, baffled in its hope, and trembling in its faith, 
 almost longs for the ' wings of a dove, that it might fly 
 away ' and take refuge amidst the ' shady bowers,' the 
 ' vernal airs,' the 'roses without thorns,' the quiet, the 
 beauty, the loveliness of Eden. It is the contrast of 
 this deep peace of Paradise with the storms of life, which 
 gives to the fourth and fifth books of this poem a charm 
 so irresistible, that not a few would sooner relinquish the 
 two first books, with all their sublimity, than part with 
 these. It has sometimes been said, that the English 
 language has no good pastoral poetry. We would ask, 
 in what age or country has the pastoral reed breathed 
 such sweet strains as are borne to us on ' the odorife- 
 rous wings of gentle gales ' from Milton's Paradise ? 
 
19 
 
 We should not fulfil our duty, were we not to say 
 one word on what hiis been justly celebrated, the har- 
 mony of Milton's versification. His numbers have the 
 prime charm of expressiveness. They vary with, and 
 answer to the depth, or tenderness, or sublimity of his 
 conceptions, and hold intimate alliance with the soul. 
 Like Michael Angelo, in whose hands the marble was 
 said to be flexible, he bends ou,r language, which for- 
 eigners reproach with hardness, into whatever forms 
 the subject demands. All the treasures of sweet and 
 solemn sound are at his command. Words, harsh and 
 discordant in the writings of less gifted men, flow 
 through his poetry in a full stream of harmony. This 
 power over language is not to be ascribed to Milton's 
 musical ear. It belongs to the soul. It is a gift or 
 exercise of genius, which has power to impress itself on 
 whatever it touches, and finds or frames in sounds, 
 motions, and material forms, correspondences and har- 
 monies with its own fervid thoughts and feelings. 
 
 We close our remarks on Milton's poetry with ob- 
 serving, that it is characterized by seriousness. Great 
 ahd various as are its merits, it does not discover all 
 the variety of genius, which we find in Shakspeare, 
 whose imagination revelled equally in regions of mirth, 
 beauty, and terror, now evoking spectres, now sporting 
 with fairies, and now ' ascending the highest heaven of 
 invention.' Milton was cast on times too solemn and 
 eventful, was called to take pari in transactions too 
 perilous, and had too perpetual need of the presence of 
 high thoughts and motives, to indulge himself in light 
 and gay creations, even had his genius been more flexi- 
 ble and sportive. But Milton's poetry, though habit- 
 ually serious, is always healthful, and bright, and vigor- 
 ous. It has no gloom. He took no pleasure in draw- 
 
20 
 
 ing dark pictures of life ; for he knew by experience, 
 that there is a power in the soul to transmute calamity 
 into an occasion and nutriment of moral power and tri- 
 umphant virtue. We find ri'owhere in his writings that 
 whining sensibility and exaggeration of morbid feeling, 
 which makes so much of modern poetry effeminating. 
 If he is not gay, he is not spirit-broken. His U Allegro 
 proves, that he understood thoroughly the bright and 
 joyous aspects of nature ; and in his Penseioso, where 
 he was tempted to accumulate images of gloom, we 
 learn that the saddest views which he took of creation, 
 are such as inspire only pensive musing or lofty con- 
 templation. 
 
 From Milton's poetry, we turn to his prose. We 
 rejoice that the dust is beginning to be wiped from his 
 prose writings, and that the public are now learning, 
 what the initiated have long known, that these contain 
 passages hardly inferior to his best poetry, and that 
 they are throughout marked with the same vigorous 
 mind which gave us Paradise Lost. The attention to 
 these works has been discouraged by some objections, 
 on which we shall bestow a few remarks. 
 
 And first, it is objected to his prose writings, that 
 the style is difficult and obscure, abounding in involu- 
 tions, transpositions, and Latinisms ; that his protracted 
 sentences exhaust and weary the mind, and too often 
 yield it no better recompense than confused and indis- 
 tinct perceptions. We mean not to deny that these 
 charges have some grounds ; but they seem to us much 
 exaggerated ; and when we consider that the difficul- 
 ties of Milton's style have almost sealed up his prose 
 writings, we cannot but lament the fastidiousness and 
 effeminacy of modern readers. We know that simpli- 
 
21 
 
 city and perspicuity are important qualities of style ; 
 but there are vastly nobler and more important ones ; 
 such as energy and richness, and in these Milton is not 
 surpassed. The best style is not that which puts the 
 reader most easily and in the shortest time in posses- 
 sion of a writer's naked thoughts ; but that which is the 
 truest image of a great intellect, which conveys fully 
 and carries farthest into other souls the conceptions 
 and feelings of a profound and lofty spirit. To be uni- 
 versally intelligible is not the highest merit. A great 
 mind cannot, without injurious constraint, shrink itself 
 to the grasp of common passive readers. Its natural 
 movement is free, bold, and majestic, and it ought not 
 to be required to part with these attributes, that the mul- 
 titude may keep pace with it. A full mind will natu- 
 rally overflow in long sentences, and in the moment of 
 inspiration, when thick-coming thoughts and images 
 crowd upon it, will often pour them forth in a splendid 
 confusion, dazzling to common Readers, but kindling to 
 congenial spirits. There are writings which are clear 
 through their shallowness. We must not expect in the 
 ocean the transparency of the calm inland stream. For 
 ourselves, we love what is called easy reading perhaps 
 too well, especially in our hours of relaxation ; but we 
 love too to have our faculties tasked by master spirits. 
 We delight in long sentences, in which a great truth, 
 instead of being broken up into numerous periods, is 
 spread out in its full proportioBS, is irradiated with va- 
 riety of illustration and imagery, is set forth in a splendid 
 affluence of language, and flows, like a full stream, 
 with a majestic harmony which fills at once the ear and 
 the souL Such sentences are worthy and noble mani- 
 festations of a great and far' looking mind, which grasps 
 at once vast fields of thought, just as the natural eye 
 
,22 
 
 takes in at a moment wide prospects of grandeur and 
 beautji We would not indeed have all compositions 
 of this character. Let abundant provision be made for 
 the common intellect. Let such writers as Addison, 
 an honored name, ' briiig down philosophy from heav- 
 en to earth.' But let inspired genius fulfil its higher 
 function of lifting the prepared mind from earth to 
 heaven. Impose upon it no strict laws, for it is its own 
 best law. Let it speak in its own language, in tones 
 which suit its, own ear. Let it not lay aside its natur- 
 al port, or dwarf itself that it may be comprehended 
 by the surrounding multitude. If not understood and 
 relished now, let it place a generous confidence in other 
 ages, and utter oracles which futurity will expound. 
 We are led to these remarks^ not merely for Milton's 
 justification, but because our times seem to demand 
 them. Literature, we fear, is becoming too popular. 
 The whole community is now turned into readers, and 
 in this we heartily rejoice ; and we rejoice too that so 
 much talent is employed in making knowledge accessi- 
 ble to all. We hail the general diifusion of intelligence 
 as the brightest feature of the present age. But good 
 and evil are never disjoined ; and one bad consequence 
 of the multitude of readers, is, that men of genius are 
 too anxious to please the multitude, and prefer a pre- 
 sent shout of popularity to that less tumultuous, but 
 deeper, more thrilling note of the trump of Fame, which 
 resQunds and grows clearer and louder through all 
 future ages. 
 
 We now come to a much more serious objection to 
 Milton's prose writings, and that is, that they are dis- 
 figured by party spirit, coarse invective, and controver- 
 sial asperity,; and here we are prepared to say, that there 
 are passages in these works which every admirer of his 
 
23 
 
 character must earnestly desire to expunge. Milton's 
 alleged virulence was manifested towards private and 
 public foes. The first, such as Salmasius and Morus, 
 deserved no mercy. They poured out on his spotless 
 character torrents of calumny, charging him with the 
 blackest vices of the heart and the ibulest' endrmities 
 of the life. It ought to be added, that the manners and 
 spirit of Milton's age justified a retaliation on such of- 
 fenders, which the more courteous, and, we will hope, 
 more christian spirit of the present times will not toler- 
 ate. Still we mean not to be his apologists. Milton, 
 raised as he was above his age, and fortified with the 
 consciousness of high virtue, ought to have been, both to 
 his own and future times, an example of christian equa- 
 nimity. In regard to the public enemies whom he assail- 
 ed, we mean the despots in church and state, and the 
 corrupt institutions which had stirred up a civil war, the 
 general strain of his writings, though strong and stern, 
 must exalt him, notwithstanding his occasional violence, 
 among the friends of civil and religious liberty. That 
 liberty was in peril. Great evils were struggling for per- 
 petuity, and could only be broken down by great power. 
 Milton felt that interests of infinite moment were at 
 stake ; and who will blame him for binding himself to 
 them with the whole energy of his great mind, and for 
 defending them with fervor and vehemence ? We must 
 not mistake christian benevolence, as if it had but one 
 voice, that of soft eiltreaty. It can speak in piercing 
 and awful tones. There is constantly going on in our 
 world a conflict between good and evil. The cause of 
 human nature has always to wrestle with foes. All 
 improvement is a victory won by struggles. It is espe- 
 cially true of those great periods which have been dis- 
 tinguished by revolutions in government and religion, 
 
24 
 
 and from \lvhich we date the most rapid movements of 
 the hupian mind, that they have been signalized by con- 
 flict. Thus Christianity convulsed the world and grew 
 up amidst storms ; and the Reformation of Luther was 
 a signal to universal war ; and Liberty in both worlds 
 has encountered opposition, over which she has triumph- 
 ed only through her own immortaL energies. At such 
 periods, men, gifted with great power of thought and 
 loftiness of sentiment, are especially summoned to the 
 conflict with evil. They hear, as it were, in their own 
 magnanimity and generous aspirations, the voice of a 
 divinity ; and thus commissioned, and burning with a 
 passionate devotion to truth and freedom, they must 
 and will speak with an indignant energy, and they ought 
 liot to be measured by the standard of ordinary minds 
 in ordinary times. Men of natural softness and timidi- 
 ty, of a sincere, but effeminate virtue, will be apt to 
 look on these bolder, hardier spirits, as violent, perturb- 
 ed, and uncharitable ; and the charge will not be whol- 
 ly groundless. But that deep feeling of evils, which is 
 necessary to effectual conflict with them, and which 
 marks God's most powerful messengers to mankind, 
 cannot breathe itself in soft and tender accents. The 
 deeply moved soul will speak strongly, and ought to 
 speak so as to move and shake nations. 
 
 We have offered these remarks as strongly applicable 
 to Milton. He reverenced and loved human nature, 
 and attached himself to its great interests with a fervor 
 of which only such a mind was capable. He lived in 
 one of those solemn periods which determine the cha- 
 racter of ages to come. His spirit was stirred to its 
 very centre by the presence of danger. He lived in the 
 midst of the battle. That the ardor of his spirit some- 
 times passed the bounds of wisdom and charity, and 
 
25 
 
 poured forth unwarrantable invective, we see and la- 
 ment. But the purity and loftiness of his mind break 
 forth amidst his bitterest invectives. We see a noble 
 nature still. We see that no feigned love of truth and 
 freedom was a covering for selfishness and malignity. 
 He did indeed love and adore uncorrupted religion, and 
 intellectual liberty, and let his name be enrolled among 
 their truest champions. Milton has told us, in his own 
 noble style, that he entered on his principal controversy 
 with episcopacy, reluctantly and only through a deep 
 conviction of duty. The introduction to the second book 
 of his ' Reason of Church Government,' shows us the 
 workings of his mind on this subject, and is his best 
 vindication from the charge we are now repelling. He 
 says — 
 
 ' Surely to every good and peaceable man, it must in nature 
 needs be a hateful thing, to be the displeaser and molester of thou- 
 sands; much better would it like him, doubtless, to be the messen- 
 ger of gladness and contentment, which is his chief intended busi- 
 ness to all mankind, but that they resist and oppose their own true 
 happiness. But when God commands to take the trumpet, and 
 blow a dolorous or a jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he 
 shall say, or what he shall conceal. *** This I foresee, that should 
 the church be brought under heavy oppression, and God have 
 given me ability the while to reason against that man that should be 
 the author of so foul a deed, or should she, by blessing from above 
 on the industry and courage of faithful men, change this her dis- 
 tracted estate into better days, without the least furtherance or con- 
 tribution of those few talents which God at that present had lent me ; 
 I foresee what stories I should hear within myself, all my life after, 
 of discourage and reproach. " Timorous and ungrateful, the 
 church of God is now again at the foot of her insulting enemies, 
 and thou bewailest ; what matters it for the.3 or thy bewailing? 
 When time was, thou couldst not find a syllable of all that thpu 
 hast read or studied, to utter in her behalf Yet ease and leisure 
 was given thee for thy retired thoughts, out of the sweat of other 
 men. Thou hadst the diligence, the parts, the language of a man, 
 if a vain subject were to be adorned or beautified ; but when the 
 
 3 
 
26 
 
 cause of God and his church was to be pleaded, for which purpose 
 that tongue was given thee which thou hast, God listene4 if he 
 could hear thy voice among his zealous servants, but thou wert 
 dumb as a beast ; from henceforward be that which thine own brut- 
 ish silence hath made thee." *** But now by this little diligence, 
 mark \yhat a privilege I have gained with good men and saints, to 
 claim my right of lamenting the tribulations of the church, if she 
 should suffer, when others that have ventured nothing for her sake, 
 have not the honor to be admitted mourners. But, if she lift up. her 
 drooping head and prosper, among those that have something more 
 than wished her welfare, I have my charter and freehold of rejoic- 
 ing to me and my heirs. 
 
 ' Concerning therefore this wayward subject against prelaty, the 
 touching whereof is so distasteful and disquietous to a number of 
 men, as by what hath been said I may deserve of charitable readers 
 to be credited, that neither envy nor gall hath entered me upon this 
 controversy, but the enforcement of conscience only, and a preven- 
 tive fear lest the omitting of this duty should be against me, when I 
 would store up to myself the good provision of peaceful hours.' 
 
 Vol. I. pp. 139 — 41.* 
 
 He then goes on to speak of his consciousness of 
 possessing great poetical powers, which he was most 
 anxious to cultivate. Of these he speaks thus magnifi- 
 cently 
 
 ' These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired 
 gift of God rarely bestowed, but yet to some, though most abuse, 
 in every nation ; and are of power, — to inbreed and cherish in a 
 great people the seeds of virtue, and public civility, to allay the per- 
 turbations of the mind, and set the affections in right tune ; to cele- 
 brate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's 
 almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought 
 with high providence in his church ; to sing victorious agonies of 
 martyrs and saiiits, tbe deeds and triumphs of just and pious nations, 
 doing valiantly throiigh faith against the enemies of Christ ; to de- 
 plore the general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and 
 
 * From the introduction to the second book of ' The Reason of Church Govern- 
 ment, &o.' Vol. I. p. 137, &c. of ' A Selection from the English Prose Worlis of 
 John Milton, Boston, 1826,' to which all our references are made. 
 
27 
 
 God's true worship ; lastly, whatsoever in religion is holy and sub- 
 lime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion or ad- 
 miration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from 
 without, or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from 
 within ; all these things with a solid and treatable smoothness to 
 paint out and describe.' Vol. I. pp. 145, 6. 
 
 He then gives intimations of his having proposed to 
 himself a great poetical work, ' a work,' he says — 
 
 ' Not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapors of wine, 
 like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, 
 or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by 
 the invocation of dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by 
 devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utter- 
 ance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed 
 fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases.' 
 
 Vol. I. p. 148. 
 
 He then closes with a passage, showing from what 
 principles he forsook these delightful studies for contro- 
 versy. 
 
 ' I trust hereby to make it manifest with what small willingnesa 
 I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and 
 leave a calm and pleasing solitariness, fed with cheerful and con- 
 fident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse 
 disputes, put from beholding the bright countenance of truth in the 
 quiet and still air of delightful studies. * * * But were it the meanest 
 underservice, if God by his secretary conscience enjoin it, it were 
 sad for me if I should draw back ; for me especially, now when 
 all men offer their aid to help, ease, and lighten the difficult labors 
 of the church, to whose service, by the intentions of my parents 
 and friends I was destined of a child, and in mine own resolutions, 
 till coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny 
 had invaded the church, that he who would take orders must sub- 
 scribe slave, and take an oath withal, which unless he took with a 
 conscience that would retch, he must either strait perjure, or split 
 his faith, I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the 
 sacred office of spealiing, bought and begun with servitude and 
 forswearing.' Vol. I. p. 149. 
 
28 
 
 These passages, replete with Milton's genius and 
 greatness of soul, show us the influences and motives 
 under which his prose works were written, and help 
 us to interpret passages, which, if taken separately, 
 might justify us in ascribing to him a character of exces- 
 sive indignation and scorn. 
 
 Milton's most celebrated prose work is his ' Areopagi- 
 tica, or a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing,' 
 a noble work indeed, a precious manual of freedom, an 
 arsenal of immortal weapons for the defence of man's 
 highest prerogative, intellectual liberty. His ' Refor- 
 mation in England ' and ' Reason of Church Govern- 
 ment,' are the most important theological treatises pub- 
 lished during his life., They were his earliest prose 
 compositions, and thrown off with much haste, and on 
 these accounts are more chargeable with defects of style 
 than any other of hiis writings. But these, with all 
 their defects, abound in strong and elevated thought, 
 and in power and felicity of expression. Their great 
 blemish is an inequality of style, often springing from 
 the conflict and opposition of the impulses under which 
 he wrote. It is not uncommon to find in the same sen- 
 tence his affluent genius pouring forth magnificent ima- 
 ges and expressions, and suddenly his deep scorn for his 
 opponents, suggesting and throwing into the midst of 
 this splendor, sarcasms and degrading comparisons alto- 
 gether at variance with the general strain. From this 
 cause, and from negligence, many powerful passages in 
 his prose writings are marred by an incongruous mix- 
 ture of unworthy allusions and phrases. — In the close 
 of his first work, that on ' Reformation in England,' he 
 breaks out into an invocation and prayer to the Supreme 
 Being, from, which we extract a passage containing a 
 remarkable intimation of his having meditated some 
 
29 
 
 great poetical enterprise from his earliest years, and 
 giving full promise of that grandeur of thought and lan- 
 guage, which characterizes 'Paradise Lost.' Having 
 'lifted up his hands to that eternal and propitious Throne, 
 vehere nothing is readier than grace and refuge to the 
 distresses of mortal suppliants,' and besought God to 
 perfect the work of civil and religious deliverance begun 
 in England, he proceeds thus; — 
 
 ' Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, some one may 
 perhaps be heard offering at high strains in new and lofty measures, 
 to sing and celebrate thy divine mercies, and marvellous judgments 
 in this land throughout all ages, whereby this great and warlike 
 nation,' instructed and inured to the fervent and continual practice 
 of truth and righteousness, and casting far from her the rags of her 
 old vices, may press on hard to that high and happy emulation to 
 be found the soberest, wisest and most christian people at that day, 
 when Thou, the eternal and shortly expected King, shalt open the 
 clouds to judge the several kingdoms of the world, and distributing 
 national honors and rewards to religious and just commonwealths, 
 shalt put an end to all earthly tyrannies, proclaiming thy universal 
 and mild monarchy through heaven and earth ; where they undoubt- 
 edly, that by their labors, counsels and prayers, have been earnest 
 for the common good of religion and their country, shall receive 
 above the inferior orders of the blessed, the regal addition of princi- 
 palities, legions, and thrones into their glorious titles, and, in su- 
 pereminence of beatific vision, progressing the dateless and irrevo- 
 luble circle of eternity, shall clasp inseparable hands with joy and 
 bliss, in overmeasure for ever.' Vol. I. pp. 69,70. 
 
 We have not time to speak of Milton's political 
 treatises. We close our brief remarks on his prose 
 writings, with recommending them to all who can en- 
 joy great beauties in the neighbourhood of great faults, 
 and who would learn the compass, energy, and richness 
 of our language ; and still more do we recommend them 
 to those, who desire to noijrish in their breasts magna- 
 nimity of sentiment and an unquenchable love of free- 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 dom. They bear the impress of that seal by which ge- 
 nius distinguishes its productions from works of learn- 
 ing and taste. The great and decisive test of genius, 
 is, that it calls forth Power in the souls of others. ■ It 
 not merely gives knowledge, but breathes energy. 
 There are authors, and among these Milton holds the 
 highest rank, in approaching whom we are conscious of 
 an access of intellectual strength. A ' virtue goes out ' 
 from them. We discern more clearly, not merely be- 
 cause a new light is thrown over objects, but because 
 our own vision is strengthened. Sometimes a single 
 word, spoken by the voice of genius, goes far into the 
 heart. A hint, a suggestion, an undefined delicacy of 
 expression, teaches more than we gather from volumes 
 of less gifted men. The works which we should chief- 
 ly study, are not those which contain the greatest fund 
 of knowledge, but which raise us into sympathy with 
 the intellectual energy of the author, and through which 
 a great mind multiplies itself, as it were, in the reader. 
 Milton's prose works are imbued as really, if not as 
 thoroughly, as his poetry, with this quickening power, 
 and they will richly reward those who are receptive of 
 this influence. 
 
 We now leave the writings of Milton to offer a few 
 remarks on his Moral qualities. His moral character 
 was as strongly marked as his intellectual, and it may 
 be expressed in one word. Magnanimity. It was in har- 
 mony with his poetry. He had a passionate love of the 
 higher, more commanding, and majestic virtues, and fed 
 his youthful mind with meditations on the perfection of 
 a human being. In a letter written to an Italian friend 
 before his thirtieth year, and translated by Hayley, we 
 have this vivid picture of his aspirations after virtue. 
 
31 
 
 * As to other points, what God may have determined for mo I 
 know not ; but this I know, that if he ever instilled an intense love 
 of moral beauty into the breast of any man, he has instilled it into 
 mine. Ceres in the fable pursued not her daughter with a greater 
 keenness of inquiry, than I day and night the idea of peri'ection. 
 Hence, wherever I find a man despising the false estimates of the 
 vulgar, and daring to aspire in sentiment, language, and conduct, 
 to what the highest wisdom, through every age, has taught us as 
 most excellent, to him I unite myself by a sort of necessary attach- 
 ment ; and if I am so influenced by nature or destiiiy, that by no 
 exertion or labors of my own I may exalt myself to this summit of 
 worth and honor, yet no powers of heaven or earth will hinder me 
 from looking with reverence and affection upon those, who have 
 thoroughly attained this glory, or appeared engaged in the success- 
 ful pursuit of it.' 
 
 His Comus was written in his twenty-sixth year, and 
 on reading this exquisite work our admiration is awak- 
 ened, not so much by observing how the whole spirit 
 of poetry had descended on him at that early age, as by 
 witnessing how his whole youthful soul was penetrated, 
 awed, and lifted up by the austere charms, ' the radiant 
 light,' the invincible power, the celestial peace of saint- 
 ly virtue. He reverenced moral purity and elevation, 
 not only for its own sake, but as the inspirer of intellect, 
 and especially of the higher efforts of poetry. ' I was 
 confirmed,' he says in his usual noble style — 
 
 ' I was confirmed in this opinion ; that he who would not be frus- 
 trate of his hope to write well hereafter in la,udable things, ought 
 himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the 
 best and honorablest things ; not presuming to sing of high praises 
 of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the expe- 
 rience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy.' 
 
 Vol. I. pp. 237, 8. 
 
 We learn from his works, that he used his multifa- 
 rious reading^ to build up within himself this reverence 
 for virtue. Ancient history, the sublime musings of 
 
32 
 
 Plato, and the heroic self-a;bandonment of chivalry, join- 
 ed their influences with prophets and apostles, in bind- 
 ing him ' everlastingly in willing homage ' to the great, 
 the honorable, and the Ipvely in character. A remark- 
 able passage to this effect we quote from his account 
 of his youth. 
 
 ' I betook me among those lofty fables and romances, which re- 
 count in solemn cantos, the deeds of knighthood founded by our 
 victorious kings, and from hence had in renown over all Christen- 
 dom. There I read it in the oath of every knight, that he should 
 defend to the expense of his best blood or of his life, if it so befell 
 him, the honor and chastity of virgin or matron; from whence even 
 then I learned what a noble virtue chastity sure must be, to the 
 defence of which so many worthies by such a dear adventure of 
 themselves, had sworn. *** So that even these, books which to 
 many others have been the fuel of wantonness and loose living, I 
 cannot think how, unless by. divine indulgence, proved to me so 
 many incitements, a!s you have heard, to the love and steadfast ob- 
 servation of virtue.' Vol. I. pp. 238,9. 
 
 All Milton's habits were expressive of a refined and 
 self-denying character. When charged by his unprin- 
 cipled slanderers with licentious habits, he thus gives an 
 account of his morning hours. 
 
 'Those morning haunts are where they should be, at home; not 
 sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and 
 stirring, in winter often ere the sound of any bell awake men to 
 labor, or devotion; in summer as oft with the bird that first rouses, 
 or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be 
 read, till the attention be weary, or memory have its full fraught; 
 then with useful and generous labors preserving the body's health 
 and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedi- 
 ence to the mind, to the cause of religion, and our country's liberty, 
 when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies to stand and cover 
 their stations, rather than to see the ruin of our protestation, and 
 the enforcement of a slavish life.' Vol. I. p. 233. 
 
33 
 
 We have enlarged on the strictness and loftiness of 
 Milton's virtue, not only from our interest in the sub- 
 ject, but that we may put to shame and silence, those 
 men who make genius an apology for vice, and take the 
 sacred fire, kindled by God within them, to inflame 
 men's passions, and to minister to a vile sensuality. 
 
 We see Milton's greatness of mind in his fervent 
 and constant attachment to liberty. Freedom, in all its 
 forms and branches, was dear to him, but especially 
 freedom of thought and speech, of conscience and wor- 
 ship, freedom to seek, profess, and propagate truth. 
 The liberty of ordinary politicians, which protects men's 
 outward rights, and removes restraints from the pursuit 
 of property and outward good, fell very short of that 
 for which Milton lived, and was ready to die. The ty- 
 ranny which he hated most, was that which broke the 
 intellectual and moral power of the community. The 
 worst feature of the institutions which he assailed, was, 
 that they fettered the mind. He felt within himself 
 that the human mind had a principle of perpetual 
 growth, that it was essentially diffusive and made for 
 progress, and he wished every chain broken, that it 
 might run the race of truth and virtue with increasing 
 ardor and success. This attachment to a spiritual and 
 refined freedom, which never forsook him in the hottest 
 controversies, contributed greatly to protect his genius, 
 imagination, taste, and sensibility from the withering 
 and polluting influences of public station, and of the 
 rage of parties. It threw a hue of poetry over politics, 
 and gave a sublime reference to his service of the com- 
 monwealth. The fact that Milton, in that stormy day, 
 and amidst the trials of public office, kept his high fac- 
 ulties undepraved, was a proof of no common greatness. 
 Politics, ho\vever they make the intellect active, saga- 
 
34 
 
 cious, and inventive, within a certain sphere, generally 
 extinguish its thirst for universal truth, paralyse senti- 
 ment and imagination, corrupt the simplicity of the 
 mind, de&troy that confidence^ in human virtue, vi^hich 
 lies at the foundation of philanthropy and generous sacri- 
 fices, and end in cold and prudent selfishvjess. Milton 
 passed through a revolution, which, in its last stages and 
 issue, was peculiarly fitted to damp enthusiasm, to scat- 
 ter the visions of hope, and to infuse doubts of the real- 
 ity of virtuous principle ; and yet the ardor, and moral 
 feeling, and enthusiasm of his youth, came forth unhurt, 
 and even exalted from the trial. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of Milton's devotion to 
 liberty, it ought to be recorded, that he wrote his cele- 
 brated ' Defence of the People of England ' after being 
 distinctly forewarned by his physici'ans, that the effect 
 of this exertion would be the utter loss of sight. Hi? 
 reference to this part of his history, in a short poetical 
 effusion, is too characteristic to be withheld. It is in-" 
 scribed to Cyriac Skinner, the friend to whom he ap- 
 pears to have confided his lately discovered ' Treatise 
 on Christian Doctrine.' 
 
 ' Cyriac, this three years day these eyes, though clear 
 
 To outward view, of blemish or of spot, 
 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot, 
 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 Of sun, or moon, or star throughout the year, 
 
 Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? 
 
 The conscience, Friend, to have lost them overplied 
 
 In Liberty's defence, my noble task. 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 
 
 This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, 
 
 Content though blind, had I no better guide.' 
 
 Sormet XXII. 
 
35 
 
 We see Milton's magnanimity in the circumstances 
 under which ' Paradise Lost ' was written. It was not 
 in prosperity, in honor, and amidst triumphs, but in dis- 
 appointment, desertion, and in what the world calls 
 disgrace, that he composed that work. The cause with 
 which he had identified himself, had failed. His friends 
 were scattered ; liberty was trodden under foot ; and her 
 devoted champion was a by-word among the triumph- 
 ant royalists. But it is the prerogative of true great- 
 ness to glorify itself in adversity, and to meditate and 
 execute vast enterprises in defeat. Milton, fallen in 
 outward condition, afflicted with blindness, disappointed 
 in his best hopes, applied himself with characteristic 
 energy to the sublimest achievement of intellect, solac- 
 ing himself with great thoughts, with splendid creations, 
 and with a prophetic confidence, that however neglect- 
 ed in his own age, he was framing in his works a bond 
 of union and fellowship with the illustrious spirits of a 
 brighter day. We delight to contemplate him in his 
 retreat and last years. To the passing spectator, he 
 seemed fallen and forsaken, and his blindness was re- 
 proached as a judgment from God. But though sight- 
 less, he lived in light. His inward eye ranged through 
 universal nature, and his imagination shed on it bright- 
 er beams than the sun. Heaven, and hell, and paradise 
 were open to him. He. visited past ages, and gathered 
 round him ancient sages and heroes, prophets and apos- 
 tles, brave knights and gifted bards. As he looked for- 
 ward, ages of liberty dawned and rose to his view, and 
 he felt that he was about to bequeath to them an in- 
 heritance of genius, ' which would not fade away,' and 
 was to live in the memory, reverence, and love, of re- 
 motest generations. 
 
36 
 
 We have enlarged on Milton's character, not only 
 from the pleasure of paying that sacred debt which the 
 mind owes to him who has quickened and delighted it, 
 but from an apprehension that Milton has not yet 
 reaped his due harvest of esteem and veneration. The 
 mists, which the prejudices and bigotry of Johnson 
 spread over his bright name, are not yet vvholly scatter- 
 ed, though fast passing away. We wish not to dispar- 
 age Johnson. We could find no pleasure in sacrificing 
 one great man to the manes of another. ' But "we owe 
 it to Milton and to other illustrious names, to say, that 
 Johnson has failed of the highest end of biography, 
 which is to give immortality to virtue, and to call forth 
 fervent admiration towards those who have shed splen- 
 dor on past ages. We acquit Johnson, however, of 
 intentional misrepresentation. He did not, and could 
 not, appreciate Milton. We doubt Avhether two other 
 minds, having so little in common as those of which we 
 are now speaking, can be found in the higher walks of 
 literature. Johnson was great in his own sphere, but 
 that sphere was comparatively 'of the earth,' whilst 
 Milton's was only inferior to that of angels. It was 
 customary, in the day of Johnson's glory, to call him a 
 giant, to class him with a mighty, but still an earth- 
 born race. ^Milton we should rank among seraphs. 
 Johnson's mind acted chiefly on man's actual condition, 
 on the realities of life, bn the springs of human action, 
 on the passions which now agitate society, and he seems 
 hardly to have dreamed of a higher state of the human 
 mind than was then exhibited. Milton, on the other 
 hand, burned with a deep, yet calm love of moral gran- 
 deur and celestial purity. He thought, not so much 
 of what man is, as of what he might become. His own 
 
'tnhid was a revelation to him of a higher condition of 
 humanity, and to promote this he thirsted and toiled for 
 'freedom, as the element for the growth and improve- 
 liieiit of his nature. — In religion Johnson was gloomy 
 aid inclined to superstition, and on the subject of gov- 
 Tilmment leaned towards absolute power ; and the idea 
 of reforming either, never entered his mind but to dis- 
 turb aiid provoke it. The church and the civil polity 
 tinder which he lived, seemed to him perfect, unless he 
 may have thought that the former would be improved 
 by a larger infusion of Romish rites and doctrines, and 
 the latter by an enlargement of the royal prerogative. 
 Hence a tame acquiescence in the present forms of re- 
 ligion and government, marks his works. Hence we 
 find so little in his writings which is electric and soul- 
 kindling, and which gives the reader a consciousness 
 of being made for a state of loftier thought and feeling 
 than the present. Milton's whole soul, on the contrary, 
 revolted against the maxims of legitimacy, hereditary 
 faith, and servile reverence for established power. He 
 Could not brook the bondage to which men had bowed 
 for jjges. ' Reformation ' was the first word of public 
 warning which broke from his youthful lips, and the 
 hope of it was the solace of his declining years. The 
 difference between Milton and Johnson, may be traced, 
 not only in these great features of mind, but in their 
 whole characters. Milton was refined and spiritual in 
 his habits, teihperate almost to abstemiousness, and re- 
 freshed himself after intellectual effort by music. John- 
 son inclined to more sensual delights. Milton was 
 exquisitely alive to the outward creation, to sounds, mo- 
 tions, and forms, to natural beauty and grandeur. John- 
 son, through defect of physical organization, if not 
 through deeper deficiency, had little susceptibility of 
 4 
 
38 
 
 these pure and delicate pleasures, and would not have 
 exchanged the Strand for the vale of Tempe or the 
 gardens of the Hesperides. How could Johnson be 
 just to Milton ! The comparison which we have in- 
 stituted, has compelled us to notice Johnson's defects. 
 But we trust we are not blind to his merits. His state- 
 ly march, his pomp and power of language, his strength 
 of thought, his reverence for virtue and religion, his 
 vigorous logic, his practical wisdom, his insight into the 
 springs of human action, and the solemn pathos which 
 occasionally pervades his descriptions of life and his 
 referefnces to his own history, command our willing ad- 
 miration. That he wanted enthusiasm and creative 
 imagination and lofty sentiment, was not his fault. 
 We do not blame him for not being Milton. We love 
 intellectual power in all its forms, and delight in the 
 variety of mind. We blame him only that his passions, 
 prejudices, and bigotry engaged him in the unworthy 
 task of obscuring the brighter glory of one of the most 
 gifted and virtuous men. We would even treat what 
 we deem the faults of Johnson with a tenderness ap- 
 proaching respect ; for they were results, to a degree 
 which man cannot estimate, of a diseased, irritable, 
 nervous, unhappy physical temperament, and belonged 
 to the body more than to the mind. We only ask the 
 friends of genius not to put their faith in Johnson's de- 
 lineations of it. His biographical works are tinged 
 with his notoriously strong prejudices, and of all his 
 ' Lives,' we hold that of Milton to be the most apocry- 
 phal. 
 
 We here close our general remarks on Milton's in- 
 tellectual and moral qualities. We venerate him as a 
 man of genius, but still more as a man of magnanimity 
 and christian virtue, who regarded genius and poetry 
 
39 
 
 as sacred gifts, imparted to him, not to amuse men or to 
 build up a reputation, but that he might quicken and call 
 forth what was great and divine in his fellow creatures, 
 and might secure the only true fame, the admiration 
 of minds which his writings were to kindle and exalt. 
 
 We come now to the examination of the newly dis- 
 covered 'Treatise on Christian Doctrine.' This work, 
 we have said, owes its chief interest to the character 
 of its author. From its very nature, it cannot engage 
 and fix general attention. It consists very much of 
 collections of texts of scripture, which, however exci- 
 ting in their proper places, are read with little thought 
 or emotion when taken from their ordinary connexion, 
 and marshalled under systematic heads. Milton aims 
 to give us the doctrines of revelation in its own words. 
 We have them in a phraseology long familiar to us, and 
 we are disappointed; for we expected to see them, not 
 in the language of the bible, but as existing in the 
 mind of Milton, modified by his peculiar intellect and 
 sensibility, combined and embodied with his various 
 knowledge, illustrated by the analogies, brightened by 
 the new lights, and clothed with the associations, with 
 which they were surrounded by this gifted man. We 
 hoped to see these doctrines as they were viewed by 
 Milton in his moments of solemn feeling and deep con- 
 templation, when they pervaded and moved his whole 
 soul. Still there are passages, in which Milton's mind 
 is laid open to us. We refer to the parts of the work, 
 where the peculiarity of his opinions obliges him to 
 state his reasons for adopting them; and these we val-' 
 ue highly for the vigor and independence of intellect 
 with which they are impressed. The work is plain 
 and unambitious in style. Its characteristics are a calm 
 
40 
 
 earnestness, and that profound veneration for scripture, 
 which certain denominations of Christians, who have 
 little congeniality with Milton, seem to claim as a mo4 
 nopoly. 
 
 His introduction is worthy every man's attention, as 
 a deliberate, mild assertion of the dearest right of hu- 
 man nature, that of free inquiry. 
 
 ' If I communicate the result of my inquiries to the \yorld at large ; 
 if, as God is my witness, it be vfith a friendly and benignant feeling 
 towards mankind, that I readily give as wide a circulation as possi- 
 ble to what I esteem my be^t and richest possession, I hope^ to 
 meet with a candid reception from all parties, and that none at least 
 will take unjust offence, even though many things should be brought 
 to light, which will at once be seen to differ from certain received 
 opinions. I earnestly beseech^ all lovers of truth, not to cj-y out 
 that the church is thrown into confusion by that freedom of discus- 
 sion and inquiry, which is granted to the schools, and ought cer- 
 tainly to be refused to no believer, since we are ordered to prove all 
 things, and since the daily progress of the light of truth is produc- 
 tive, far less of disturbance to the church, than of illumination and 
 edification.' Vol. 1. pp. 5 — 6. 
 
 ' It has also been my object to make it appear from the opinions 1 
 shall be found to have advanced, whether new or old, of how much 
 consequence to the christian religion is the liberty, not only of win- 
 nowing and sifting every doctrine, but also of thinking and even 
 writing respecting it, according to our individual faith and persua- 
 sion; an inference which will be stronger in proportion to the weight 
 and importance of those opinions, or rather in proportion to the au- 
 ' thority of scripture, on the abundant testimony of which they rest. 
 Without this liberty there is neither religion nor gospel — force alone 
 prevails, by which it is disgraceful for the christian religion to be 
 supported. Without this liberty we are still enslaved, not indeed, 
 as formerly, under the divine law, but, what is worst of all,- under 
 the law of man, or to speak more truly, under a barbarous tyranny.' 
 
 Vol. I. pp. 7—8. 
 
 On that great subject, the character of God, Milton 
 hias given nothing particularly worthy of notice, except 
 that he is more disposed than Christians in general, to 
 
41 
 
 conceive of the Supreme Being under the forms and 
 affections of human nature. 
 
 ' If God habitually assign to himself the members and form of 
 man, why should we be afraid of attributing to him what he attri- 
 butes to himself, so long as what is imperfection and weakness, when 
 viewed in reference to ourselves,, be considered as most complete 
 and excellent whenever it is imputed to God? ' Vol. I. p. 23. 
 
 Milton is not the first Christian, who has thought to 
 render the Supreme, Being more interesting by giving 
 him human shape. We doubt the wisdom of this ex- 
 pedient. To spiritualize our conceptions of him, seems 
 to us the true process for strengthening our intimacy 
 with him ; for in this way only can we think of him as 
 immediately present to our minds. As far as we give 
 him a material form, we must assign to him a place, and 
 that place will almost necessarily be a distant one, and 
 thus we shall remove him from the soul, which is his 
 true temple. Besides, a definite form clashes with 
 God's infinity, which is his supreme distinction and on 
 no account to be obscured ; for strange as it may seem 
 to those who know not their own nature, this incompre- 
 hensible attribute is that which above all things consti- 
 tutes the correspondence or adaptation, if we may so 
 speak, of God to the human mind. 
 
 In treating of God's efficiency, Milton strenuously 
 maintains human freedom, in opposition to the Calvinis- 
 tic doctrine of predestination. He maintains that God's 
 decrees do not encroach on moral liberty; for our free 
 agency is the very object decreed and predestined by 
 the Creator. He maintains that some of the passages 
 of scripture which speak of election, are to be under- 
 stood of an election to outward privileges, not to ever- 
 lasting life ; and that in other texts, which relate to the 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 future state, the election spoken of, is not an arbitrar}' 
 choice of individuals, but of that class or description of 
 persons, be it large or small, who shall comply with the 
 prescribed terms of salvation ; in other words, it is a 
 conditional, not an absolute election, and such that 
 every individual, if he will, may be included in it. 
 Milton has so far told us truth. We wish that we 
 could add, that he had thrown new light on free agency. 
 This great subject has indeed baffled as yet the deep- 
 est thinkers, and seems now to be consigned, with oth- 
 er sublime topics,' under the sweeping denomination of 
 ' metaphysics,' to general neglect. But let it not be 
 given up in despair. The time is coming, when the hu- 
 man intellect is to strike into new fields, and to view 
 itself and its Creator and the universe, from new posi- 
 tions, and we trust that the darkness which has so long 
 hung over our moral nature will be gradually dispersed. 
 This attribute of free agency, through which an intelli- 
 gent being is strictly and properly a cause, an agent, 
 an originator of moral good or moral evil, and not a 
 mere machine, determined by outward influences, or by 
 a secret, yet resistless efficiency of God, which virtual- 
 ly makes Him the author and sole author of all human 
 actions — this moral freedom, which is the best image 
 of the creative energy of the Deity, seems to us the 
 noblest object of philosophical investigation. However 
 questioned and darkened by a host of metaphysicians, 
 it is recognised in the common consciousness of every 
 human being. It is the ground of responsibility, the 
 fountain of moral feeling. It is involved in all moral 
 judgments and affections, and thus gives to social life 
 its whole interest ; whilst it is the chief tie between the 
 soul and its Creator. The fact that philosophers have 
 attempted to discard free agency from their explanations 
 
43 
 
 of moral phenomena, and to subject all human action 
 to necessity, to mechanical causes, or other extraneous 
 influences, is proof enough, that the science of the mind 
 has as yet penetrated little beneath the surface, that the 
 depths of the soul are still unexplored. 
 
 Milton naturally passes from his chapter on the Su- 
 preme Being, to the consideration of those topics which 
 have always been connected with this part of theology ; 
 we mean, the character of Jesus Christ, and the nature 
 of the Holy Spirit. All our readers are probably aware 
 that Milton has here declared himself an Anti-trinita- 
 rian, and strenuously asserted the strict and proper 
 unity of God. His chapter on ' The Son of God,' is 
 the most elaborate one in the work. His ' prefatory 
 remarks ' are highly interesting, as joining with a man- 
 ly assertion of his right, an affectionate desire to con- 
 ciliate the Christians from whom he differed. 
 
 ' I cannot enter upon subjects of so much difficulty as the Son of 
 God and the Holy Spirit, without again premising a few introductory 
 words. If indefed I were a member of the Church of Rome, which 
 requires implicit obedience to its creed on all points of faith, I 
 should have acquiesced from education or habit in its simple decree 
 and authority, even though it denies that the doctrine of the trinity, 
 as now received, is capable of being proved from any passage of 
 scripture. But since! enrol myself among the number of those 
 who acknowledge the word of God alone as the rule of faith, and 
 freely advance what appears to me much more clearly deducible 
 from the holy scriptures than the commonly received opinion, I see 
 no reason why any one who belongs to the same Protestant or Re- 
 formed Church, and professes to acknowledge the same rule of faith 
 as myself, should take offence at my freedom, particularly as I im- 
 pose my authority on no one, but merely propose what I think more 
 worthy of belief than the creed in general acceptation. I only en- 
 treat that my readers will ponder and examine my statements in a 
 spirit which desires to discover nothing ' but the truth, and with a 
 mind free from prejudice. For without intending to oppose the au- 
 thority of scripture, which I consider inviolably sacred, I only take 
 
44 
 
 upon myself to refute human interpretations as often as the occasion 
 requires, conformably to my right, or rather to my duty, as a man. 
 If indeed those with whom I have to contend, were able to produce 
 direct attestation from Heaven to the truth of the doctrine which 
 they espouse, it would be "nothing less than impiety to venture to 
 raise, I do not say a clamor, but so much as a murmur against it. 
 But inasmuch as they can lay claim to nothing more than human 
 powers, assisted by that spiritual illumination which is common to 
 all, it is not unreasonable that they should on their part allow the 
 privileges of diligent research and free discussion' to another inquir- 
 er, who is seeking truth tlirough, the same means and in the same 
 way as themselves, and whose desire of benefiting mankind is 
 equal to their own.' Tol. I. pp. 1,03 — 105. 
 
 Milton teaches, that the Son of God is a distinct 
 being from God, and inferior to him, that he existed 
 before the world was made, that he is the first of the 
 creation of God, and that afterwards all other things 
 were made by him, as the instrument or minister of his 
 Father. He maintains, in agreement with Dr. Clarke, 
 that the Holy Spirit is a person, an intelligent agent, 
 but created and inferior to God. This opinion of Mil- 
 ton is the more remarkable, because he admits that, 
 before the time of Christ, the Jews, though accustomed 
 to the phrase. Holy Spirit, never attached to it the idea 
 of personality, and that both in the Old and the New 
 Testament, it is often used to express God himself, or 
 his power and agency. It is strange, that after these 
 concessions, he could have found a difficulty in giving 
 a figurative interpretation to the few passages in the 
 New Testament, which speak of the Holy Spirit as a 
 person. 
 
 We are unable within our limits to give a sketch of 
 Milton's strong reasoning against the supreme divinity 
 of Jesus Christ. We must, however, pause a moment 
 to thank God that he has raised up this illustrious advo- 
 cate of the long obscured doctrine of the Divine Unity. 
 
46 
 
 We can now bring forward the three greatest and 
 noblest minds of modern times, and, we may add, of 
 the christian era^ as witnesses to that Great Truth, of 
 which, in an humbler and narrower sphere, we desire 
 to be the defenders. Our Trinitarian adversaries are 
 perpetually ringing in our ears the names of Fathers 
 and Reformers. We take Milton, Locke, and Newton, 
 and place them in our front, and want no others to op- 
 pose to the whole array of great names on the opposite 
 side. Before these intellectual suns, the stars of self- 
 named Orthodoxy, ' hide their diminished heads. ' To 
 these eminent men God communicated such unusual 
 measures of light and mental energy, that their names 
 spring up spontaneously, when we think or would speak 
 of the greatness of our nature. Their theological opin- 
 ions were the fruits of patient, profound, reverent study 
 of the scriptures. They came to this work, with minds 
 not narrowed by a technical, professional education, 
 but accustomed to broad views, to the widest range of 
 thought. They were shackled by no party connexions. 
 They were warped by no clerical ambition, and subdued 
 by no clerical timidity. They came to this subject in 
 the fulness of their strength, with free minds open to 
 truth, and with unstained purity of life. They came 
 tp it in an age, when the doctrine of the trinity was. 
 instilled by education, and upheld by the authority of 
 the church, and by penal laws. And what did these 
 great and good men, whose intellectual energy and love 
 of truth have , made them the chie,f benefactors of the 
 hpipan, mind, what, we ask, did they discover in the^ 
 scriptures? a triple divinity? three infinite agents? 
 three infinite, objects of worship ? three persons, each of 
 whom possesses his own distinct pfSce,s, and yet shares 
 equally in the godhead with the rest ? Nq.! Scripture , 
 
46 
 
 jbiiied<witb .naiture and with that, secret voice in the 
 heart, which even idolatry could not always stifle, and 
 taflight them to bow reverently before the One Infinite 
 Father, and to ascribe to Him alone, supreme, self-exist- 
 ent divinity. — Our principal objept in these remarks has 
 been to show, that as far as great names are airguments, 
 the cause of Anti-trinitarianism, or of God's proper 
 Unity, is supported by the strongest. But we owe it 
 to truth to say, that we put little trust in these fashion- 
 able proofs. The chief use of great names in religious 
 controversy, is, to balance and neutralize one another, 
 that the Unawed and unfettered mind may think and 
 judge w^ith a due self-reverence, and with a solemn 
 sense of accountableness to God alone. 
 
 We have called Milton an Anti-trinitarian. But we 
 have no desire to identify him with any sect. His mind 
 was too independent and universal to narrow itself to 
 human creeds and parties. He is supposed to have 
 separated himself, in his last years, from all the denom- 
 inations around him ; and were he now living, we are 
 not sure that he would find one to which he would 
 be strongly attracted. He would probably stand first 
 among that class of Christians, more numerous than is 
 supposed, and, we hope, increasing, who are too jealous 
 of the rights of the mind, and too dissatisfied with the 
 clashing systems of the age, to attach themselves close- 
 ly to any party ; in whom the present improved state of 
 theology has created a consciousness of defect, rather 
 than the triumph of acquisition ; who, however partial to 
 their own creed, cannot persuade themselves, that it is 
 the ultimate attainment of the human mind, and that 
 distant ages will repeat its articles as reverently as the 
 Caltholics do the decrees of Trent ; whq contend earnest- 
 ly for free' inquiry, not because all who inquire will think 
 
47 
 
 as they do, but because some at least may be expected 
 to outstrip them, and to be guides to higher truth. 
 With this nameless and spreading class, we have strong 
 sympathies. We want new light, and care not whence 
 it comes ; we want reformers worthy of the name ; and 
 we should rejoice in such a manifestation of Christian- 
 ity, as would throw all present systems into obscurity. 
 We come now to a topic on which Milton wiU pro- 
 bably startle a majority of readers. He is totally op- 
 posed, as were most of the ancient philosophers, to the 
 doctrine of God's creating the universe out of nothing. 
 He maintains, that there can be no action without a 
 passive material on which the act is exerted, and that 
 accordingly the world was framed out of a preexistent 
 matter. To the question. What and whence is this 
 primary matter ? he answers. It is from God, 'an efflux, 
 of the Deity.' ' It proceeded from God,' and conse- 
 quently no additional existence was produced by crea- 
 tion, nor is matter capable of annihilation. A specimen 
 of his speculations on this subject, is given in the fol- 
 lowing quotation. 
 
 ' It is clear then that the world was framed out of matter of some 
 kind or other. For since action and passion are relative terms, and 
 since, consequently, no agent can act externally, unless there be 
 some patient, such as matter, it appears impossible that God could 
 have created this world out of nothing ; not from any defect of pow- 
 er on his part, but because it was necessary that something should 
 have previously existed capable of receiving passively the exertion 
 of the divine efficacy. Since, therefore, both scripture and reason 
 concur in pronouncing that all these things were made, not out of 
 nothing, but out of matter, it necessarily follows, that matter must 
 cither have always existed independently of God, or have originated 
 from God at some particular point of time. That matter should 
 have been always independent of God, (seeing that it is only a pasi 
 sive principle, dependent on the Deity, and subservient to him ; and 
 seeing, moreover, that as in number, considered abstractly, so al» 
 
48 
 
 so in time or eternity, there is no inherent force or efficacy,) that 
 matter, I say, should have existed of itself from all eternityj is in- 
 conceivable. If, on the contrary, it did not exist from all eternity, 
 it is difficult to understand from whence it derives its origin. There 
 remains, therefore, but one solution of the difficulty, for which more- 
 over we have the authority of scripture, namely, that all things are 
 of God.' Vol. I. pp. 236, 237. 
 
 This doctrine naturally led Milton to another; viz. 
 that there is no ground for the supposed distinction be- 
 tween body and soul; for, if matter is an 'efflux of the 
 Deity,' it is plainly susceptible of intellectual func- 
 tions. Accordingly our author affirms, — 
 
 ' That man is a living being, intrinsically and properly one and 
 individual, not compound or separable, not, according to the com- 
 nlon opinion, made up and framed of two distinct and different na- 
 tures, as of soul and body, — but the whole man is soul, and the soul 
 man ; that is to say, a body, or substance, individual, animated, sen- 
 sitive, and rational.' Vol. I. pp. 250, 251. 
 
 We here learn that a passage in Paradise Lost, which 
 we have admired as poetry, was deemed by Milton 
 sound philosophy. 
 
 ' Adam, One Almighty is, from whom 
 , All things proceed, and up to him return. 
 If not depVaved from good, created all 
 Such to perfection, one first matter all, 
 Indued with various forms, various degrees 
 Of substance, and, in things that live, of life : 
 But more refined, more spirituous, and pure. 
 As nearer to him placed or nearer tending. 
 Each in their several active spheres assigned, 
 Till body up to spirit loorh, in bounds 
 Proportioned to each kind. So from the root 
 Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 
 More aery, last the bright consummate flower 
 Spirits odorous breathes ; flowers and their fruit, 
 Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed, 
 To vital spirits aspire, to animal. 
 To intellectual.' Par. Lost, B. F. Knes 469— 485. 
 
49 
 
 These speculations of Milton will be received in this 
 age, with more favor or with less aversion, than in his 
 own ; for, from the time of Locke, the discussions 
 of philosophers have tended to unsettle our notions of 
 matter, and no man is hardy enough now to say, what 
 it is, or what it may not be. The idealism of Berke- 
 ley, though it has never organized a sect, has yet sen- 
 sibly influenced the modes of thinking among metaphy- 
 sicians ; and the coincidence of this system with the 
 theory ,of certain Hindoo philosophers, may lead us to 
 suspect, that it contains some great latent truth, of 
 which the European and Hindoo intellect, so generally 
 at variance, have caught a glimpse. Matter is indeed 
 a Proteus, which escapes us at the moment we hope 
 to seize it. Priestley was anxious to make the soul 
 material; but for this purpose, he was obliged to change 
 matter from a substance into a j)ower, that is, into no 
 matter at all ; so that he destroyed, in attempting to 
 diffuse it. We have thrown out these remarks, to res- 
 cue Milton's memory from the imputation, which he 
 was the last man ta deserve, of irreverence towards 
 God ; for of this some will deem him guilty in tracing 
 matter to the Deity as its fountain. Matter, which 
 seems to common people so intelligible, is still wrapped 
 in mystery. We know it only by its relation to mind, 
 or as an asseihblage of powers to awaken certain sensa- 
 tions. Of its relation to God, we may be said to know 
 nothing. Perhaps, as knowledge advances, we shall 
 discover that the Creator is bound to his works by 
 stronger and more intimate ties, than we now imagine. 
 We do not then quarrel with such suggestions as Mil- 
 ton's, though we cannot but W^onder at the earnestness 
 with which he follows out such doubtful speculations. 
 6 
 
60 
 
 Milton next proceeds to the consideration of man's 
 state in Paradise, and as marriage was the only social 
 relation then subsisting, he introduces here his views of 
 that institQtion, and of polygamy and divorce. These 
 views show, if not the soundness, yet the characteristic 
 independence of his mind. No part of his book has 
 given such offence as his doctrine of the lawfulness of 
 polygamy, and yet nowhere is he less liable to reproach. 
 It is plain that his error was founded on his reverence 
 for scripture. He saw that polygamy was allowed to 
 the best men in the Old Testament, to patriarchs be- 
 fore the law, who, he says, were the objects of God's 
 special favor, and to eminent individuals in subsequent 
 ages ; and finding no prohibition of it in the New Tes- 
 tament, he believed, that not only holy men would he 
 traduced, but scripture dishonored, by pronouncing it 
 morally evil. We are aware that some will say, that 
 the practice is condemned in the New Testament ; and 
 we grant that it is censured by implication in these 
 words of Christ, 'Whosoever shall put away his wife, 
 except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, 
 committeth adultery.' * But we believe it to be an 
 indisputable fact, that although Christianity was first 
 preached in Asia, which had been from the earliest ages 
 the seat of polygamy, the apostles never denounced it 
 as a crime, and never required their converts to put 
 away all wives but one. ' What then ? ' some may say. 
 ' Are you too the advocates of the lawfulness of poly- 
 gamy ? ' We answer. No. We consider our religion 
 as decidedly hostile to this practice ; and we add, what 
 seems to us of great importance, that this hostility is 
 not the less decided, because no express prohibition of 
 
 * Matt. sk. 9. 
 
61 
 
 polygamy is found in the New Testament ; for Christi- 
 anity is not a system of precise legislation, marking 
 out with literal exactness everything to be done, and 
 everything to be avoided ; but an inculcation of broad 
 principles, which it intrusts to individuals and to society 
 to be applied according to their ,best discretion. It is 
 through this generous peculiarity, that Christianity is 
 fitted to be a universal religion. Through this, it can 
 subsist and blend ^itself with all stages of society, and 
 can live in the midst of abuses, which it silently and 
 powerfully overcomes, but against which it would avail 
 little, were it immediately to lift up the voice of denrkn- 
 ciation. We all know that long cherished corruptions, 
 which have sent, their roots through the whole frame of 
 a Qommunity, cannot be torn up at once, without dis- 
 solving society. To Christianity is committed the sub- 
 lime office of eradicating all the errors and evils of the 
 world ; but this it does by a process corresponding with 
 man's nature, by working a gradual revolution in the 
 mind, which, in its turn, vvorks a safe and effectual re- 
 volution in manners and life. No argument, therefore, 
 in favor of a practice, can be adduced from the fact, 
 that it is not explicitly reprobated in the New Testa- 
 ment. For example, Christianity went forth into com- 
 munities, where multitudes were held in slavery, and 
 all ranks were ground and oppressed by despotism ; 
 abuses on which the spirit of our religion frowns as 
 sternly as on any which can be named. Yet Christi- 
 anity did not command the master to free his slaves, or 
 the despot to descend from his absolute throne ; but 
 satisfied itself with proclaiming sublime truths in regard 
 to God's paternal character and administration, and 
 broad and generous principles of action, leaving to these 
 the work of breaking every chain, by a gradual, inward, 
 
62 
 
 irresistible influence, and of asserting the essential 
 equality and unalienable rights of the whole human 
 race. — We cannot leave this topic, without adding, that 
 not only Milton's error on polygamy, but many other 
 noxious mistakes, have resulted from measuring Chris- 
 tianity by the condition of the primitive church, as if 
 that were the standard of faith and practice, as if every- 
 thing allowed then were wise and good, as if the reli- 
 gion were then unfolded in all its power and extent. 
 The truth is, that Christianity was then in its infancy. 
 The apostles communicated its great truths to the rude 
 minds of Jews and Heathens ; but the primitive church 
 did not, and could "not, understand all that was involved 
 in those principles, all the applications of which they 
 are susceptible, all the influences they were to exert on 
 the human mind, all the combinations they were to 
 form with the new truths which time was to unfold, all 
 the new lights in which they were to be placed, all the 
 adaptations to human nature and to more advanced 
 states of society, which they were progressively to 
 manifest. In the first age, the religion was adminis- 
 tered with a wise and merciful conformity to the ca- 
 pacities of its recipients. With the progress of intelli- 
 gence, and the developement of the moral faculties, 
 Christianity is freeing itself, and ought to be freed, 
 from the local, temporary, and accidental associations 
 of its childhood. Its great principles are coming forth 
 more distinctly and brightly, and condemning abuses 
 and errors, Avhich have passed current for ages. This 
 great truth, for such we deem it, that Christianity is a 
 growing light, and that it must be more or less ex- 
 pounded by every age for itself, was not sufficiently 
 apprehended by Milton ; nor is it now understood as it 
 will be. For want of apprehending it, Christianity is 
 
53 
 
 administered now, too much as it was in ages, when 
 nothing of our literature, philosdphy, and spirit of im- 
 provement existed ; and consequently it does not, we 
 fear, exert that entire and supreme sway over strong 
 and cultivated minds, which is its due, and which it 
 must one day obtain. 
 
 Milton has connected with polygamy the subject of 
 divofce, on which he is known to have differed from 
 many Christians. He strenuously maintains in the 
 work under review, and more largely in other treatises, 
 that the violation of the marriage bed is not the sole 
 ground of divorce, but that ' the perpetual interruption 
 of peace and affection by mutual differences and un- 
 kindness, is a sufficient reason ' for dissolving the con- 
 jugal relation. On this topic we cannot enlarge. 
 
 We now arrive at that part of Milton's work, in which 
 his powerful mind might have been expected to look 
 beyond the prevalent opinions of his day, but in which 
 he has followed the beaten road, almost without devia- 
 tion, seldom noticing difficulties, and hardly seeming to 
 know their existence. We refer to the great subjects 
 of the moral condition of mankind, and of redemption 
 by Jesus Christ. The doctrine of original sin he has 
 assumed as true, and his faith in it Wcis evidently 
 strengthened by his doctrine of the identity of the soul 
 with the body, in consequence of which he teaches, that 
 souls are propagated from parents to children, and not 
 immediately derived from God, and that they are born 
 with an hereditary taint, just as the body contracts 
 hereditary disease. It is humbling to add, that he sup- 
 ports this doctrine of the propagation of sin by physi- 
 cal contagion, on the ground that it relieves the Crea- 
 tor from the charge of originating the corruption, which 
 we are said to bring into life; as if the infinite] v pure 
 
54 
 
 and good God could, by a covert agepcy, infect with 
 moral evil the passive and powerless mind of the infant, 
 and then absolve himself of the horrible work by im- 
 puting it to instruments of his own ordination! . Mil- 
 ton does not, however, believe in total depravity, feeling 
 that this would free men from guilt, by taking away all 
 power ; and he therefore leaves us a portion of the di- 
 vine image, not enough to give us a chance of virtue, 
 but enough to take away excuse from sin. Such are 
 the ' tender mercies ' of theology ! With respect to 
 Christ's mediation, he supposes, that Christ saves us 
 by bearing our punishment, and in this way satisfying 
 God's justice. His views indeed are not expressed 
 with much precision, and seem to have been formed 
 without much investigation. On these great subjects, 
 of human nature, and redemption, we confess, we are 
 disappointed in finding the spirit of Milton satisfying it- 
 self with the degrading notions which prevailed around 
 him. But we remember, that it is the order of Provi- 
 dence, that the greatest minds should sympathize much 
 with their age, and that they contribute the more to 
 the progress of mankind, by hot advancing too fast and 
 too far beyond their cotemporaries. In this part of his 
 work, Milton maintains, that the death threatened to 
 sin extends equally to body and soul, which indeed he 
 was bound to do, as he holds the soul and body to be 
 one ; and he then proceeds to defend with his usual pow- 
 er the necessary inference, that all consciousness is sus- 
 pended between death and the resurrection. We have 
 no faith in this doctrine, but we respect the courage 
 with which he admits and maintains whatever can be 
 fairly deduced from his opinions. 
 
 Having concluded the subject of redemption, he pas- 
 ■ ses to what he calls ' man's renovation, or the change 
 
65 
 
 whereby the sinner is brought into a state of grace ; ' 
 and here, though he is not always perspicuous, yet he 
 seldom deviates from what was then the beaten road. 
 We owe it, however, to Milton, to say, that, although 
 he sometimes approached, he never adopted Calvinism. 
 All the distinguishing articles of that creed, total deprav- 
 ity, election and reprobation, Christ dying for the elect 
 only, irresistible grace, the perseverance of the saints, 
 and justification by mere faith, all are denied and oppos- 
 ed by him, and some with great strength. Swayed as 
 Milton was by the age in which he lived, his spirit could 
 not be subdued to the heart-withering faith of the Gen- 
 evan school. 
 
 We now come to a subject in which Milton was deep- 
 ly interested ; we mean Christian Liberty, under which 
 head may be included the discipline of the church, the 
 power of ministers, and the rights of the people. To 
 vindicate the liberty of Christians, and to secure them 
 from all outward impositions and ordinances, he main- 
 tains that the whole Mosaic law is abolished, so that no 
 part is binding on Christians; a doctrine which may 
 startle many, who believe that the moral precepts of 
 that law^are as binding now as ever. But such persohs 
 differ little in reality from Milton, whose true meaning 
 is, that these precepts bind Christians, not through the 
 authority of Moses, which is wholly done away, but 
 only because they are taken up and incorporated into 
 Christianity, which is our only law, and which has set 
 forth whatever was permanently valuable in Judaism, in 
 a more perfect form, and with more powerful sanctions. 
 
 As another branch of the liberty of Christians, he 
 maintains, as we may well suppose, the right of every 
 believer to consult the scriptures and to judge of them 
 for himself. Not satisfied with this, he takes the ground 
 
56 
 
 of Quakerism, and maintains that the Christian, in ad- 
 dition to the scriptures, has an inward guide, with which 
 no human authority should interfere. 
 
 ' Under the gospel we possess, as it were, a twofold scripture, 
 one external, which is the written word, and the other internal, 
 which is the Holy Spirit, written in the hearts of believers, accord- 
 ing to'the promise of God, and with the intent that it should by no 
 means be neglected.' Vol. II. p. 172. 'The external scripture*** 
 has been liable to frequent corruption, and in some instances has 
 been corrupted, through the number, and occasionally the bad faith 
 of those by whom it has been handed down, the variety and discre- 
 pancy of the original manuscripts, and the additional diversity pro- 
 duced by subsequent transcripts and printed editions. But the 
 Spirit which leads to truth, cannot be corrupted, neither is it easy 
 to deceive a man who is really spiritual.' p. 173. ' It is difficult to 
 conjecture the purpose of Providence in committing the writings of 
 the New Testament to such uncerteiin and variable guardianship^ 
 unless it were to teach us by this very circumstance, that the Spirit 
 which is given to lis, is a more certain guide than scripture, whom, 
 therefore, it is our duty to follow.' p. 174. ' Hence it- follows, that 
 when an acquiescence in human opinions or an obedience to human 
 authority in matters of religion is exacted, in the name either of the 
 church or of the christian magistrate, from those who are themselves 
 led individually by the spirit of God, this is in effect to impose a 
 yoke, not on man, but on the Holy Spirit itself p. 176. 
 
 This, in words, is genuine Quakerism ; but whether 
 Milton understood by the Holy Spirit that immediate 
 revelation, which forms the leading doctrine of that 
 creed, we doubt. To this doctrine it may be objected, 
 and we think Milton must have felt the objection, that 
 it disparages and discourages our faculties, and produces 
 inaction of mind, leading men to expect from a sudden 
 flash from Heaven, the truth which we are taught to 
 seek by the right use of our own powers. We imagine 
 that Milton believed that the Holy Spirit works with 
 and by our own understandings, and, instead of super- 
 seding reason, invigorates and extends it. But this is 
 
57 
 
 not the only place where his precise views are obscured 
 by general expressions, or by rapid and superficial no- 
 tices of subjects. 
 
 In Milton's views of the church and the ministry, 
 we have other proofs of his construing the scriptures in 
 the manner most favorable to christian liberty. He 
 teaches that the universal church has no head but Christ, 
 and that the po^yer arrogated by popes, councils, and 
 bishops, is gross usurpation. In regard to particular 
 churches he is a strict Congregationalist. Each church, 
 he says, is competent to its own government, and con- 
 nected with others only by the bond of charity. No 
 others are authorised to interfere with any of its con- 
 cerns, but in the way of brotherly counsel. 
 
 ' Every church consisting of the above parts,' i. e. well instruct- 
 ed believers, ' however small its numbers, is to be considered as in 
 itself an integral and perfect church, so far as regards its religious 
 rights ; nor has it any superior on earth, whether individual, or as- 
 sembly, or convention, to whom it can be lawfully required to ren- 
 der submission; inasmuch as no believer out of its pale, nor any or- 
 der or council of men whatever, has a greater right than itself, to 
 expect a participation in the written word and the promises, in the 
 presence of jBhrist, in the "presiding influence of the Spirit, ahd in 
 those gracious gifts which are the reward of united prayer.' 
 
 Vol. II. p. 194. 
 
 ""'tThe choice of the minister, he says, belongs to the 
 people. The minister, if possible, should serve the 
 church gratuitously, and live by the labor of his own 
 hands. This unpaid service he pronounces more noble 
 and consonant to our Lord's example and that of the 
 apostles. In accordance with these views, he favors 
 the idea of a church consisting of few members.^ 
 
 * All that pertains to the worship of God and the salvation of be- 
 lievers, all, in short, that is necessary to constitute a church, may 
 
58 
 
 be duly and orderly transacted in a particular church, within the 
 walls of a private house, and where the numbers assembled are in- 
 considerable. Nay, such a church, when in compliance with the 
 interested views of its pastor it allows of an increase of numbers 
 beyond what is convenient, deprives itself in a great measure of the 
 advantages to be derived from meeting in common.' 
 
 Vol. II. p. 194. 
 
 He maintains that ministers are not to monopolize 
 public instruction, or the administration of the ordinan- 
 ces ; but that all Christians, having sufficient gifts, are 
 to participate in these services. 
 
 ' The custom of holding assemblies is to be maintained, not after 
 the present mode, but according to the apostolicalinstitution,, which 
 did not ordain that an individual, and he a stipendiary, should vhave 
 the sole right of speaking from a higher place, but that each be- 
 liever in turn should be authorised to speak, or prophesy, or teach, 
 or exhort, according to his gifts ; insomuch that even the weakest 
 among the brethren had the privilege of asking questions, and con- 
 sulting the elders and more experienced ihembers of the congrega- 
 tion.' Vol. II. p. 203. ' Any believer is competent to act as an 
 ordinary minister, according as convenience may require, provided 
 only he be endowed with the necessary gifts ; these gifts constitu- 
 ting his mission. ' p. 153. ' If therefore it be competent to any 
 believer whatever to preach the gospel, provided he be furnished 
 with the requisite gifts, it is also competent to him to administer 
 the rite of baptism ; inasmuch as the latter office is inferior to the 
 former.' p. 167. ' With regard to the Lord's supper also, it has 
 been shown, in the preceding chapter, that all are entitled to par- 
 ticipate in that rite, but that the privilege of dispensing the ele- 
 ments is confined to no particular man, or order of men.' p. 158. 
 
 We entirely accord with the spirit of freedom vs^hich 
 these passages breathe; but-from some of the particu- 
 lar views we dissent. The great error of Milton lies 
 in supposing that the primitive church v\^as meant to be 
 a model for all ages. But can we suppose that the 
 church at its birth, when it was poor, persecuted, hem- 
 med in by Judaism and Heathenism, supplied imper- 
 
69 
 
 fectly with written rules and records, dependent for 
 instruction chiefly on inspired teachers, and composed 
 of converts who had grown up and been steeped in 
 Jewish and Heathen errors, can we imagine, that in 
 these circumstances the church took a form which it 
 ought to retain as sacred and unalterable, in its tri- 
 umphs, and prosperity, and diffusion, and in ages of 
 greater light and rej&nement ? We know that in the 
 first ages there were no ministers with salaries, or edi- 
 fices for public worship. Christians met in private 
 houses, and sometimes in the obscurest they could find. 
 On these occasions, the services were not monopolized 
 by an individual, but shared by the fraternity; nor is 
 there a hint in the New Testament that the administra- 
 tion of the Lord's supper and baptism was confined to 
 the minister. But in all this we have no rule for the 
 present day. Indeed jt seems to us utterly repugnant 
 to the idea of a universal religion, intended for all ages 
 and nations, and for all the progressive states of society 
 to the end of the world, to suppose that in its infancy 
 it established an order of worship, instruction, and dis- 
 cipline, which was to remain inviolable in all future 
 times. This doctrine of an inflexible form, seems to 
 us servile, superstitious, and disparaging to Christianity. 
 Our religion it too spiritual and inward, and cares too 
 little about its exterior, to bind itself in this everlasting 
 chain. The acknowledged indefiniteness of the New 
 Testament in regard to this subject, is no mean proof 
 of the enlarged and prospective wisdom of its founder. 
 We believe, that, with the diffusion of liberal views, 
 the question will arise, whether our religion cannot be 
 taught and administered in methods and forms more 
 adapted, than those which now prevail, to its spirit and 
 
60 
 
 great design, to the principles of human nature, and to 
 the condition and wants of society. Among the changes 
 which may grow from this discussion, we do not antici- 
 pate the adoption of Milton's plan of sentencing minis- 
 ters to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow ; for 
 we think that we see reasons, in the general spread of 
 knowledge, for enlarging their means and opportunities 
 of study and intellectual culture, that they may meet 
 the increasing demand for more enlightened inculcation 
 of christian truth. At the same time, it seems to us 
 not unlikely, that, in conformity to Milton's suggestion, 
 public instruction, instead of continuing to be a mono- 
 poly of ministers, may be extended freely to men of 
 superior intelligence and piety, and that the results of 
 this arrangement may be, the infusion of new life, 
 power, and practical wisdom into religious teaching, 
 and the substitution of a more natural, free, and various 
 eloquence, for the technical and monotonous mode of 
 treating subjects, which clings so often and so obstinate- 
 ly to the performances of the pulpit. — Again, we do 
 not expect, among the changes of forms and outward 
 worship, that Christians, to meet our author's views, 
 will shut their churches and meet in private houses ; for 
 large religious edifices, and large congregations, seem 
 to us among the iniportant means of collecting and in- 
 teresting in Christianity, the mass of the community. 
 But perhaps narrower associations for religious improve- 
 ment may be formed, in which the formalities of public 
 worship will be relaxed, and Christians may reap the 
 benefits of the more familiar and confidential meetings 
 of the primitive converts. It is indeed a great question, 
 how the public administration of Christianity, including 
 modes of discipline, instruction, and worship, may be 
 
61 
 
 rendered more impressive and effectual. This field is 
 altmost mntrodden ; but if we read aright the signs of 
 tbe times, the day for exploring it draws nigh. 
 
 i We have said that v^hilst we dissent from some of 
 Milton's views on the subject of our present remarks, 
 we agree in' their spirit. It was evidently the aim of 
 all his suggestions, to strip the clergy, as they are call- 
 ed, of that peculiar, artificial sanctity, with which su- 
 perstition had long arrayed them, and which had made 
 their simple, benignant office, one of the worst instru- 
 ments of ambition and despotism. We believe that 
 this institution will never exert its true and full power 
 on the church and on the world, until the childish awe 
 with which it has been viewed, shall be exchanged for 
 enlightened esteem, and until men, instead of expecting 
 from it certain mysterious, undefined influences, shall 
 see in it a rational provision for promoting virtue and 
 happiness, not by magic, but according to the fixed 
 laws of human nature. 
 
 The remainder of the ' Treatise on Christian Doc- 
 trine,' furnishes topics on which we should willingly 
 remark ; but we have only time to glance at the opin- 
 ions in which Milton differs from the majority. He re- 
 jects infant baptism, and argues against it with his usual 
 earnestness and strength. He not only affirms with 
 many other Christians, that the fourth commandment, 
 relating to the Sabbath, is abolished with the rest of the 
 Mosaic system, but maintains, what few have done, that 
 under the gospel no time is appointed for public wor- 
 ship, but that the observance of the first day of the 
 week, rests wholly on expediency, and on the agree- 
 ment of Christians. He believes, that Christ is to ap- 
 pear visibly for the judgment of the world, and that he 
 will reign a thousand years on earth, at the end of 
 6 
 
62 
 
 which period Satan will assail the church with an in- 
 nunierable confederacy, and be overwhelihed with ever- 
 lasting ruin. . He speaks of the judgment as beginning 
 with Christ's second advent, and as comprehending his 
 whole government through the millenium, as well as 
 the closing scene, when sentence will be pronounced 
 on evil angels, and on the whole human race. We 
 have now given, we believe, all the peculiarities of 
 Milton's faith. As for that large part of his work in 
 which he has accumulated scriptural proofs of doctrines 
 and duties in which all Christians are agreed, its gene- 
 ral tenor may be understood without fmther remarks. 
 It may now be asked. What is the value of this book ? 
 We prize it chiefly a5 a testimony to Milton's profound 
 reverence for the christian religion, and an assertion 
 of the freedom and rights of the mind. We are oblig- 
 ed to say, that the work throws little new light on 
 the great subjects of which it treats. Some will say, 
 that this ought not to surprise us ; for new light is not 
 to be looked for in the department of theology. But 
 if this be true, our religion may be charged with the 
 want of adaptation to our nature in an essential point ; 
 for one of the most striking features of the human mind 
 is its thirst for constantly enlarging knowledge, and its 
 proneness to lose its interest in subjects which it has 
 exhausted. The chief cause of Milton's failure, was, 
 that he sought truth too exclusively in the past, and 
 among the dead. He indeed called no man master, 
 and disclaimed the authority of Fathers, and was evi- 
 dently dissatisfied with all the sects which had preced- 
 ed or were spread around him. Still he believed in 
 the perfection of the primitive church, and that Chris- 
 tianity, instead of being earried forward, was to be car- 
 ried back to its original purity. To use his own strik- 
 
63 
 
 ing language, ' the lovely form of Truth,' which Chris- 
 tians at first embraced, ' had been hewn into a thousand 
 pieces, like the mangled body of Osiris, and scattered 
 to the four winds ; ' and consequently he believed, that 
 the great duty of her friends, was, ' to, gather up limb 
 by limb, and bring together eviery joint and member.' 
 In conformity with this doctrine, he acted too much as 
 an eclectic theologian, culling something from almost 
 every sect, and endeavouring to form an harmonious 
 system from materials ■ gathered from the four winds.' 
 He would have done better, had he sought truth less 
 in other minds, and more in the communion of his ovVn 
 soul with^scriptura, jiature, God, and itself. The fact 
 is, that the church, from its beginning, has been imper- 
 fect in knowledge and practice, and our business, is, not 
 to rest in the past, but to use it as a means of a purer 
 and brighter futurity. Christianity began to be corrupt- 
 ed at its birth, to be debased by earthly mixtures, as 
 soon as it touched the earth. The seeds of that cor- 
 ruption which grew and shot up into the overshadowing 
 despotism of papal Rome, were sown in the age of the 
 apostles, as we learn in the Epistles ; and we infer 
 from the condition of the world, that nothing but a 
 stupendous moral miracle, subverting all the laws of 
 the human mind, could have prevented their develope- 
 ment. Who, that understands human nature, does not 
 know, that old associations are not broken up in a mo- 
 ment ; that to minds, plunged in a midnight of error, 
 truth must gradually open like the dawning day ; that 
 old views will mingle with the new; that old ideas, 
 which We wish to banish, Avill adhere to the old words 
 to which they were formerly attached ; and that the 
 sudden and entire eradication of long-rooted errors, 
 would be equivalent to the creation of a new intellect ? 
 
64 
 
 How long did the apostles, under Christ's immediajte 
 tuition, withstand his instructions ! Even Peter^ aft^r 
 the miraculous illumination of the day of Pentecost, re- 
 mained ignorant, until the message from Cornelius, of 
 that glorious feature of Christianity, the abolition of 
 the Jewish peculiarity, and the equal participjation of 
 the Gentiles with the Jews in the blessings of thfe 
 Messiah. As soon as Christianity was preached, it was 
 blended with Judaism, which had power to neutralize 
 the authority of Paul in many churches. In like man- 
 ner, it soon began to be ' spoiled ' of its simplicity, 
 ' by philosophy and science falsely so called,' and to be 
 encumbered by pagan ceremonies. The first Christians 
 were indeed brought into ' wonderful light,' if their 
 christian state be compared with the darkness from 
 which they had emerged ; but not if compared with 
 the perfection of knowledge to which Christ came to 
 exalt the human race. The earliest Fathers, as we 
 learn from their works, were not receptive of large 
 communications of truth. Their writings abound in 
 puerilities and marks of childish credulity, and betray 
 that indistinctness of vision, which is experienced by 
 men who issue from thick darkness into the light of 
 day. In the ages of barbarism which followed the fall 
 of the Roman empire, Christianity, though it answered 
 wise purposes of Providence, was more and more dis- 
 figured and obscured. The Reformation was indeed a 
 glorious era, but glorious for its reduction of papal and 
 clerical power, and for the partial liberatioh of the mind, 
 rather than for immediate improvements of men's ap- 
 prehensions of Christianity. Some of the Reformers 
 invented or brought back as injurious errors as those 
 they overthrew. Luther's consubstantiation differed 
 from the pope's transubstantiation by a syllable, and 
 
65 
 
 that was all the gain ; and we may safely say, that 
 transubstantiation was a less monstrous doctrine than 
 the five points of Calvin. How vain, therefore, was 
 Milton's search for ' the mangled Osiris,' for ' the love- 
 ly form and immortal features of Truth,' in the history 
 of the church ! 
 
 Let us not be misunderstood, as if we would cut off 
 the present age from the past. We mean not, that 
 Milton should have neglected the labors of his prede- 
 cessors. He believed justly, that all the periods and 
 generations of the human family, are bound together 
 by a sublime connexion, and that the wisdom of each 
 age is chiefly a derivation from all preceding ages, not 
 excepting the most ancient, just as a noble stream, 
 through its whole extent and in its widest overflowings, 
 still holds communication with its infant springs, gush- 
 ing out perhaps in the depths of distant forests, or on 
 the heights of solitary mountains. We only mean to 
 say, that the stream of religious knowledge is to swell 
 and grow through its whole course, and to receive new 
 contributions from gifted minds in successive genera- 
 tions. We only regret that Milton did not draw more 
 from the deep and full fountains of his own soul. We 
 wish only to teach, that antiquity was the infancy of 
 our race, and that its acquisitions, instead of being 
 rested in, are to bear us onward to new heights of truth 
 and virtue. We mean not to complain of Milton for not 
 doing more. He rendered to mankind a far greater ser- 
 vice than that of a teacher of an improved theology. 
 He taught and exemplified that spirit of intellectual 
 freedom, through which all the great conquests of truth 
 are to be achieved, and by which the human mind is to 
 attain to a new consciousness of its sublime faculties, 
 and to invigorate and expand itself forever.- 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 We here close our remarks on Milton. In offering 
 this tribute, we have aimed at something higher than 
 to express and gratify our admiration of an eminent 
 man. We believe that an enlightened and exalted 
 mind is a brighter manifestation of God than the out- 
 ward universe ; and we have set forth, as we have 
 been able, the praises of an illustrious servant of the 
 Most High, that through him, glory may redound to 
 the Father of all spirits, the Fountain of all wisdom and 
 magnanimous v;irtue. And still more ; we believe that 
 the sublime intelligence of Milton was imparted, not 
 for his own sake only, but to awaken kindred virtue 
 and greatness in other souls. Far from regarding him 
 as standing alone and unapproachable, we believe that 
 he is an illustration of what all who are true to their 
 nature, will become in the progress of their being ; and 
 we have held him forth, not to excite an ineffectual 
 admiration, but to stir up our own and others' breasts 
 to ah exhilarating pursuit of high and ever-growing 
 attainments in intellect and virtue. 
 
REMARKS 
 
 OK THi: 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 1 8 2 7—8 . 
 
T r 
 
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte by Sir Walter 
 Scott has been anticipated with an eagerness, propor- 
 tioned to the unrivalled powers of the author, and to 
 the wonderful endowments and fortunes of the hero. 
 That the general expectation has been satisfied, we 
 cannot affirm. But few will deny, that the writer has 
 given us a monument of his great talents. The rapidity 
 with which such a work has been thrown off astonishes 
 us. We think, however, that the author owed to him- 
 self and to the public, a more deliberate execution of 
 this important undertaking. He should either have 
 abandoned it, or have bestowed oa it the long and pa- 
 tient labor which it required. The marks of negligence 
 and haste, which are spread through the work, are se- 
 rious blemishes, and to more fastidious readers inex- 
 piable defects. It wants compression and selection 
 throughout. Many passages are ericumbered with ver- 
 biage. Many thoughts are weakened by useless expan- 
 sion and worse than useless> repetition. Comparisons 
 are accumulated to excess, and whilst many Are exqui- 
 sitie, perhaps as many are trite and unworthy of history; 
 
70 
 
 The remarks are generally just, but obvious. We 
 state these defects plainly, that we may express the 
 more freely our admiration of the talents, which have 
 executed so rapidly, a work so extensive and various, 
 so rich in information, so fresh and vivid in descrip- 
 tion, and furnishing such abundant specimens of a free, 
 graceful, arid ^vigorous style. : ''".., /i 
 
 The work has the great merit of impartiality. It is 
 probably inaccurate in many of its details, but singular- 
 ly free from prejudice an^ passion. Not a few, who 
 considered that the author was both a Briton and a 
 friend of the principles and policy of Pitt, were expect- 
 ing from his pen a discolored delineation of the impla- 
 cable foe of England and of that great minister. But 
 the rectitude of his mind, and his reverence for histori- 
 cal truth, have effectually preserved him from abusing 
 the great power, conferred on him by his talents, over 
 public opinion. We think that his laudable fear of 
 wronging the enemy of his country, joined to kn admi- 
 ration of the dazzling qualities of Napoleon, has led 
 hirri to soften unduly the crimes of his hero, and to give 
 more favorable impressions than truth will warrant. 
 
 But enough of the author, who needs not our praise, 
 and can suffer little by our censure. Our concern is 
 with his subject. A just estimate of the late emperor 
 of Franfce seems to us important. That extraordinary 
 man, having operated on the world with unprecedented 
 power during his life, is now influencing it by his char- 
 acter. That character, we apprehend, is not viewied 
 as it should be. The kind of admiration which it in- 
 spires, even in free countries, is a bad omen. The 
 greatest crime against society, that of spoiling it of its 
 rights and loading it with chains, still fails to move that 
 deep abhorrence, which is its due ; and which, if really 
 
71 
 
 felt, woijld fix on the usurper a brand of indelible in- 
 famy. Regarding freedom as the chief interest of 
 human nature, as essential to its intellectual, moral, and 
 religious progress, we look on men, who have signaliz- 
 ed themselves by their hostility to it, with an indigna- 
 tion at once stern and sorrowful^ which no glare of 
 successful war, ahd no admiration of the crowd, can 
 indupe us to suppress. We mean then to speak freely 
 of Napoleon. But if we know ourselves, we could on 
 no account utter one unjust reproach. We speak the 
 more freely, because conscious of exemption from every 
 feeUng like animosity. We war not with the dead. 
 We would resist only what we deem the pernicious 
 influence of the dead. W^ would devote ourselves to 
 the cause of freedom and humanity, a cause perpetually 
 betrayed by the admiration lavished on prosperous crime 
 and all-grasping ambition. Our great topic will be the 
 Character of Napoleon; and with this we shall naturally 
 intersperse reflections on thp great interests which he 
 perpetually irifluencedr 
 
 We begin with observing, that it is an act of justice 
 to Bonaparte to remember, that he grew up under dis- 
 astrous influences, .in a troubled day, when men's 
 minds were, convulsed, old institutions overthrown, old 
 opinions shaken, old restraints snapped asunder; when 
 the authority of religion was spurned, and youth aban- 
 doned to unwonted license ; when the imagination was 
 made feverish by visions of indistinct good, and the 
 passions swelled by the sympathy of millions to a re- 
 sistless torrent. A more dangerous school for the 
 character cannot well be conceived. That all-seeing 
 Being, who knows the trials of his creatures and the 
 secrets of the heart, can alone judge to what degree 
 crimes are extenuated by circumstances so inauspicious. 
 
72 
 
 This we must remember in reviewing the history of 
 men, who were exposed to trials unknown to ourselves. 
 But because the turpitude of an evil agent is diminished 
 by infelicities of education or condition, we must not 
 therefore confound the immutable distinctions of right 
 and wrong, and withhold our reprobation from atrocities 
 which have spread misery and slavery far and wide. 
 
 It is also due to Napoleon to observe, that there has 
 always existed, and still exists, a mournful obtuseness 
 of moral feeling in regard to the crimes of military and 
 political life. The wrong-doing of public men on a large 
 scale, has never drawn upon them that sincere, hearty 
 abhorrence which visits private vice. Nations have 
 seemed to court aggression and bondage, by their stu- 
 pid, insane admiration of successful tyrants. The 
 wrongs, from which men have suffered most, in body 
 and mind, are yet unpunished. True ; Christianity has 
 put into our lips censures on the aspiring and the usurp- 
 ing. But these reproaches are as yet little more than 
 sounds, and unmeaning commonplaces. They are re- 
 peated for form's sake. When we read or hear them, 
 we feel that they want depth and strength. They are 
 not inward, solemn, burning convictions, breaking from 
 the. indignant soul with a tone of reality, before which 
 guilt would cower. The tiue moral feeling in regard 
 to the crimes of public men is almost to be created. 
 We believe, then, that such a character as Bonaparte's, 
 is formed with very little consciousness of its turpitude ; 
 and society, which contributes so much to its growth, 
 is responsible for its. existence, and merits in part the 
 misery which it spreads. 
 
 Of the early influences, under which Bonaparte was 
 formed, we know little. He was educated in a miii- 
 
73 
 
 tary school, and this, we apprehend, is not an institu- 
 tion to form much delicacy, or independence of moral 
 feeling ; for the young soldier is taught, as his first 
 duty, to obey his superior without consulting his con- 
 science ; to take human life at another's bidding; to 
 perform that deed, which above all others requires de- 
 liberate conviction, without a moment's inquiry as to 
 its justice ; and to place himself a passive instrument 
 in hands, which, as all history teaches, often reek with 
 blood causelessly shed. 
 
 His first political association was with the Jacobins, 
 the most sanguinary of all the factions which raged in 
 France^ and whose sway is emphatically called 'the 
 reign of terror.' The service which secured his com- 
 mand in Italy, was the turning of his artillery on the 
 people, who, however dangerous when acting as a mob, 
 happened in the present case to understand their rights, 
 and were directing their violence against manifest 
 usurpation. 
 
 His first campaign was in Italy, and we have still a 
 vivid recollection of the almost rapturous admiration, 
 with which we followed his first triumphs ; for then we 
 were simple enough to regard him as the chosen guar- 
 dian of liberty. His peculiar tactics were not then 
 understood; the secret of his success had not reached 
 us ; and his rapid victories stimulated the imagination 
 to invest him with the mysterious powers of a hero of 
 romance. We confess that we cannot now read the 
 history of his Italian wars without a quickened move- 
 ment in the veins. The rapidity of his conceptions ; 
 the inexhaustibleness of his invention ; the energy of 
 his will ; the decision which suffered not a moment's 
 pause between the purpose and its execution ; the pre- 
 sence of mind, which, amidst sudden reverses and on 
 7 
 
74 
 
 the brink of ruin, devised the means of safety and suc- 
 cess ; these commanding attributes, added to a courage, 
 which, however suspected afterwards, never faltered 
 then, compel us to bestow, what indeed we have no 
 desire to withhold, the admiration which is due to su- 
 perior power. 
 
 Let not the friends of peace be offended. We have 
 said, and we repeat it, that we have no desire to with- 
 hold our admiration from the energies, which war often 
 awakens. Great powers, even in their perversion, at- 
 test a glorious nature, and we may feel their grandeur, 
 whilst we condemn, with our whole strength of moral 
 feeling, the evil passions by which they are depraved. 
 We are willing to grant that war, abhor it as we may, 
 often developes and places in strong light, a force of 
 intellect and purpose, which raises our conceptions of 
 the human soul. There is perhaps no moment in life, 
 in which the mind is brought into such intense action, 
 in which the will is so strenuous, and in which irrepres- 
 sible excitement is so tempered with self-possession, as 
 in the hour of battle. Still the greatness of the war- 
 rior is poor and low compared with the magnanimity 
 of virtue. It vanishes before the greatness of principle. 
 The martyr to humanity, to freedom, or religion ; the 
 unshrinking adherent of despised and deserted truth, 
 who, alone, unsupported, and scorned, with no crowd 
 to infuse into him courage, no variety of objects to draw 
 his thoughts from himself, no opportunity of effort or 
 resistance to rouse and nourish energy, still yields him- 
 self calmly, resolutely, with invincible philanthropy, to 
 bear prolonged and exquisite Suffering, which one re- 
 tracting word might remove — such a man is as superior 
 to the warrior, as the tranquil and boundless heavens 
 above us, to the low earth we tread beneath our feet. 
 
75 
 
 We have spoken of the energies of mind called forth 
 by war. If we may be allowed a short digression, 
 which however bears directly on our main subject, the 
 merits of Napoleon, we would observe, that military 
 talent, even of the highest order, is far from holding 
 the first place among intellectual endowments. It is 
 one of the lower forms of genius ; for it is not conver- 
 sant with the highest and richest objects of thought. 
 We grant that a mind, which takes in a wide country 
 at a glance, and understands, almost by intuition, the 
 positions it affords for a successful campaign, is a com- 
 prehensive and vigorous one. The general, who dispo- 
 ses his forces so as to counteract a greater force ; who 
 supplies by skill, science, and invention, the want of 
 iiumbers ; who dives into the counsels of his enemy, 
 and who gives unity, energy, and success to a vast 
 variety of operations, in the midst of casualties and ob- 
 structions which no wisdom could foresee, manifests 
 great power. But still the chief work of a general is 
 to apply physical force ; to remove physical obstruc- 
 tions ; to avail himself of physical aids and advantages ; 
 to act on matter ; to overcome rivers, ramparts, moun- 
 tains, and human muscles ; and these are not the high- 
 est objects of mind, nor do they demand intelligence 
 of the highest order ; and accordingly nothing is more 
 common than to find men, eminent in this department, 
 who are wanting in interlectual enlargement ; in 
 habits of profound and liberal thinking, in imagination 
 and taste, in the capacity of enjoying works of genius, 
 and in broad and original views of human nature and 
 society. The office of a great general does not differ 
 widely from that of a great mechanician, whose busi- 
 ness it is to frame new combinations of physical forces, 
 to adapt them to new circumstances, and to remove 
 
76 
 
 new obstructions. Not a few great generals, awajrfrom 
 the camp, have been no greater men than the mechani- 
 cian taken from his workshop. In conversation they 
 have been dull. Deep and refined reasonings they have 
 been unable to comprehend. We know that there are 
 splendid exceptions. Such was Cesar, at once the 
 greatest soldier and the most sagacious statesman of his 
 age, whilst, in eloquence and literature, he left behind 
 him almost all, who had devoted themselves exclusively 
 to these pursuits. But such cases are rare. The con- 
 queror of Napoleon, the hero of Waterloo, possesses un- 
 doubtedly great military talents ; but we do not under- 
 stand, that his most partial admirers claim for him a 
 place in the highest class of minds. We will not go 
 down for illustration to such men as Nelson, a man 
 great on the deck, but debased by gross vices, and who 
 never pretended to enlargement of intellect. To insti- 
 tute a comparison in point of talent and genius between 
 such men and Milton, Bacon, and Shakspeare, is almost 
 an insult on these illustrious names. Who can think 
 of these truly great intelligences ; of the range of their 
 minds through heaven and earth ; of their deep intuition 
 into the soul ; of their new and glowing combinations 
 of thought ; of the energy with which they grasped and 
 subjected to their main purpose, the infinite materials 
 of illustration which nature and life afford— who can 
 think of the forms of transcendent beauty and grandeur 
 which they created, or which were rather emanations 
 of their own minds ; of the calm wisdom and fer- 
 vid imagination which they conjoined ; of the voice 
 of power, in which, ' though dead, they still speak,' 
 and awaken intellect, sensibility, and genius in both 
 hemispheres — who can think of such men, and not feel 
 the immense inferiority of the most gifted warrior, 
 
77 
 
 whose elements of^ thought are physical forces and 
 physical obstructions, and whose employment is the 
 combination of a comparatively low and narrow class 
 of objects, on which a powerful mind can be employed. 
 We return to Napoleon. His splendid victories in 
 Italy spread his name like lightning through the civil- 
 ized world. Unhappily they emboldened him to those 
 unprincipled and open aggressions, to the indulgence 
 of that lawless, imperious spirit, which marked his fu- 
 ture course, and kept pace with his growing power. 
 In his victorious career, he soon came in contact with 
 states, some of which, as Tuscany and Venice, had 
 acknowledged tho French Republic, whilst others, as 
 Parma and Modena, • had observed a strict neutrality. 
 The old-fashioned laws of nations, iinder which such 
 states would have found shelter, seemed never to have 
 crossed the mind of the young victor. Not satisfied 
 with violating the neutrality of all, he seized the port 
 of Leghorn, and ruined the once flourishing commerce 
 of Tuscany ; and having exacted heavy tribute from 
 Parma and Modena, he compelled these powers to sur- 
 render, what had hitherto been held sacred in the utmost 
 extremities of war, some of their choicest pictures, the 
 chief ornaments of their capitals. We are sometimes 
 told of the good done by Napoleon to Italy. But we 
 have heard his name pronounced as indignantly there as 
 here. An Italian cannot forgive him for robbing that 
 country of its noblest works of art, its dearest treasures 
 and glories, which had made it a land of pilgrimage to 
 men of taste and genius from the whole civilized world, 
 and which had upheld and solaced its pride under con- 
 quest and humiliation. From this use of power in the 
 very dawn of his fortunes, it might easily have been 
 foretold, w hat part he would act in the stormy day 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 which was approaching, When the sceptre of France 
 and Europe was to be offered to any strong hand, which 
 should be daring enough to grasp it. 
 
 Next to Italy, Egypt became the stage for the display 
 of Napoleon ; Egypt, a province of the Grand Signior, 
 with whom France was in profound peace, aiid who, 
 according to the long established relations of Europe, 
 was her natural ally. It wduld seem, that this expedi- 
 tion was Bonaparte's own project. His motives are 
 not very distinctly stated by his biographer. We doubt 
 not that his great aim was conspicuousness. He chose 
 a theatre where all eyes could be turned upon him. 
 He saw that the time for usurpation had not yet come 
 in France. To use his own language, ' the fruit was 
 not yet ripe.' He wanted a field of action which 
 would draw upon him the gaze of the world, and from 
 which he might return at the favorable moment for the 
 prosecution of his enterprises at home. At the same 
 time he undoubtedly admitted into his mind, which 
 success had already intoxicated, some vague wild hope 
 of making an impression on the Eastern world, which 
 might place its destinies at his command, and give him 
 a throne more enviable than Europe could bestow. 
 His course in the East exhibited the same lawlessness, 
 the same contempt of all restraints on his power, which 
 we have already noted. \ No means, which promised 
 success, were thought the worse for their guilt. It 
 was not enough for him to boast of his triumphs over 
 the cross, or to profess Mahometanism. He claimed 
 inspiration, and a commission from God, and was anx- 
 ious to join the character of prophet to that of hero. 
 This was the beginning of the great weaknesses and 
 errors into which he was betrayed by that spirit of self- 
 exaggeration, which, under the influence of past success 
 
79 
 
 and of unbounded flattery, was already growing into a 
 kind of insanity. In his own view he was fit to be a 
 compeer Avith Mahomet. His greatness in his own 
 eyes made him blind to the folly of urging his super- 
 natural claims on the Turk, who contemned, even more 
 than he abhorred, a Frank ; and who would sooner have 
 sold himself a slave to Christians, than have acknow- 
 ledged a renegade Christian as a sharer of the glories 
 of Mahomet. It was not enough for Bonaparte, on this 
 expedition, to insult God, to show an impiety as foolish 
 as it was daring. He proceeded to trample on the 
 sentiments and dictates of humanity with equal hardi' 
 hood. The massacre of Jaffa is universally known. 
 Twelve hundred prisoners, and probably more, who had 
 surrendered themselves to Napoleon, and were appar- 
 ently admitted to quarter, were two days afterwards 
 marched out of the fort, divided into small bodies, and 
 then deliberately shot, and, in case the musket was not 
 effectual, were despatched by bayonets. This was an 
 outrage, which cannot be sheltered by the laws and 
 usages of war, barbarous as they are. It was the deed 
 of a bandit and savage, and ought to be execrated by 
 good men, who value and would preserve the mitiga- 
 tions which Christianity has infused into the conduct 
 of national hostilities. 
 
 The next great event in Bonaparte's history was the 
 usurpation of the supreme power of the state, and the 
 establishment of military despotism over France. On 
 the particulars of this criminal act we have no desire to 
 enlarge, nor are we anxious to ascertain, whether our 
 hero, on this occasion, lost his courage and self-posses- 
 sion, as he is reported to have done. We are more 
 anxious to express our convictions of the turpitude of 
 this outrage on liberty and justice. For this crime but 
 
80 
 
 one apology can be oiFered. Napoleon, it is said, seized 
 the reins, when, had he let them slip, they would have 
 fallen into other hands. He enslaved France at a mo- 
 ment, when, had he spared her, she would have found 
 another tyrant. Admitting the truth of the plea, what 
 is it but the reasoning of the highwayman, who robs and 
 murders the traveller, because the booty was about to 
 be seized by another hand, or because another dagger 
 was ready to do the bloody deed ? We are aware that 
 the indignation, with which we regard this crime of 
 Napoleon, will find a response in few breasts ; for to 
 the multitude a throne is a temptation which no virtue 
 can be expected to withstand. But moral truth is 
 immovable amidst the sophistry, ridicule, and abject 
 reasonings of men, and the time will come, when it will 
 find a meet voice to give it utterance. Of all crimes 
 against society, usurpation is the blackest. He who 
 lifts a parricidal hand against his country's rights and 
 freedom ; who plants his foot on the necks of thirty 
 millions of his fellow creatures ; who concentrates in 
 his single hand the powers of a mighty empire ; and 
 who wields its powers, squanders its treasures, and 
 pours forth its blood like water, .to make other nations 
 slaves and the world his prey^^this man, as he unites 
 all crimes in his sanguinary career, so he should be set 
 apart by the human race for their unmingled and un- 
 measured abhorrence, and should bear on his guilty 
 head a mark as opprobrious as that which the first 
 murderer wore. We cannot think with patience of 
 one man fastening chains on a whole people, and sub- 
 jecting millions to his single will ; of whole regions 
 overshadowed by the tyraimy of a frail being like our- 
 selves. In anguish of spirit we exclaim. How long 
 will an abject world kiss the foot which tramples it ? 
 
81 
 
 How. long shall crime find shelter in its very aggrava- 
 tions and excess ? 
 
 Perhaps it may be said, that our indignation seems 
 to light on Napoleon, not so much because he was a 
 despot, as because he became a despot by usurpation ; 
 that we seem not to hate tyranny itself, so much as a 
 particular mode of gaining it. We do indeed regard 
 usurpation as a crime of peculiar blackness, especiaslly 
 when committed, as in the case of Napoleon, in the 
 name of liberty. All despotism, however, whether 
 usurped or hereditary, is our abhorrence. We regard 
 it as the most grievous wrong and insult to the human 
 race. But towards the hereditary despot we have 
 more of compassion than indignation. Nursed and 
 brought up in delusion, worshipped from his cradle, nev- 
 er spoken to in the tone of fearless truth, taught to 
 look on the great mass of his fellow brings as an infe- 
 rior race, and to regard despotism as a law of nature 
 and a necessary element of social life ; such a prince, 
 whose education and condition almost deny him the 
 possibility of acquiring healthy moral feeling and manly 
 virtue, must not be judgetl severely. Still, in absolv- 
 ing the despot from much of the guilt which seems at 
 first to attach to his unlawful and abused power, we do 
 not the less account despotism a wrong and a curse. 
 The time for its fall, we trust, is coming. It cannot 
 fall too soon. It has long enough wrung from the la- 
 borer his hard earnings ; long enough squandered a na- 
 tion's wealth on its parasites and minions ; long enough 
 warred against the freedom of the mind,' and arrested 
 the progress of truth. It has filled dungeoiis enough 
 with the brave and good, and shed eilough of the blood 
 of patriots. Let its end come. It cannot come too 
 soon, i 
 
82 
 
 We have now followed Bonaparte to the moment of 
 possessing himself of the supreme power. Those who 
 were associated with him in subverting the govermttent 
 of the Directory, essayed to lay restraints on the First 
 Consul, wha was to take their place. But he indig- 
 nantly repelled tlie'm. He held the sword,, and with 
 this, not only intimidated the selfish, but awed and si- 
 lenced the patriotic, who saw too plainly, that it could 
 only be wrested from him by renewing the horrors of 
 the revolution. — We now proceed to consider some of 
 the means, by which he consolidated his power, and 
 raised it into the imperial dignity. We consider these 
 as much more important illustrations of his character 
 than his successive campaigns, to which accordingly 
 we shall give little attention. 
 
 One of his first measures for giving stability to his 
 power, was certainly a wise one, and was obviously 
 dictated by his situation and character. Having seized 
 the first dignity in the state by military force, and lean- 
 ing on a devoted soldiery, he was under no necessity of 
 binding himself to any of the parties which had distracted 
 the country, a vassalage to which his domineering spirit 
 could ill have stooped. Policy and his love of mastery 
 pointed out to him an indiscriminate employment of the 
 leading men of all parties ; and not a few of these had 
 become so selfish and desperate in the disastrous pro- 
 gress of the revolution, that they were ready to break 
 up old connexions, and to divide the spoils of the Re- 
 public with a master. Accordingly he adopted a sys- 
 tem of comprehension and lenity, from which even the 
 emigrants were not excluded, and had the satisfaction 
 of seeing almost the whole talent which the revolution 
 had quickened, leagued in the execution of his plans. 
 Under the able men, whom he called to his aid, the 
 
83 
 
 finances and the war department, which had fallen into 
 a confusion that threatened ruin to the state, were soon 
 restored to order, and means and forces provided for 
 retrieving the recent defeats and disgraces of the 
 French armies. 
 
 This leads us to mention another and most important 
 and effectual means by which Napoleon secured and 
 enlarged his power. We refer to the brilliant campaign 
 immediately following his elevation to the Consulate, 
 and which restored to France the ascendency which 
 she had lost during his absence. On his success at this 
 juncture his future fortunes wholly depended. It was 
 in this campaign that he proved himself the worthy 
 rival of Hannibal. The enejrgy which conducted an 
 army with its cavalry, artillery, and supplies, across the 
 Alps, by untried paths, which only the chamois hunter, 
 born and bred amidst glaciers and everlasting snows, 
 had trodden, gave the impression, which of all others 
 he most desired to spread, of his superiority to nature, 
 as well as to human opposition. This enterprise was 
 in one view a fearful omen to Europe. It showed a 
 power over the minds of his soldiers, the effects of 
 which were not to be calculated. The conquest of St. 
 Bernard by a French army was the boast of the nation; 
 but a still more wonderful thing was, the capacity of 
 the general to inspire into that army the intense force, 
 confidence, resolution, and patience, by which alone the 
 work could be accomplished. The victory of Marengo, 
 gained by one of the accidents of war in the moment 
 of apparent defeat and ruin, secured to Bonaparte the 
 dominion which he coveted. France, who, in her 
 madness and folly, had placed her happiness in conquest, 
 now felt that the glory of her arms was safe only in the 
 hands of the First Consul ; whilst the soldiery, who 
 
84 
 
 held the sceptre in their gift, became more thoroughly 
 satisfied, that triumph and spoils waited on his stand- 
 ard. 
 
 Another important and essential means of securing 
 and building up his power, was the system of espionage, 
 called the Police, which, under the Directory, had 
 received a developement worthy of those friends of 
 freedom, but which was destined to be perfected by the 
 wisdom of Napoleon. It would seem as if despotism, 
 profiting by the experience of ages, had put forth her 
 whole skill and resources in forming the French police, 
 and had framed an engine, never to be surpassed, for stifl- 
 ing the faintest breathings of disaffection, and chaining 
 every free thought. This system of espionage, (we are 
 proud that we have no English word for the infernal 
 machine,) had indeed been used under all tyrannies. 
 But it wanted the craft of Fouche, and the energy of 
 Bonaparte, to disclose all its powers. In the language 
 of our author, ' it spread through all the ramifications 
 of society ; ' that is, every man, of the least importance 
 in the community, had the eye of a spy upon him. He 
 was watched at home as well as abroad, in the boudoir 
 and. theatre, in the brothel and gaming house; and 
 these last named haunts furnished not a few ministers 
 of the Argus-eyed Police. There was an ear open 
 through all France to catch the whispers of discontent ; 
 a power of evil, which aimed to rival, in omnipresence 
 and invisibleness, the benignant agency of the Deity. 
 Of all instruments of tyranny, this is the most detesta- 
 ble. It chills social intercourse ; locks up the heart ; 
 infects and darkens men's minds with mutual jealousies 
 and fears ; and reduces to system a wary dissimulation, 
 subversive of force and manliness of character. We 
 find, however, some consolation in learning that tyrants 
 
Missing Page 
 
b6 ^ 
 
 We pass to another means of removing obstructions 
 to his power and ambition, still worse than the last. 
 We refer to the terror which he spread by his severi- 
 ties, just before assuming the imperial power. The 
 murder of the Duke d'Enghien was justified by Napo- 
 leon as a method of striking fear into the Bourbons, 
 who, as he said, were plotting his death. This may 
 have been one iaaotive ; for we have reason to think 
 that he was^bout that time threatened with assassina- 
 tion. But we believe stiU more, that he intended to 
 awe into acquiescence the opposition, which, he knew, 
 would be awakened in many breasts, by the prostration 
 of the forms of the republic, and the open assumption 
 of the imperial dignity. There were times when Bona- 
 parte disclaimed the origination of the murder of the 
 Duke d'Enghien. But no other could have originated 
 it. It bears internal marks of its author. The bold- 
 ness, decision, and overpowering rapidity of the crime, 
 point unerringly to the soul where it was conceived. 
 We believe that one great recommendation of this mur- 
 der, was, that it would strike amazement and terror 
 into France and Europe, and show that he was prepar- 
 ed to shed any blood, and to sweep before him every 
 obstruction, in his way to absolute power. Certain it 
 is, that the open murder of the Duke d'Enghien, and 
 the justly suspected assassinations of Pichegru and 
 Wright, did create a dread, such as had not been felt 
 before ; and whilst on previous occasions some faint 
 breathings of liberty were to be heard in the legislative 
 bodies, only one voice, that of Carnot, was raised 
 against investing Bonaparte with the imperial crown, 
 and laying France, an unprotected victim, at his feet. 
 
 There remain for our consideration other means em- 
 ployed by Bonaparte for building up and establishing 
 
87 
 
 his power, of a different character from those we have 
 named, and which on this account we cannot pass with- 
 out notice. One of these was the Concordat which he 
 extorted from the Pope, and which professed to re- 
 establish the Catholic religion in France. Our religious 
 prejudices have no influence on our judgment of this 
 measure. We make no objections to it, as the restor- 
 ation of a worship which on many accounts we con- 
 demn. We view it now simply as an instrument of 
 policy, and in this light, it seems to us no proof of the 
 sagacity of Bonaparte. It helps to confirm in us an 
 impression, which other parts of his history give us, 
 that he did not understand the peculiar character of his 
 age, and the peculiar and original policy which it de- 
 manded. He always used commonplace means of 
 power, although the unprecedented times in which he 
 lived, required a system, which should combine untried 
 resources, and touch new springs of action. Because 
 old governments had found a convenient prop in reli'- 
 gion, Napoleon imagined that it was a necessary ap- 
 pendage and support of his sway, and resolved to re- 
 store it. But at this moment there were no founda- 
 tions in France for a religious establishment, which 
 could give strength and a character of sacredness to 
 the supreme power. There was comparatively no 
 faith, no devout feeling, and still more, no superstition 
 to supply the place of these. The time for the reac- 
 tion of the religious principle had not yet arrived ; and 
 a more likely means of retarding it could hardly have 
 been devised, than the nursing care extended to the 
 church by Bonaparte, the recent Mussulman, the known 
 despiser of the ancient faith, who had no worship at 
 heart but the worship of himself. Instead of bringing 
 religion to the aid of the state, it was impossiblfe that 
 
88 
 
 such a man should touch it, without loosening the faint 
 hold which it yet retained on the people. There were 
 none so ignorant as to be the dupes of the First Consul 
 in this particular. Every man, woman, and child knew 
 that he was playing the part of a juggler. Not one re- 
 ligious association could be formed with his character 
 or government. It was a striking proof of the self- 
 exaggerating vanity of Bonaparte, and of his ignorance 
 of the higher principles of human nature, that he not 
 only hoped to revive and turn to his account the old 
 religion, but imagined, that he could, af necessary, have 
 created a new one. ' Had the Pope never existed be- 
 fore, he should have been made for the occasion,' was 
 the speech of this political charlatan ; as if religious 
 opinion and feeling were things to be manufactured by 
 a consular decree. Ancient legislators, by adopting 
 and sympathizing with popular and rooted superstitions, 
 were able to press them into the service of their insti- 
 tutions. They were wise enough to build on a pre^ 
 existing faith, and studiously to conform to it. Bona- 
 parte, in a country of infidelity and atheism, and whilst 
 unable to refrain from sarcasms on the system which 
 he patronised, was weak enough to believe that he 
 might make it a substantial support of his government. 
 He undoubtedly congratulated himself on the terms, 
 which he exacted from the Pope, and which had never 
 been conceded to the most powerful monarchs ; for- 
 getting that his apparent success was the defeat of his 
 plans ; for just as far as he severed the church from 
 the supreme pontiff, and placed himself conspicuously 
 at its head, he destroyed the only connexion which 
 could give it influence. Just so far its power over 
 opinion and conscience ceased. It became a coarse 
 instrument of state, contemned by the people, and serv- 
 
89 
 
 ing only to demonstrate the aspiring views of its mas- 
 ter. Accordingly the French bishops in general refus- 
 ed to hold their dignities under this new head, prefer- 
 red exile to the sacrifice of the rights of the church, and 
 left behind them a hearty abhorrence of the Concordat 
 among the more zealous members of their communion. 
 Happy would it have been for Napoleon, had he left 
 the Pope and the church to themselves. By occasion- 
 ally recognising and employing, and then insulting and 
 degrading the Roman pontiff, he exasperated a large 
 part of Christendom, fastened on himself the brand of 
 impiety, and awakened a religious hatred which con- 
 tributed its full measure to his fall. 
 
 As another means employed by Bonaparte for giving 
 strength and honor to his government, we may name 
 the grandeur of his public works, which he began in his 
 consulate and continued after his accession to the impe- 
 rial dignity. These dazzled France, and still impress 
 travellers with admiration. Could we separate these 
 from his history, and did no other indication of his 
 character survive, we should undoubtedly honor him 
 with the title of a beneficent sovereign ; but connected 
 as they are, they do little or nothing to change our con- 
 ceptions of him as an all-grasping, unprincipled usurper. 
 Paris was the chief object of these labors ; and surely 
 we cannot wonder, that he who aimed at universal do- 
 minion, should strive to improve and adorn the metropo- 
 lis of his empire. It is the practice of despots to be 
 lavish of expense on the royal residence and the seat of 
 government. Travellers in France, as in other coun- 
 tries of the continent, are struck and pained by the 
 contrast between the magnificent capital and the mud- 
 walled village and uninteresting province. Bonaparte 
 had a special motive for decorating Paris, for ' Paris is 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 5"rance,' as has often been observed ; and in conciliating 
 the vanity of the great city, he secured the obedience 
 of the whole country. The boasted internal improve- 
 ments of Napoleon scarcely deserve to be named, if w^e 
 compare their influence with the operation of his public 
 measures. The conscription, which drew from agricul- 
 ture its most effective laborers, and his continental 
 system, which sealed up every port and annihilated the 
 commerce of his empire, drained and exhausted France 
 to a degree, for which his artificial stimulants of indus- 
 try, and his splendid projects afforded no compensation. 
 Perhaps the most admired of all his public works, is the 
 road over the Simplon, to which all travellers concur in 
 giving the epithet, stupendous. But it ought not to 
 amaze us, that he, who was aspiring at unlimited do- 
 minion, should establish communications between the 
 different provinces of his empire. It ought not to 
 amaze us, that he, who had scaled the glaciers of St. 
 Bernard, should covet some easier passage for pouring 
 his troops into Italy ; nor is it very wonderful, that a 
 sovereign, who commanded the revenues of Europe, 
 and who lived in an age when civil engineering had 
 been advanced to a perfection before unknown, should 
 accomplish a bolder enterprise than his predecessors. 
 We would add, that Napoleon must divide with Fab- 
 broni the glory of the road over the Simplon ; for the 
 genius, which contrived and constructed, is more prop- 
 erly its author, than the will which commanded it. 
 
 There is however one great work, which gives Bona- 
 parte a fair claim on the gratitude of posterity, and 
 entitles him to an honorable renown. We refer to the 
 new code of laws, which was given to France under 
 his auspices. His participation in this work has indeed 
 been unwarrantably and ridiculously magnified. Be- 
 
91 
 
 cause he attended the meetings of the commissioners 
 to whom it was assigned, and made some useful and 
 sagacious suggestions, he has been fraised, as if he had 
 struck out, by the miraculous force of his genius, a new 
 code of laws. The truth is, that he employed for this 
 work, as he should have done, the most eminent civil- 
 ians of the empire ; and it is also true that these learned 
 men have little claim to originality ; for, as our author 
 observes, the code ' has few peculiarities making a dif- 
 ference between its principles and those of the Roman 
 law.' In other words, they preferred wisdom to nov- 
 elty. Still Bonaparte deserves great praise for his in- 
 terest in the work, for the impulse he gave to those to 
 whom it was committed, and for the time and thought, 
 which, amidst the cares of a vast empire, he bestowed 
 upon it. That his ambition incited him to this labor, 
 we doubt not. He meant to entwine the laurels of 
 Justinian with those of Alexander. But we will not 
 quarrel with ambition, when it is wise enough to devote 
 itself to the happiness of mankind. In the present 
 case, he showed that he understood something of true 
 glory ; and we prize the instance more, because it 
 stands almost alone in his history. We look on the 
 conqueror, the usurper, the spoiler of kingdoms, the in- 
 satiable despot, with disgust, and see in all these char- 
 acters an essential vulgarness of mind. But when we 
 regard him as a Fountain of Justice to a vast empire, 
 we recognise in him a resemblance to the just and be- 
 nignant Deity, and cheerfully accord to him the praise 
 of bestowing on a nation one of the greatest gifts, which 
 it is permitted to man to confer. It was however the 
 misery of Bonaparte, a curse brought on him by his 
 crimes, that he could touch nothing without leaving on 
 it the polluting mark of despotism. His usurpation 
 
92 
 
 took from him the power of legislating with magnanim- 
 ity, where his own interest was concerned. He could 
 provide for the administration of justice between man 
 and man, but not between the citizen and the ruler. 
 Political offences, the very class which ought to be sub- 
 mitted to a jury, were denied that mode of trial. Ju- 
 ries might decide on other criminal questions ; but they 
 were not to be permitted to interpose between the des- 
 pot and the ill fated subjects, who might fall under his 
 suspicion. These were arraigned before ' special tribu- 
 nals, invested with a half military character,' the ready 
 ministers of nefarious prosecutions, and only intended 
 to cloak by legal forms the murderous purpose of the 
 tyrant. 
 
 We have thus considered some of the means by 
 which Bonaparte consolidated and extended'his power. 
 We now see him advanced to that imperial throne, on 
 which he had long fixed his eager eye. We see France 
 alternately awed and dazzled by the influences we have 
 described, and at last surrendering, by public, deliberate 
 acts, without a struggle or a show of opposition, her 
 rights, liberties, interests, and power to an absolute 
 master and to his posterity forever. Thus perished the 
 name and forms of the Republic. Thus perished the 
 hopes of philanthropy. The air, which a few years 
 ago resounded with the shouts of a great people casting 
 away their chains, and claiming their birthright of free- 
 dom, now rung with the servile cries of long life to a 
 blood-stained usurper. There were indeed generous 
 spirits, true patriots, like our own La Fayette, still left 
 in France. But few and scattered, they were left to 
 shed in secret the tears of sorrowful and indignant des- 
 pair. By this base and disastrous issue of their revo- 
 
93 
 
 lution, the French nation not only renounced their own 
 rights, but brought reproach on the cause of freedom, 
 which years cannot wash away. This is to us a more 
 painful recollection, than all the desolations which 
 France spread through Europe, and than her own bit- 
 ter sufferings, when the hour of retribution came upon 
 her. The fields which she laid waste are again waving 
 with harvest ; and the groans which broke forth through 
 her cities and villages, when her bravest sons perished 
 by thousands and ten thousands on the snows of Russia, 
 have died away, and her wasted population is renewed. 
 But the wounds which she inflicted on freedom by the 
 crimes perpetrated in that sacred name, and by the ab- 
 ject spirit with which that sacred cause was deserted, 
 are still fresh and bleeding. France not only subjected 
 herself to a tyrant, but what is worse, she has given 
 tyranny everywhere new pleas and arguments, and 
 emboldened it to preach openly, in the face of heaven, 
 the impious doctrines of absolute power and uncondi- 
 tional submission. 
 
 Napoleon was now Emperor of France ; and a man 
 unacquainted with human nature, would think that such 
 an empire, whose bounds now extended to the Rhine, 
 might have satisfied even an ambitious man. But Bo- 
 naparte obeyed that law of progress,' to which the high- 
 est minds are peculiarly subjected ; and acquisition in- 
 flamed, instead of appeasing, the spirit of dominion. 
 He had long proposed to himself the conquest of Eu- 
 rope, of the world ; and the title of Emperor added in- 
 tenseness to this purpose. Did we not fear, that by 
 repetition we might impair the conviction which we are 
 most anxious to iinpress, we would enlarge on the enor- 
 mity of the guilt involved in the project 'of i universal 
 empire. Napoleon knev*^ distinctly the :pice', which he 
 
94 
 
 must pay for the eminence which he coveted. He 
 knew that the path to it lay over wounded and slaugh- 
 tered millioBs, over putrefying heaps of his fellow crea- 
 tures, over ravaged fields, smoking ruins, pillaged cities. 
 He knew that his steps would be followed by the groans 
 of widowed mothers and famished orphans ; of bereaved 
 friendship and despairing love ; and that in addition to 
 this amount of misery, he would create an equal amount 
 of crime, by multiplying indefinitely the instruments 
 and participators of his rapine and fraud. He knew 
 the price and resolved to pay it. But we do not insist 
 on a topic, which few, very few as yet, imderstand or 
 feel. Turning then for the present from the moral 
 aspect of this enterprise, we will view it in another 
 light, which is of great importance to a just estimate 
 of his claims on admiration. We will inquire into the 
 nature and fitness of the measures and policy which he 
 adopted, for compassing the subjugation of Europe and 
 the world. 
 
 We are aware, that this discussion may expose us to 
 the charge of great presumption. It may. be said that 
 men, having no access to the secrets of cabinets, and 
 no participation in public affairs, are not the best judges 
 of the policy of sudi a man as Napoleon. This we are 
 not anxious to disprove. We do not deny the disad- 
 vantages of our position, nor shall we quarrel with our 
 readers for questioning the soundness of our opinions. 
 But we will say, that though distant, we have not been 
 indifferent observers of the great events of our age, and 
 that though conscious of exposure to many errors, we 
 have a strong persuasion of the substantial correctness 
 of our views. We express then, without reserve, our 
 belief, that the policy of Napoleon was wanting in sa- 
 gacity, and that he proved himself incapable, as we 
 
96 
 
 before suggested, of understanding the character and 
 answering the demands of his age. His system was a 
 repetition of old means, when the state of the world 
 was new. The sword and the police, which had suf- 
 ficed him for enslaving France, were not the only pow- 
 ers required for his, designs against the human race. 
 Other resources were to be discovered or created ; and 
 the genius for calling them forth did not, we conceive, 
 belong to Napoleon. 
 
 The circumstances under which Napoleon aspired to 
 universal empire, differed in many respects from those 
 under which former conquerors were placed. It was 
 easy for Rome, when she had subdued kingdoms, to 
 reduce them to provinces and to govern them by force; 
 for nations at that period were bound together by no tie. 
 They had little communication with each other. Dif- 
 ferences of origin, of religion, of manners, of language, 
 of modes of warfare ; differences aggravated by long 
 and ferocious wars, and by the general want of civilisa- 
 tion, prevented joint action, and almost all concern for 
 one another's fate. Modern Europe, on the other hand, 
 was an assemblage of civilized states, closely connect- 
 ed by commerce, by litetature, by a common faith, by 
 interchange of thoughts and improvements, and by a 
 policy which had for ages proposed, as its chief object, 
 the establishment of such a balance of power as would 
 secure national independence. Under these influences 
 the human mind had made great progress ; and in truth 
 the French revolution had resulted from an unpreceden- 
 ted excitement and developement of men's faculties, and 
 from the extension of power and intelligence through a 
 vastly wider class, than had participated in them at any 
 former period. The very power, which Napoleon was 
 wielding, might be traced to an enthusiasm essentially 
 
96 
 
 generous, and manifesting a tendency of the civilized 
 world to better institutions. It is plain that the old 
 plans of conquest, and the maxims of comparatively bar- 
 barous ages, did not suit such a state of society. An 
 ambitious man was to make his way, by allying himself 
 with the new movements and excitements of the world. 
 The existence of a vast maritime power like England, 
 which, by its command of the ocean and its extensive 
 commerce, was brought into contact with every com- 
 munity, and which at the same time enjoyed the envia- 
 ble preeminence of possessing the freest institutions in 
 Europe, was of itself a sufficient motive for a great 
 modification of the policy, by which one state was now 
 to be placed at the head of the nations. The peculiar 
 character and influence of England, Bonaparte seemed 
 indeed never able to comprehend ; and the- violent 
 measures, by which he essayed to tear asunder the old 
 connexions of that country with the continent, only 
 gave them strength, by adding to the ties of interest 
 those of sympathy, of common suffering, and common 
 danger. 
 
 Force and corruption were the great engines of Na- 
 poleon, and he plied them without disguise or reserve, 
 not caring how far he insulted and armed against him- 
 self, the moral and national feelings of Eurojpe. His 
 great reliance was on the military spirit and energy of 
 the French people. To make France a nation of sol- 
 diers was the first and main instrument of his policy ; 
 and here he was successful. The revolution indeed 
 had in no small degree done this work to his hands. 
 To complete it, h'e introduced a national system of ed- 
 ucation, having for its plain end to train the whole 
 youth of France to a military life, to familiarize the 
 mind to this destination from its earliest years, and 
 
97 
 
 to associate the idea of glory almost exclusively with 
 arms. Th.e conscription gave full efficacy to this sys- 
 tem ; for as every young man in the empire had reason 
 to anticipate a summons to the army, the first object 
 in education, naturally was, to fit him for the field. 
 The public honors bestowed on rhilitary talent, and a 
 rigorous impartiality in awarding promotion to merit, 
 so that no origin, however obscure, was a bar to what 
 were deemed the highest honors of Europe, kindled the 
 ambition of the whole people into a flame^ and directed 
 it exclusively to the camp. It is true, the conscription, 
 which thinned So terribly the ranks of her youth, and 
 spread anxiety and bereavement through all her dwel- 
 lings, was severely felt in France. But Napoleon 
 knew the race whom it was his business to manage ; 
 and by the glare of victory, and the title of the Grand 
 Empire, he succeeded in reconciling them for a time to 
 the most painful domestic privations, and to an unex- 
 ampled waste of life. Thus he secured, what he ac- 
 counted the most important instrument of dominion, a 
 great military force. But, on the other hand, the stim- 
 ulants, which, for this purpose, he was forced to apply 
 perpetually to French vanity, the ostentation with 
 which the invincible power of France was trumpeted 
 to the world, and the haughty vaunting style which be- 
 came the most striking characteristic of that intoxicated 
 people, were perpetual irritations of the national spirit 
 and pride of Europe, and implanted a deep hatred to- 
 wards the new and insulting empire, which waited but 
 for a favorable moment to repay with interest the debt 
 of humiliation. 
 
 The condition of Europe forbade, as we believe, the 
 establishment of universal monarchy by mere physical 
 force. The sword, however importaint, was now to 
 9 
 
98 
 
 play but a secondary part. The true course for Napo- 
 leon seems to us to have been indicated, not only by 
 the state of Europe, but by the means which France in 
 the beginning of her revolution had found most effectu- 
 al. He should have identified himself w^ith some great 
 interests, opinion, or institutions, by wrhich he might 
 have bound to himself a large party in -every nation. 
 He should have contrived to make at least a specious 
 cause against all old establishments. To contrast him- 
 self most strikingly and most advantageously with for- 
 mer governments, should have been the key of his 
 policy. He should have placed himself at the head of 
 a new order of things, which should have worn the face 
 of an improvement of the social state. -Nor did the 
 subversion of republican forms prevent his adoption of 
 this course, or of some other which would have secured 
 to him the sympathy of multitudes. He might still have 
 drawn some broad lines between his own administra- 
 tion and that of other states, tending to throw the old 
 dynasties into the shade. He might have cast away the 
 ancient pageantry and forms, distinguished himself by 
 the simplicity of his establishments, and exaggerated the 
 relief which he gave to his people, by saving them the 
 burdens of a wasteful and luxurious court. He might 
 have insisted on the great benefits that had accrued to 
 France from the establishment of uniform laws, which 
 protected alike all classes of men ; and he might have 
 virtually pledged himself to the subversion of the feudal 
 inequalities A'shich still disfigured Europe. He might 
 have insisted oil the favorable changes to be introduced 
 into property, by abolishing the entails which fettered 
 it, the rights of primogeniture, and the exclusive privi- 
 leges of a haughty aristocracy.. He might have found 
 abuses enough against which to array himself as a 
 
99 
 
 champion. By becoming the head of new institutions, 
 which would have involved the transfer of power into 
 new hands, and would have offered to the people a real 
 improvement, he might everywhere have summoned to 
 his standard the bold and entetprising, and might have 
 disarmed the national prejudices to which he fell a prey. 
 Revolution was still the true instrument of power. In 
 a word, Napoleon lived at a period, when he could only 
 establish a durable afid universal control, through prin- 
 ciples and institutions of some kind or other, to which 
 he would seem to be devoted. 
 
 It was impossible, however, for such a man as Napo- 
 leon, to adopt, perhaps to conceive, a system such as 
 has now been traced ; for it was wholly at yvar with 
 that egotistical, self-relying, self-exaggerating principle, 
 which was the most striking feature of his mind. He 
 imagined himself able, not only to conquer nations, but 
 to hold them together by the awe and admiration which 
 his own character would inspire ; and this bond he pre- 
 ferred to every other. An indirect sway, a control of 
 nations by means of institutions, principles, or prejudi- 
 ces, of which he was to be only the apostle and defen- 
 der, was utterly inconsisterit with that vehemence of 
 will, that passion for astonishing mankind, and that 
 persuasion of his own invincibleness, which were his 
 master feelings, and which made force : his darling in- 
 strument of dominion. He chose to be the great, pal- 
 pable, and sole bond of his empire ; to have his image 
 reflected from every establishment ; to be the centre, 
 in which every ray of glory should meet, and from 
 which every impulse should be propagated. In conse- 
 quence of this egotism, he never dreamed of adapting 
 himself to the moral condition of the world. The 
 sword was his chosen weapon, and he used it without 
 
100 
 
 disguise. He insulted nations as well as sovereigns. 
 He did not attempt to gild their chains, or to fit the 
 yoke gently to their necks. The excess of his extor- 
 tions, the audacity of his claims, and the insolent lan- 
 guage in which Europe was spoken of as the vassal of 
 the great empire, discovered, that he expected to reign, 
 not only without linking himself with the interests, pre- 
 judices, and national feelings of men, but by setting all 
 at defiance. 
 
 It would be easy to point put a multitude of instan- 
 ces in which he sacrificed the only policy by which he 
 could prevail, to the persuasion, that his own greatness 
 could more than balance whatever opposition his vio- 
 lence might awaken. In an age in which Christianity 
 was exerting some power, there was certainly a degree 
 of deference due to the moral convictions of society. 
 But Napoleon thought himself more than a match for 
 the moral instincts and sentiments of our nature. He 
 thought himself able to cover the most atrocious deeds 
 by the splendor of his name, and even to extort applause 
 for crimes by the brilliancy of his success. He took no 
 pains to conciliate esteem. In his own eyes he was 
 mightier than conscience ; and thus he turned against 
 himself the power and resentment of virtue, in every 
 breast where that divine principle yet found a home. 
 
 Through the same blinding egotism, he was anxious 
 to fill the thrones of Europe with men bearing his own 
 name, and to multiply everywhere images of himself. 
 Instead of placing over conquered countries efficient 
 men, taken from themselves, who, by upholding better 
 institutions, would carry with them large masses of 
 the people, and who would still, by their hostility to 
 the old dynasties, link their fortunes with his own, he 
 placed over nations such men as Jerome and Murat. 
 
101 
 
 He thus spread a jealousy of his power, whilst he ren- 
 dered it insecure ; for as none of the princes of his 
 creation, however well disposed, were allowed to iden- 
 tify themselves with their subjects, and to take root in 
 the public heart, but were compelled to act, openly and 
 without disguise, as satellites and prefects of the French 
 emperor ; they gained no hold on their subjects, and 
 could bring no strength to their master in his hour of 
 peril. In none of his arrangements did Napoleon think 
 of securing to his cause the attachment of nations. 
 Astonishment, awe, and force, were his weapons, and 
 his own great name the chosen pillar of his throne- 
 So far was Bonaparte from magnifying the contrast 
 and distinctions between himself and the old dynasties 
 of Europe, and from attaching men to himself by new 
 principles and institutions, that he h|id the great weak- 
 ness, for so we view it, to revive the old forms of mon- 
 archy, and to ape the manners of the old court, and 
 thus to connect himself with the herd of legitimate sove- 
 reigns. This was not only to rob his government of 
 that imposing character which might have been given 
 to it, and of that interest which it might have inspired 
 as an improvement on former institutions, but was to 
 become competitor in a race in .which he could not but 
 be distanced. He could indeed pluck crowns from the 
 heads of monarchs ; but he could not by any means 
 infuse their blood into his veins, associate with himself 
 the ideas which are attached to a long line of ancestry, 
 or give to his court the grace of manners, which belongs 
 to older establishments. His true policy was, to throw 
 contempt on^distinctions, which he could not rival ; and 
 had he possessed the genius and spirit of the founder of 
 a new era, he would have substituted for a crown, and 
 for other long worn badges of power, a new and simple 
 
102 
 
 style of grandeur, and new insignia of dignity, more 
 consonant with an enlightened age, and worthy of one 
 who disdained t^ be a vulgar king. By the policy 
 which he adopted, if it be worthy of that name, he be- 
 came a vulgar king, and showed a mind incapable of 
 answering the wants and demands of his age. It is 
 well known, that the progress of intelligence had done 
 much in Europe, to weaken men's reverence for pa- 
 geantry and show. Nobles had learned to lay aside 
 their trappings in ordinary life, and to appear as gentle- 
 men. Even royalty had begun to retrench its pomp ; 
 and in the face of all this improvement, Bonaparte 
 stooped from his height, to study costumes, to legislate 
 about court dresses and court manners, and to outshine 
 his brother monarchs in their own line. He desired to 
 add the glory of master of ceremonies to that of con- 
 queror of nations. In his anxiety to belong to the cast 
 of kings, he exacted scrupulously the observance and 
 etiquette with which they are approached. Not satis- 
 fied with this approximation to the old sovereigns, with 
 whom he had no common interest, and from whom he 
 could^not have removed himself too far, he sought to 
 ally himself by marriage with the royal families in Eu- 
 rope, to ingraft himself and his posterity on an old im- 
 perial tree. This was the very way to turn back opinion 
 into its old channels ; to carry back Europe to its old 
 prejudices ; to facilitate the restoration of its old order; 
 to preach up legitimacy ; to crush every hope that he 
 was to work a beneficent change among nations. It 
 may seem strange that his egotism did not preserve 
 him from the imitation of antiquated monarchy. But 
 his egotism, though excessive, was not lofty, nor was 
 it seconded by a genius, rich and inventive, except in 
 war. 
 
103 
 
 We have now followed Napoleon to the height of his 
 power, and given our views of the policy bj which he 
 hoped to make that power perpetual and unbounded. 
 His fall is easily explained. It had its origin in that 
 spirit of self-reliance and self-exaggeration, of which 
 we have seen so many proofs. It began in Spain. 
 That country was a province in reality. He wanted to 
 make it one in name ; to place over it a Bonaparte ; to 
 make it a more striking manifestation of his power. 
 For this purpose, he ' kidnapped ' its royal family, stir- 
 red up the unconquerable spirit of its people, and, after 
 shedding on its plains and mountains the best blood of 
 France, lost it forever. Next came his expedition 
 against Russia, an expedition against which his wisest 
 counsellors remonstrated, but which had every recom- 
 mendation to a man who regarded hiniself as an excep- 
 tion to his race, and able to triumph over the laws of 
 nature. So insane were his self-confidence and impa- 
 tience of opposition, that he drove by his outrages Swe- 
 den, the old ally of France, into the arms of Russia, at 
 the very moment that he was about to throw himself 
 into the heart of that mighty empire. On his Russian 
 campaign we have no desire to enlarge. Of all the 
 mournful pages of history, none are more sad than that 
 which records the retreat of the French army from 
 Moscow. We remember, that when the intelligence of 
 Napoleon's discomfiture in Russia first reached this 
 country, we were aniong those who exulted in it, think- 
 ing only of the results. But when subsequent and 
 minuter accounts brought distinctly before our eyes 
 that unequalled ' army of France, broken, famished, 
 slaughtered, seeking shelter under snowdrifts, and per- 
 ishing by intense cold, we looked back on our joy with 
 almost a consciousness of guilt, and expiated by a sin^ 
 
i04 
 
 cere grief our insensibility to the suflferings of our fel- 
 low creatures. We understand that many interesting 
 notices of Napoleon, as he appeared in this disastrous 
 campaign, are given in the Memoirs of Count Segur, a 
 book, from which we have been repelled by the sor- 
 rows and miseries which it^ietails. We can conceive 
 few subjects more worthy of Shakspeare than the 
 mind of Napoleon, at the moment, when his fate was 
 sealed; when the tide of his victories was suddenly 
 stopped and rolled backwards ; when his dreams of in- 
 vincibleness were broken ' as by a peal of thunder ; 
 when the word, which had awed nations, died away, 
 on the bleak waste, a powerless sound ; and when he, 
 whose spirit Europe could not bound, fled in fear from 
 a captive's doom. The shock must have been tremen- 
 dous to a mind so, imperious, scornful, and unschooled 
 to humiliation.' The intense , agony of that moment 
 when he gave the unusual orders, to retreat ; the deso- 
 lateness of his soul, when he saw his brave soldiers, 
 and his chosen guards sinking in the snows, and perish- 
 ing in crowds around him ; his unwillingness to receive 
 the details of his losses, lest self-possession should fail 
 him ; the levity and badinage of his interview with the 
 Abbe de Pradt at Warsaw, discovering a mind laboring 
 to throw off an insupportable weight, wrestling with 
 itself, struggling against misery ; , and. though last not 
 least, his unconquerable purpose, still clinging to lost 
 empire as the only good of life ; these workings of such 
 a spirit would have furnished to the great dramatist a 
 theme, worthy of his transcendent powers. 
 
 By the irretrievable disasters of the Russian cam- 
 paign, the empire of the world was effectually placed 
 beyond the grasp of Napoleon. The tide of conquest 
 had ebbed, never to return. The spell which had 
 
105 
 
 bound the nations was dissolved;^ He was no longer 
 the Invincible. The weight of military power, which 
 had kept down the spirit of nations, was removed, and 
 their long smothered sense of wrong and insult broke 
 forth like the fires of a volcano. Bonaparte might still, 
 perhaps, have secured the throne of France ; but that 
 of Europe was gone. This, however, he did not, could 
 not, would nbt understand. He had connected with 
 himself too obstinately the character of the world's 
 master, to be able to relinquish it. Amidst the dark 
 omens which gathered round him, he still saw in his 
 past wonderful escapes, and in his own exaggerated 
 energies, the means of rebuilding his fallen power. 
 Accordingly the thought of abandoning his pretensions 
 does not seem to have crossed his mind, and his irre- 
 parable defeat was only a summons to new exertion. — 
 We doubt, indeed, whether Napoleon, if he could have 
 understood fully his condition, would have adopted a dif- 
 ferent course. Though despairing, he would probably 
 have raised new armies, and fought to the last. To a 
 mind, which has placed its whole happiness in having 
 no equal, the thought of descending to the level even 
 of kings is intolerable. Napoleon's mind had been 
 stretched by such ideas of universal empire, that France, 
 though reaching from the Rhine to the Pyrenes, seemed 
 narrow to him. He could not be shut up in it. Ac- 
 cordingly, as his fortunes darkened, we see no signs of 
 relenting. He could riot wear, he said, ' a tarnished 
 crown,' that is, a crown no brighter than those of Aus- 
 tria and Russia. He continued to use a master's tone. 
 He showed no change, but sUch as opposition works in 
 the obstinate ; he lost his temper and grew sour. He 
 heaped reproaches on his marshals, and the legislative 
 body. He insulted Metternich, the statesman, on whom, 
 
106 
 
 above all others, his fate depeiided. He irritated Mu- 
 rat by sarcasms, which rankled within hiih, and accel- 
 eratedi if they did not determine, his desertion of his 
 master. It is a, striking example of retribution, that 
 tlie very vehemence and sternness of his will, which 
 had borne him onward to dominion, now drove him to 
 the rejection of terms which might have left him a for- 
 midable power, and thus made his ruin entire. Refus- 
 ing to take counsel of events, he persevered in fighting 
 with a stubbornness,' which reminds us of a spoiled 
 child, who sullenly grasps what he knows he must re- 
 linquish, struggles without hope, and does not give over 
 resistance, until his little fingfers are one by one un- 
 clenched from the object on which he has set his heart. 
 Thus fell Napoleon. We shall follow his history no 
 farther. His retreat to Elba, his irruption into France, 
 his signal overthrow, and his banishment to St. Helena, 
 though they add to the romance of his history, throw 
 no new light on his character, and would of course 
 contribute nothing to our present object. There are 
 indeed incidents in this portion of his life which are 
 somewhat inconsistent with the firmness and conscious 
 superiority which belonged to him. But a man, into 
 whose character so much impulse, and so little princi- 
 ple entered, must not be expected to preserve unblem- 
 ished, in such hard reverses, the dignity and self-respect 
 of an emperor and a hero. 
 
 In the course of these remarks, our views of the 
 Conqueror, of the First Consul^ and of the Emperor, 
 have been given plainly and freely. The subject, how- 
 ever, is so important and interesting, that we have 
 thought it worth our while^ though at the hazard of 
 some repetition, to bring together, in a narrower com- 
 
107 
 
 pass, wha.t seem to us the great leading features of the 
 .intellectual and moral character of Nc(poleon Bonaparte. 
 
 His intellect was distinguished by rapidity of thought. 
 He understood by a glance wliat most men, and supe- 
 rior men, could learn only by study. He darted to a 
 conclusion rather by intuition than reasoning. In war, 
 ■yvhich was the only subject of which he was master, 
 he seized in an instant on the great points of his own 
 and his enemy's positions ; and combined at once the 
 movements, by which an overpowering force might be 
 thrown with unexpected fury on a vulnerable part of the 
 hostile line, and the fate of an army be decided in a 
 day. He understood war as a science ; but his mind 
 was too bold, rapid, and irrepressible, to be enslaved by 
 the technics of his profession. He found the old armies 
 fighting by rule, and he discovered the true characteris- 
 tic of .geniup, which, without despising rules, knows 
 when and how to break them. He understood tho- 
 roughly the immense moral povver, which is gained by 
 originality and rapidity of operation. He astonished 
 and paralysed his enemies by his unforeseen and impet- 
 uous assaults, by the suddeimess with which the storm 
 of battle burst upon them ; and, whilst giving to his 
 soldiers the advantages of modern discipline, breathed 
 into them, by his quick and decisive movements, the 
 enthusiasm of ruder ages. This power of disheartening 
 the foe, and of spreading through his own ranks a con- 
 fidence, and exhilarating courage, which made war a 
 pastime, and seemed to make victory sure, distinguished . 
 Napoleon in an age of uncommon military talent,, and 
 was one main instrument of his future power. 
 
 The wonderful effects of that rapidity of thought by 
 which Bonaparte was marked, the signal supcess of his 
 new mode of warfare, and the almost incredible speed 
 
108 
 
 with which his fame was spread through nations, had 
 no small agency in fixing his character and determining 
 for a period the fate of empires. These stirring influ- 
 ences infused a new consciousness of his own might. 
 They gave intensity and audacity to his ambition ; gave 
 form and substance - to his indefinite visions of glory, 
 and raised his fiery hopes to empire. The burst of ad- 
 miration, vrhich his early career called forth, must in 
 particular have had an influence, in imparting to his 
 ambition that niodification by which it was character- 
 ized, and which contributed alike to its success and to 
 its fall. He began with astonishing, the world, with 
 producing a sudden and universal sensation, such as 
 modern times had not witnessed. To astonish as well 
 as to sway by his energies, became the great aim, of his 
 life. Henceforth to rule was not enough for Bona- 
 parte. He wanted to amaze, to dazzle, to overpower 
 men^s souls, by striking, bold, magnificent, and unantici- 
 pated results. To govern ever so absolutely would not 
 have satisfied him, if he must have governed silently. 
 He wanted to reign through wonder and awe, by the 
 ■ grandeur and terror of his name, by displays of power 
 which would rivet on him every eye, and make him the 
 theme of every tongue. Power was his supreme object, 
 but a power which should be gazed at as M^ell as felt, 
 which should strike men as a prodigy, which should 
 shake old thrones as an earthquake, and by the sudden- 
 ness of its new, creations should a.waken something of 
 . the submissive wonder which miraculous agency in- 
 spires. 
 
 Such seems to us to have heen the . distinction, or 
 characteristic modification of his love of fame. It was 
 a diseased passion for a kind of admiration, which, from 
 the principles of our nature, cannot be enduring, and 
 
109 
 
 which demands for its support perpetual and more stim- 
 ulating novelty. Mere esteem he would have scorn- 
 ed. Calm admiration, though universal, and enduring, 
 would have been insipid. He wanted to electrify and 
 overwJielm. He lived for effect. The world was his 
 theatre, and he cared little what part he played, if he 
 might walk the sole hero on the stage, and call forth 
 bursts of applause, which would silence all other fame. 
 In war the triumphs which he coveted were those, in 
 which he seemed to sweep away his foes like a whirl- 
 wind ; and the immense and unparalleled sacrifice of 
 his own soldiers, in the rapid marches and daring as- 
 saults to which he owed his victories, in no degree 
 diminished their worth to the victor. In peace, he de- 
 lighted to hurry through his dominions ; to multiply 
 himself by his rapid movements ; to gather at a glance 
 the capacities of improvement which every important 
 place possessed ; to suggest plails which would startle 
 by their originality and vastness ; to project in an in- 
 stant, works which a life could not accomplish, and to 
 leave behind the impression of, a superhuman energy. 
 
 Our sketch of Bonaparte would be imperfect indeed, 
 if we did not add, that he was characterized by nothing 
 more strongly than by the spirit of Self-exaggeration. 
 The singular energy« of his intellect and will, through 
 which he had mastered so many rivals and foes, and 
 overcome what seemed insuperable obstacles, inspired 
 a consciousness of being something more than man. 
 His strong original tendencies to pride and self-exalta- 
 tion, fed and pampered by strange success and unbound- 
 ed applause, swelled into an almost insane conviction 
 of superhuman greatness. In his own view, he stood 
 apart from other men. He was not to be measured by 
 the standard of humanity. He was not to be retarded 
 10 
 
no 
 
 by difficulties to which all others yielded. He was not 
 to be subjected to laws and obligations which all others 
 were expected to obey. Nature and the human will 
 v/ere to bend to his power. He was the child and fa- 
 vorite of fortune, and if not the lord, the chief object 
 of destiny. His history shows a spirit of self-exaggera- 
 tion, unrivalled in enlightened ages, and which reminds 
 us of an Oriental king to whom incense had been burnt 
 from his birth as to a deity. This was the chief source 
 of his crimes. He wanted the sentiment of a common 
 nature with his fellow beings. He had no sympathies 
 with his race. That feeling of brotherhood, which is 
 developed in truly great souls with peculiar energy, and 
 through which they give up themselves willing victims, 
 joyful sacrifices, to the interests of mankind, was wholly 
 unknown to him. His heart, amidst its wild beatings, 
 never had a throb of disinterested love. - The ties which 
 bind man to man he broke asunder. The proper hap- 
 piness of a man, which consists in the victory of moral 
 energy and social affection over the selfish passions, he 
 cast away for the lonely joy of a despot. With powers, 
 which might have made him a glorious representative 
 and minister of the beneficent Divinity, and with natu- 
 ral sensibilities which might have been exalted into 
 sublime virtues, he chose to separate himself from his 
 kind, to forego their love, esteem, and gratitude, that 
 he might become their gaze, their fear, their wonder ; 
 and for this selfish, solitary good, parted with peace 
 and imperishable renown. 
 
 This insolent exaltation of himself above the race to 
 which he belonged, broke out in the beginning of his 
 career. His first success in Italy gave him the tone of 
 a master, and he never laid it aside to his last hour. 
 One can hardly help being struck with the natural man- 
 
in 
 
 ner with which he arrogates supremacy in his conversa- 
 tion and proclamations. We never feel as if he were 
 putting on a lordly air. In his proudest claims, he 
 speaks from his own mind, and in native language. His 
 style is swollen, but never strained, as if he were con- 
 scious of playing a part above his real claims. Even 
 when he was foolish and impious enough to arrogate mi- 
 raculous powers and a mission from God, his language 
 showed that he thought there was something in his cha- 
 racter and exploits to give a color to his blasphemous 
 pretensions. The empire of the world seemed to him 
 to be in a measure his due, for nothing short of it cor- 
 responded with his conceptions of himself; and he did 
 not use mere verbiage, but spoke a language to which 
 he gave some credit, when he called his successive con- 
 quests ' the fulfilment of his destiny.' 
 
 This spirit of self-exaggeration wrought its own mis- 
 ery, and drew down upon him terrible punishments ; 
 and this it did by vitiating and perverting his high pow- 
 ers. First, it diseased his fine intellect, gave imagina- 
 tion the ascendency over judgment, turned the inven- 
 tiveness and fruitfulness of his mind into rash, impa- 
 tient, restless energies, and thus precipitated him into 
 projects, which, as the wisdom of his counsellors pro- 
 nounced, were fraught with ruin. To a man whose 
 vanity took him out of the rank of human beings, no 
 foundation for reasoning was left. All things seemed 
 possible. His genius and his fortune were not to be 
 bounded by the barriers, which experience had assigned 
 to human powers. Ordinary rules did not apply to 
 him. He even found excitement and motives in obsta- 
 cles, before which other men would have wavered ; for 
 these would enhance the glory of triumph, and give a 
 new thrill to the admiration of the world. According- 
 
112 
 
 \y he again and again plunged into the depths of an 
 enemy's country, and staked his whole fortune and 
 power on a single battle. To be rash was indeed the 
 necessary result of his self-exalting and self-relying spir- 
 it ; for to dare what no other man would dare, to ac- 
 complish what no other man would attempt, was the 
 very way to display himself as a superior being in his 
 own and others' eyes. — To be impatient and restless 
 was another necessary issue of the attributes we have 
 described. The calmness of wisdom was denied him. 
 He, who was next to omnipotent in his own eyes, and 
 who delighted to strike and astonish by sudden and 
 conspicuous operations, could not brook delay or wait 
 for the slow operations of time. A work, which was to 
 be gradually matured by the joint agency of various 
 causes, could not suit a man, v/ho wanted to be felt as 
 the great, perhaps only, cause ; who^ wished to stamp 
 his own agency in the most glaring characters on what- 
 ever he performed ; and who hoped to rival by a sud- 
 den energy the steady and progressive works of nature. 
 Hence so many of his projects were never completed, 
 or only announced. They swelled however the tide of 
 flattery, which ascribed to him the completion of what 
 was not yet begun, whilst his restless spirit, rushing to 
 new enterprises, forgot its pledges, and left the prom- 
 ised prodigies of his creative genius to exist only in the 
 records of adulation. — Thus the rapid and inventive in- 
 tellect of Bonaparte was depraved, and failed to achieve 
 a growing and durable greatness. It reared indeed a 
 vast and imposing structure, but disproportioned, dis- 
 jointed, without strength, without foundations. One 
 strong blast was enough to shake and shatter it, nor 
 could his genius uphold it. Happy would it have been 
 for his fame, had he been buried in its ruins ! 
 
113 
 
 One of the striking properties of Bonaparte's charac- 
 ter was decision, and this, as we have already seen, was 
 perverted, by the spirit of self-exaggeration, into an in- 
 flexible stubbornness, which counsel could not enlight- 
 en, nor circumstances bend. Having taken the first 
 step, he pressed onward. His purpose he wished oth- 
 ers to regard as a law of nature, or a decree of destiny. 
 It must be accomplished. Resistance but strengthened 
 it ; and so often had resistance been overborne, that he 
 felt as if his unconquerable will, joined to his matchless 
 intellect, could vanquish all things. On such a mind 
 the warnings of human wisdom and of Providence were 
 spent in vain ; and the Man of Destiny lived to teach 
 others, if not himself, the weakness and folly of that all- 
 defying decision, which arrays the purposes of a mortal 
 with the immutableness of the counsels of the Most 
 High. 
 
 A still more fatal influence of the spirit of self-exag- 
 geration which characterized Bonaparte, remains to be 
 named. It depraved to an extraordinary degree his 
 moral sense. It did not obliterate altogether the ideas 
 of duty, but, l)y a singular perversion, it impelled him 
 to apply them exclusively to others. It never seemed 
 to enter his thought, that he was subject to the great 
 obligations of morality, which all others are called to 
 respect. He was an exempted being. Whatever stood 
 in his way to empire, he was privileged to remove. 
 Treaties only bound his enemies. No nation had rights 
 but his own France. He claimed a monopoly in perfidy 
 and violence. He was not naturally cruel ; but when 
 human life obstructed his progress, it was a lawful prey, 
 and murder and assassination occasioned as little com- 
 punction as war. The most luminous exposition of his 
 moral code was given in his counsels to the king of 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 Holland. ' Never forget, that in the situation to which 
 my political system and the interests of my empire have 
 called you, your first duty is towards ME, your second 
 towards France. All your other duties, even those to- 
 wards the people whom I have called you to govern, 
 rank after these.' To his own mind he was the source 
 and centre of duty. He was too peculiar and exalted, 
 to be touched by that vulgar stain, called guilt. Crimes 
 ceased to be such, when perpetrated by himself. Ac- 
 cordingly he always speaks of his transgressions as of 
 indifferent acts. He never imagined that they tarnish- 
 ed his glory, or diminished his claim on the homage of 
 the world. In St. Helena, though talking perpetually 
 of himself, and often reviewing his guilty career, we 
 are not aware that a single compunction escapes him. 
 He speaks of his life as calmly as if it had been conse- 
 crated to duty and beneficence, whilst in the same breath 
 he has the audacity to reproach unsparingly the faith- 
 lessness of almost every individual and nation, with 
 whom he had been connected. We doubt whether 
 history furnishes so striking an example of the moral 
 blindness and obduracy to which an unbounded egotism 
 exposes and abandons the mind. ' 
 
 His spirit of self-exaggeration was seen in his open- 
 ness to adulation. Policy indeed prompted him to put 
 his praises into the mouths of the venal slaves, who ad- 
 ministered his despotism. But flattery would not have 
 been permitted to swell into exaggerations, now nau- 
 seous, now ludicrous, and now impious, if, in the bosom 
 of the chief, there had not lodged a flatterer who sound- 
 ed a louder note of praise than all around him. He 
 was remarkably sensitive to opinion, and resented as a 
 wrong the suppression of his praises. The press of all 
 countries was watched, and free states were called upon 
 
116 
 
 to curb it for daring to take liberties with his name. 
 Even in books published in France on general topics, 
 he expected a recognition of his authority. Works of 
 talent were suppressed, when their authors refused to 
 offer incense at the new shrine. He resolved indeed 
 to stamp his name on the literature, as on the legisla- 
 tion, policy, warfare of his age, and to compel genius, 
 whose pages survive statues, columns, and empires, to 
 talj.e a place among his tributaries. 
 
 We. close our view of Bonaparte's character, by say- 
 ing, that his original propensities, released from re- 
 straint, and pampered by indulgence, to a degree seldom 
 allowed to mortals, grew up into a spirit of despotism 
 as stern and absolute as ever usurped the human heart. 
 The love of power and supremacy absorbed, consumed 
 him. No other passion, no domestic attachment, no 
 private friendship, no love of pleasure, no relish for let- 
 ters or the arts, no human sympathy, no human weak- 
 ness, divided his mind with the passion for dominion 
 and for dazzling manifestations of his power. Before 
 this, duty, honor, love, humanity fell prostrate. Jose- 
 phine, we are told,, was dear to him; but the devoted 
 wife, who had stood firm and faithful in the day of his 
 doubtful fortunes, was cast off in his prosperity, to 
 make room for a stranger, who might be more subser- 
 vient to his power. He was affectionate, we are told, 
 to his brothers and mother ; but his brothers, the mo- 
 ment they ceased to be his tools, were disgraced ; and 
 his mother, it is said, was not allowed to sit in the 
 presence of her imperial son.* He was sometimes 
 softened, we are told, by the sight of the field of battle 
 strown with the wounded and dead. But if the Moloch 
 
 • See 'America,' page 57. "We should not give this very vmamiable trait of 
 Napoleon's domestic character, but on authority which we cannot question. 
 
116 
 
 of his ambition claimed new heaps of slain to-morrow", 
 it was never denied. With all his sensibility, he gave 
 millions to the sword, with as little coihpunction as he 
 would have brushed avvay so many insects, which had- 
 infested his march. To him, all human will, desire, 
 power, were to bend. His superiority, none might 
 question. He insulted the fallen, who had contracted 
 the guilt of opposing his progress ; and not even woman's 
 loveliness, and the dignity of a queen, could give shel- 
 ter from his contumely. His allies were his vassals, 
 nor was their, vassalage concealed. Too lofty to use 
 the arts of conciliation, preferring command to persua- 
 sion, overbearing, and all-grasping, he spread distrust, 
 exasperation, fear, and revenge through Europe ; and 
 when the day of retribution came, the old antipathies 
 and mutual jealousies of nations were swallowed up in 
 one burning purpose to prostrate the common tyrant, 
 the universal foe. 
 
 Such was Napoleon Bonaparte. But some will say, 
 he Avas still a great man. This we mean not to deny. 
 But we would have it understood, that there are various 
 kinds or orders of greatness, and that the highest did 
 not belong to Bonaparte. There are different orders 
 of greatness. Among these the first rank is unques- 
 tionably due to Moral greatness, or magnanimity ; to 
 that sublime energy, by which the soul, smitten with 
 the love of virtue, binds itself indissolubly, for life and 
 for death, to truth and duty ; espouses as its own the 
 interests of human nature ; scorns all meanness and de- 
 fies all peril ; hears in its own conscience a voice louder 
 than threatenings and thunders ; withstands all the 
 powers of the universe, which would sever it from the 
 cause of freedom, and religion ; reposes an unfaltering 
 trust in God in the darkest hour, and is ever ' ready to 
 
117 
 
 be offered up ' on the altar of its country or of mankind. 
 Of this moral greatness, which throws all other forms 
 of greatness into obscurity, we see not a trace in Na- 
 poleon. Though clothed with the power of a god, the 
 thought of consecrating himself to the introduction of 
 a new and higher era, to the exaltation of the charac- 
 ter and condition of his race, seems never to have 
 dawned on his mind. The spirit of disinterestedness 
 and self-sacrifice seems not to have waged a moment's 
 war with self-will and ambition. His ruling passions, 
 indeed, were singularly at variance with magnanimity. 
 Moral greatness has too much simplicity, is too unos- 
 tentatious, too self-subsistent, and enters into others' 
 interests with too much heartiness, to live an hour for 
 what Napoleon always lived, to make itself the theme, 
 and gaze, and wonder of a dazzled world. — Next to 
 moral, comes Intellectual greatness, or Genius in the 
 highest sense of that word ; and by this, we mean that 
 sublime capacity of thought, through which the soul, 
 smitten with the love of the true and the beautiful, es- 
 says to comprehend the universe, soars into the heavens, 
 penetrates the earth, penetrates itself, questions the 
 past, anticipates the future, traces out the general and 
 all-comprehending laws of nature, binds together by 
 innumerable affinities and relations all the objects of its 
 knowledge, rises from the finite and transient to the in- 
 finite and the everlasting, frames to itself from its own 
 fulness lovelier and sublimer forms than it beholds, dis- 
 cerns the harmonies between the world within and the 
 world without us, and finds in every region of the uni- 
 verse types and interpreters of its own deep mysteries 
 and glorious, inspirations. This is the greatness which 
 belongs to philosophers, and to the master spirits in 
 poetry and the fine arts. — Next comes the greatness of 
 
118 
 
 Action; and by this we mean the sublime power of con- 
 ceiving bold and extensive plans ; of constructing and 
 bringing to bear on a mighty object a complicated ma- 
 chinery of means, energies, and arrangements, and of 
 accomplishing great outward effects. To this head be- 
 longs the greatness of Bonaparte, and that he possessed 
 it, we need not prove, and none will be hardy enough to 
 deny. A man, who raised himself from obscurity to a 
 throne, who changed the face of the world, vyho made 
 himself felt through powerful and civilized nations, who 
 sent the terror of his name across seas and oceans, 
 whose will was pronounced and feared as destiny, whose 
 donatives were crowns, whose antechamber was throng- 
 ed by submissive princes, who broke down the awful 
 barrier of the Alps and made them a highway, and 
 whose fame was spread beyond the boundaries of civili- 
 sation to the steppes of the Cossack, and the deserts of 
 the Arab ; a man, who has left this record of himself in 
 history, has taken out of our hands the question, whether 
 he shall be called great. All must concede to him a sub- 
 lime power of action, an energy equal to great effects. 
 We are not disposed, however, to consider him as 
 preeminent even in this order of greatness. War was 
 his chief sphere. He gained his ascendency in Europe 
 by the sword. But war is not the field for the highest 
 active talent, and Napoleon, we suspect, was conscious 
 of this truth. The glory of being the greatest general 
 of his age, would not have satisfied him. He would 
 have scorned to take his place by the side of Marlbor- 
 ough or Turenne. It was as the founder of an empire, 
 which threatened for a time to comprehend the world, 
 and which demanded other talents besides that of war, 
 that he challenged unrivalled fame. And here W6 
 question his claim. Here we cannot award him su- 
 
119 
 
 premacj. The project of universal empire, however 
 imposing, was not original. The revolutionary govern- 
 ments of France had adopted it before ; nor can we con- 
 sider it as a sure indication of greatness, when we remem- 
 ber that the weak and vain mind of Louis XIV., was large 
 enough to cherish it. The question is ; Did Napoleon 
 bring to this design the capacity of advancing it by bold 
 and original conceptions, adapted to an age of civilisa- 
 tion, and of singular intellectual and moral excite- 
 ment? Did he discover new foundations of power.? 
 Did he frame new bonds of union for subjugated na- 
 tions ? Did he discover, or originate, some common 
 interests by which his empire might be held together .'' 
 Did he breathe a spirit which should supplant the old 
 national attachments, or did he invent any substitutes 
 for those vulgar instruments of force and corruption, 
 which any and every usurper would have used .'' Nev- 
 er in the records of time, did the world furnish such 
 materials to work with, such means of modelling na- 
 tions afresh, of building up a new power, of introducing 
 a new era, as did Europe at the period of the French 
 revolution. Never was the human mind so capable of 
 new impulses. And did Napoleon prove himself equal 
 to the condition of the world ? Do we detect one origi- 
 nal conception in his means of universal empire ? Did 
 he seize on the enthusiasm of his age, that powerful 
 principle, more efficient than arms or policy, and bend it 
 to his purpose ? What did he do but follow the beaten 
 track ? but apply force and fraud in their very coarsest 
 forms ? Napoleon showed a vulgar mind, when he as- 
 sumed self-interest as the sole spring of human action. 
 With the sword in one hand and bribes in the other, he 
 imagined himself absolute master of the human mind. 
 The strength of moral, national, and domestic feeling, 
 
120 
 
 he could not comprehend. The finest, and after all, 
 the most powerful elements in human nature, hardly 
 entered into his conceptions of it ; and how then could 
 he have established a durable power over the human 
 race ? We want little more to show his want of origi- 
 nality and comprehensiveness as the founder of an em- 
 pire, than the simple fact, that he chose as his chief 
 counsellors Talleyrand and Fouche, names which speak 
 for themselves. We may judge of the greatness of the 
 master spirit, from the minds which he found most con- 
 genial with his own. In war, Bonaparte was great ; 
 for he was bold, original, and creative. Beyond the 
 camp he indeed showed talent, but not superior to that 
 of other eminent men. 
 
 There have been two circumstances, which have 
 done much to disarm or weaken the strong moral re- 
 probation with which Bonaparte ought to have been 
 regarded, and which we deem worthy of notice. We 
 refer to the wrongs which he is supposed to have suf- 
 fered at St. Helena, and to the unworthy use which 
 the Allied Powers have made of their triumph over 
 Napoleon. First, his supposed wrongs at St. Helena 
 have excited a sympathy in his behalf, which has thrown 
 a veil over his crimes. We are not disposed to deny, 
 that an unwarrantable, because unnecessary, severity 
 was exercised towards Bonaparte. We think it not 
 very creditable to the British government, that it tor- 
 tured a sensitive captive by refusing him a title which 
 he had long worn. We think that not only religion and 
 humanity, but self-respect forbids us to inflict a single 
 useless pang on a fallen foe. But we should be weak 
 indeed, if the moral judgments and feelings, with which 
 Napoleon's career ought to be reviewed, should give 
 
121 
 
 place to sympathy with the sufferings by which it was 
 closed. With regard to the scruples, which not a few 
 have expressed as to the right of banishing him to St. 
 Helena, we can oi^ly say, that our consciences are not 
 yet refined to such exquisite delicacy, as to be at all 
 sensitive on this particular. We admire nothing more 
 in Bonaparte, than the effrontery with which he claim- 
 ed protection from the laws of nations. That a man, 
 who had set these laws at open defiance, should fly 
 to them for shelter ; that the oppressor of the world 
 should claim its sympathy as an oppressed man, and 
 that his claim should find advocates ; these things are 
 to be set down among the extraordinary events of 
 this extraordinary age. Truly, the human race is in 
 a pitiable state. It may be trampled on, spoiled, load- 
 ed like a beast of burden, made the prey of rapacity, 
 insolence, and the sword ; but it must not touch a hair, 
 or disturb the pillow of one of its oppressors, unless it 
 can find chapter and verse in th6 code of national law, 
 to authorise its rudeness towards the privileged offen- 
 der. For ourselves, we should rejoice to see every ty- 
 rant, vVhether a usurper or hereditary prince, fastened 
 to a lonely rock in the ocean. Whoever gives clear, 
 undoubted proof, that he is prepared and sternly resol- 
 ved to make the eartli a slaughterhouse, and to crush 
 every will adverse to his own, ought to be caged like a 
 wild beast ; and to require mankind to proceed against 
 him according to written laws and precedents, as if he 
 were a private citizen in a quiet court of justice, is just 
 as rational as to require a man, in eminent peril from 
 an assassin, to wait and prbsecute his murderer accord- 
 ing to the most protracted forms of law. There are 
 great solemn rights of nature, which precede laws, and 
 on which law is founded. There are great exigences 
 11 
 
122 
 
 in human affairs, which speak for themselves, and need 
 no precedent to teach the right path. There are awful 
 periods in the history of our race,' which do not belong 
 to its ordinary state, and which are not to be governed 
 and judged by ordinary rules. Such a period was that, 
 when Bonaparte, by infraction of solemn engagements, 
 had thrown himself into France, and convulsed all Eu- 
 rope ; arid they, who confound this with the ordinary 
 events of history, and see in Bonaparte but an ordinary 
 foe to the peace and independence of nations, have cer- 
 tainly very different intellects from our own. 
 
 We confess, too, that we are not only unable to see 
 the wrong done to Napoleon in sending him to St. Hel- 
 ena, but that we cannot muster up much sympathy for 
 the inconveniences and privations which he endured 
 there. Our sympathies in this particular are wayward 
 and untractable. When we would carry them to that 
 solitary island, and fasten them on the illustrious vic- 
 tim of British cruelty, they will not tarry there, but 
 take their flight across the Mediterranean to Jaffa, and 
 across the Atlantic to the platform where the Duke 
 d'Enghien was shot, to the prison of Toussaint, and to 
 fields of battle where thousands at his bidding lay wel- 
 tering in blood. When we strive to fix our thoughts up- 
 on the sufferings of the injured hero, other and more ter- 
 rible sufferings, of which he was the cause, rush upon us ; 
 and his complaints, however loud and angry, are drown- 
 ed i)y groans and execrations, which fill our ears from 
 every region which he traversed. We have no tears to 
 spare for fallen greatness, when that greatness was 
 founded in crime, and reared by force and perfidy. We 
 reserve them for those on whose ruin it rose. We keep 
 our sympathies for our race, for human nature in its 
 humbler forms, for the impoverished peasant, the wid- 
 
123 
 
 owed mother, the violated virgin ; and are even per- 
 verse enough to rejoice, that! the ocean has a prison- 
 house, where the author of those miseries may be safe- 
 ly lodged. Bonaparte's history is to us too solemn, the 
 wrongs for which humanity and freedom arraign him, 
 are too flagrant, to allow us to play the part of sentimen- 
 talists around his grave at St. Helena. We leave this 
 to the more refined age in which we live ; and we do 
 so in the hope that an age is coming of less tender 
 mould, but of loftier, sterner feeling, and of deeper 
 sympathy with the whole human race. Should our 
 humble page then live, we trust with an undoubting 
 faith, that the uncompromising indignation with which 
 we plead the cause of bur oppressed and insulted na- 
 ture, will not be set down to the account of vindictive- 
 ness and hardness of- heart. 
 
 We observed that the moral indignation of many to- 
 wards Bonaparte had been impaired or turned away, 
 not only by his supposed wrongs, but by the unworthy 
 use which his conquerors made of their triumph. We 
 are told, that bad as was his despotism, the Holy Alli'- 
 ance is a worse one ; and that Napoleon was less a 
 scourge, than the present coalition of the continental 
 monarchs, framed for the systematic suppression of 
 freedom. By such reasoning, his crimes are cloaked, 
 and his fall made a theme of lamentation. It is not 
 one of the smallest errors and sins of the Allied Sove- 
 reigns, that they have contrived, by their base policy, 
 to turn the resentments and moral displeasure of men 
 from the usurper upon themselves. For these sove- 
 reigns we have no defence to offer. We' yield to none 
 in detestation of the Holy Alliance, profanely so called, 
 To us its doctrines are as false and , pestilent, as any 
 broached by Jacobinism. The Allied MoUarchs are ad- 
 
124 
 
 ding to the other wrongs of despots, that of flagrant 
 ingratitude ; of ingratitude to the generous and brgye 
 nations, to whom they owe their thrones, whose spirit 
 of independence and patriotism, and whose hatred of 
 the oppre_ssor, contributed more than standing armies, 
 to raise up the fallen, and to strengthen the falling mon- 
 archies of Europe. Be it never forgotten in the records 
 of despqtisfn, let history record ^t on her niost durable 
 tablet, that the first use made by the principal conti- 
 nental sovereigns of their regained or confirmed power, 
 was, to conspire against the hopes and rights of the 
 nations by whom they had been saved ; to combine the 
 military power of Europe against free institutions, 
 against the press, against the spirit of liberty and patri- 
 otism which had sprung up in the glorious struggle with 
 Napoleon, against the right of the people to exert an 
 influence on the governments by which their dearest 
 interests were to be controlled. Never be it forgotten, 
 that such was the honor of sovereigns, such their requi- 
 tal for the blood which had been shed freely in their 
 defence. Freedom and humanity send up a solemn, and 
 prevailing cry against them, to that tribunal, where kings 
 and subjects are soon to stand as equals. 
 
 But still we should be strangely blind, if we were 
 not to feel that the fall of Napoleon was a blessing to 
 the world. Who can look, for example, at France, and 
 not see there a degree of freedom which could never 
 have grown up under the terrible frown of the usurper ? 
 True, Bonaparte's life, though it seemed a charmed one, 
 must at length have ended ; and we are told that then 
 his empire would have been broken, and that the gene- 
 ral crash, by some inexplicable process, would have giv- 
 en birth to a more extensive and durable liberty than 
 can now be hoped. But such anticipations seem to us 
 
126 
 
 to be built on a strange inattention to the nature and 
 inevitable consequences of Napoleon's poM-^er. It was 
 wholly a military power. He was literally turning 
 Europe into a camp, and drawing its best talent into 
 one occupation, war. Thus Europe was retracing its 
 steps to those ages of calamity and darkness, when the 
 only law was the sword. The progress of centuries, 
 which had consisted chiefly in the substitution of intel- 
 ligence, public opinion, and other mild and, rational in- 
 fluences, for brutal force, was to be reversed. At Bo- 
 naparte's death, his empire must, indeed, have been 
 dissolved ; but military chiefs, like Alexander's lieuten- 
 ants, would have divided it. The sword alone would 
 have shaped its future communities ; and after years of 
 desolation and bloodshed, Europe would have found, 
 not repose, but a respite, an armed truce, under warriors, 
 whose only title to empire would have been their own 
 good blades, and the weight of whose thrones would 
 have been upheld by military force alone. Amidst such 
 convulsions, during which the press would have been 
 everywhere fettered, and the military spirit would have 
 triumphed over and swallowed up the spirit and glory of 
 letters and liberal arts, we greatly fear, that the human 
 intellect would have lost its present impulse, its thirst 
 for progress, and would have fallen back towards barba- 
 rism. Let not the friends of freedom bring dishorior on 
 themselves or desert their cause, by instituting compar- 
 isons between Napoleon and legitimate sovereigns, 
 which inay be construed into etilogies on the former. 
 For ourselves, we have no sympathy with t5Tanny, 
 whether it bear the name of usurpation or legitimacy. 
 We are not pleading the cause of the Allied Sovereigns. 
 In our judgment, they have contracted the very guilt 
 against which they have pretended to combine. In our 
 
 ir 
 
126 
 
 apprehension, a conspiracy against the rights of the 
 human race, is as foul, a crime as rebellion against the 
 rights of sovereigns ; nor is there less of treason in war- ■ 
 ring against public freedom, than in assailing royal pow- 
 er. Still we are bound in truth to -confess, that the 
 Allied Sovereigns are not to be ranked with Bonaparte, 
 whose design against the independence of nations and 
 the liberties of the world, in this age of civilisation, 
 liberal thinking, and christian knowledge, is- in our esti- 
 mation the most nefarious enterprise recorded in history. 
 
 The series of events, which it has been our province 
 to review, offers subjects of profound thought and sol- 
 emn instruction to the moralist and politician. We 
 have retraced it with many painful feelings. It shows us 
 a great people, who had caught some indistinct glimp- 
 ses of freedom, and of a nobler and a happier political 
 constitution, betrayed by their leaders, and brought back, 
 bj' a military despot, to heavier chains than they had 
 broken. We see with indignation one man, a man like 
 ourselves, subjecting whole nations to his absolute rule. 
 It is this wrong and insult to our race which has chiefly 
 moved us. Had a storm of God's ordination, passed 
 over Europe, prostrating its capitals, sweeping off its 
 villages, burying millions in ruins, we should have wept, 
 we should have trembled. But in this there would have 
 been only wretchedness. Now we also see debasement. 
 To us there is something radically, and increasingly 
 shocking, in the thought of one man's will becoming a 
 law to his race ; in the thought of multitudes, of vast 
 communities, surrendering conscience, intellect, their 
 affections, their rights, their interests to the stern man- 
 date of a fellow creature. When w^e see one word of 
 a frail man on the throne of France, tearing a hundred 
 
127 
 
 thousand sons from their homes, breaking asunder the 
 sacred ties of domestic life, sentencing myriads of the 
 young to make murder their -calling and rapacity their 
 means of support, and extorting from nations their treas- 
 ures to extend this ruinous sway, we are ready to ask 
 ourselves, Is not this a dream ? And when the sad re- 
 ality comes home to us, we blush for a race which can 
 stoop to such an abject lot. At length, indeed, we see 
 the tyrant humbled, stripped of power ; but stripped 
 by those who, in the main, are not unwillirig to play the 
 despot on a narrower scale, and to break down the spirit 
 of nations under the same iron sway, 
 
 How is it, that tyranny has thus triumphed ? that 
 the hopes with which we greeted the French revolu- 
 tion have been crushed? that a usurper plucked up 
 the last roots of the tree of liberty, and planted despo- 
 tism in its place ? The chief cause is not far to seek, 
 nor can it be too often urged on the friends of freedom. 
 France failed through the want of that moral prepara- 
 tion for liberty, without which the blessing cannot be 
 secured. She was not ripe for the good she sought. 
 She was too corrupt for freedom. France had indeed 
 to contend with great political ignorance ; but had not 
 ignorance been reenforced by deep moral- defect, she 
 might have won her way to free institutions. Her char- 
 acter forbade-her to be free ; and it now seems strange 
 that we Could eVer have expected her to secure this 
 boon. How could we believe, that a liberty, of which 
 that heartless scoiFer, Voltaire, was a chief apostle, could 
 have triumphed ? Most of the preachers of French lib- 
 erty had thrown oflf all the convictions which ennoble 
 the mind. Man's connexion with God they broke, for 
 they declared that there was no God in whom to trust 
 in the great struggle for liberty. Human immortality, 
 
128 
 
 that truth which is the seed of all greatness, they de- 
 rided. To their philosophy, man was a creature of 
 chance, a compound of matter, an ephemeron, a worm, 
 who was soon to rot and perish forever. What insanity 
 was it to expect, that such men were to work out the 
 emancipation of their race ! that in such hands the hopes 
 and dearest rights of humanity were secure ! Liberty 
 was tainted by their touch, polluted by their breath, and 
 yet we trusted that it was to rise in health and glory 
 from their embrace. We looked to men, who openly 
 founded morality on private imterest, for the sacrifices, 
 the devotion, the heroic virtue, which Freedom always 
 demands from her assertors. ; 
 
 The great cause of the discomfiture of the late Eu- 
 ropean straggle for liberty, is easily understood by an 
 American, who recurs to the history of his own revolu- 
 tion. This issued prosperously, because it was begun 
 and was conducted under the auspices of private and 
 public virtue. Our liberty did not come to us by acci- 
 dent, nor was it the gift of a few leaders ; but its seeds 
 were sown plentifully in the minds of the whole people. 
 It was rooted in the conscience and reason of the na- 
 tion. It was the growth of deliberate convictions and 
 generous principles liberally diffused. We had no Paris, 
 no metropolis, which a few leaders swayed, and which 
 sent forth its influences^v like ' a mighty heart,' through 
 dependent and subservient provinces. The country 
 was all heart. The living principle pervaded the com- 
 munity, and every village added strength to the solemn 
 purpose of being free. We have here an explanation 
 of a striking fact in the history of our revolution ; we 
 mean the want or absence of that description of great 
 men, whom we meet in other countries ; men, who, by 
 their distinct and single agency, and by their splendid 
 
129 
 
 deeds, determine a nation's fate. There was too much 
 greatness in the American people, to admit this over- 
 shadowing greatness of leaders. Accordingly the Uni- 
 ted States had no liberator, no political saviour. Wash- 
 ington indeed conferred on us great bfessings. But 
 Washington was not a hero, in the common sense of 
 that word. We never spoke of him as the French 
 did of Bonaparte, never talked of his eagle-eyed, irre- 
 sistible genius, as if this were to work out our safety. 
 We never lost our self-respect. We felt that, under 
 God, we were; to be frtje through our own courage, en- 
 ergy, and wisdom, under the animating and guiding in- 
 fluences of this great and good mind. Washington serv- 
 ed us chiefly by his sublime moral qualities. — To him 
 belonged the proud distinction of being the leader in a 
 revolution, without awakening one doubt or solicitude 
 as to the spotless purity of his purpose. His was the 
 glory of being the brightest manifestation of the spirit 
 which reigned in his country ; and in this way he be- 
 came a source of energy, a bond of union, the centre of 
 an enlightened people's confidence. In such a revolu- 
 tion as that of France, Washington would have been 
 nothing ; for that sympathy, which subsisted between 
 him and his fellow citizens, and which was the secret 
 of his power, would have been wanting. By an in- 
 stinct which is unerring, we call Washington, with 
 grateful reverence, the Father of his country, but not 
 its Saviour. A people, which wants a saviour, which 
 dops not possess an earnest and pledge of freedom in its 
 own heart, is not yet ready to be free. 
 
 A great question here offers itself, at which we can 
 only glance. If a moral preparation is requir,ed for 
 freedom, how, it is asked, can Europe evef be free ? 
 How, under the despotisms which now crush the conti- 
 
130 
 
 nent, can nations grow ripe for liberty ? Is it to be 
 hoped, that men will learn, in the school of slavery, 
 the spirit and virtues, which, we are told, can alone 
 work out their deliverance? In' the absolute govern- 
 ments of Europ'e, the very instruments of forming an 
 enlightened and generous love of freedom, are bent into 
 the service of tyranny. The press is an echo of the 
 servile doctrines of the court. The schools and semi- 
 naries of education are employed to taint the young 
 mind with the maxims of despotism. Even Christianity 
 is turned into a preacher of legitimacy, and its temples 
 are desecrated by the abject teaching of unconditional 
 submission. How then is the spirit of a wise and moral 
 freedom to be generated and diffused ? We have stated 
 the difficulty in its full force ; for nothing is gained by 
 winking out of sight the trendendous obstacles, with 
 which liberal principles and institutions must contend. 
 We have not tinie at present to answer the great ques- 
 tion now proposed. We will only say, that we do not 
 despair ; and we will briefly suggest what seems to us 
 the chief expedient, by which the cause of freedom, ob- 
 structed as it is, must now be advanced. In despotic 
 countries, those men whom God has inspired with lofty 
 sentiments and a thirst for freedom, (and such are spread, 
 through all Europe,) must, in their individual capacity, 
 communicate themselves to individual minds. The 
 cause of liberty on the continent cannot now be for- 
 warded by the action of men in masses. But in every 
 country there are those who feel their degradation and 
 their wrongs, who abhor tyranny as the chief obstruc- 
 tion of the progress of nations, and who are willing and 
 prepared to suffer for liberty. Let such men spiread 
 around them their own spirit, by every channel which 
 a jealous despotism has not closed. Let them give ut- 
 
131 
 
 terance to sentiments of magnanimity in private confer- 
 ence, and still more by the press ; for there are modes 
 of clothing and expressing kindling truths, which, it is 
 presumed, no censorship would dare to proscribe. Let 
 them especially teach that great truth, . which is the 
 seininal principle of a virtuous freedom, and the very 
 foundation of morals and religion ; we mean, the doc- 
 trine, that conscience^ the voice of God in every heart, 
 is to be listened to above all other guides and lords ; 
 that there is a sovereign within us, clothed with more 
 awful powers and rights than any outward king; and 
 that he alone is worthy the name of a man, who gives 
 himself up solemnly, deliberately, to obey this internal 
 guide through peril and in death. This is the spirit of 
 freedom ; for no man is wholly and immutably free but 
 he who has broken every outward yoke, that he may 
 obey his own deliberate conscience. This is the lesson 
 to be taught alike in republics and despotisms. As yet 
 it has but dawned on the world. Its full application 
 remains to be developed. They who have been baptiz- 
 ed, by a true experience, into this vital and all-compre- 
 hending truth, must everywhere be its propagators ; and 
 he who makes one Convert of it near a despot's throne, 
 has broken one link of that despot's chain. It is chief- 
 ly in the diffusion of this loftiness of moral sentiment, 
 that we place our hope of freedom ; and we have a hope, 
 because we know that there are those who have drunk 
 into this truth, and are ready, when God calls, to be its 
 martyrs. We do not despair, for there is a contagion, 
 we would rather say, a divine power, in sublime moral 
 principle. This is our chief trust. We have less and 
 less hope from force and bloodshed, as the instruments of 
 working out man's redemption from slavery. History 
 shows us not a few princes, who have gained or strength- 
 
132 
 
 ened thrones by assassination or War. But freedom, 
 which is another name for justice, honor, and benevo- 
 lence, scorns to use the private dagger, and wields with 
 trembling the public sv^^ord. The true conspiracy be- 
 fore which tyranny is to fall, is that of virtuous, eleva- 
 ted minds, which shall consecrate themselves to the 
 work of awakening in men a consciousness of the rights, 
 powers, purposes, and greatness of human nature ; which 
 shall oppbse to force, the heroism of intellect and con- 
 science, and the spirit of self-sacrifice. We believe 
 that, at this moment, there are virtue and wisdom 
 enough to shake despotic thrones, were they as confid- 
 ing as they should be, in God and in their own might, 
 and were they to pour themselves through every channel 
 into the public mind. 
 
 We close our present labors, with commending to the 
 protection of Alinighty God the cause of human freedom 
 and improvement. We adore the wisdom and goodness 
 of his providence, which has ordained, that liberty shall 
 be wrought out by the magnanimity, courage, and sac- 
 rifices of men. We bless him for the glorious efforts 
 which this cause has already called forth ; for the in- 
 trepid defenders who have gathered round it, and whose 
 fame is a most precious legacy of past ages ; for the toils 
 and sufferings by which it has been upheld ; for the 
 awakening and thrilling. voice which comes to us from 
 the dungeon and scaffold, where the martyrs of liberty 
 have pined or bled. We bless him, that even tyranny 
 has been overruled for good, by exciting a resistance, 
 vphich has revealed to us the strength of virtuous prin- 
 ciple in the human soul. We beseech this Great and 
 Good' Parent, from whorh all pure influences proceed, 
 to enkindle, by his quickening breath, an unquenchable 
 love of virtue and freedom in those favored men, whom 
 
133 
 
 he hath enriched and signalized by eminent gifts and 
 powers, that they mqiy fulfil the high function of inspir- 
 ing their fellow beings with a consciousness of the birth- 
 right and destination of human nature. Wearied with 
 violence and blood, we beseech him to subvert oppres- 
 sive governments, by the gentle, yet awful, power of 
 truth and virtue ; by the teachings of uncorrupted Chris- 
 tianity ; by the sovereignty of enlightened opinion ; by 
 the triumph of sentiments of magnanimity ; by mild, 
 rational, and purifying influences, which will raise the 
 spirit of the enslaved, and which sovereigns will be 
 unable to withstand. For this peaceful revolution we 
 earnestly pray. If, however, after long, forbearing, and 
 unavailing applications to justice and humanity, the 
 friends of freedom should be summoned, by the voice of 
 God within, and by his providence abroad, to vindicate 
 their rights with other arms, to do a sterner work," to 
 repel despotic force by force, may they not forget, even 
 in this hour of provocation, the spirit which their high 
 calling demands. Let them take the sword with awe, 
 as those on whom a holy function is devolved. Let 
 them regard themselves as ministers and delegates of 
 Him, whose dearest attribute is Mercy. Let them not 
 stain their sacred cause by one cruel deed, by the in- 
 fliction of one needless pang, by shedding without cause 
 one drop of human blood. 
 
 12 
 
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 In a former number of our work,* we reviewed the 
 life and character of Napoleon Bonaparte. We resume 
 the subject, not for the purpose of speaking more large- 
 ly of the individual^ but that we may consider more dis- 
 tinctly the Principle of Action which governed him, and 
 of which he was a remarkable manifestation. 
 
 Power was the idol to which Bonaparte sacrificed 
 himself. To gain supremacy and unlimited sway, to 
 subject men to his will, was his chief, settled, unrelent- 
 ing purpose. This passion drew and converted into it- 
 self the whole energy of his nature. The love of pow- 
 er, that common principle, explains, in a great degree, 
 his character and life. His crimes did not spring from 
 any impulse peculiar to himself. With all his contempt 
 of the human race, he still belonged to it. It is true 
 both of the brightest virtues and the blackest vices, 
 though they seem to set apart their possessors from the 
 rest of mankind, that the seeds of them are sown in 
 every human breast. The man, who attracts and awes 
 us by his intellectual and moral grandeur, is only an ex- 
 
 * Christian Examiner, Vol. IV. No. V. 
 
136 
 
 ample and anticipation of the improvements, for which 
 every mind was endowed with reason and conscience ; 
 and the worst man has become such by the perversion 
 and excess of desires and appetites which he shares 
 with his whole race. Napoleon had no element of 
 character which others do not possess. It was his mis- 
 ery and guilt that he was usurped and abgprbed by one 
 passion ; that his whole mind shot up into one growth ; 
 that his singular strength of. thought and will, which, if 
 consecrated to virtue, would have enrolled him among 
 the benefactors of mankind, was enslaved by one lust. 
 He is not to be gazed on as a miracle. He was a mani- 
 festation of our own nature. He teaches on a large 
 scale what thousands teach on a nari;ow one. He shqws 
 us the greatness of the ruin which is wrought, when 
 the order of the mind is subverted, conscience dethron- 
 ed, and a strong passion left without restraint to turn 
 every inward and outward resource to' thp accomplish- 
 ment of a selfish purpose. 
 
 The influence of theLoveof Power on human affairs 
 is so constant, unbounded, and tremendous, that we 
 think this principle of our nature worthy of distinct con- 
 sideration, and shall devote to it a few pages, as a fit 
 sequel to our notice of Bonaparte. ' 
 
 The passion for power is oiie of the most universal ; 
 nor is it to be regarded as a crime in all its forms. 
 Sweeping censures on a natural sentiment cast blame 
 on the Creator. This principle shows itself in the very 
 dawn of our existence. The child never exults and re- 
 joices more, than when it becomes conscious of power by 
 overcoming diffculties, or compassing new ends. All 
 our desires and appetites lend aid and energy to this pas- 
 sion, for all find increase of gratification, in proportion to 
 
137 
 
 the growth of our strength and influence. We ought 
 to add, that this principle is fed from nobler sources. 
 Power is a chief element of all the commanding quali- 
 ties of our nature. It enters into all the higher virtues; 
 such as magnanimity, fortitude, constancy. It enters 
 into intellectual eminence. It is power of thought and 
 utterance which immortalizes the products of genius. 
 Is it strange that an attribute, through which all our 
 passions reach their objects, and which characterizes 
 whatever is great or admirable in man, should awaken 
 intense desire, and be sought as one of the chief goods 
 of life ? 
 
 This principle, we have said, is not in all its forms a 
 crime. There are indeed various kinds of power, which 
 it is our duty to covet, accumulate, and hold fast. 
 First, there is Inward power, the most precious of all 
 possessions ; power over ourselves ; power to withstand 
 trial, to bear suffering, to front danger ; power over 
 pleasure and pain ; power to follow our convictions, 
 however resisted by menace or scorn ; the power of 
 calm reliance in seasons of darkness and storms. Again, 
 there is a power over Outward things ; the power by 
 which the mind triumphs over matter, presses into its 
 service the subtilest and strongest elements, makes the 
 winds, fire, and steam its ministers, rears the city, 
 opens a path through the ocean, and makes the wilder- 
 ness blossom as the rose. These forms of power, espe- 
 cially the first, are glorious distinctions of our race, nor 
 can we prize them too highly. 
 
 There, is another power, which is our principal con- 
 cern in the present discussion. We mean power over 
 our fellow creatures. It is this which ambition chiefly 
 covets, and which has instigated to more crime, and 
 spread more misery than any other cause. We are not 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 however to condemn even this universally. There is a 
 truly noble sway of man over man ; one, which it is our 
 honor to seek and exert ; which is earned by well doing ; 
 which is a chief recompense of virtue. We refer to 
 the quickening influence of a good and great mind over 
 other minds, by which it brings them into sympathy 
 with itself. Far from condemning this, we are anxious 
 to hold it forth as the purest glory which virtuous am- 
 bition can propose. The power of awakening, enlight- 
 ening, elevating our fellow creatures, may, with pecu- 
 liar fitness, be called divine ; for there is no agency of 
 God so beneficent and sublime as that which he exerts 
 on rational natures, and by which he assimilates them 
 to himself. This sway over other souls is the surest 
 test of greatness. We admire, indeed, the energy which 
 subdues the material creation, or developes the physical 
 resources of a state. But it is a nobler might which 
 calls forth the intellectual and moral resources of a 
 people, Vvhich communicates new impulses to society, 
 throws into circulation new and stirring thoughts, gives 
 the mind a new consciousness of its faculties, and rouses 
 and fortifies the will to an unconquerable purpose of 
 well doing. This spiritual power is worth all othe]-. 
 To improve man's outward condition is a secondary 
 agency, and is chiefly important as it gives the means 
 of inward growth. The most glorious minister of God 
 on earth, is he who speaks with a life-giving energy to 
 other minds, breathing into them the love of truth and 
 virtue, strengthening them to suffer in a good cause, and 
 lifting them above the senses and the world. . 
 
 We know not a more exhilarating thought, than that 
 this power is given to men; that we can not only 
 change the face of the outward world, and by virtuous 
 discipline improve ourselves, but that we may become 
 
139 
 
 springs of life and light to our fellow beings. We are 
 thus admitted to a fellowship with Jesus Christ, whose 
 highest end was, that he might act with a new and ce- 
 lestial energy on the human mind. We rejoice to think, 
 that he did not come to monopolize this divine sway, to 
 enjoy a solitary grandeur, but to receive others, even 
 all who should obey his religion, into the partnership of 
 this honor and happiness. Every Christian, in propor- 
 tion to his progress, acquires a nrteasure of this divine 
 agency. In, the humblest conditions, a power goes forth 
 from a devout and disinterested spirit, calling forth si- 
 lently moral and religious sentiment, perhaps in a child, 
 or some other friend, and teaching, without the aid of 
 words, the loveliness and peace of sincere and single- 
 hearted virtue. In the more enlightened classes, indi- 
 viduals now and then rise up, who, through a singular 
 force and elevation of soul, obtain a sway over men's 
 minds to which no limit can be prescribed. They 
 speak with a voice which is heard by distant nations, 
 and which goes down to future ages. Their names are 
 repeated with veneration by millions ; and millions read 
 in their lives and Writings a quickening testimony to 
 the greatness of the mitid, to its moral strength, to the 
 reality of disinterested virtue. These are the true sov- 
 ereigns of the earth. They share in the royalty of Jesus 
 Christ. They have a greatness which will be more 
 and more felt. The time is coming, its signs are visi- 
 ble, when this long mistaken attribute of greatness, will 
 be seen to belong eminently, if not exclusively, to those, 
 who, by their characters, deeds, sufferings, writings, 
 leave imperishable and ennobling: traces of themselves 
 on the human mind. Among these legitimate sovereigns 
 oi the world, will be ranked the philosopher^ who pene- 
 
140 
 
 trates the secrets of the universe, and of the soul; who 
 opens new fields to the intellect ; who gives it a new 
 consciousness of its own powers, rights, and divine origi- 
 nal ; who spreads enlarged and liberal habits of thought ; 
 and who helps men to understand, that an ever grow- 
 ing knowledge is the patrimony destined for them by 
 the ' Father of their Spirits.' Among them will be 
 ranked the statesman, who, escaping a vulgar policy, 
 rises tOi the discovery of the true interest of a state ; 
 who seeks without fear or favor the common good ; 
 who understands that a nation's mind is more valuable 
 than its soil ; who inspirits a people's enterprise, without 
 making them the slaves of wealth ; who is mainly anx- 
 ious to originate or give stability to institutions by which 
 society may be carried forward ; who confides with a 
 sublime constancy in justice and virtue, as the only foun- 
 dation of a wise policy and of public prosperity ; and 
 above all, who has so drunk into the spirit of Christ and 
 of God, as never to forget, that his particular country is 
 a member of the great human family, bound to all 
 nations, by a common nature, by a common inter- 
 est, and by indissoluble laws of equity and charity. 
 Among these will be ranked, jperhaps on the highest 
 throne, the moral and religious Reformer, who truly 
 merits that name ; who rises above his times ; who is 
 moved by a holy impulse to assail vicious establish- 
 ments, sustained by fierce passions and inveterate pre- 
 judices ; who rescues great ' truths from the corruptions 
 of ages ; who, joining calm and deep thought to pro- 
 found feeling, secures to religion at once enlightened 
 and earnest conviction ; who unfolds to men higher forms 
 of virtue than they have yet attained or conceived ; 
 who gives brighter and more thrilling views of the per- 
 
141 
 
 fection for which they were framed, and inspires a vic- 
 torious faith in the perpetual progress of our nature. 
 
 There is one characteristic of this power which be- 
 longs to truly great minds, particularly deserving notice. 
 Far from enslaving, it makes more and more free, those 
 on whom it is exercised ; and in this respect it differs 
 wholly from the vulgar sv/ay which ambition thirsts for. 
 It awakens a kindred power in others, calls their facul- 
 ties into new life, and particularly strengthens them to 
 follow their own deliberate convictions of truth and 
 duty. It breathes conscious energy, self-respect, moral 
 independence, and a scorn of every foreign yoke. 
 
 There is another power over men, very different 
 from this ; a power, not to quicken and elevate, but to 
 crush and subdue ; a power which robs men of the free 
 use of their nature, takes them out of their own hands, 
 and compels them to bend to another's will. This is 
 the sway which men grasp at most eagerly, and which 
 it is our great purpose to expose. To reign, to give 
 laws, to clothe their own wills with omnipotence, to 
 annihilate all other wil|s, to spoil the individual of that 
 self-direction which is his most precious right — ^this has 
 ever been deemed by multitudes the highest prize for 
 competition and conflict. The most envied men are 
 those, who have succeeded in prostrating multitudes, in 
 subjecting whole communities, to their single will. It 
 is the love of this power, in all its forms, which we are 
 anxious to hold up to reprobation. If any crime should 
 be placed by society beyond pardon, it is this. 
 
 This power has been exerted most conspicuously and 
 perniciously by two classes of men ; the priest or min- 
 ister of religion, and the civil ruler. Both rely oil the 
 sanie instrument; that is, pain or terror ; the first call- 
 ing to his aid the fifesand torments of rthe future worldj 
 
142 
 
 and practising on the natural dread of invisible powers ; 
 and the latter availing himself of chains, dungeons, and 
 gibbets in the present life. Through these terrible ap- 
 plications, man has iii all ages and in almost everj 
 country, been made^ in a greater or less degree, a slave 
 and machine ; been shackled in all his faculties, and 
 degraded into a tool of others' wills and paskions. TJie 
 influence of almost every political and religious institu- 
 tion has been to make man abject in mind, fearful, ser- 
 vile, a mechanical repeater of opinions which he dares 
 not try, and a contributor of his toil, swfeat, and blood, 
 to governments which never dreamed of the general 
 weal as their only legitimate end. On the immense 
 majority of men, thus Wronged and enslaved, the con- 
 sciousness of their own nature has not yet dawned ; 
 and the doctrine, that each has a mind, worth more 
 than the material world, and framed to grow forever by 
 a self-forming, self-directing energy, is still a secret, a 
 mystery, notwithstanding the clear annunciation of it, 
 ages ago, by Jesus Christ. We know not a stronger 
 proof of the intenseness and nefariousness of the love 
 of power, than the fact of its having virtually abrogat- 
 ed Christianity, and even turned irito an engine of do- 
 minion, a revelation which breathes throughout the 
 spirit of freedom, proclaims the essential equality of the 
 human race, and directs its most solemn denunciations 
 against the passion for rule and empire. 
 
 That this power, which consists in force and compul- 
 sion, in the imposition on the many of the will and 
 judgment of one or a few, is of a low order, when com- 
 pared with the quickening influence over others, of 
 which we have before spoken, we need not stop to 
 prove. But the remark is less obvious, though not less 
 true, that it is not only inferior in kind, but in amount 
 
143 
 
 or degree. This may not be so easily acknowledged. 
 He, whose will is passively obeyed by a nation, or 
 whose creed implicitly adopted by a spreading sect, 
 may not easily believe, that his power is exceeded, not 
 only' in kind or quality, but in extent, by him who 
 wields only the silent, subtile influence of moral and in- 
 tellectual gifts. But the superiority of moral to arbi- 
 trary sway in this particular, is proved by its effects. 
 Moral power is creative ; arbitrary power wastes away 
 the spirit and force of those on whom it is exerted. 
 And is it not a mightier work to create than to destroy ? 
 A higher energy is required to quicken than to crush ; 
 to elevate than to depress ; to warm and expand than 
 to chill and contj-act. Any hand, even the weakest, 
 may take away life ; another agency is required to 
 kindle or restore it. A vulgar incendiary may destroy 
 in an hour a magnificent structure, the labor of ages. 
 Has he energy to be compared with the creative intel- 
 lect, in which this work had its origin ? A fanatic of 
 ordinary talent may send terror through a crowd ; and 
 by the craft,. which is so often joined with fanaticism, 
 may fasten on multitudes a debasing creed. Has he 
 power to be compared with him, who rescues from dark- 
 ness one only of these enslaved minds, and quickens it 
 to think justly and nobly in relation to God, duty, and 
 immortality ? .The energies of a single soul, awakened, 
 by such an influence, to the free and full use of its 
 powers, may surpass, in their progress, the intellectual 
 activity of a whole community, enchained and debased 
 by fanaticism or outward force. Arbitrary power, 
 whether civil or religious, if tried by the only fair test, 
 that is, by its effects, seems to have' more affinity with 
 weakness than strength. It enfeebles and narrows 
 what it acts upon. Its efficiency resembles that of 
 
144 
 
 darkness and cold in the natural world. True power 
 is vivifying, productive, builds up, and gives strength. 
 We have a noble type and manifestation of it in the sun, 
 which calls forth and diffuses motion, life, energy, and 
 beauty." He who succeeds in chaining men's under- 
 standings and breaking their wills, may indeed number 
 millions as his subjects. But a weak, puny race are 
 the products of his sway, and they can only reach 
 the stature and force qf men by throwing off his yoke. 
 He who, by an intellectual and moral energy, awakens 
 kindred energy in others, touches springs of infinite 
 might, gives impulse to' faculties to which no bounds 
 can be prescribed, begins an action which will never 
 end. One great and kindling thought from a retired 
 and obscure man, may live when thrones are fallen, and 
 the memory of those who filled them obliterated, and 
 like an undying fire, may illuminate and quicken all 
 future generations. 
 
 We have spoken of the inferiority and worthlessness 
 of that dominion over others, which has been coveted 
 so greedily in all ages. We should rejoice could we 
 convey some just idea of its moral turpitude. Of all 
 injuries and crimes, the most flagrant is chargeable on 
 him, who aims to establish dominion over his brethren. 
 He wars with what is more precious than life. He 
 would rob men of their chief prerogative and glory ; we 
 mean of self-dominion, of that empire which is given to 
 a rational and moral being over his own Soul and his 
 own life. Such a being is framed to find honor and 
 happiness in forming and swaying himself, in adopting 
 as his supreme standard his convictions of truth and 
 duty, in unfolding his powers by free exertion, in acting 
 from a principle within, from his growing conscience. 
 His proper and noblest attributes are self-government, 
 
145 
 
 self-reverence, energy of thought, energy in choosing 
 the right and the good, energy in casting off all other 
 dominion. He was created for empire in his own 
 breast, and wo, wo to them who would pluck from him 
 this sceptre! A mind, inspired by God with reason and 
 conscience, and capable, through these endowments, of 
 progress in truth and duty, is a sacred thing ; more 
 sacred than terriples made with hands, or even than this 
 outward universe. It is of nobler lineage than that of 
 which human aristocracy makes its boast. It bears the 
 lineaments of a Divine Parent. It has not only a physi- 
 cal, but moral connexion with the Supreme Being. 
 Through its self-determining power, it is accountable 
 for its deeds, and for whatever it becomes. Respon- 
 sibility, that which above all things makes existence 
 solemn, is laid upon it. Its great end is to conform it- 
 self, by its own energy, and by spiritual succours which its 
 own prayers and faithfulness secure, to that perfection 
 of wisdom and goodness, of which God is the original 
 and source, which shines upon us from the whole out- 
 ward world, but of which the intelligent soiil is a truer 
 recipient and a brighter image, even than the sun with 
 all his splendors. From these views we learn, that no 
 outrage, no injury, can equal that, which is perpetrated 
 by him, who would break down and subjugate the hu- 
 man mind ; who would rob men of self-reverence ; who 
 would bring them to stand more in awe of outward 
 authority, than of reason and conscience in their own 
 souls ; who would make himself a standard and law for 
 his race, and shape, by force of terror, the free spirits 
 of others after his own judgment and will. 
 
 AH excellence, whether intellectual or moral, in- 
 volves, as its essential elements, freedom, energy, and 
 moral independence, so that the invader of these, wheth- 
 13 
 
146 
 
 er from the throne or the pulpit, invades the most sa- 
 cred interest of the human race. Intellectual excellenpe 
 implies and requires these. This does not consist in 
 passive assent even to the highest truths ; or in the 
 most extensive stores of knowledge acquired by an im- 
 plicit faith,, and lodged in the inert memory. It lies in 
 force, freshness, and independence of thought ; and is 
 most conspicuously manifested by him, who, loving 
 truth supremely, seeks it resolutely, follows the light 
 without fear, and modifies the views of others by the 
 patient, strenuous exercise of his own faculties. To a 
 man thus intellectually free, truth is not, what it is to 
 passive multitudes, a foreign substance, dormant, lifeless, 
 fruitless, but penetrating, prolific, full of vitality, and 
 ministering to the health and expansion of the soul. 
 And what we have said of intellectual excellence is stUl 
 more true of moral. This has its foundation and root 
 in freedom, and cannot exist a moment vvithout it. 
 The very idea of virtue is, that it is a free act, the pro- 
 duct or result of the mind's self-determining power. It 
 is not good feeling, infused by nature or caught by sym- 
 pathy ; nor is it good conduct into which we have slid- 
 den through imitation,; or whieh has been forced upon us 
 by another's will. We ourselves are its authors in a 
 high and peculiar sense. We indeed depend on God for 
 virtue ; for our capacity of moral action is wholly his gift 
 and inspiration, and without his perpetual aid this capaci- 
 ty would avail nothing. But his aid is not compulsion. 
 He respects, he cannot violate, that moral freedom 
 which is his richest gift. To the individual, the de- 
 cision of his own character is left. He has more than 
 kingly power in his own soul. Let him never resign 
 it. Let none dare to interfere with it. Virtue is self- 
 dominion, or, what is the same thing, it is self-subjection 
 
147 
 
 to. the principle of duty, that highest law in the soul. 
 If these* views of intellectual and moral excellence be 
 just, then to invade men's freedom is to aim the dead- 
 liest blow at their honor and happiness ; and their worst 
 foe is he who fetters their reason, who makes his will 
 their law, who makes them tools, echoes, copies of 
 himself. 
 
 Perhaps it may be objected to the representation of 
 virtue as consisting in self-dominion, that the scriptures 
 speak of it as consisting in obedience to God. But 
 these are perfectly cottipatible and harmonious views ; 
 for genuine obedience to God is the .free choice and 
 adoption of a law, the great principles of which our own 
 minds approve, and our own consciences bind on us ; 
 whicb is not an arbitrary injunction, but an emanation 
 and expression of the Divine Mind ; and which is in- 
 tended throughout to give energy, dignity, and enlarge- 
 ment to our best powers. He, and he only, obeys 
 God virtupusly and acceptably, who reverences right, 
 not power ; who has chosen rectitude as his supreme 
 rule ; who sees and reveres in God the fulness and 
 brightness of moral excellence, and who sees in obedi- 
 ence the progress and perfection of his own nature. 
 That subjection to the Deity, which, we fear, is 
 too common, in which the mind surrenders itself to 
 mere power and will, is anything but virtue. We fear 
 that it is disloyalty to that moral principle, which is 
 ever to be reverenced as God's vicegerent in the ra- 
 tional soul. 
 
 - Perhaps some may fear, that, in our zeal for the free- 
 dom and independence of the individual mind, we un- 
 settle government, and almost imply that it is a vvrong. 
 Far from it. We hold governnjent to be an essential 
 means of our intellectual and moral education, and 
 
148 
 
 would strengthen it by pointing out its legitimate func- 
 tions. Government, as far as it is rightful, is the guar- 
 dian and friend of freedom, so that in exalting the one 
 we enforce the other. The highest aim of all authori- 
 ty is to confer liberty. This is true of domestic , rule. 
 The great, we may say the single object of parental 
 government, of a wise and virtuous education, is, to 
 give the child the fullest use of his own powers ; to 
 give him inward force ; to train him up to govern 
 himself. The same is true of the authority of Jesus 
 Christ. He came, indeed, to rule mankind ; but to rule 
 them, not by arbitrary statutes, not by force and men- 
 ace, not by mere^ will, but by setting before them, in 
 precept and life, those everlasting rules of rectitude, 
 which Heaven obeys, and of which every soul contains 
 the living germs. He came to exert a moral power ; 
 to reign by the manifestation of celestial ^virtues ; to 
 awaken the energy of holy purpose in the free mind. 
 He came to publish liberty to the captives ; to open 
 the prison door ; to break the power of the passions ; to 
 break the yoke of a ceremonial religion which had been 
 imposed in the childhood of . the race ; to exalt us to a 
 manly homage and obedience of our Creator. Of civil 
 government, too, the great end is to secure freedom. 
 Its proper, and highest function is, to watch: over the 
 liberties of each and all, and to open to a community 
 the vvidest field for all its powers. Its very chains and 
 prisons have the general freedom for their aim. They 
 are just, only when used to curb oppression and wrong ; 
 to disarm him who has a tyrant's heart, if not a tyrant's 
 power, who wars against others' rights, who, by inva- 
 ding property or life, would substitute force for the 
 reign of equal laws. Freedom, we repeat it, is the end 
 of government. To exalt men to self-rule is the end 
 
149 
 
 of all other rule, and he who would fasten on them his 
 arbitrary will is their worst foe. 
 
 We have aimed to show the guilt of the love of pow- 
 er and dominion, by showing the ruin which it brings 
 on the mind, by enlarging on the preciousness of that 
 inward freedom Which it invades and destroys. To us, 
 this view is the most impressive ; but the guilt of this 
 passion may also be discerned, and by some more clear- 
 ly, in its outward influences ; in the desolation, blood- 
 shed, and wo, of which it is the perpetual cause. We 
 owe to it almost all the miseries of war. To spread 
 the sway, of one or a few, thousands and millions have 
 been turned into machines under the name of soldiers, 
 armed with instruments of destruction, and then sent 
 to reduce others to their own lot by fear and pain, by 
 fire and sword, by butchery an3 pillage. And is it 
 light guilt, to array man against his brother ; to make 
 murder the trade of thousands ; to drench the earth 
 with human blood; to turn it into a desert; to scatter 
 families like chaff; to make mothers widows, and chil- 
 dren orphans ; and to do all this for the purpose of 
 spreading a still gloomier desolation, for the purpose of 
 subjugating men's souls, turning them into base para- 
 sites, extorting from them a degrading homage, hum- 
 bling them in their own eyes, and breaking them to 
 servility as the chief duty of life ? When the passion 
 for power succeeds, as it generally has done, in estab- 
 lishing despotism, it seems to make even civilisation a 
 doubtful good. Whilst the monarch and his court are 
 abandoned to a wasteful luxury, the peasantry, rooted 
 to the soil and doomed to a perpetual round of labors, 
 are raised but little above the brute. There are parts 
 of Europe, christian Europe, in which the peasant, 
 through whose sweat kings and nobles riot in plenty, 
 13* 
 
150 
 
 seems to enjoy less, on the whole, than the untamed 
 Indian of our forests. Chained to one spot, living on 
 the cheapest vegetables, sometimes unable to buy salt 
 to season his coarse fare, seldom or never tasting ani- 
 mal food, having for his shelter a mud-vpalled hut floor- 
 ed with earth or stone, and subjected equally with the 
 brute to the rule of a superior, he seems to us to par- 
 take less of animal, intellectual, and moral pleasures, 
 than the free wanderer of the woods, whose steps no 
 man fetters ; whose wigwam no tyrant violates ; whose 
 chief toil is hunting, that noblest of sports ; who feasts 
 on the deer, that most luxurious of viands ; to whom 
 streams, as well as woods, pay tribute ; whose adven- 
 turous life gives sagacity ; and in whom peril nourishes 
 courage and self-command. We are no advocates for 
 savage life. We know that its boasted freedom is a de- 
 lusion. The single fact that human nature in this wild 
 state makes no progress, is proof enough that it wants 
 true liberty. We mean only to say that man in the 
 hands of despotism, is sometimes degraded below the 
 savage ; that it were better for him to be lawless, than 
 to live under lawless sway. 
 
 It is the part of Christians to look on the passion for 
 power and dominion with strong abhorrence ; for it is 
 singularly hostile to the genius of their religion. Jesus 
 Christ always condemned it. One of the striking marks 
 of his moral greatnfess, and of the originality of his 
 character, was, that he held no fellowship and made 
 no compromise with this universal spirit of his age, but 
 withstood it in every form. He found the Jews intox- 
 icating themselves with dreams of empire. Of the 
 prophecies relating to the Messiah, the most familiar 
 and dear to them, Avere those which announced him as 
 a conqueror, and whichi w^ere construed by their world- 
 
161 
 
 liness, into a promise of triumphs to the people from 
 whom he was to spring. Even the chosen disciples of 
 Jesus looked to ,him for this good. ' To sit on his 
 right hand and on his left,' or, in other words, to hold 
 the most commanding stations in his kingdom, was not 
 only their lurking wish, but their open and importunate 
 request. But there was no passion on which Jesus 
 frowned more severely than on this. He taught, that 
 to be great. in his kingdom, men must servie, instead of 
 ruling, their brethren. He placed among them a child 
 as an emblem of "the humility of his religion. His 
 most terrible rebukes fell on the lordly, aspiring Phari- 
 see. In his own person, he was mild and condescend- 
 ing, exacting no personal service, living with his disci- 
 ples as a friend, sharing their wants, sleeping in their 
 fishing boa^t, and even washing their feet ; and in all 
 this, he expressly proposed himself to them as a pat- 
 tern, knowing well, that the last triumph of disinterest- 
 edness is to forget our own superiority, in our sym- 
 pathy, solicitude, tenderness, respect, and self-denying 
 zeal fo? those who are below us. We cannot indeed 
 wonder that the lust of power should be encountered by 
 the sternest rebukes and menace of Christianity, because 
 it wage? opeji war with the great end of this religion, 
 which is the elevation of the human mind. No corrup- 
 tion of this religion is more palpable and more enormous, 
 than that which turns it into an instrument of domin- 
 ion, and which makes it teach, that man's primary duty 
 is to give himself a passive material into the hands of 
 his minister, priest, or king. 
 
 The subject which we now discuss is one in which all 
 nations have an interest, and especially our own ; and 
 we should fail of our main purpose, were we not to 
 lead our readers to apply it to ourselves. The passion 
 
162 
 
 for ruling, though most completely developed in despot- 
 isms, is confined to no forms of government. It is the 
 chief peril of free states, the natural enemy of free 
 iiistitutions. It agitates our own country, and still 
 throws an uncertainty over the great experirnent we 
 are making here in behalf of liberty. We will try then, 
 in a few words, to expose its influences and dangers, 
 and to abate that zeal with which a participation in 
 office and power is sought among ourselves.- 
 
 It is the distinction of i republican institutions, that 
 whjlst they compel the passion for 'power to moderate 
 its pretensions, and to satisfy itself with more limit- 
 ed gratifications, they tend to spread it more widely 
 through the community, and to make it a universal 
 principle. The doors of ofiice being opened to all, 
 crowds burn to rush in. A thousand hands are stretch- 
 ed out to grasp the reins which are denied to none. 
 Perhaps in this boasted and boasting land of liberty, 
 not a few, if called to state the chief good of a repub- 
 lic, would place it in this ; that every man is eligible to 
 every office, and that the highest places of power and 
 trust are prizes for universal competition. The superi- 
 ority attributed by many to our institutions, is, not that 
 they secure the greatest freedom, but give every man a 
 chance of ruling ; not that they reduce the power of 
 government within the narrowest limits which the safe- 
 ty of the state admits, but throw; it into as many hands 
 as possible. The despot's great crime is thought to be, 
 that he keeps thfe delight of dominion to himself^ that 
 he makes a monopoly of it, whilst our more generous 
 institutions, by breaking it into parcels, aiid inviting the 
 multitude to scramble for it, spread this joy more wide- 
 ly. The result is^ that political ambition infects our 
 country, and generates a feverish restlessness and dis- 
 
153 
 
 content, which, to , the monarchist, may seem more 
 than a balance for our forms of liberty. The spirit of 
 intrigue, which in absolute governments is confined to 
 courts, walks abroad through the land ; and as individu- 
 als can accomplish no political purposes single-handed, 
 they band themselves into parties, ostensibly framed 
 for public ends, but aiming only at the acquisitioh of 
 power. The nominal sovereign, that is, the people, 
 like all other sovereigns, is courted and flattered, and 
 told that it can do no wrong. Its pride is pampered, 
 its passions inflamed, its prejudices made inveterate. 
 Such are the processes, by which other republics have 
 been subverted, and he must be blind who cannot trace 
 them among ourselves. We mean not to exaggerate 
 our dangers. We rejoice to know, that the improve- 
 ments off society, oppose many checks to the love of 
 power. But every wise man, who sees its workings, 
 must dread it as our chief foe. 
 
 This passion derives strength and vehemence in our 
 country from the common idea, that political power is 
 the highest prize which society has to offer. We know 
 not a more general delusion, nor is, it the least danger- 
 ous. Instilled, as it is, in our youth, it gives infinite 
 excitement to political ambition. It turns the active 
 talent of the country to, public station as the supreme 
 good, and makes it restless, intriguing, and unprinci- 
 pled. It calls out hosts of selfish competitors for com- 
 paratively few places, and encourages a bold, unblush- 
 ing pursuit of personal elevation, which a just moral 
 sense and self-respe6t in the community would frown 
 upon and cover with shame. This prejudice has come 
 down from past ages, and is one of their worst bequests. 
 To-goyern others has always been thought the highest 
 function on earth We have a remarkable proof of the 
 
164 
 
 stjrength and pernicious influence of this persuaSien, in 
 the manner in which history has been written. Who 
 fill the page of history? Political and iniika'ry leaders, 
 who have lived for one "end, to subdue and govern thfek 
 fellow beings. These occupy the foreground, aM the 
 people, the human race, dwindle into insignificance, 
 and are almost lost behind their masters. The proper 
 and noblest object of history, is, to record the vicissi- 
 tudes of society, its Spirit in different ages, the cattses 
 which have determined its progress and dfeclift'C^ and 
 especially the manifesta,tions and growth of its hi^eit 
 attributes and interests, of intelligeaoe^ of the tfeligi<d\ls 
 principle, of m&ral sentiment, of the elegant and useflil 
 arts, of the triumphs of maft ovfel? nature and himself. 
 Instead of this, we have records of men in power, oftfeft 
 weak, oftener wiched, who did little or ndtMng fot the 
 advanceifient of theif age> who VPCre ilo no gtense it^ rep- 
 resentatives, whom the accident of bitth perhaps raised 
 to influence. We hav<6 the quarrels of cistirtierS, the 
 intrigues of cabinets, sie^s and battled, royal births and 
 deaths, and the secrets of a palaCe, that sink of lewdness 
 and corruption. These are the staples of history. Thfe 
 inventions of printing, of gunpowder, and the marineif'S 
 compass, were too mean affairs for hist?ory to tface. 
 She was bowing before kings and warriors. She had 
 volumes for the plots and quarrels of Leicester and Es- 
 sex in the reign of Elizabeth, but not a page for Shak" 
 speare ; and if Bacon had not filled an office, shifr Would 
 hardly have recorded his name, in hef alixiety tb pre- 
 serve the deeds and sayings of that Solbttlon of his 
 age, James the First. 
 
 We have spoken of the supreme importance vv^hich is 
 attached' to rulers and government, as a prejlidice ; aA& 
 we think, that something may be done towatds abat- 
 
155 
 
 ing the passion for power, by placing this thought in a 
 clearer light. It seems to us not very difficult to show, 
 that to govern men is not as high a sphere of action 
 as has been commonly supposed, and that those who 
 have obtained this dignity, have usurped a place beyond 
 their due in history and men's minds. We apprehend, 
 indeed, that we are not alone in this opinion ; that a 
 change of sentiment on this subject has commenced and 
 must go on ; that men are learning, that there are high- 
 er sources of happiness and more important agents in 
 human affairs than political rule. It is one mark of the 
 progress of society, that it brings down the public man 
 and raises the private one. It throws power into the 
 hands of untitled individuals, and spreads it through all 
 orders of the community. It multiplies and distributes 
 freely, means of extensive influence, and opens new 
 channels, by which the gifted mind, in whatever rank 
 or condition, may communicate itself far and wide. 
 Through the difiusion of education and printing, a pri- 
 vate man may now speak to multitudes, incomparably 
 more numerous than ancient or modern eloquence ever 
 electrified in the popular assembly or the hall of legis- 
 lation. By these instruments, truth is asserting her 
 sovereignty over nations, without the help of rank, of- 
 fice, or sword ; cind her faithful ministers will become 
 more and more the lawgivers of the world. 
 
 We mean not to deny, we steadily affirm, that gov- 
 ernment is a great good, and essential to human happi- 
 ness ; but it does its good chiefly by a negative influence, 
 by repressing injustice and crime, by securing property 
 from inyasion, and thus removing. obstructions to the free 
 exercise of human powers. It confers little positive 
 benefit. Its office is, not to confer happiness, but to 
 
166 
 
 give men opportunity to work out happiness for them- 
 selves. Government resembles the wall which sur- 
 rounds our lands ; a needful protection, but rearing no 
 harvests, ripening no fruits. It is the individual who 
 must choose whether the enclosure shall be a paradise 
 or a waste. How little positive good can government 
 confer ? It does not till our fields, build our houses, 
 weave the ties which bind us to our families, give, dis- 
 interestedness to the heart, or energy to the intellect 
 and will. All our great interests arie left to ourselves ; 
 and governments, when they have interfered with them, 
 have obstructed, much more than advanced them. For 
 example, they have taken religion into their keeping 
 only to disfigure it. So education, in their hands, has 
 generally become a propagator of servile maxims, and 
 an upholder of antiquated errors. In like manner they 
 have paralysed trade by their nursing care, and multi- 
 plied poverty by expedients for its relief. Government 
 has almost always been a barrier against which intel- 
 lect has had to struggle ; and society has made its chief 
 progress by the minds of private individuals, who have 
 outstripped their rulers, and gradually shamed them in- 
 to truth and wisdom. 
 
 Virtue and intelligence are the great interests of a 
 community, including all others, and worth all others; 
 and the noblest agency is that by which they are ad- 
 vanced. Now we apprehend, that political power is 
 not the most effectual instrument for their promotion, 
 and accordingly we doubt whether government is the 
 only or highest sphere for superior minds. Virtue, from 
 its very nature, cannot be a product of what may be 
 called the direct operation of government ; that is, of 
 legislation. Laws may repress crime. Their office is 
 
157 
 
 m erect prisons for violence and fraud. But moral and 
 religious worth, dignity of character, loftiness of senti- 
 ment, all that makes man a blessing to himself and so- 
 ciety, lies beyond their province. Virtue is of the soul, 
 Where laws cannot penetrate. Excellence is something 
 too refined, spiritual, celestial, to be produced by the 
 coarse machinery of government. Human legislation 
 addresses itself to self-love, and works by outward force. 
 Its chief instrument is punishment. It cannot touch 
 the springs of virtuous feelings,,-of great and good deeds. 
 Accordingly, rulers, with all their imagined omnipo- 
 tence, do not dream of enjoining by statute, philanthro- 
 py, gratitude, devout sentiment, magnanimity, and 
 purity of thought. Virtue is too high a concern for 
 government. It is an inspiration of God, not a creature 
 of law ; and the agents whom God chiefly honors in its 
 promotion, are those, who, through experience as well 
 as meditation, have risen to generous conceptions of it, 
 and who show it forth, not in empty eulogies, but in the 
 language of deep conviction, and in lives of purity. 
 
 Government, then, does little to advance the chief in- 
 terest of human nature by its direct agency ; and what 
 shall we say of its indirect ? Here we wish not to of- 
 fend ; but we must be allowed to use that plainness of 
 speech which becomes Christians and freemen. We 
 do fear then, that the indirect influence of government 
 is on the whole adverse to virtue ; and in saying this, 
 we do not tpeak of other countries, or of diflisrent polit- 
 ical institutions from our own. We do not mean to 
 say, what all around us would echo, that monarchy cor- 
 rupts a state, that the air of a court reeks with infec- 
 tion, and taints the higher classes with a licentiousness 
 which descends to their inferiors. We speak of govern- 
 14 
 
168 
 
 ment at home ; and we ask wise men to say, whether 
 it ministers most to vice or virtue. We fear, that here, 
 as elsewhere, political power is of corrupting tendency ; 
 and that, generally speaking, public men are not the 
 most effectual teachers of truth, disinterestedness, and 
 incorruptible integrity to the people. An error prevails 
 in relation to political concernsj which necessarily makes 
 civil institutions demoralizing. It is deeply rooted, the 
 growth of ages. We refer to the belief, that public 
 men are absolved in a measure from the everlasting and 
 immutable obligations of morality ; that political power 
 is a prize, which justifies arts and compliances that 
 would be scorned in private life ; that management, in- 
 trigue, hollow pretensions, and appeals to base passions, 
 deserve slight rebuke when employed to compass polit- 
 ical ends. Accordingly the laws of truih, justice, and 
 philanthropy, haVe seldom been, applied to public as to 
 private concerns. Even those individuals, who have 
 come to frown indignantly on the machinations, the of- 
 fice seeking, and the sacrifices to popularity, which dis- 
 grace our interna! condition, are disposed to acquiesce 
 in a crooked or ungenerous policy towards foreign ^na- 
 tions, by which great advantages may accrue to their 
 own country. Now the great truth on which the cause 
 of virtue rests, is, that rectitude is an eternal, unaltera- 
 ble, and universal law, bmding at once heaven and 
 earth, the perfection of God's character, and the har- 
 mony and happiness of the rational crieation; and in 
 proportion as political instituti|Ons unsettle this great 
 convictions — in proportion as they teach that truth, jus- 
 tice, and philanthropy are local, partial obligations, 
 claiming homage from the weak, but shrinking before 
 the powerful — in proportion as they thus insult the aw- 
 
159 
 
 ful and inviolable majestj' of the Eternal Law— in the 
 same proportion they undermine the very foundation of 
 a people's virtue. 
 
 In regard to the other great interest of the communi- 
 ty, its intelligence, government may do much good by 
 a direct influence ; that is, by instituting schools or ap- 
 propriating revenue for the instruction of the poorer 
 classes. Whether it vv^ould do wisely in assuming to 
 itself, or in taking from individuals, the provision and 
 care, of higher literary institutions, is a question not 
 easily determined. But no one will doubt, that it is 
 a noble function, to assist and develope the intellect in 
 those classes of the community, whose hard condition 
 exposes them to a merely animal existence. Still the 
 agency of government in regard to knowledge is neces- 
 sarily superficial and narrow. The great sources of in- 
 tellectual power and progress to a people, are its strong 
 and original thinkers, be they found where they may. 
 Government cannot, and does not, extend the bounds 
 of knowledge ; cannot make experiments in the labora- 
 tory, e3?plore the laws of animal or vegetable nature, or 
 establish the principles of criticism, morals, and religion. 
 The energy which- is to carry forward the intellect of a 
 people, belongs chiefly to private individuals, who de- 
 vote themselves to lonely thought, who worship truth, 
 who originate the views demanded by their age, who help 
 OS to throw off the yoke of established prejudices, who 
 improve old modes of education or invent better. It is 
 true that great men at the head of affairs, may, and 
 often do, contribute much to the growth of a nation's 
 mind. But it too often happens that their station ob- 
 structs rather than aids their usefulness. Their connex- 
 ion with a party, and the habit of viewing subjects in 
 reference to personal aggrandizement, too often obscure. 
 
160 
 
 the noblest intellects, and convert into patrons of narrow 
 views and temporary interests, tJiose, who, in other con- 
 ditions, would have been the lights of their age, and th^ 
 propagators of everlasting truth. — From these views of 
 the limited influence of government on the nwst pre- 
 cious interests of society, we learn that political power 
 is not the noblest power, and that, in the progress of 
 intelligence, it will cease to be coveted as the chief and 
 most honorable distinction on earth. 
 
 If we pass now to the consideration of that interest, 
 over which government ig expected chiefly to watch, 
 and on which it is most competent to act with power, 
 we shall not arrive at a result very different from what 
 we have just expressed. We refer to property, or 
 wealth. That the influence of political institutions on 
 this great concern is important, inestimable, we mean 
 not to deny. But as we have already suggested, if is 
 chiefly negative. Government enriches a people by 
 removing obstructions to theit powers, by defending 
 them from wrong, and thus giving them opportunity to 
 enrich themselves. Government is not the spring of 
 the wealth of nations, but their own sagacity, industry, 
 enterprise, and ioxcer of character. To leave a people 
 to themselves, is generally the best service their rulers 
 can render. Time was, when sovereigns fixed prices 
 and wages, regulated industry and expense, and im- 
 agined that a nation would starve and perish, if it were 
 not guided and guarded like an infant. But we have 
 learned, that men are their own best guardians, that: 
 property is safest under its owner's care, and that gene- 
 rally speaking, even great enterprises can better be ac- 
 complished by the voluntary association of individuals^ 
 than by the state. Indeed, we are met at every stage 
 of this discussion by the truth, that political power is 
 
161 
 
 a weak engine compared with Individual intelligence, 
 virtue, and effort ; and we are the more anxious to en- 
 force this truth, because, through an extravagant esti- 
 mate of government, men are apt to expect from it 
 what they must do for themselves, and to throw upon 
 it the blame which belongs to their own feebleness and 
 improvidence. The great hope of society, is individual 
 character. Civilisation and political institutions are 
 themselves sources of not a few evils, which nothing 
 but the intellectual and moral energy of the private cit- 
 izen can avert or relieve. Such, for example, are the 
 monstrous inequalities of property, the sad contrasts of 
 condition, which disfigure a large city ; which laws cre- 
 ate and cannot remove ; which can only be mitigated 
 and diminished by a principle of moral restraint in the 
 poorer classes, and by a wise beneficence in the rich. 
 The great lesson for men to learn, is, that their happi- 
 ness is in their own hands ; that it is to be wrought out 
 by their own faithfulness to God and conscience; that 
 no outward institutions can supply the place of inward 
 principle, of moral- energy, whilst this can go fat to 
 supply the place of almost every outward aid. 
 
 Our remarks will show that our estimate of political 
 institutions, is more moderate than the prevalent one, 
 and that we regard -the power, for which ambition has 
 woven so many plots and shed so much blood, as des- 
 tined to occupy a more and more narrow space, among 
 the means of usefulness and distinction." There is, 
 however, one branch of government, which we hold in 
 high veneration, which we account an unspeakable 
 blessing, and which, for the world, we would not say a 
 word to disparage;' and we are the more disposed to 
 speak of it, because its relative importance seems to us 
 little understood. We refer to the Judiciary, a depart- 
 14* 
 
162 
 
 inent worth all others in the state. Whilst politicians 
 expend their zeal on transient interests, which perhaps 
 derive their chief importance from their connexion with 
 a party, it is the province of the Judge to apply those 
 solemn and universal laws of rectitude, on which the 
 security, industry, and prosperity of the individual and 
 the state essentially depend. From his tribunal, as 
 from a sacred oracle, go forth the responses of justice. 
 To us there is nothing in the whole fabric of civil insti- 
 tutions so interesting and imposing, as this impartial 
 and authoritative exposition of the principles of moral 
 legislation. The administration of justice in this coun- 
 try, where the Judge, without a guard, without a sol- 
 dier, without pomp, decides upon the dearest interests 
 of the citizen, trusting chiefly to the moral sentiment 
 of the community for the execution of his decrees, is 
 the most beautiful and encouraging aspect, under which 
 our government can be viewed. We repeat it, there is 
 nothing in public affairs so venerable as the voice of 
 Justice, speaking through her delegated ministers, 
 reaching and subduing the high as well as the low, set- 
 ting a defence around the splendid mansion of wealth 
 and the lowly hut of poverty, repressing wrong, vindi- 
 cating innocence, humbling the oppressor, and publish- 
 ing, the rights of human nature to every human being. 
 We confess, that we often turn with pain and humiliation 
 from the hall of Congress where we see the legislator 
 forgetting the majesty of his function, forgetting his re- 
 lation to a vast and growing community, and sacrificing 
 to his party or to himself the public weal ; and it com- 
 forts us to turn to the court of justice, where the dispen- 
 ser of the laws, shutting his ear against all solicitations 
 of friendship or interest, dissolving for a time every pri- 
 vate tie, forgetting public opinion, and withstanding pub- 
 
V 163 
 
 lie feeling, asks only what is right. To our courts, the 
 resorts and refuge of weakness and innocence, we look 
 with hope and joy. We boast, with a virtuous pride, 
 that no breath of corruption has as yet tainted their pure 
 air. To this department of government, we cannot 
 ascribe too much importance. Over this, we cannot 
 watch too jealously. Every encroachment on its inde- 
 pendence we should resent, and repel, as the chief 
 wrong our country can sustain. Wo, wo to the im- 
 pious hand, which would shake this most sacred and 
 precious column of the social edifice. 
 
 In the remarks which we have now submitted to our 
 readers, we have treated of great topics, if not wor- 
 thily, yet, we trust, with a pure purpose. We have 
 aimed to expose the passion for dominion, the desire of 
 ruling manjiind. We have labored to show the superi- 
 ority of moral power and influence to that sway which 
 has for ages been seized with eager and bloody hands. 
 We have labored to hold up to unmeasured reprobation, 
 him who would establish an empire of brute force over 
 rational beings. We have labored to hold forth, as the 
 enertiy of his race, the man, who, in any way, v/ould fet- 
 ter the human mind, and subject other wills to his own. 
 In a word, we have desired to awaken others and our- 
 selves, to a just self-reverence, to the free use and ex- 
 pansion of our highest powers, and especially to that 
 moral, force, that energy of holy, virtuous purpose, with- 
 out which we are slaves amidst the freest institutions. 
 Better gifts than these we cannot supplicate from God ; 
 nor can we consecrate our lives to. nobler acquisitions. 
 
■^> 
 
 REMARKS 
 
 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 or 
 
 FENELON. 
 
 1829. 
 
ON THE CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
 
 FENELON. 
 
 Selections from the Writings of Fenelon ; with an Appendix, containing a 
 Memoir of his lAfe. By a Lady. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, Little, 
 and Wilkins. 1829. 12mo. pp. 2S3. 
 
 We perform a very . gratifying duty, in introducing 
 and recommending to our readers the book which stands 
 at the head of this article. An attractive and quicken- 
 ing work on practical religion we regard as a valuable 
 accession to our literature. Indeed anything written 
 with power on christian morals and theology is most 
 welcome. It is too true, and a sad truth, that religious 
 books are preeminently dull. If we wished to impov- 
 erish a man's intellect, we could devise few means more 
 effectual, than to confine him to w^at is called a course 
 of theological reading. The very subject, to which, 
 above all others, the writer should bring his whole 
 strength of thought and feeling, which allies itself to 
 our noblest faculties, to which reason, imagination, taste, 
 and genius should consecrate their noblest efforts, is of 
 
168 
 
 all subjects treated most weakly, tamely, and with least 
 attraction. Of course there are splendid exceptions, 
 but we speak of the immense majority of theological 
 books. It is wonderful how men can think and write 
 upon religion to so little effect. That a theme so va'fet, 
 so sublime as Christianity, embracing God and man, 
 earth and heaven, time and eternity, connected inti- 
 mately with all human history, deriving lights from all 
 human experience, admitting application to the whole 
 of human life, and proposing as its great end the ever- 
 lasting progress of the soul — that such a subject should 
 be treated so monotonously as to be proverbially dull, 
 that its professed explorers should be able to plant their 
 footsteps so exactly in the track of their predecessors, 
 that the boundlessness of the field should so seldom 
 tempt an adventurous spirit from the beaten way, is 
 wonderful, and might seem a miracle to a man unac- 
 quainted with the vassalage which has broken down the 
 mind in the department of teligion. It is true, that 
 those who write on this toipic are accustomed to call 
 it sublime ; but they make its sublimity cold and barren, 
 like that of mountain tops wrapped in everlasting snows. 
 We write this, not in severity, but in sorrow of heart ; 
 for we despair of any great progress of the human 
 character or of society, until the energies of the mind 
 shall be bent, as they seldom have been, on those most 
 important subjects and interests of the human mind, 
 morals and religion.* 
 
 As a striking proof of the poverty of religious litera- 
 ture, and of the general barrenness of the intellect when 
 employed in this field, we may refer to the small amount 
 of original and productive thought in the English church 
 since the days of Barrow and Taylor. Could our voice 
 
169 
 
 be heard in England, we would ask impartial and gifted 
 men, more familiar with their country's history than 
 ourselves, to solve the problem, how a Protestant Es- 
 tablishment, so munificently endowed with the means 
 of improvement, should have done so little, in so long a 
 period, for Christianity, should have produced so few 
 books to interest the higher order of minds. Let not 
 these remarks be misunderstood, as if we were wanting 
 in respect and gratitude to a church, which, with all its 
 defects, has been the bulwark of Protestantism, which 
 has been illustrated by the piety and virtues of such 
 men as Bishops Wilson, Berkeley, and Heber, and in 
 which have sprung up so many institutions, consecrated 
 to humanity, and to the diffusion of the christian faith. 
 We mean not to, deny it the honor of having fostered 
 talent in various forms and directions. Among the En- 
 glish clergy we find profound and elegant scholars ; we 
 find the names of those giants in ancient learning. Bent- 
 ley and Parr, and a crowd of proficients in polite litera- 
 ture, of whom Hurd and Jortin are honorable repre- 
 sentatives. We speak only of the deficiency of their 
 contributions to moral and religious science. With the 
 exception of Clarke and Butler, we could not easily 
 name any of the Establishment, since , the time above 
 specified, who have decidedly carried forward the human 
 intellect. The latter of these is indeed a great name, 
 notwithstanding the alleged obscurities of his style, and 
 worthy to be enrolled among the master spirits of the 
 human race. In regard to commentators, whose func- 
 tion, as commonly executed, holds a second rank in the- 
 ology, the English church, since the tinie of Hammond, 
 has produced none of much value, except Bishop Pearce. 
 We presume that she will not lay claim to the heretical 
 Locke, who carried into the interpretation of the scrip- 
 15 
 
170 
 
 tures the same force of thought, as into the philosophy 
 of the mind ; or to Whitby, whose strenuous Arminian- 
 ism, as Orthodoxy would reproachingly say, tapered off 
 into that most suspicious form of Christianity, Unitari- 
 anism. We have not yet named two of the most illus- 
 trious intellectual chiefs of the church, Warburton and 
 Horsley. Their great powers we most readily own ; 
 but Warburton is generally acknowledged to have wast- 
 ed his mind, and has left no impression of himself on 
 later times ; whilst Horsley, though he has given us 
 striking, if flot judicious, sermons, in a style of unusual 
 vigor, cannot be said to have communicated, in any re- 
 spect, a new impulse to thought, and in biblical criti- 
 cism, to which he was zealously devoted, he is one of 
 the last authorities on which a sound mind would lean. 
 To Bishops Lowth and Sherlock we cheerfully acknow- 
 ledge our obligations ; and we question whether the lat- 
 ter has even yet received his due praise. We have not 
 forgotten, though we have not named, Tillotson, Seeker, 
 and Porteus. They are all worthy of remembrance, 
 especially Seeker, the clear and wise expounder of chris- 
 tian ethics ; but they added little ot nothing to the stock 
 which they receLved. It may be thought, that we have 
 not been just to the Establishment, in passing over Paley. 
 He has our sincere admiration. On one great topic, 
 which indeed has been worthily treated by many of the 
 clergy, we mean that of christian evidence, he has shed 
 new light. By felicity of arrangement and illustration, 
 he has given an air of novelty to old arguments, whilst 
 he has strengthened his cause by important original 
 proofs. His Hor<s Paulina is one of the few books 
 destined to live. Paley saw what he did see, through 
 an atmosphere of light. He seized on the strong points 
 of his subject with cm intuitive sagacity, and has given 
 
171 
 
 tis clear, bright thoughts, in a style which has made 
 them the property of his readers almost as perfectly as 
 they were his own. In what then did he fail? We 
 have said, that he was characterized by the distinctness 
 of his vision. He was not, we think, equally remarka- 
 ble for its extent. He was popular, rather than philo- 
 sophical. He was deficient in that intellectual thirst, 
 which is a chief element of the philosophical spirit. He 
 had no irrepressible desire to sound the depths of his 
 own nature, or to ascend to wide and all-reconciling 
 views of the works and ways of God. Moral philoso- 
 phy he carried backward, nor had he higher claims m 
 religious, than in ethical science. His sermons are 
 worthy of all praise, not indeed for their power over 
 the heart, but for their plain and strong expositions of 
 duty, and their awakening appeals to the conscience. 
 
 We leave this topic with observing, that in the noblest 
 branch of history, we mean christian or ecclesiastical 
 history, the English church has not furnished a single 
 distinguished name. We have one mournful and de- 
 cisive proof of this deficiency. The vast majority of 
 English readers learn what they know of the progress 
 and fprtunes of their religion, from its foe and insulter, 
 from Gibbon, the apostle of unbelief. The history of 
 Christianity, the most important and sublime theme in 
 this province of literature, has as yet found no writer 
 to do it justice, none to be compared with the great 
 names in civil history. The mightiest revolution in the 
 records of our race remains to be worthily told. We 
 doubt indeed, whether the true character, style, and ex- 
 tent of the work which is needed, are as yet compre- 
 hended. That the same rigorous impartiality, the same 
 spirit of philosophical research into causes and effects, 
 is to be carried into religious as into civil history, is im^ 
 
172 
 
 perfectly understood. The records of particular sects 
 and churches, instead of exhausting this great subject, 
 are perhaps subordinate parts. We want to know the 
 great conflict between Christianity and Heathenism, 
 and the action and reaction of these systems on one 
 another. We want to know the influences of Christi- 
 anity on society, politics, manners, philosophy, and life- 
 rature, and the modifications which it has received in 
 return from all these mighty agents. We know not 
 where history can find a nobler field for its graphic 
 powers, than in the chivalrous ages of Christianity ; nor 
 Can it find in its whole range over the past, a subject 
 so fitted, as the spread and fortunes of this religion, to 
 its great end, which is, to throw light on the nature 
 and powers of man, and to carry us deep into the human 
 soul. When is this greatest and most lamentable chasm 
 in our literature to be supplied ? 
 
 We have cited the English church as a proof of the 
 unproductiveness of the intellect in religion, and of the 
 barrenness of theological literature. Had we time, we 
 might find corroborations in other sects. In truth a 
 paralysing influence has been working mightily for ages 
 in the christian world, and we ought not to wonder at 
 its results. Free action has been denied to the mind, 
 and freedom is an essential condition of growth and 
 power. A fettered limb moves slowly and operates 
 feebly. The spirit pines away in a prison ; and yet to 
 rfeur prison walls round the mind has been the chief toil 
 of ages. The mischiefs of this intellectual bondage, 
 are as yet, we conceive, but imperfectly known, and 
 need to- be set forth with a new eloquence. If, as we 
 believe, progress be the supreme law of the soul and 
 the very aim of its creation, then no wrong can be 
 inflicted on it so grievous, as to bind it down everlast- 
 
173 
 
 ingly to a fixed, unvarying creed, especially if this creed 
 was framed in an. age of darkness, crime, and political 
 and religious strife. This tyranny is preeminently 
 treason against human nature. If growth be the su- 
 preme law and purpose of the mind, then the very truth 
 which was suited to one age, may, if made the limit of 
 future ones, become a positive evil ; just as the garment 
 in which childhood sports with ease and joy, would irri- 
 tate and deform the enlarging frame. God, having 
 framed the soul for expansion, has placed it in the midst 
 of an unlimited universe to receive fresh impulses and 
 impressions without end ; and man, ' dressed in a little 
 brief authority,' would sever it from this sublime con- 
 nexion, and would shape it after his own ignorance or 
 narrow views. The effects are as necessary as they are 
 mournful. The mind, in proportion as it is cutoff from 
 free communication with nature, with revelation, with 
 God, with itself, loses its life, just as the body droops, 
 when debarred from the fresh air and the cheering light 
 of heaven. Its vision is contracted, its energies blight- 
 ed, its movement constrained. It finds health only in 
 action. It is perfect, only in as far as it is self-formed. 
 — Let us not be misapprehended. We mean not to 
 deny that the mind needs the aid of human instruction, 
 from the cradle to the grave ; but this it needs as a ma- 
 terial to act upon, and not as a lesson to be mechanically 
 learned. The great aim of instruction should be to give 
 the mind the consciousness and free use of its own 
 powers. The less of instruction the better, if it only 
 propose to engender a slavish dependence and an inert 
 faith. The soul often owes its" best acquisitions to it- 
 self. ^ They come to it from glimpses of its own nature 
 which it cannot trace to human ^ teaching, from the 
 whispers of a divine voice, frorn stirrings and aspirations 
 15* 
 
174 
 
 of its own unfolding and unbounded energies, from the 
 indistinct dawning of new truths, or from the sudden 
 brightening of old truths, which, if left to act freely, 
 work a mighty revolution within. Against these inspi- 
 rations, if so they may be called, which belong to the 
 individual, and which are perpetually bursting the limits 
 of received ideas, the spirit of religious tyranny wages 
 its chief and most unrelenting war. It dreads nothing 
 so much as a mind, in which these diviner motions 
 manifest themselves in power. That it should have so 
 succeeded in checking and stifling them, is one of the 
 very mournful reflections forced on us by human history. 
 We have here one great cause of the sterility of theo- 
 logical literature. Religion, by being imposed as a 
 yoke, has subdued the faculties, which it was meant to 
 quicken ; and, what is most worthy of remark, like all 
 other yokes, it has often excited a mad resistance, 
 which has sought compensation for past restraints in 
 licentiousness, and disgraced the holy name of freedom, 
 by attaching it to impiety and shameless excess. 
 
 A great subject has led us far from our author. We 
 return to him with pleasure. We welcome, as we have 
 said, a book from Fenelon ; and we do so because, if 
 not a profound, he was an original thinker, and because, 
 though a Catholic, he was essentially free. He wrote 
 from his own mind, and seldom has a purer mind taber- 
 nacled in flesh. He professed to believe in an infallible 
 church ; but he listened habitually to the voice of God 
 within him, and speaks of this in language so strong, 
 as to have given the Quakers some plea for ranking him 
 among themselves. So little did he confine himself to 
 established notions, that he drew upon himself the cen- 
 sures of his church, and, like some other Christians 
 whom we could name, has ever been charged with a 
 
176 
 
 refined Deism. His works have the great charm of 
 comiug fresh from the soul. He wrote from experienpe, 
 and hence, though he often speaks a language which 
 must seem almost a foreign one to men of the world, 
 yet he always speaks in a tone of reality. That he has 
 excesses we mean pot to deny ; but they are of a kind 
 which we regard with more than indulgence, ^ilmost 
 with admiration. Common fanaticism we cannot away 
 with ; for it is essentially vulgar, the working of animal 
 passions, sometimes of sexual love, and oftener of earth- 
 ly ambition. But when a pure mind errs, by aspiring 
 after a disinterestedness and purity not granted to our 
 present infant state, we almost reverence its errors ; 
 and still more, we recognise in them an essential truth. 
 They only anticipate and claim too speedily the good 
 for which man was made. They are the misapprehen- 
 sions of the inspired prophet, who hopes to see in his 
 own day, what he was appointed to promise to remoter 
 ages. 
 
 Fenelon saw far into the human heart, and especially 
 into the lurkings of self-love. He looked with a pierc- 
 , ing eye through the disguises of sin. But he knew sm, 
 not, as most men do, by bitter experience of its power, 
 so much as by his knowledge and experience of virtue. 
 Deformity was revealed to him by his refined percep- 
 tions and intense Ipve of moral beauty. The light, 
 which he cairried with him into the dark corners of the 
 human heart, and by which he laid open its most hidden 
 guilt, was that of celestial goodness. Hence, though 
 the severest of censors, he is the most pitying. Not a 
 tone of asperity escapes him. He looks on human error 
 with an angel's tenderness, with tears which an angel 
 might shed, and thus reconciles and binds us to our race, 
 at the very moment of revealing its corruptions. 
 
176 
 
 That Fenelon's views of human nature were dark, too 
 dark, we learn from almost every page of his writings ; 
 and at this we cannot wonder. He was early thrown 
 into the very court, froth v/hich Rochefoucauld drew 
 his celebrated Maxims-, perhaps the spot, above all oth- 
 ers on the face of the earth, distinguished and disgraced 
 by sdfishness, hypocrisy, and intrigue. When we think 
 of Fenelon in the palace of Louis XIV., it reminds us 
 of a seraph sent on a divine commission into the abodes 
 of the lost ; and when we recollect that in that atmos- 
 phere he composed his Telemachus, we doubt whether 
 the records of the world furnish stronger evidence of the 
 power of a divine virtue, to turn temptation into glory 
 and strength, and. to make even crowned and prosperous 
 vice a means of triumph and exaltation.^-Another cause 
 of Fenelon's unjust views of human life, may be found, 
 we think, in his profession. All professions tend to 
 narrow and obscure the intellect, and none more than 
 that of a priest. We know not indeed a nobler or more 
 useful function than that of the christian minister ; but 
 superstitious notions and an imagined sanctity, have 
 severed him more or less from his race, especially in a 
 church which dooms him to celibacy, and from this un- 
 natural, insulated position, it is impossible for him to 
 judge justly of his kind. — We think too, that Fenelon 
 was led astray by a very common error of exalted minds. 
 He applied too rigorous and unvarying a standard to the 
 multitude. He leaned to the error of expecting the 
 strength of manhood in the child, the harvest in seed- 
 time. On this subject, above all others, we feel that 
 we should speak cautiously. We know that there is a 
 lenity towards humJan deficiencies full of danger ; but 
 there is, too, a severity far more common, and perhaps 
 more ruinous. Human nature, as ordinarily exhibited, 
 
177 
 
 merits rebuke ; but whoever considers the sore trials, 
 the thick darkness, the impetuous will, the strong pas- 
 sions, under which man commences his moral probation, 
 will temper rebuke with pity and hope. There is a wis- 
 dom, perhaps the rarest and subliraest attainment of the 
 intellect, which is at once liberal and severe, indulgent 
 and unbending ; which makes merciful and equitable 
 allowance for the innocent infirmities, the necessary 
 errors, the obstructions and , temptatiqns of human be- 
 ings, and at the same time asserts the majesty of virtue, 
 strengthens the sense of accountableness, binds on us 
 self-<ienial, and points upward, with a never ceasing im- 
 portunity, to moral perfection as the great aim and only 
 happiness of the human soul. We will not say that 
 Fenelon was a stranger to this fcroad, comprehensive 
 wisdom, but we cannot name it as his chief distinction. 
 We have said that we welcome the book under con- 
 sideration, because it came from so pure and gifted a 
 mind. We add, that we do not welcome it the less 
 for coming from a Catholic Perhaps we prize it the 
 more : for we wish that Protestantism may grow wiser 
 and more tolerant, and we know not a better teacher of 
 these lessons than the character of Fenelon. Such a 
 man is enough to place within the pale of our charity, 
 the whole body to which he belonged- His virtue is 
 broad enough to shield his whol-e church from that un- 
 measured, umdistinguishmg reprobation, with which Pro- 
 testant zeal has too often assailed it. Whoever remem- 
 bers, that the Catholic communion numbers in its ranks 
 more than one hundired millions -of sowls, probably more 
 than all other christian churohes togiethier, must shudder 
 at the sentence of piroseriptioni which has sometiides 
 been jpassed on this immense porltion of human beings. 
 It is time that greater justice were done to this ancient 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
180 
 
 pure and ennobling in the most incongruous system ? 
 Shall we shut our eyes on the fact, that among the clergy 
 of the Romish church have risen up illustrious imitators 
 of that magnanimous apostle, before whom Felix trem- 
 bled ; men, who, in the presence of nobles and kings, 
 have bowed to God alone, have challenged for his law 
 uncompromising homage, and rebuked in virtue's own 
 undaunted tone triumphant guilt ? Shall we shut our 
 eyes on the fact, that from the bosom of this corrupt 
 church, have gone forth missionaries to the east and the 
 west, whose toils and martyrdom will not be dimmed 
 by comparison with what is most splendid in Protes- 
 tant self-sacrifice ? We repeat it, not boastingly, but 
 from deep c'onviction, that we are exceeded by no sect 
 in earnestness of desire for the subversion of the usurp- 
 ed power of the Catholic church, of its false doctrines, 
 and of its childish ceremonies so often substituted for 
 inward virtue. We believe that these have wrought, 
 and still work great evil. Still we see and delight to 
 see, among those who adhere to them, the best attri- 
 butes of men and Christians. Still we are accustomed 
 to refresh our piety by books which Catholics have 
 written. Still we find one of our highest gratifications 
 in those works of art, in which Catholic genius has em- 
 bodied its sublime and touching conceptions of the form 
 and countenance of Jesus, has made us awed witnesses 
 of his miracles and cross, companions of his apostles, 
 and admirers, with a telider reverence, of the meek, 
 celestial beauty of his sainted mother. With these im- 
 pressions, and this experience, we cannot but lift up 
 our voices against Protestant as well as Papal intoler- 
 ance. We would purify Protestantism from the worst 
 stain and crime of Rome, her cruel bigotry, her nefari- 
 ous spirit of exclusion. 
 
181 
 
 It woiild give us pleasure to enlarge on the character 
 bf Fenelon, had we not proposed to ourselves another 
 and still more important object in this review. But, in 
 truth, this grateful duty has been so faithfully perform- 
 ed in the Memoir added to the Selections, that our 
 readers will have no cause to complain of our declining 
 it. This sketch of Fenelon overjflows with fervent yet 
 discriminating' admiration, and gives utterance to affec- 
 tionate reverence, with a calmness which wins our con- 
 fidence. It is not easy to make extracts where the 
 whole is so interesting. But as some of our readers 
 may know Fenelon only by name, and as we wish all 
 to know and love him, we insert a few passages. 
 
 ' Fenelon, by mixing with all ranks and conditions, by associating 
 with the unfortunate and the sorrowful, by assisting the weak, and 
 by that union of mildness, of energy, and of benevolence^ which 
 adapts itself to every character, and to every situation, acquired the 
 knowledge of the moral and physical ills which afflict human nature. 
 It was by this habitual and immediate communication with all classes 
 of society, that he obta,ined the melancholy conviction of the mise- 
 ries which distress the greater part of mankind ; and to the profound 
 impression of this truth through his whole life, we must ascribe that 
 tender commiseration for the unfortunate, which he manifests ii\ all 
 his writings, and which he displayed still more powerfully in all his 
 actions.' pp. 263, 4. 
 
 ' In the course of his walks, he would often join the peasants, sit 
 down with them on the grass, talk with them, and console them. 
 He visited them in their cottages, seated himself at table with them, 
 and partook of their humble meals. By such kindness and famili- 
 arity, he won their sfffgctions, and gained access to their minds. As 
 they loved him as ^ father and friend, they delighted to listen to his 
 instructions, and to submit to his guidance. Long after his death, 
 the old people who had the happiness of seeing him on these occa- 
 sions, spoke of him with the most tender reverence. " There," they 
 would say, "is the chair on which our good Archbishop used to sit 
 in the midst of us ; we shall see him no more," and then their tears 
 would flow. 
 
 16 
 
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Missing Page 
 
184 
 
 and sudden tVansitions, not very favorable to order and 
 connexion. 
 
 We now come to our principal object. We propose 
 to examine the most distinguishing views, or system of 
 Fenelon. We say, his ' system,^ for thoiigh he seems 
 to write from immediate impulse, his works possess 
 that unity which belongs to the prbductions of all supe- 
 ripr minds. However he may appear to give his 
 thoughts without elaboration or method, yet one spirit 
 pervades them. We hear everywhere the same mild 
 and penetrating voice, and feel ourselves always in the 
 presence of the same strongly marked mind. What 
 then were Fenelon's most characteristic views ? — It 
 may be well to observe, that our principal aim in this 
 inquiry, is, to secure our readers against what we deem 
 exceptionable in his system. We believe, as we have 
 said, that he is not free from excess. He is sometimes 
 unguarded, sometimes extravagant. He needs to be 
 read with caution, as do all who write from their own 
 deeply excited minds. He needs to be received with 
 deductions and explanations, and to furnish these is bur 
 present aim. We fear that the very excellences of 
 Fenelon may shield his errors. Admiration prepares 
 the mind for belief; and the moral and religious sensi- 
 bility of the reader ms^y lay him open to impressions, 
 which, whilst they leave his purity unstained, may en- 
 gender causeless solicitudes, and repress a just and 
 cheerful interest in the- ordinary pleasures and labors of 
 life. 
 
 What then are Fenelon's characteristic views ? We 
 begin with his views of God, which very much deter- 
 mine and color a religious system ; and these are simple 
 and affecting. He seems tp regard God but in one 
 
185 
 
 light, to think of him but in one character. God 
 always comes to him as the father, as the pitying and 
 purifying friend, of the soul. This spiritual relation 
 of the Supreme Being, is, in the book before us, his all- 
 comprehending, all-absorbing attribute. Our author 
 constantly sets before us God as dwelling in the human 
 mind, and dwelling there, to reprove its guilt, to speak 
 to it with a still voice, to kindle a celestial ray in its 
 darkness, to distil upon it his grace, to call forth its love 
 towards himself, and to bow it by a gentle, rational 
 sway, to chosen, cheerful, entire, subjection to his pure 
 and righteous will, i Fenelon had fully received the 
 christian doctrine of God. He believed in him as the 
 Universal Father, as loving every soul, loving the 
 guiltiest soul, and striving with it to reclaim it to him- 
 self. This interest of the Creator in the lost and 
 darkened mind; is the thought which predominates in 
 the writings of this excellent man. God's care of the 
 outward world, of men's outward interests, of the con- 
 cerns of nations, seems scarcely to enter his mind. It 
 is of God, present to the soul, as a reprover, enlighten- 
 er, purifier, and guide to perfection, that he loves to 
 speak, and he speaks with a depth ,of conviction and 
 tenderness, to which, one would think, every reader 
 must respond. 
 
 We have seen the predominant view of the Supreme 
 Being in the writings which we are examining. He is 
 a spiritual father, seeking the perfection of every soul 
 which he has made. — Another great question, carrying 
 us still more deeply into Fenelon's mind, now presents 
 itself. In what did he suppose this perfection of the 
 human soul to consist ? His views on this subject may 
 be expressed in two words, self-crucifixion and love to 
 God. Through these human perfection is to be sought. 
 16* 
 
186 
 
 In these, an.d especially in the last, it consists. Accord- 
 ing to Fenelon, we are placed between two mightj at- 
 tractions, self and (3pd ; ahd the; only important question 
 for every human being, is, to which of these hostile 
 povv'ers he will detetoine or surrender his inind ? Hi§ 
 phraseology on this subject is various, and indeed his 
 writings are, in a great measure, expansions of this 
 single view. He lays open the perpetual collisions be- 
 tween the principle of' selfishness and the principle of 
 religious love, and calls us with his whole strength: of 
 persuasion, to sacrifice the first, to cherish and enthrone 
 the last. This is his great aim. This he urges in a 
 diversity of forms, some of which may be repeated, as 
 helps to a better appreherision of his doctrine. Thus 
 he calls us ' to die to ourselves, and to live to God ;' — 
 ' to renounce our own wills and to choose the will of 
 God as our only rule ;' — ' to renounce our own glory 
 and to seek the glory of God ;' — ' to distrust ourselves 
 and to put our whole trust in God;' — 'to forget our- 
 selves and to give out thoughts to God ;' — ' to renounce 
 ease and to labor for God ;'— -' to sacrifice pleasure and 
 to sufier for God ;' — ' to sUence our own passions and 
 to listen to the voice of God ;'^ — 'to crucify self-love, 
 aad to substitute for it the love of God ;' — ' to surrender 
 our plans and to leave all things to God.' These pas- 
 sages give us Fenelon's theory of perfection. Self, as 
 he teaches j is the great barrier between the soul and its 
 jMaker, and self is to vanish more and more from our 
 thoughts, desires, hopes, trust, and complacency^ and 
 God Jo become all in all. Our own interests, pleasures, 
 plans, advancement, all are to be swallowed up in an 
 entire and unreserved devotion to ,the will of God. 
 
 Such is the;doctrine of Fenelon, and it is essentially 
 Just. Self-crucifixion or self-sacrifice, and love to God 
 
187 
 
 including love to his creatures, are the chief elements 
 of moral perfection. The pure and noble mind of Fen- 
 elon recognised as by instinct, and separated from all 
 inferior adjuncts, these essential constituents or attri- 
 butes of christian virtue ; and there are passages in 
 which he sets before us their deep and silent vv'orkings 
 in the heart, and their beautiful manifestations in the 
 life, with a delicacy, power, and truth, which can hard- 
 ly be surpassed. 
 
 Still we think that Fenelon's exposition of his views 
 is open to objection. We think that his phraseology, 
 notwithstanding its apparent simplicity, is pften obscure ; 
 that he has not set the due bounds to his doctrines ; and 
 especially that refined ininds, thirsting for perfection, 
 may be led astray by his peculiar mode of exhibiting it. 
 Our objections we will now state more fully. 
 
 We have said that self-crucifixion and love to God 
 are, in Fenelon's system, the two chief constituents or 
 elements of virtue and perfection. To these we will 
 give separate attention, although in truth they often 
 coalesce, and always imply one another. We begin 
 with self-crucifixion, or what is often called self-sacri- 
 fice, and on this we chiefly differ from the expositions 
 of our author. Perhaps the word self occurs more fre- 
 quently than any other in Fenelon's writings, and he is 
 particularly inclined to place it in contrast with and in 
 opposition to God. According to Jiis common teaching, 
 God and self are hostile influences, having nothing in 
 common ; the one, the concentration of all evil, the 
 other of all good. Self is the principle and the seat of 
 all guilt and misery. He is never weary of pouring re- 
 proach on self, and, generally speaking, sets no limits 
 ta the duty of putting it to a painfiil death. Now lan- 
 guage like this has led men to very injurious modes of 
 
188 
 
 regarding themselves and their own nature, and made 
 them forgetful of what they owe to themselves. It has 
 thrown a cloud over man's condition and prospects. It 
 has led to self-contempt, a vice as pernicious as pride. 
 A man, when told perpetually to crucify himself, is apt 
 to include under this word his whole nature, and we 
 fear that, under this teaching, our nature is repressed, 
 its growth stinted, its free movements chained, and of 
 course its beauty, grace, and power impaired. We 
 mean not to charge on Fenelon the error of which we 
 have spoken, or to hold him responsible for its effects. 
 But we do think that it finds shelter under his phrase- 
 ology, and we deem it so great, so pernicious, as to 
 need a faithful exposition. Men err in nothing more 
 than in disparaging and wronging their own nature. 
 None are just to themselves. The truth on this, great 
 subject is indeed so obscured, that it may startle as a 
 paradox. A human being, justly viewed, instead of be- 
 ing bound to general self-crucifixion, cannot reverence 
 and cherish himself too much. This position, we know, 
 is strong. But strong language is needed to encounter 
 strong delusion. We would teach, that great limitations 
 must be set to the duty of renouncing or denying our- 
 selves, and that no self-crucifixion is virtuous, but that 
 which concurs with, and promotes self-respect. We 
 will unfold our meaning, beginning with positions, which 
 we presume will be controverted by none. 
 
 If we first regard man's highest nature, we shall see 
 at once, that to crucify or renounce this, so far from 
 being a du,ty, would be a crime. The mind, which is 
 our chief distinction, can never be spoken or thought 
 of too reverently. It is God's highest work, his mirror 
 and representative. Its superiority to thie outward uni- 
 verse is mournfully overlooked, and is yet most true. 
 
189 
 
 This preeminence we ascribe to the! mind, not merely 
 because it can comprehend the universe which cannot 
 comprehend itself, but for still higher reasons. We be- 
 lieve, that the human mind is akin to that intellectual 
 energy which gave birth to nature, and consequently 
 that it contains within itself the seminal and prolific 
 principles from which nature sprungi We believe, too, 
 that the highest purpose of the universe is to furnish ma- 
 terials, scope, and excitements to the mind, in the vvork 
 of assimilating itself to the Infinite Spirit ; that is, to 
 minister to a progress within us, which nothing without 
 us can rival. So transcendent is the mind. No praise 
 can equal God's goodness in creating us after his own 
 spiritual likeness. No imagination can conceive of the 
 greatness of the gift of a rational and moral existence. 
 Far from crucifying this, to unfold it must ever be the 
 chief duty and end of our being, and the noblest tribute 
 we can render to its Author. 
 
 We have spoken of the mind, that highest part of 
 ourselves, and of the guilt we should incur by crucify- 
 ing or renouncing it. But the duty of self-crucifixion 
 requires still greater limitations Taking human nature 
 as consisting of a body as well as mind, as including 
 animal desire, as framed to receive pleasure through 
 the eye and ear and all the organs of sense, in this larg- 
 er view, we cannot give it up to the immolation which 
 is sometimes urged. We see in the mixed constitution 
 of man a beautiful whole. We see in the lowest as 
 well as highest capacity an important use ; and in every 
 sense an inlet of pleasure not to be disdained. Still 
 more, we believe, that he, in whom the physical nature 
 is unfolded most entirely and harmoniously, who unites 
 to greatest strength of limbs the greatest acuteness of 
 the senses, may, if he will, derive important aids to the 
 
^ 190 
 
 intellect and moral powers from these felicities of his 
 outward frame. We believe, too, that by a beautiful 
 reaction, the mind, in proportion to its culture and 
 moral elevation, gives vigor and grace to the body, and 
 enlarges its sphere- of action and enjoyment. Thus, 
 human nature, viewed as a whole, as a union of the 
 worlds of matter and mind, is a work worthy of a divine 
 author, and its universal developement, not its general 
 crucifixion, is the lesson of wisdom and virtue. 
 
 We go still farther/ The desire of our own individ- 
 ual interest, pleasure, good, the principle which is ordi- 
 narily denominated self-love or self-regard, is not to be 
 warred against and destroyed. The tendency of this to 
 excess is indeed our chief :QK>ral danger. Self-partiali- 
 ty, in some form or other, enters into and constitutes 
 chiefly, if not wholly, every sin. But excess is not es- 
 sential to self-regardy and tliis principle of our nature is 
 the last which could be spared. Nothing is plainer than 
 that to every being his own welfare is more specially 
 committed than that of any other, arid that a special sen- 
 sibility to it is imperiously demanded by his present state. 
 He alone knows his own wants and perils, and the hour- 
 ly, perpetual claims of his particular lot ; and were he to 
 discard the care of himself for a day, he would inevita- 
 bly perish. It is a remark of great importance, that the 
 moral danger to which we are exposed by self-love, ari- 
 ses from the very indispensableness of this principle, from 
 the necessity of its perpetual exercise ; for according to 
 a known law of the mind, every passion, unless careful- 
 ly restrained, gains strength by frequency of excitement 
 and action. The tendency of self-love to excess results 
 from its very importance, or from the need in which we 
 Stand of its unceasing agency, and is therefore no rea- 
 son for its extermination, and no reproach on human na- 
 
191 
 
 ture. This tendency, however, does exist. It is strong. 
 It is fearful. It is our chief peril. It is the precipice, 
 on the edge of which we always tread. It is the great 
 appointed trial of our moral nature. To this tendency, 
 unresisted, tamely obeyed, we owe the chief guilt and 
 misery of the present state, the extinption of charity, a 
 moral death more terrible than all the calamities of life. 
 This truth Feuelon felt and taught as few have done, 
 and in his powerful warnings against this peril the chief 
 value of his writings lies. > He treats with admirable 
 acuteness the windings of self-partiality, shows how it 
 mixes with the best motives, and how it feeds upon, and 
 so consumes our very virtues. All this is true. Still, 
 self-love is an essential part of our nature, and must not 
 and cannot be renounced. 
 
 The strong tendency of. this principle to excess, of 
 which we have now spoken, explains the strong lan- 
 guage, in which Fenelon and others have pointed out 
 our danger from this part of our constitution. But it 
 has also given rise to exaggerated views and modes of 
 expression, which have contributed, perhaps, as much as 
 any cause, to the universal want of a just self-respect. 
 Self-love, from its proneness to excess and its constant 
 movenlents, has naturally been the object of greater 
 attention than any other principle of action ; and men, 
 regarding it not so much in its ordinary operations as in 
 its encroachments and its triumphs over other sentiments, 
 have come to consider it as the chief constituent of hu- 
 man nature. Philosophers, ' falsely so called,' have la- 
 bored to resolve into it all our affections, to make it the 
 sole spring of life, so that the whole mind, according to 
 their doctrine, may be considered as one energy of self- 
 love. If to these remarks we add, that this principle, as 
 its name imports, has self or the individual for its ob- 
 
192 
 
 ject, we have the explanation of a very important fact 
 in the present discussion. We learn how it is, that self- 
 love has come to be called by the name of self, as if it 
 constituted the whole individual, and to be considered 
 as entering into and forming human nature as no other 
 principle does. A man's self-love, especially when un- 
 restrained, is thus thought to be and is spoken of as 
 himself; and hence the duty of crucifying or renounc- 
 ing himself has naturally been urged by Fenelon, and a 
 host of writers, in the ' broadest and most unqualified 
 terms. 
 
 Now it is not true that self-love is our only principle, 
 or that it constitutes ourselves any more than other prin- 
 ciples, and the wrong done to our nature by such modes 
 of speech heeds to be resisted. Our nature has other 
 elements or constituents, and vastly higher ones, to which 
 self-love was meant to minister, and which are at war " 
 with its excesses. For example, we have reason or in- 
 tellectual energy, given us for the pursuit and acquisition 
 of truth ; and this is essentially a disinterested princir 
 pie ; for truth, which is its object, is of a universal, im- 
 partial nature. The great province of the intellectual 
 faculty, is, to acquaint the individual with the laws and 
 order of the divine systfem ; a system, whic^ spreads in- 
 finitely beyond himself, of which he forms a very small 
 part, which embraces innumerable beings equally favored 
 by God, and which proposes as its sublime and benefi- 
 cent end, the ever growing godd of the whole.. Again, 
 human nature has a variety of affections, corresponding 
 to our domestic and most common relations ; affections, 
 which in multitudes overpower self-love, which make 
 others the chief objects of ourxare, which nerve the arm 
 for ever recurring toil by day, and strengthen' the wea- 
 ried frame to forego the slumbers of night. Then there 
 
193 
 
 beJfOngs to every man the general sentiment of humanity, 
 whieli nesponds to all human sufferings, to a stranger's 
 tears. andgroans, and often prompts to great sacrifices for 
 his reHef- Above^ all there is the moral principle, that 
 wMch should especially be called a man's self, for it is 
 clothed with a kingly authority over his whole nature, 
 and was' (plainly given ito bear sway over every desire. 
 This is eminently a disinterested principle. Its very es- 
 sence is impartiality. It has no respect of persons. It 
 is the principle of justice, taking the rights of all under 
 its protection, and frowning on the least wrong, however 
 largely it may serve ourselves. This moral nature es- 
 pecially delights in, and enjoins a universal charity, 
 and makes the heart thrill with exulting joy, at the sight 
 or hearing of magnanimous deeds, of perils fronted, and 
 death endured, in the cause of humanity. Now these 
 various principles, and especially the last, are as truly 
 ourselves as self-love. When a man thinks of himself, 
 these ought to occur to him as his chief attributes. He 
 can iardly injure himself more, than by excluding these 
 from his conception of himself, and by making self-love 
 the great constituent of his nature. 
 
 We have urged these remarks on the narrow sense 
 often given to the word self, because we are persuaded, 
 that it leads to degrading ideas of human nature, and to 
 the pernicious notion, that we practise a virtuous self- 
 sacrifice in holding it in contempt. We would have it 
 understood, that high faculties form this despised self, 
 as truly as low desires ; and we would add, that when 
 these are faithfully unfolded, this self takes rank among 
 the noblest beings in the universe. To illustrate this 
 thought, we ask the reader's attention to an important, 
 but much neglected view of virtue and religion. These 
 are commonly spoken of in an abstract manner, as if 
 17 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
196 
 
 tion of duty. But who does not know, that the mind 
 never puts forth such strength of purpose or will, as in 
 overcoming desire ? And what is the highest end and 
 benefit of this warfare with desire ? It is, that the mind 
 may accamulate force of moral purpose, thatf the will 
 may more sternly, unconquerably resolve on the hardest 
 duties and sublimest virtues to which God may call us. 
 Once more, we are again and again exhorted by 
 Fenelon to ' forget ourselves.' And what means this ? 
 Self-oblivion, literally understood, is an impossibility. 
 We may as easily annihilate our being as our self-con- 
 sciousness. Self-remembrance is in truth a duty, need- 
 ful to the safety of every hour, and especially necessary 
 to the great work of life, which is the conforming of 
 ourselves, of our whole nature, to the will of God. 
 There is no danger of our minking of ourselves too 
 much, if we will think justly ; that is, if we will view 
 ourselves as what we are, as moral beings, accountable 
 to a divine lawgiver, framed to delight in and to seek 
 virtue, framed for an ever spreading philanthropy, called 
 to sympathize with and to suffer for others, and through 
 this path to ascend to our Original. There are, howev- 
 er, senses in which we cannot too much forget ourselves. 
 Our improvements of whatever kind, our good deeds, * 
 our virtues, whenever they are seized upon and magni- 
 fied by self-love, or so recalled as to lift us above others, 
 and to stifle that sense of deficiency and thirst for pro- 
 gress, by which alone we can be carried forward, these 
 we cannot too earnestly drive from our thoughts. Our 
 distinctions, whether of mind, body, or condition, when 
 they minister to vanity or pride, when they weaken the 
 consciousness of a common nature with the human race, 
 narrow our sympathies, or deprave our judgments, these 
 we cannot be too solicitous to forget. Our pleasures. 
 
197 
 
 when they are so exaggerated by the imagination as to 
 distract and overwhelm the sense of duty, should be 
 forced to quit their grasp on our minds. Such parts or 
 constituents of ourselves we are to forget. Our moral, 
 intellectual, immortal nature we cannot remember too 
 much. Under the consciousness of it, we are always 
 to live. 
 
 According to the views now given, self-crucifixion is 
 the subjection or sacrifice of the inferior to the higher 
 principles of our nature^ It is the practical recognition 
 of the supremacy and dignity of our rational and moral 
 powers. No duty involves a more reverential view and 
 care of ourselves. We have been the more solicitous 
 to give this view of self-renunciation, because its true 
 spirit is often mistaken, because it is often so set forth 
 as to degrade, instead of exalthig the mind. In truth, 
 we feel more and more the importance of bringing men 
 to juster conceptions of the inward gifts with which 
 God has enriched them. We desire nothing so much, 
 as to open their eyes to their own spiritual possessions. 
 We feel indeed the difficulties of the subject. We know 
 that we have to combat with a secret incredulity in 
 many minds. We know, that the clearest expositions 
 will be imperfectly understood by those, who have 
 nothing in their experience to interpret what we utter. 
 The mind, we are aware, can be clearly revealed to 
 itself, only by its own progress. Its capacities of 
 thought, of action, of endurance, of triumphing over 
 pleasure and pain, of identifying itself with other beings, 
 of seeking truth without prejudice and without fear, of 
 uniting itself with God, of sacrificing life to duty, these 
 immortal energies can only be felt to be real, and duly 
 honored, by those in whom they are gradually and 
 steadily unfolded. Still we do not despair of meeting 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 some response,, though faint, in multitudes. Such a 
 spirit, as God has breathed into men, cannot easily 
 exist, without giving some signs of its divine original. 
 In most men, there are some revelations of their own 
 nature, some beams of a light which belongs not to the 
 earth, some sympathies with what is good and great in 
 character, some perceptions of beauty, some gushings 
 from the deep, fountain of love in the soul, some thirst- 
 ingsfor a purer happiness, some experience of the pecu- 
 liar joy o^ a disinterested deed, some dim conceptions 
 at least of their intimate, rjelations to God. Most men 
 understa-nd thrpugh experience these testimonies to the 
 secret . wealjth and immortal , destination of the soul ^ 
 whilstj in not a few, such a measure of intellectual and 
 moral power has been called forth, that nothing is need- 
 ed but a wise direction of their thoughts upon them- 
 selves, to open to them, the magnificent prospect of 
 their own spiritual energy, and of the unbounded good 
 into which it may be unfolded. For such we have 
 written. We regard nothing so important to a human 
 being, as the knowledge of his own mind, and of its 
 intimate connexion with the Infinite Mind. Faith in 
 what man contains as a germ in his own breast, faith 
 in what he may become, in what he was framed to be, 
 in that state of power, light, purity, joy, to which Jesus 
 Christ came to exalt him,, this faith seems to us the 
 quickening, saving, renovating principle, which God 
 sent his Son to revive in the sou!, and happy are, they 
 who can spread its empire in the world. 
 
 We have finished our remarks on the first element of 
 perfection, according to Fenelon, self-crucifixion. We 
 proceed to the second, love to God. On this topic we 
 intended to enlarge, but have left ourselves little room. 
 
199 
 
 We are happy to say, that we have less to object to Fen- 
 elon's expositions under this head, than under the former. 
 Of the grandeur and the happiness of this principle he 
 speaks truly, worthily, in the penetrating language of 
 calm and deep conviction. In one particular, we think 
 him defective. He has not stated, and in truth, very few 
 do state, with sufficient strength and precision, the mor- 
 al foundation and the moral nature of religion. He has 
 not tawghtj with sufficient clearness, the great truths that 
 love to God is from beginning to end the love of virtue. 
 He did not sufficiently feel, that religion is the expansion 
 and most perfect form of the moral faculty of man. He 
 sometimes teaches, that to do God's will, we must re- 
 nounce ourselves and silence reason ; as if the divine will 
 were not in accordance with our faculties ; as if it were 
 something dark and mysterious ; as if to follow it, we 
 must quench the light of our own minds. Now the truth 
 is, that the divine, will is in harmony with our nature. 
 It is God's approbation and injunction of that moral 
 rectitude, of which the great lines are written on the 
 human soul, and to which reason and conscience, even 
 when they fail to secure obedience, do yet secretly, and 
 in no small degree, respond. The human mind and the 
 divine law are not distinct and disconnected things. If 
 man were not a law to himself, he could not receive the 
 revelation of a law from Heaven. Were not the princi- 
 ple of duty an essential part of his mind, he could be 
 boutid to no obedience. Religion has its foundation in 
 our moral nature, and is indeed its most enlarged and 
 glorious formy and we lament that this great truth does 
 not shine more brightly in the pages of Fenelon. We 
 intended to give to it a particular discussion; but as we 
 cannot do it justice in the present article, we prefer to 
 dismiss it, and to offer a few miscellkneous remarks on 
 
200 
 
 that sentiment of love towards God on which our author 
 so perpetually insists. 
 
 We are aware that to some men Fenelon may seem an 
 enthusiast. Some may doubt or deny the possibility of 
 that strong, deep, supreme affection towards the Supreme 
 Being, with which Fenelon's book overflows. We won- 
 der at this skepticism. We know no property of human 
 nature more undoubted, than its capacity and fulness of 
 affection. We see its love overflowing in its domestic 
 connexions, in friendships, and especially in its interest 
 in beings separated by oceans and the lapse of ages. 
 Let it not be said, -that the affections, to which we here 
 refer, have fellow beings for their objects, and do not 
 therefore prove our capacity of religious attachment. 
 The truth is, that one spirit runs through all our affec- 
 tions, as far as they are pure ; and love to mankind, di- 
 rected aright, is the germ and element of love to the 
 Divinity. Whatever is excellent and venerable in hu- 
 man beings, is of God, and in attaching ourselves to it 
 we are preparing our hearts for its Author. Whoever 
 sees and recognises the moral dignity of impartial jus- 
 tice and disinterested goodness in his fellow creatures, 
 has begun to pay homage to the attributes of God. 
 The first emotion awakened in the soul, we mean filial 
 attachment, is the dawning of love to our Father in 
 Heaven. Our deep interest in the history of good and 
 great men, our veneration towards enlightened legisla- 
 tors, our sympathy with philanthropists, our delight in 
 mighty efforts of intellect consecrated to a good cause, 
 all these sentiments prove our capacity of an affection- 
 ate reverence to God ; for he is at once the inspirer and 
 the model of this intellectual and moral grandeur in his 
 creatures. We even think, that our love of nature has 
 an affinity with the love of God, and was meant as a 
 
201 
 
 preparation for it ; for the harmonies of nature are only 
 his wisdom made visible ; the heavens, so sublime, are 
 a revelation of his immensity ; and the beauty of crea- 
 tion images to us his overflowing love and blessedness. 
 To us, hardty anything seems plainer, than that the 
 soul was made for God. Not only its human affections 
 guide it to him ; not only its deep wants, its dangers, 
 and helplessness, guide it to him ; there are still higher 
 indications of the end for which it was made. It has a 
 capacity of more than human love, a principle or power 
 of adoration, which cannot bound itself to finite natures, 
 which carries up the thoughts above the visible universe, 
 and , which, in approaching God, rises into a solemn 
 transport, a mingled awe and joy, prophetic of a higher 
 life ; and a brighter signature of our end and happiness 
 cannot be conceived. 
 
 We are aware that it may be objected, that, many and 
 great obstructions to a supreme love of God belong to 
 our very constitution and condition^ and 'that these go 
 far to disprove the doctrine Of our be-ing framed for re- 
 ligion as our chief good. But this argument does not 
 move us. We learn -from every survey of man's nature 
 and history, that he is ordained to approach the end of 
 his crccition through many and great (Obstructions ; that 
 elifort is the immutable law of his being; that a good, 
 in proportion to its grandeur, is eneompaased With hard- 
 ship. The obstructions to religion are not greater than 
 those to knowledge; and aecoardingly history gives as 
 dark views of huoian ignorance, as of human guilt. Yet 
 who, on this ground, denies tJlvat man was formed for 
 knowledge) that progress in truth iS' the path-Tofnaturev 
 arid that he has impulses which aretatcarityifoirvpaafdh-is, 
 ifttelleetual powers' without end ? ilt is God's plea^ujc!," 
 m his provisions for the mind, as well sks im the body. 
 
202 
 
 to give usiii a rude state the THateriatsof good, and 'tQ 
 leave us to feme frorn them, amidst mueh conflict, a 
 character of imdraKfeM'SreligibuS'exceHeiice; and in this 
 ordination we sefehisi vpise 'biiitevolence ;• for by 'this we 
 may rise to the unutterable'happine^sof a;. free and mor- 
 al union with our Creator. "We ought to add, that the 
 obstructions tothe'loye of God'doiiot lieiwhoUy in our- 
 selves!, ' Perhapsthe greatest is a false theology. This 
 interposes thick clouds between the soul and its Maker. 
 It darkens and dishonors God and his works, and leaVeS 
 nothing to sustain our trust 'and' love. ^ ' ' ' < ■; ^ 
 The motives, which are most commdniy urged far 
 cherishing supreme affection towardSj God, (are drawn 
 from our frailty and weaknessy and frx)m our need of 
 more than human succour in 'the triails of life and in the 
 pains of death. But religion has a still higher claim. 
 It answers to the deepest want of human nature. We 
 refer to our want of some being or beings^ to whom we 
 may give our hearts, whom we> may love more than our- 
 selves, for whom we may live and be ready to die, and 
 whose character responds to that idea of perfection, 
 which, however dim and undefined, is an essential ele- 
 ment of every human soul. We cannot be happy be- 
 yond our lovie. At the same time, love may prove our 
 chief wo, if bestowed unwisely, disproportionately, and 
 on unworthy objects ; if confined to beings of imperfect 
 virtue, with whose feelings we cannot always innocent- 
 ly sympathize,' whose interests we cannot always right- 
 eously promote, who narrow Us fo themselves instead 
 of breathing universal chkrity, who are frail, mutabto, 
 exposed to suffering, pain^ and death. To sectire a 
 growing happiness' and a spotless virtue, "we need for 
 the heart a being worthy of its whole treasure '6f love, 
 to whom we may! consecrate quj- whole existence, ' in 
 
203 
 
 approaching whom we enter an atmosphere of purity 
 and brightness, in sy^pa^thizing withiwhoin we phesrish 
 only noble sentimepts, in devoting ourselves to whom 
 we espouse great and enduriiig interests, in whose 
 character we find the spring pf an ever jenlarging philan- 
 t;hropy, and by ,atta,chm,ent. to whom, all our other 
 attachments are halloaed, protected, and supplied with 
 tender and sublime consolations under jbejeavement and 
 blighted hope. Such a |3eing is God., ' 
 
 The word which Fenelon has inost frequently used 
 to express the happiness to which the, mind ascends by 
 a supreme love of .God, is ' peace,' perhaps the most 
 expressive which language affords. We fear, however, 
 that its full import is not always, received. There is a 
 twofold peace. The first is negative. It is relief from 
 disquiet and corroding care,. It is repose after conflict 
 and storms. But there is another and a higher peace 
 to which this is but the prelude, ' a peace. of God whjch 
 passeth all understanding,' and ; properly called 'the 
 kingdom of heaven within, us.' This state is anything 
 but negative. It is the highest and most strenuous 
 action of the soul, but an entirely harmonious action, in 
 which all our powers and affections are blended in a 
 beautiful proportion, and sustain and perfect one anoth- 
 er. It is more than silence after storms. It is as the 
 concord of all melodious sounds. Has the reader never 
 known a season, whfen, in the fullest flow of thought 
 and feeling, in the universal action of the soul, an in- 
 ward calm, profound as midnight silence, yet bright as 
 the still summer noon, full of joy, but unbroken by one 
 throb of tumultuous passion, has been breathed through 
 his spirit, and given him a glimpse and presage of the 
 serenity of a happier world ? Of this character is the 
 peace of religion. It is a conscious harmony- with God 
 
204 
 
 and the creation, an alliahCe of love with all beings, a 
 sympathy with all that is pure and happy, a surrender 
 of every separate will and interest, a participation of the 
 spirit and life of the universe, an entire concord of pur- 
 pose with its Infinite Original. This is peace, and the 
 true happiness of man ; and we think that human nature 
 has never entirely lost sight of this its great end. It 
 has always sighed for a repose, in which energy of 
 thought and will might be tempered with an all -pervad- 
 ing tranquillity. We seem to discover aspirations after 
 this good, a dim consciousness of it, in all ages of the 
 world. We think we see it in those systems of Orien- 
 tal and Grecian philosophy, which proposed, as the con- 
 summation of present virtue, a release from all disquiet, 
 and an intimate union and harmony with the Divine 
 Mind. We even think, that we trace this conscious*- 
 ness, this aspiration, in the works of ancient art which 
 time has spared to us, in which the sculptor, aiming to 
 embody his deepest thoughts of human perfection, has 
 joined with the fulness of life and strength, a repose, 
 which breathes into the spectator an admiration as calm 
 as it is exalted. Man, we believe, never wholly loses 
 the sentiment of his true good. There are yearnings, 
 sighings, which he does not himself comprehend, which 
 break forth alike in his prosperous and adverse seasons, 
 which betray a deep, indestructible faith in a good that 
 he has not found, and which, in proportion as they grow 
 distinct, rise to God, and concentrate the soul in him, 
 as at once its life and rest, the fountain at once of ener- 
 gy and of peace. 
 
 In the remarks, which have now been suggested by 
 the writings of Fenelon, we have aimed to free religion 
 from exaggerations, which, we fear, weaken its influ- 
 
206 
 
 ence over reasonable men, and at the same time to 
 illustrate its dignity and happiness. We v/ant time, or 
 we should enlarge on the importance of this great sub- 
 ject to every human being. We cannot however leave 
 it, without earnestly recommending it to the attention 
 of men of superior minds. The neglect which it gene- 
 ra:lly receives from these is one of the most discouraging 
 signs of our times. The claims of religion on intelli- 
 gent men are not yet understood, and the low place 
 which it holds among the objects of liberal inquiry, will 
 oiie day be recollected as the shame of our age. Some 
 remarks on this topic may form a not unsuitable conclu- 
 sion to the present article. 
 
 It is, we fear, an unquestionable fact, that religion, 
 considered as an intellectual subject, is in a great mea- 
 sure left to a particular body of men, as a professix)nal 
 concern ; and the fact is as much to be wondered at as 
 deplored. It is wonderful that any mind, and especially 
 a superior one, should not see in religion the highest 
 object of thought. It is wonderful that the infinite God, 
 the noblest theme of the universe, should be considered 
 as a monopoly of professed theologians ; that a subject, 
 so vast, awful, and exalting, as our relation to the Di- 
 vinity, should be left to technical men, to be handled so 
 much for sectarian purposes. Religion is the property 
 and dearest interest of the human race. Every man 
 has an equal concern in it. It should be approached 
 with an independence on human authority. It should 
 be rescued from all the factions, which have seized 
 upon it as their particular possession. Men of the 
 highest intellect should feel, that, if there be a God, then 
 his character and our relation to him throw all other 
 subjects into obscurity, and that the ^intellect, if not 
 consecrated to him, can never attain its true use, its full 
 18 
 
206 
 
 dimensions, and its proper happiness. Religion, if it be 
 true, is central truth, and all knowledge, which is not 
 gathered round it, and quickened and illuminated by it, 
 is hardly worthy the name. To this great theme we 
 would summon all orders of mind, the scholar, the states- 
 man, the student of nature, and the observer of life. It 
 is a subject to which every faculty and every acquisition 
 may pay tribute, which may receive aids and lights 
 from the accuracy of the logician, from the penetrating 
 spirit of philosophy, from the intuitions of genius, from 
 the researches of history, from the science of the mind, 
 from physical science, from every branch of criticism, 
 and, though last not least, from the spontaneous s\igges- 
 tions and the moral aspirations of pure but unlettered 
 men. 
 
 It is a fact which shocks us, and which shows the 
 degraded state of religion, that not a few superior minds 
 look down upon it as a subject beneath their investiga- 
 tion. Though allied with all knowledge, and especially 
 with that of human nature and human duty, it is regard- 
 ed as a separate and inferior study, particularly fitted 
 to the gloom of a convent, and the seclusion of a minis- 
 ter. Religion is still confounded? in many and in gifted 
 minds, with the jargon of monks, andthe subtleties and 
 strifes of theologians. It is thought a mystery, which, 
 far from coalescing, wars with our other knowledge 
 It is never ranked with the sciences which expand and 
 adorn the mind. It is regarded as a method of escaping 
 future ruin, not as a vivifying truth through which the 
 intellect and heart are alike to be invigorated and en- 
 larged. Its bearing on the great objects of thought and 
 the great interests of life is hardly suspected. This 
 degradation of religion into a technical study, this dis- 
 junction of it from morals, from philosophy, from the 
 
207 
 
 various objects of liberal research, has done it infinite 
 injury, has checked its progress, has perpetuated errors 
 which gathered round it in times of barbarism and igno- 
 rance, has made it a mark for the sophistry and ridicule 
 of the licentious, and has infused a lurking skepticism 
 into many powerful understandings. Nor has religion 
 suffered alone. The whole mind is darkened by the 
 obscuration of this its central light. Its reasonings and 
 judgments becooie unstable through want of this foun- 
 dation to rest upon. Religion is to the whole sphere of 
 truth, what God is to the universe, and in dethroning 
 it, or confining it to a narrow range, we commit very 
 much such an injury on the soul, as the universe would 
 suffer, were the Infinite Being to abandon it, or to con- 
 tract his energy to a small province of his creation. 
 
 The injury done to literature by divorcing it from re- 
 ligion, is a topic worthy of separate discussion. Lite- 
 rature has thus lost power and permanent interest. It 
 has become, in a great measure, superficial, an image 
 of transient modes of thought and of arbitrary forms of 
 life, not the organ and expression of immutable truth, 
 and of deep workings of the soul. We beg not to be 
 misunderstood. We have no desire that literature 
 should confine itself wholly or chiefly to religious topics, 
 and we hardly know a greater calamity which it could 
 incur, than by degenerating into religious cant. Next 
 to profaneness, we dread the affectation of piety and the 
 mechanical repetition of sacred phraseology. We only 
 lament, that literature has so generally been the product 
 and utterance of minds, which have not lived, thought, 
 and written, under the light of a rational and sublime 
 faith. Severed from this, it wants the principle of im- 
 mortality. We do not speak lightly when we say, that 
 all works of the intellect, v/hich have' not in some meas- 
 
208 
 
 ure been quickened bj the spirit of religion, are doomed 
 to perish or to lose their power ; and that genius is pre- 
 paring for itself a sepulchre, when it disjoins itself from 
 the Universal Mind. Religion is not always to remain 
 in its present dark, depressed condition. Already, there 
 are signs of a brighter day. It begins to be viewed 
 more generously. It is gradually attracting to itself 
 superior understandings. It is rising from the low rank 
 of a professional, technical study, and asserting its su- 
 premacy among the objects of the mind. A new era, 
 we trust, is operiing upon the vvorld, and all literature 
 will feel its power. In proportion as the true and sub- 
 lime conception of God shall unfold itself in the soul, 
 and shall become there a central sun, shedding its beams 
 on all objects of thought, there will be a want of sym^ 
 pathy with all works which have not been quickened 
 by this heavenly influence. It will be felt that the pojet 
 has known little of nature, that he has seen it only un- 
 der clouds, if he have not seen it under this celestial 
 light. It will be felt, that man, the great subject of 
 literature, when viewed in separation from his Maker 
 and his end, can be as little understood and portrayed, 
 as a plant torn from the soil in which it grew, and cut 
 off from communication with the clouds and sun. 
 
 We are aware that objections will spring up to the 
 doctrine, that all literature should be produced under 
 the influence of religion. We shall be told, that in this 
 way literature will lose all variety and spirit, that a mo- 
 notonous and solemn hue will spread itself over writing, 
 and that a library will have the air of a tomb. We do 
 not wonder at this fear. Religion has certainly been 
 accustomed to speak in sepulchra;! tones, and to wear any 
 aspect but a bright and glowing one. It has lost its 
 free and various movement. But let us not ascribe to its 
 
209 
 
 nature, w.hat has befallen it from adverse circumstances. 
 The truth is, that religion, justly viewed, surpasses all 
 other principles, in giving a free and manifold action to 
 the mind. It recognises in every faculty and sentiment 
 the workmanship of God, and assigns a sphere of agen- 
 cy to each. It takes our Avhole nature under its guar- 
 dianship, and with a parental love ministers to its inferior 
 as well as higher gratifications. False religion mutilates 
 the soul, sees evil in our innocent sensibilities, and rules 
 with a tyrant's frown and rod. True religion is a mild 
 and lawful sovereign, governing to protect, to give 
 strength, to unfold all our inward resources. We be- . 
 lieve, that urider.its influence, literature is to pass its 
 present limits, and to put itself forth in original forms of 
 composition. Religion is of all principles most fruitful, 
 multiform, and unconfined. It is sympathy with that 
 Being, who seeriis to delight in diversifying the modes of 
 his agency, and the products of his wisdom and power. 
 It does not chain us to a few essential duties, or express 
 itself in a few unchanging modes of writing. It has the 
 liberality and munificence of nature, which not only pro- 
 duces the necessary root and grain, but pours forth fruits 
 and flowers. It has the variety and bold contrasts of 
 nature, which, at the foot of the awful mountain, scoops 
 out the freshest, sweetest valleys, and embosoms in the 
 wild, troubled ocean, islands, whose vernal airs, and love- 
 liness, and teeming fruitfulness, almost breathe the joys 
 of Paradise. Religion will accomplish for literature 
 what it most needs ; that is, will give it depth, at the 
 same time that it heightens its grace and beauty. The 
 union of these attributes is most to be desired. Our 
 literature is lamentably superficial, and to some the 
 beautiful and the superficial even seem to be naturally 
 conjoined. Let not beauty be so wronged. It resides 
 18* 
 
210 
 
 chiefly ia profound thoughts and feelings. It overflows 
 chiefly in the writings of poets, gifted with a sublime 
 and piercing visiofi. A beautiful literature springs from 
 the depth and fulness of intellectual and moral life, from 
 an energy of thought and feeling, to which nothing, as 
 we believe, ministers so largely as enlightened, religion. 
 So far from a monotonous solemnity overspreading 
 literature in consequence of the all-pervading influence 
 of religion, we Believe, that the sportive and comic 
 forms of composition, instead of being abandoned, will 
 only be refined and improved. We know that these 
 are supposed to be frowned upon by piety ; but they 
 have their root- in the constitution which God has given 
 us, and ought not therefore to be indiscriminately con- 
 demned. The propensity to wit and laughter does in- 
 deed, through excessive indulgence, often issue in a 
 character of heartless levity, low mimickry, or unfeel- 
 ing ridicule. It often seeks gratification in regions of 
 impurity, throws a gaiety round vice, and sometimes 
 even pours contempt on virtue. But, though often and 
 mournfully perverted, it is still a gift of God, and may 
 and ought to minister, not only to. innocent pleasure, 
 but to the intellect and the heart. Man was made for 
 relaxation as truly as for labor ; and by a law of his 
 nature, which has not received the attention it deserves, 
 he finds perhaps no relaxation so restorative, as that in 
 which he reverts to his childhood, seems to forget his 
 wisdom, leaves the imagination to exhilarate itself by 
 sportive inventions, talks of amusing incongruities in 
 conduct and events, smiles at the innocent eccentricities 
 and odd mistakes of those whom he inost esteems, al- 
 lows himself in arch allusions or kind-hearted satire, and 
 transports himself into a world of ludicrous combina- 
 tions. We have said, that on these occasions, the mind 
 
211 
 
 seems to put off its wisdom ; but the truth is, that in a 
 pure mind, wisdom retreats, if we may so say, to its 
 centre, and there unseen, keeps guard over this transient 
 folly, draws delicate lines which are never to be passed 
 in the freest moments, and, like a judicious parent 
 watching the sports of childhood, preserves a stainless 
 innocence of soul in the very exuberance of gaiety. 
 This combination of moral power with wit and humor, 
 with comic conceptions and irrepressible laughter, this 
 union of mirth and virtue, belongs to an advanced stage 
 of the character ; and we believe, that in proportion to 
 the diffusion of an enlightened religion, this action of 
 the mind will increase, and will overflow in compo- 
 sitions, which, joining innocence to sportiveness, will 
 communicate unmixed delight. Religion is not at vari- 
 ance with occasional mirth. In the sanje character, the 
 solemn thought and the sublime emotions of the im- 
 proved Christian, may be joined with the unanxious 
 freedom, buoyancy and gaiety of early years. 
 
 We will add but one more illustration of our views. 
 We believe that the union of religion with genius, will 
 favor that species of composition to which it may seem 
 at first to be least propitious. We refer to that depart- 
 ment of literature, which has for its object the delin- 
 eation of the stronger and more terrible and guilty 
 passions. Strange as it may appear, these gloomy and 
 appalling features of our nature may be best compre- 
 hended and portrayed by the purest and noblegt minds. 
 The common idea is, that overwhelming emotions, the 
 more they are experienced, can the more effectually be 
 described. We have one strong presumption against 
 this doctrine. Tradition leads us to believe, that Shak- 
 speare, though he painted so faithfully and fearfully the 
 storms of passion, was a calm and cheerful man. The 
 
212 
 
 passions are too engrossed by their Objects to meditate 
 on themselves; and none are more ignorant of their 
 growth and subtle workings than their own victims. 
 Nothing reveals to us the secrets of our own souls like 
 religion; and in disclosing to us, in ourselves, the ten- 
 dency of passion to absorb every energy, and to spread 
 its hues over every thought, it gives us a key to all 
 souls ; for in all, human nature is essentially one, having 
 the same spiritual elements, and the same grand fea- 
 tures. No man, it is believed, understands the wild and 
 irregular motions of the mind, like him in whom a prin- 
 ciple of divine order has begun to establish peace. No 
 man knows the horror of thick darkness which gathers 
 over the slaves of vehement passion, like him who is ris- 
 ing into the light and liberty of virtue. There is indeed 
 a selfish shrewdness, which is thought to give a peculiar 
 and deep insight into human nature. But the know- 
 ledge, of which it boasts, is partial, distorted, and vulgar, 
 and wholly unfit for the purposes of literature. We 
 value it little. We believe, that no qualification avails 
 so much to a knowledge of humafi nature in all its forms, 
 in its good and evil manifestations, as that enlightened, 
 celestial charity, which religion alone inspires ; for this 
 establishes sympathies between us and all men, and 
 thus makes them intelligible to us. A man, imbued 
 with this spirit, alone contemplates vice, as it really ex- 
 ists, and as it ought always to be described. In the 
 most depraved fellow beings he sees partakers of his 
 own nature. Amidst the terrible ravages of the pas- 
 sions, he sees conscience, though prostrate, not de- 
 stroyed, nor wholly powerless. He sees the proofs of 
 an unextinguished moral life,_ in inward struggles, in 
 occasional relentings, in sighings for lost innocence, in 
 reviving throbs of early affections, in the sophistry by 
 
213 
 
 which the guilty mind wquld become reconciled to it- 
 self, in remorse, in anxious forebodings, in despair, per- 
 haps in studied recklessness and cherished self-forget- 
 fulness. These conflicts between the passions and the 
 moral nature, are the most interesting subjects in the 
 branch of literature to which we refer, and we believe, 
 that to portray them with truth and power, the man of 
 genius can find in nothing such effectual aid, as in the 
 developement of the moral and religious principles in 
 his own breast. 
 
 We have given but a superficial view of a great sub 
 ject.'- The connexion of religion with intellect and 
 literature is yet to be pointed out. We conclude with 
 expressing our strong conviction that the human mind 
 will become more various, piercing, and all-comprehend- 
 ing, more capable of understanding and expressing the 
 solemn and the sportive, the terrible and the beautiful, 
 the profound and the tender, in proportion as it shall be 
 illumined and penetrated by the true knowledge of 
 God. Genius, intellect, imagination, taste, and sensi- 
 bility, must all be baptized into religion, or they will 
 never know, and never make known, their real glory 
 and immortal power. 
 
THE 
 
 MORAL ARGUMENT 
 
 AGAINST CALVINISM, 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 IN A REVIEW OF A WORK ENTITLED 
 
 ' A GENERAL VIEW OF THE DOCTRINES^ Oy CHRISTIANITY, DESIGNED MORE 
 ESPECIALLY FOR THE EDIFICATION AND^ INSTRUCTION OF FAMILIES.— 
 BOSTON, 1809.' 
 
 The work, of which we have prefixed the title to this 
 article, was published several years ago, and has been 
 read by many among us with pleasure and profit. But 
 it is not known as widely as it should be, and we wish 
 to call to it the notice which it merits. It is not an origi- 
 nal work, but was compiled chiefly from the writings 
 of the Rev. Robert Fellowes, whose name is probably 
 known to most of our readers. The title we think not 
 altogether happy, because it raises an expectation which 
 the book does not answer. We should expect from it 
 a regular statement of the great truths of our religion ; 
 but we find, what at present is perhaps as useful, a vin- 
 dication of Christianity from the gross errors, which 
 Calvinism has labored to identify with this divine sys- 
 tem. This may easily be supposed from the table of 
 contents. The book professes to treat of the following 
 subjects ; — The nature of religion and the mistakes that 
 occur on that subject ; the free-agency and accountable- i 
 ness of man ; the fall of Adam, and original sin ; the 
 
216 
 
 doctrine of faith in general, and of religious faith in par- 
 ticular ; the doctrine of works ; the doctrine of regen- 
 eration ; the doctrine of repentance ; the doctrine of 
 grace ; the doctrine of election and reprobation ; the 
 doctrine of perseverance ; the visiting of the iniquities 
 of the fathers upon the children ; and the sin 'against 
 the Holy Ghost. — To those who are acquainted with 
 the five thorny points of Calvinism, the design of this 
 compilation will b^ sufficiently understood from the 
 enumeration- of topics now given ; and few designs are 
 more praise-worthy, than to free Christianity from the 
 reproach brought upon it by that system. 
 
 The work under review is professedly popular in its 
 style and mode of discussion. It has little refined and 
 elaborate reasoning, but appeals to the great moral 
 principles of human nature, and to the general: strain of 
 the scriptures. It expresses strongly and without cir- 
 cumlocution; the abhorrence with which every mind, 
 uncorrupted by false theology, must look on Calvinism," 
 and although some of its delineations may be overcharg- 
 ed, yet they are substantially correct, and their strength 
 is their excellence. The truth is, that nothing is^ so 
 necessary on this subject as to awaken moral feeling in 
 men's breasts. Calvinism owes its perpetuity to the 
 influence of fear in palsying the moral nature. Men's 
 minds and consciences are "subdued by terror, so that 
 they dare not confess, even to themselves, the shrink- 
 ing, which they feel, from the unworthy views which 
 this system gives- of God ; and by thus smothering their 
 just abhorrence, they gradually extinguish it, and even 
 come to vindicate in God what would disgrace his crea- 
 tures. A voice of power and solemn warning is need- 
 ed to rouse them from this lethargy, to give them a new 
 and a juster dread, the dread of incurring God's dis- 
 
217 
 
 pleasure, by making him odious, and exposing religion 
 to iilsult and aversion. — In the present article, we in- 
 tend to treat this subject with great freedom. But we 
 beg that it may be understood that by Calvinism we in- 
 tend only the peculiarities or distinguishing features of 
 that system. We would also have it remembered, that 
 these peculiarities form a small part of the religious 
 faith of a Calvinist. He joins with them the general, 
 fundamental, and most important truths of Christianity, 
 by which they are always neutralized in a greater or 
 less degree, and in some cases nullified. Accordingly 
 it has been our happiness to see in the numerous body 
 by which they are professed, some of the brightest ex- 
 amples of christian virtue. Our hostility to the doc- 
 trine does not extend to its advocates. In bearing our 
 strongest testimony against error, we do not the less 
 honor the moral and religious worth with which it is 
 often connected. 
 
 The book under review will probably be objected to 
 by theologians, because it takes no notice of a distinc- 
 tion, invented by Calvinistic metaphysicians, for rescu- 
 ing their doctrines from the charge of aspersing God's 
 equity and goodness. We refer to the distinction be- 
 tween natural and moral inability, a subtlety v('hich 
 may be thought to deserve some attention, because it 
 makes such a show in some of the principal books of* 
 this sect. But with due deference to its defenders, it 
 seems to us groundless and idle, a distinction without a 
 difference. An inability to do our duty, which is horn 
 with us, is to all intents and according to the establish- 
 ed meaning of the word, natural. Call it moral, or 
 what you please, it is still a part of the nature which 
 our Creator gave us, and to suppose that he punishes 
 us for it, because it is an inability seated in the will, is 
 19 
 
218 
 
 just as absurd, as to suppose him to punish us for a 
 weakness of sight or of a limb. Common people can- 
 not understand this distinction, cannot split this hair ; 
 and it is no small objection to Calvinism, that, accord- 
 ing to its ablest defenders, it can only be reconciled to 
 God's perfections, by a metaphysical subtlety, which 
 the mass of people cannot comprehend. 
 
 If we were to speak as critics of the style of this 
 book, we should say, that whilst generally clear, and 
 sometimes striking, it has the faults of the style which 
 was very current not many years ago in this country, 
 and which, we rejoice to say, is giving place to a better. 
 The style to which we refer, and which threatened to 
 supplant good writing in this country, intended to be 
 elegant, but fell into jejuneness and insipidity. It de- 
 lighted in words and arrangements of words, which 
 were little soiled by common use, and mistook a spruce 
 neatness for grace. We had a Procrustes' bed for sen- 
 tences, and there seemed to be a settled war between 
 the style of writing and the free style of conversation. 
 Times we think have changed. Men have learned 
 more to write as they speak, and are ashamed to dress 
 up familiar thoughts, as if they were just arrived from 
 a far country, and could not appear in public without a 
 foreign and studied attire. They have learned that 
 common words are common, precisely because most fit- 
 ted to express real feeling and stroiig conception, and 
 that the circuitous, measured phraseology, which was 
 called elegance, was but the parade of weakness. They 
 have learned that words are the signs of thought, and 
 worthless counterfeits without it, and that style is good, 
 when, instead of being anxiously cast into a mould, it 
 seems a free and natural expression of thought, and gives 
 to us with power the workings of the author's mind. 
 
219 
 
 We have been led to make these remarks on the 
 style which in a degree marks the book before us, from 
 a persuasion that this mode of writing has been partic- 
 ularly injurious to religion, and to rational religion. It 
 has crept into sermons perhaps more than into any 
 other compositions, and has imbued them with that 
 soporific quality, which they have sometimes been found 
 to possess in an eminent degree. How many hearers 
 have been soothed by a smooth watery flow of words, a 
 regular chime of sentences, and elegantly rocked into re- 
 pose. We are aware, that preachers, above all writers, 
 are excusable for this style, because it is the easiest ; 
 and having too much work to do, they must do it of 
 course in the readiest way. ' But we mourn the neces- 
 sity, and mourn still more the effects — It gives us great 
 pleasure to say, that in this particular, we think we 
 perceive an improvement taking place in this region. 
 Preaching is becoming more direct, aims more at 
 impression, and seeks the nearest way to men's hearts 
 and consciences. We often hear from the pulpit 
 strong thought in plain and strong language. It is 
 hoped, from the state of society, that we shall not fly 
 from one extreme to another, and degenerate into 
 coarseness ; but perhaps even this is a less evil than 
 tameness and insipidity. 
 
 To return ; the principal argument against Calvin- 
 ism in the General View of Christian Doctrines is the 
 moral argument, or that which is drawn from the in- 
 consistency of the system with the divine perfections. 
 It is plain that a doctrine which contradicts our best 
 ideas of goodness and justice, cannot come from the 
 just and good God, or be a true representation of his 
 character. This moral argumeiit has alvj^ays been 
 powerful to the pulling down of the strong holds of Cal- 
 
220 
 
 vinism. Even in the dark period, when this system 
 was shaped and finished at Geneva, its advocates often 
 writhed under the weight of it; and we cannot but deem 
 it a mark of the progress of society, that Calvinists are 
 more and more troubled with the palpable repugnance 
 of their ' doctrines to God's nature, and accordingly 
 labor to soften and explain them, until in many cases 
 the name only is retained. If the stern reformer of 
 Geneva could lift up his head, and hear the mitigated 
 ,tohe in which some of his professed followers dispense 
 his fearful doctrines, we fear, that he could not lie down 
 in peace, until he had poured out his displeasure on 
 their cowardice and degeneracy. He would tell them 
 with a frown, that moderate Calvinism was a solecism, 
 a contradiction in terms, and would bid them in scorn 
 to join their real friend, Arminius. Such is the power 
 of public opinion and of an improved state of society 
 on creeds, that naked, undisguised Calvinism, is not 
 very fond of showing itself, and many of consequence 
 know imperfectly what it means. What then is the 
 system against which the View of Christian Doctrines 
 is directed ? 
 
 Calvinism teaches, that in consequence of Adam's 
 sin in eating the forbidden fruit, God brings into life all 
 his posterity with a nature wholly corrupt, so that they 
 are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to 
 all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all 
 evil, and that continually. It teaches, that all mankind, 
 having fallen in Adam, are under God's wrath and 
 curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, 
 to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. It 
 teaches, that from this ruined race God out of his mere 
 good pleasure has elected a certain number to be savesd 
 by Christ, not induced to this choice by any foresight of 
 
221 
 
 their faith or good works, but wholly by his free grace and 
 love ; and that having thus predestinated them to eter- 
 nal life, he renews and sanctifies them by his almighty 
 and special agency, and brings them into a state of grace, 
 from which they cannot fall and perish. It teaches, that 
 the rest of mankind he is pleased to pass over, and to 
 ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sins, to the 
 honor of his justice and power ; in other words, he leaves 
 the rest to the corruption in which they were born, with- 
 holds the grace which is necessary to their recovery, and 
 condemns them to ' most grievous torments in soul and 
 body without intermission in hell fire forever.' Such 
 is Calvinism, as gathered from the most authentic 
 records of the doctrine. Whoever will consult the fa- 
 mous Assembly's Catechisms and Confession, will see 
 the peculiarities of the sysiem in all their length and 
 breadth of deformity. A man of plain sense, whose 
 spirit has not been broken to this creed by education 
 or terror, will thin^ that it is not necessary for us to- 
 travel to heathen countries, to learn how mournfully 
 the human mind may misrepresent the Deity. 
 
 The moral argument against Calvinism, of which we 
 have spoken, must seem irresistible to common and un- 
 perverted minds, after attending to the brief statement 
 now given. It will be asked with astonishment, How 
 is it possible that men can hold thtse doctrines and yet 
 maintain God's goodness and equity ? What principles 
 can be more contradictory ? — To remove the objection 
 to Calvinism, which is drawn from its repiignance to 
 the divine perfections, recourse has been had, as before 
 observed, to the distinction between natural and moral 
 inability, and to other like subtleties. But a more com- 
 mon reply, we conceive, has been drawn from the weak- 
 ness and imperfection of the human mind, and from its 
 19* 
 
222 
 
 incapacity of comprehetiding God. Calvinists will tell 
 us, that because a doctrine opposes our convictions of 
 rectitude, it is not necessarily false ; that apparent are 
 not always real inconsistencies ; that God is an infinite 
 and incomprehensible being, and not to be tried by our 
 id-eas of fitness and morality ; that we bring their system 
 to an incompetent tribunal, when we submit it to the 
 decision of human reason and conscience ; that we are 
 weak judges of what is right and wrong, good and evil 
 in the Deity ; that the happiness of the universe may 
 require an administration of human affairs which is very 
 offensive to limited understandings ; that we must fol- 
 low revelation, not reason or moral feeling, and must 
 consider doctrines which shock us in revelation, as aw- 
 ful mysteries, which are dark through our ignorance, 
 and which time will enlighten. How little, it is added, 
 can man explain or understand God's ways. How in- 
 consistent the miseries of life appear with goodness in 
 the Creator. How prone too have men always been to 
 confound good and evil, to call the just, unjust.^ How 
 presumptuous is it in such a being, to sit in judgment 
 upon God, and to question the rectitude of the divine 
 administration, because it shocks his sense of rectitude. 
 Such we conceive to be a fair statemeijt of the man- 
 ner in which the Calvinist frequently meets the objec- 
 tion, that his system is at war with God's attributes. 
 Such the reasoning by which the voice of conscience 
 and nature is stifled, and men are reconciled to doc- 
 trines, which, if tried by the established principles of 
 morality, would be rejected with horror. On this rea- 
 soning we purpose to offer some remarks ; and we shall 
 avail ourselves of the opportunity, to give our views of 
 the confidence which is due to our rational and moral 
 faculties in religion. 
 
223 
 
 That God is infinite, and that man often errs, we af-- 
 firm as strongly as our Calvinistic brethren. We de- 
 sire to think humbly of ourselves, and reverently of 
 our Creator. In the strong language of scripture, ' We 
 now see through a glass darkly.' ' We cannot by 
 searching find out God unto perfection ? Clouds and 
 darkness are round about him. i. His judgments are 
 a great deep.' God is great and good beyond utter- 
 ance or thought. We have no disposition to idolize our 
 own powers, or to penetrate the secret counsels of the 
 Deity. But on the other hand, we think it ungrateful 
 to disparage the powers which our Creator has given 
 us, or to question the certainty or importance of the 
 knowledge which he has seen fit to place within our 
 reach. There is an affected humility, we think, as 
 dangerous as pride. We may rate our faculties too 
 meanly, as well as too boastingly. The worst error in 
 religion after all, is that of the skeptic, who records tri- 
 umphantly the weaknesses and wanderings of the hu- 
 man intellect, and maintains that no trust is due to the 
 decisions of this erring reason. We by no means con- 
 ceive, that man's greatest danger springs from pride 
 of understanding, though we think as badly of this vice 
 as other christians. The history of the church proves, 
 that men may trust their faculties too little as well as 
 too much, and that the timidity, which shrinks from 
 investigation, has injured the mind, and betrayed the 
 interests of Christianity, as much as an irreverent bold- 
 ness of thought. 
 
 It is an important truth, which, we apprehend, has 
 not been siifiSciently developed, that the ultimate reli- 
 arice of a human being is and must be on his own mind. 
 To confide in God, we must first confide in. the facul^ 
 ties, by which He is apprehended, and by which the 
 
224 
 
 proofs of his existence are weighed. A trust in our 
 ability to distinguish between truth- and falsehood is 
 -implied in every act of belief; for to question this abil- 
 ity would of necessity unsettle all belief. We cannot 
 take a step in reasoning or action without a secret 
 reliance on our own minds. Religion in particular 
 implies, that we have understandings endowed and 
 qualified for the highest employments of intellect. 
 In affirming the existence and perfections of God, 
 we suppose and affirm the existence in ourselves of 
 faculties which correspond to these sublime objects, 
 and wTiich are fitted to discern them. Religion is a 
 conviction and an act of the human soul, so that in de- 
 nying confidence to the one we subvert the truth and 
 claims of the other. Nothing is gained to piety by de- 
 grading human nature, for in the competency of this 
 nature to know and judge of God all piety has its 
 foundation. Our proneness to err instructs us indeed 
 to use our powers with great caution, but not to con- 
 temn and neglect them. The occasional abuse of our 
 faculties, be it ever so enormous, does not prove them 
 unfit for their highest end, which is, to form clear and 
 consistent views of God. Because our eyes sonpietimes 
 fail or deceive us, would a wise man pluck thpm out, or 
 cover them with a bandage, and choose to walk and 
 work in the dark ? or because they cannot distinguish 
 distant objects, can they discern nothing clearly in their 
 proper sphere, and is sight to be pronounced a fallacious 
 guide ? Men who, to support a creed, would shake our 
 trust in the calm, deliberate, and distinct decisions of 
 our rational and moral powers, endanger religion more 
 than its open foes, and forge the deadliest weapon for 
 the infidel. 
 
225 
 
 It is true that God is an infinite being, and also true, 
 that his powers and perfections, his purposes and opera- 
 tions, his ends and means, being unlimited, are incom- 
 prehensible. In 'Other words, they cannot he wholly 
 taken in or embraced by the human mind. In the 
 strong and figurative language of scripture, we ' know 
 nothing' of God's ways ; that is, we know very few of 
 them. But this is just as true of the most advanced 
 archangel as of man. In comparison with the vastness 
 of God's system, the range of the highest created intel- 
 lect is narrow; and in this particular, man's lot does 
 not differ from that of his elder brethren in heaven. 
 We are both confined in our observation and experience 
 to a little spot in the creation. But are an angel's fac- 
 ulties worthy of no trust, or is his knowledge uncertain, 
 because he learns and reasons from a small part of 
 God's works ? or are his judgments respecting the Cre- 
 ator to be charged with presumption, because his views 
 do not spread through the whole extent of the universe? 
 We grant that our understandings cannot stretch be- 
 yond a very narrow sphere. But still the lessons, 
 which we learn within this sphere, are just as sure, as 
 if it were indefinitely enlarged. Because much is un- 
 explored, we are not to suspect what we havp actually 
 discovered. Knowledge is not the less real, because 
 confined. The man who has never set foot beyond his 
 native village, knows its scenery and inhabitants as 
 undoubtiilgly, as if he had travelled! to the polies. We 
 indeed see very little ; but that little is: as true, as if 
 everything else were seen ; and our future discoveries 
 must agr^e with and su;pport.it. Should the whole order 
 arid;purposes,of the universe be opened, 'to usj itjis cer- 
 tain,, that nothing would he disclosed, whiiob would in 
 any degree, shake our persuasion, that the earthiSin- 
 
226 
 
 habited by rational and moral beings, who are author- 
 ised to expect from their Creator the most benevolent 
 and equitable government. No extent of observation 
 can unsettle those primary and fundamental principles 
 of moral truth, which we derive from our highest facul- 
 ties operating in the relations in which God has fixed 
 us. In every region and period of the universe, it will 
 be as true as it is now on the earth, that knowledge and 
 power are the measures of responsibility, and that natu- 
 ral incapacity absolves from guilt. These and other 
 moral verities, which are among our clearest percep- 
 tions, would, if possible, be strengthened, in proportion 
 as our powers should be enlarged ; because harmony and 
 consistency are the characters of God's administration, 
 and all our researches into the universe only serve to 
 manifiest its unity, and to show a wider operation of the 
 laws which we witness and experience on earth. 
 
 We grant that God is incomprehensible, in the sense 
 already given. But he is not therefore unintelligible ; 
 and this distinction we conceive to be important. We 
 do not pretend to know the whole nature and proper- 
 ties of God, but still we can form some clear ideas of 
 him, and can reason from these ideas as justly as from 
 any other. The truth is, that we cannot be said to 
 comprehend any being whatever, not the simplest plant 
 or animal. All have hidden properties. Our knowl- 
 edge of all is limited. But have we therefore no 
 distinct ideas of the objects around us, and is all our 
 reasoning about them unworthy of trust? Because 
 God is infinite, his name is not therefore a mere sound. 
 It is a representative of some distinct conceptions of our 
 Creator; and these conceptions are as sure, and impor- 
 tant, and as proper materials for the reasoning faculty, 
 as they would be if our views were indefinitely enlarg- 
 
ed. We cannot indeed traice God's goodness and recti- 
 tude through the whole field of his operations ; but we 
 know the essential nature of these attributes, and there- 
 fore can often judge what accords with and opposes 
 them. God's goodaess, because infinite, does not cease 
 to be goodness, or essentially differ from the same attri- 
 bute in man ; nor does justice change its nature, so that 
 it cannot be understood, because it is seated in an un- 
 bounded mind. There have indeed been philosophers, 
 ' falsely so called,' who have argued from the unlimit- 
 ed nature of God, that we cannot ascribe to him justice 
 and other moral attributes, in any proper or definite 
 sense of those words ; and the inference is plain, that 
 all religion or worship, wanting an intelligible object, 
 must be a misplaced, wasted offering. This doctrine 
 from the infidel we reject with abhorrence ; but some- 
 thing, not very different, too often reaches us from the 
 mistaken christian ; who, to save his creed, shrouds the 
 Creator in utter darkness. In opposition to both, we 
 maintain that God's attributes are intelligible, and that 
 we can conceive as truly of his goodness and justice, 
 as of these qualities in men. In fact, these qualities 
 are essentially the same in God and man, though dif- 
 fering in degree, in purity, and in extent of operation. 
 We know not and we cannot conceive of any other jus- 
 tice or goodness, than we learn from our own nature ; 
 and if God have not these, he is altogether unknown to 
 us as a moral being ; he offers nothing for esteem and 
 love to rest upon ; the objection of the infidel is just, that 
 worship is wasted ; ' We worship we know not what.' 
 It is asked, on what authority we ascribe to God 
 goodness and rectitude, in the sense in which these 
 attributes belong to men, or how we can judge of the 
 nature of attributes in the mind of the Creator ? We 
 
228 
 
 answer by asking, How it is that we become acquaint- 
 ed with the mind of a fellow creature ? The last is as 
 invisible, as removed from immediate inspection, as the 
 first. Still we do not hesitate to speak of the justice 
 and goodness of a neighbour ; and how do we gain our 
 knowledge ? We answer, by witnessing the effects, 
 operations, and expressions of these attributes. It is a 
 law of our nature to argue from the effect to the cause, 
 from the action to the agent, from the ends proposed 
 and from the means of pursuing them, to the character 
 and disposition of the being in whom we observe them. 
 By these processes, we learn the invisible mind and 
 character of man ; and by the same we ascend to the 
 mind of God, whose works, effects, operations, and 
 ends, are as expressive and. significant of justice and 
 goodness, as the best and most decisive actions of men. 
 If this reasoning be sound, (and all religion rests upon 
 it,) then God's justice and goodness are intelligible at- 
 tributes, agreeing essentially with the same qualities in 
 ourselves. Their operation indeed is infinitely wider, 
 and they are employed in accomplishing not only imme- 
 diate but remote and unknown ends. Of consequence, 
 we must expect that many parts of the divine adminis- 
 tration will be obscure, that is, will not produce immedi- 
 ate good, and an immediate distinction between virtue 
 and vice. But still the unbounded operation of these 
 attributes does not change their nature. They are still 
 the same, as if they acted in the narrowest sphere. 
 We can still determine in many cases what does not 
 accord with them. We are particularly sure that those 
 essential principles of justice, which enter into and even 
 form our conception of this attribute, must pervade 
 every province and every period of the administration 
 of a just being, and that to suppose the Creator in any 
 
229 
 
 instance to forsake them, is to charge h,im directly with 
 :unrightie(ousness, however loudly the lips may compli- 
 lahent his equity. 
 
 'But is it not presumptuous in man,' it is continual- 
 ly said, 'to sit ins judgment on God?' We answer, 
 that to ' sit in judgment- on God ' is an ambiguous and 
 oflferisive phrase, conveying to common minds the ideas 
 of irreverence, boldness, familiarity. The question 
 would be ibetter stated thus;^Is'it not presumptuous in 
 man to judge concerning God, and concerning what 
 agrees or disagrees with his attributes? We answer 
 KSonfidently, No ; for in many cases we are competent 
 and even bound to judge. And we plead first in our 
 defence the scriptures. How continually does God in 
 his word appeal to the understanding and moral judg- 
 ment of man. ' O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men 
 of Judah, judge, I pray you between me and my vine- 
 yard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, 
 that I have not done in jt.' We observe in the next 
 place, t;hat all religion supposes and is built on judg- 
 ments passed by us on God and on his operations. Is 
 it not, for example, our duty and a leading part of piety 
 to praise Ged ? And what is praising a being, but to 
 adjudge and ascribe to him just and generous deeds and 
 motives ? And of what value is praise, except from 
 those, who are capable of distinguishing between actions 
 which exalt, and actions which degrade the character ? 
 Is it presumption to call God excellent? And what 
 is this, but to refer his character to a standard of ex- 
 cellence, to try it by the established principles of recti^ 
 tude, and to pronojince its conformity to them ; that is, 
 to judge of God and his ppei;ations.? i 
 
 We are presumptuoiis, we are told, in judgiftg of our 
 Creator. But he himself has made this our duty, in 
 20 
 
230 
 
 giving us a moral faculty ; and to decline it, is to violate 
 the primary law of our nature. Conscience, the sense 
 of right, the pow^er of perceiving moral distinctions, the 
 power of discerning between justice and injustice, ex- 
 cellence and baseness, is the highest faculty given us 
 by God, the whole foundation of our responsibility, and 
 our sole capacity for religion. Now we are forbidden 
 by this faculty to love a being, who wants, or who fails 
 to discover, moral excellence. God, in giving us con- 
 science, has implantpd a principle within us, which for- 
 bids us to prostrate ourselyes before mere power, or to 
 offer praise .where we do not ' discover worth ; a princi- 
 ple, which challenges our supreme homage for supreme 
 goodness, and which absolves us from guilt, when we 
 abhor a severe and unjust administration. Our Creator 
 has consequently waived his own claims on our venera- 
 tion and obedience, any farther than he discovers himself 
 to usJn iiEharacters of benevolence, equity, and righte- 
 ousness. He rests his authority on the perfect coinci- 
 dence of his will and government with those great and 
 fundamental principles of morality written on our souls. 
 He desires no worship, but that which springs from the 
 exercise of our moral faculties upon his character, from 
 our discernment and persuasion of his rectitude and 
 goodness. He asks, he accepts, no love or adniiration 
 but from those, who can understand the nature and the 
 proofs of moral excellence. 
 
 There are two or three striking facts, which show 
 that there is no presumption -in judging of God, and of 
 what agrees or disagrees with his attributes. The first 
 fact is, that the most intelligent and devout men have 
 often employed themselves in proving^ the existence and 
 perfections of God, and have been honored for this 
 ^rvice to the cause of religion. Now we ask, what is 
 
231 
 
 meant by the proofs of a divine perfection ? They are 
 certain acts, operations, and methods of government, 
 which are proper and natural effects, signs, and expres- 
 sions of this perfection, and from M'^hich, according to 
 the established principles of reasoning, it may be infer- 
 retl. To prove the divine attributes is to collect and 
 arrange those vv^orks arid w^ays of the Creator, vi^hich ac- 
 cord with these attributes; correspond to them, flow from 
 them, and express them. Of consequence, to prove 
 them requires and implies the power of judging of what 
 agrees with them, of discerning thfeir proper marks and 
 expressions. All our treatises on natural theology rest 
 on this power. Every-argurnent in support of a divine 
 perfection is an exercise of it. To deny it is to Over- 
 throw all religion. 
 
 Now if such are the proofs of God's goodness and 
 justice, and if we are capable of discerning them, then 
 we are not necessarily presumptuous, when we say of 
 particular measures ascribed to him, that they are in- 
 consistent with his attributes, and cannot belong to him. 
 There is plainly no more presumption in affirming of 
 certain principles of administration, that they oppose 
 God's equity and would prove him unrighteous, than to 
 affirm of others, that they prove him upright and good. 
 There are signs and evidences of injustice as unequiv- 
 ocal as those of justice ; and our faculties are as ade- 
 quate to the perception of the last as of the first. If 
 they must not be trusted in deciding what would prove 
 God unjust, they are unw^orthy of confidence when they 
 gather evidences of his rectitude ; and of course^ the 
 whole structure of religion must fall. 
 
 It is no slight objection to the mode of reasoning 
 adopted by the Calvinist, that it renders the proof of the 
 divine attributes impossible. When we object to his 
 
232 
 
 representations of the divine government, that they shock 
 OUT clearest ideas of goodness and justice, he replies, 
 that still they may be true, Kecause we know very lit- 
 tle of God, and what seems unjust to man, may be in 
 the Creator the perfection of ^rectitude. Now this 
 weapon has a double edge. If thh strongest marks and 
 expressions of injustice do not prove God unjust, then the 
 strongest marks of the opposite character doi not prove 
 him righteous. If the first do not deserve confidence, 
 because of our narrow views of God, neither do the 
 last. If, when more shall be known, the first may be 
 found ctnsistent with perfect rectitude, so, when more 
 shall be known, the last may-b§ found consistent with 
 infinite malignity and oJ)pression. This reasoning of 
 our opponents casts us on an ocean of awful uncer- 
 tainty. Admit it, and we have no proofs of God's good- 
 ness and equity to rely upon. What we call proofs, 
 maybe mere appearances, which a wider knowledge 
 of God may reverse. The future may show us, that 
 the very laws and works of the Creator, from which 
 we now infer his kindness, are consistent with the 
 most determined purpose to spread infinite misery and 
 guilt, and were intended, by raising Jiope, to add the 
 agony of disappointment to our other woes. Why 
 m^y not these anticipations, horrible as they are, be 
 verified by the unfolding of God's system, if our reason- 
 ings about his attributes are rendered so very uncertain, 
 as Calvinism teaches, by. the infinity of his nature ? 
 
 We have mentioned one fact to show that it is not 
 presumptuous to judge of God,, and of wh4t accords 
 with and opposes his attributes ; namely, the fact that 
 his attributes are thought susceptible of proof. Anoth- 
 er fact, very decisive oh this point, is, that Christians 
 of all classes have concurred in resting the truth of 
 
233 
 
 Christianity in a great degree on its internal evidence, 
 that is, on its accordance with the perfections of God. 
 How common is it to hear from religious teachers, that 
 Christianity is worthy of a good and righteous being, that 
 it bears the marks of a divine original. Volumes have 
 been written on its internal proofs, on the coincidence 
 of its purposes and spirit with our highest conceptions 
 of God. How common too is it, to say of other relig- 
 ions, that they are at war with the divine nature, with 
 God's rectitude and goodness, and*that we want no 
 other proofs of their falsehood. And what does all this 
 reasoning imply ? Clearly this, that we are capable of 
 determining, in many cases, what is worthy and what 
 is unworthy of God, what accords with and what oppo- 
 ses his moral attributes,. Deny us this capacity, and it 
 would be no presumption against a professed revelation, 
 that it a,scribed to the Supreme Being the most detesta- 
 ble practices^ It might still be said in support of such 
 a system, that i^ is arrogarit in man to determine what 
 kind of revelation suits the character of the Creator. 
 Christianity then leans, at least in part, and some think 
 chiefly, on internal evidence, or on its agreeableness to 
 God's moral attributes ; and is it probable, that this re- 
 ligion, having this foundation, contains representations 
 of God's government which shock our ideas of recti- 
 tude, and that it silences our objections by telling us, 
 that we are no judges of What suits or opposes his in- 
 finite nature ? 
 
 We will name one more fact to show, that it is not 
 presumptuous to form these judgments of the Creator. 
 All Christians are accustomed to reason from God's at- 
 tributes, and to use them as tests of doctrines. In their 
 controversies with one another, they spare no pains to 
 show, that their particular views accord best with the 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 divine perfections, and every sect labors to throw; on its 
 adversaries the odium of maintaining w^hat is unworthy 
 of God. Theological writings are filled with such ar- 
 guments ; and yet we, it seems, are guilty of awful pre- 
 sumption, when we deny of God principles of adminis- 
 tration, against which every pure and good sentiment in 
 pur breasts rises in abhorrence. 
 
 We shall conclude this discussion with an important 
 inquiry. If God's justice and goodness are corisistent 
 with those operations and modes of government, which 
 Calvinism ascribes to him, of what use is our belief in 
 these perfections ? What expectations can we found 
 upon them ? If it consist with divine rectitude to con- 
 sign to everlasting misery, beings who have come guilty 
 and impotent from his hand, we beg to know what in- 
 terest we have in this rectitude, what pledge of good 
 it contains, or, what evil can be imagined which may 
 not be its natural result ? If justice and goodness, 
 when stretched to infinity, take such strange forms and 
 appear in such unexpected and apparently inconsistent 
 operations, how are* we sure, that they will not give 
 up the best men to ruin, and leave the universe to the 
 powers of darkness ? Such results indeed seem incom- 
 patible with these attributes, but not'more so than the 
 acts attributed to God by Cahunism. Is it said, that the 
 divine faithfulness is pledged in the scriptures to a hap- 
 pier issue of things ? But, why should not divine faith- 
 fulness transcend our poor understandings as much as 
 divine goodness and justice, ?ind why may not God, 
 consistently with this attribute, crush every hope which 
 his word has raised? Thus all the divine perfections 
 are lost to us as grounds of encouragement and consola- 
 tion, if we maintain, that their infinity places them be- 
 yond our judgment, and that we must expectfrom them 
 
236 
 
 measures and operations entirely opposed to what seems 
 to us most accordant with their nature. 
 
 We have thus endeavoured to show that the testimo- 
 ny of our rational and moral faculties against Calvinism, 
 is worthy of trust. — We know that this reasoning will 
 be met by the question, What then becomes of Christi- 
 anity .'' for this religion plainly teaches the doctrines you 
 have condemned. Our answer is reAdy. Christianity 
 contains no such doctrines. Christianity, reason, and 
 conscience are perfectly harmonious on the Subject un- 
 der discussion. Our religion, fairly construed, gives no 
 countenance to that System, which has arrogated to 
 itself the distinction of Evangelical. We cannot, how- 
 ever, enter this field at present. We will only say that 
 the general spirit of Christianity affords a very strong 
 presumption, that its records teach no such doctrines as 
 we have opposed. This spirit is love, charity, benevo- 
 lence. Christianity, we all agree, is designed to mani- 
 fest God as perfect benevolence, and to bring men to 
 love and imitate him. Now is it probable, that a re- 
 ligion, having this object, gives views of the Supreme 
 Being^ from which our moral convictions, and benevo- 
 lent sentiments shrink with horror, and which if made 
 our pattern, would convert us into monsters ! It is 
 plain that were a human parent to form himself on the 
 universal Father, as described by Calvinism, that is, 
 were he to bring his children into life totally depraved, 
 and then to pursue them with endless punishment, 
 we should charge him with a cruelty not surpassed 
 in the annals of the world; or were a sovereign to 
 incapacitate his subjects in any way whatever for 
 obeying his laws, and then to torture them in dun- 
 geons of perpetual wo, we should say, that history re- 
 cords no darker crime. And is it probable, that a reli- 
 
236 
 
 gion, which aims to attract and assimilate us to God, 
 considered as love, should hold him up to us in these 
 heart->vithering characters ? We may confidently ex- 
 pect to find in such a system the brightest views of 
 the divine nature ; and the same objections lie against 
 interpretations of its records, which savor of cruelty 
 and injustice, as lie against the literal sense of pas- 
 sages which ascribe to God bodily wants and organs. 
 Let the scriptures be read with a: recollection of the 
 spirit of Christianity, and with that modification of par- 
 ticular texts by this general spirit, which a just criticism 
 requires, and Calvinism would no more enter the mind 
 of the reader, than Popery, we had almost said, than 
 Heathenism. 
 
 In the. remarks now made, it will be seen, we hope, 
 that we have aimed J;o expose doctrines, not to con- 
 demn their professors. It is true, that men are apt to 
 think themselves assailed, when their system only is 
 called to account. But we have no foe but error. We 
 are less and less disposed to measure the piety of oth- 
 ers by peculiarities of faith- Men's characters are de- 
 termined, not by the opinions which they profess, but 
 by those on which their thoughts habitually fasten, 
 which recur to them most forcibly, and which color 
 their ordinary views of God and duty. The creed of 
 habit, imitation, or fear, may be defended stoutly, and 
 yet have little practical influence. The mind, when 
 compelled by education or other circumstances to re- 
 ceive irrational doctrines, has yet a power of keeping 
 them, as it were, on its surface, of excluding them from 
 its depths, of refusing, to incorporate them with its own 
 being ; and when burdened with a mixed, incongruous 
 system, it often discovers a sagacity, which reminds us 
 of the instinct of inferior animals, in selecting the 
 
237 
 
 healthful and nutritious portions, and in making them 
 its daily food. Accordingly the real faith often corres- 
 ponds little with that which is professed. It often hap- 
 pens, that through the progress of the miiid in light and 
 virtue, opinions, once central, are gradually thrown 
 outward, lose their vitality, and cease to be principles 
 of action, whilst through habit they are defended as 
 articless of faith. The words of the creed survive, but 
 its advocates,, sympathize with it little more than its 
 foes. These remarks are particularly applicable to 
 the present subject. A large number, perhaps a ma- 
 jority , of those j who surname themselves with the 
 name of Calvin, have little more title to it than our- 
 selves. They, keep the name, and drop the principles 
 which it signifies. They adhere to the system as a 
 wljole, but shrink from all its parts and distinguishing 
 points. ,:This silent but real defection from Calvinism 
 is, spreading more and more widely. The grim fea- 
 tures of this systefti are softening, , and its stern spirit 
 yielding to conciliation and charity. ; We beg our read- 
 ers to consult for themselves the two Catechisms and 
 the.Confiession of the Westminster Assembly, and to 
 compare these standards of Calvinism, with what now 
 bears its name. They will rejoice, i'\Ve doubt not in 
 the striumphg of; truth. With these vievvs, we have no 
 disposition to disparage the professors of i the system 
 which we conden\n, although \ve,belie,ve that its influ-^ 
 erice ^s yet so^ extensite and perniciems as to bind us to 
 .opp93e,it.,; _'. ivi"! '.■■ -r>l.' ^ 
 
 Q^lvinism, we are: i;pGrsuaded, is giving place to bet- 
 teij ji'iej^si , I , It has paSftedj its raeijdian,,' and is sinldngi; 
 tPijr^li^iiiomore.: It has to contend v^ifh foes inore fbr-' 
 midable than theologians, with foes, from whom it cata- > 
 not shield itself in mystery and metaphysical subtleties. 
 
238 
 
 weimean with the progress of the ihiiman mind,"atid 
 with' the -progress of the spirit of th>0 «^gospeli Society 
 is igbingidblrWard in intelligentie stnd' charity^ and "6f 
 course is leading thi^ theology of the -Sxteenth century 
 behind it. We hail this'tevoliotiott of optftion as a most 
 auspieious ei^ent to the Christian cause." ^ We hear milch 
 at present of efforts! to spt^di the gospel. But Chris- 
 tianity is igaining more by tJie removal of ^degrading er- 
 rors, than it would by armies of missionaries 'Who should 
 carry i with them a carwipl;ed'jfGrm of s tbe-religion. We 
 think the deeKnei of Calvinism tfne of; the most encour- 
 aging fects in our passingahistory'ji'-for this 'system',- by 
 outraging: consciettee jand reason, tends to array thes6 
 high faculties against revelation; (1 Its errors' are pecu- 
 liarly mournful,) because they relate to the character of 
 God. It darkens and stains his pure nature ; spoils his 
 character of its sacredness, loveliness, glory ; and thus 
 quenches the central light of the universe, makes exist- 
 ence a curse, and the extinction of it a ' consummation 
 devoutly to be wished. We now speak of the peculiar- 
 ities of this system, and of their natural influence, when' 
 not counteracted, as they always are in a greater or less 
 degree, by better views, derived from the spirit and 
 plain lessons of Christianity i 
 
 We have had so much to do with our subject, that 
 we have neglected to make the usual extracts from the 
 book which we proposed to review.' We earnestly 
 wish, that a work, answering to the title of this, which 
 should give us ' a general view of Christian doCtfines,' 
 might be undertaken by a powerful hand. Next to a 
 good commentary on the scriptures, it would be the 
 best service which could be rendered to Christian 
 truths 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REV. JOHN EMERY ABBOT. 
 
 SALEM, 1815. 
 
 COLOSSIANS I. 28. 
 
 ' WHOM WE PEEACH, WARNING EVERY MAN, AND TEACHING EVERY MAN IN 
 ALL WISDOM, THAT WE MAY PRESENT EVIjRY MAN PERFECT IN CHRIST 
 
 In the verses immediatery preceding' the text, vv^e 
 find the apostle enlarging with his usual zeal and ear- 
 nestness on a subject peculiarly dear to him ; on the 
 glorious mystery of God, or in other words, on the great 
 purpose of God, which had been kept secret from ages, 
 to make the Gentile world partakers, through faith, ol 
 the blessings of the long promised Messiah. ' Christ, 
 the hope of glory to the Gentiles,' was the theme, an 
 which Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, delighted to 
 expapatel Having spokea of Jesus in this character, he 
 immediately adds, ' Whom we preach, warning every 
 man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we 
 may present every rhan perfect in Christ Jesus.' 
 
 On the present occasion, which invites us to consider 
 the design and duties of the christiaii ministry, I have 
 thought that these ^wo^ds would guide us to many ap- 
 propriate and useful reflectiojis. They teach us what 
 the apostle preached ; ' We preach Christ.' They teach 
 us the end or object for which he thus preached ; ' That 
 
242 
 
 declaring that ^n every city there were men who preachr- 
 ed Moses ; and we are told'in what this preaching con- 
 sisted ; ' Moses is read in the synagogue every sabbath 
 day.' No one, acquainted with the ancient services of 
 the synagogue, can suppose, for a moment, . that the 
 character and offices of Moses were the themes .of the 
 Jewish teachers every sabbath, and that they preached 
 nothing else. It was their custom to read the books 
 of the law in course, and to offer conuneiits upon ob- 
 scure or important passages. In many, parts of these 
 books the name of Moses is not mentioned; We have 
 whole chapters about the tabernacle, and about the rites 
 of cleansing from the leprosy. But according to James, 
 when these portions were read and explained, Moses 
 was preached ; not because his character was the sub- 
 ject, but because the instructions contained in these 
 chapters were a part- of the religion which he was ap- 
 pointed to communicate to the children of Israel. The 
 riame of the teacher was, given to his- doctrine. This 
 form of speech was not peculiar to the Jews ; all nations 
 have probably adopted it. At the present day, nothing 
 is more common than to hear, that Locke, or Newton, 
 or some other distinguished philosopher, is published, or 
 taught ; not that his personal character and history are 
 made public, but his system of doctrines. In the same 
 way Christ is preached, published, proclaimed, when 
 his instructions are delivered, although these instruc- 
 tions may relate to other topics beside his own offices 
 and character. 
 
 "I hope I shall not be misunderstood in the remarks 
 which I have now made. Do not imagine, that I would 
 exclude from the pulpit, discourses on the excellence of 
 Jesus Christ. The truths which relate to Jesus himself 
 are among the most important which the gospel reveals. 
 
243 
 
 The relations which Jesus Christ sustains to the world 
 are so important and so tender ; the concern which he 
 has expressed in human salvation so strong and disinter- 
 ested ; the blessings of pardon'and immortal life which 
 he briilgs, so undeserved and unbounded ; his character 
 is such a union of moral beauty and' grandeur ; his ex- 
 ample is at Once so pure and so persuasive ; the events 
 of his life, his miracles, his sufferings, his resurrection 
 and ascension, and his offices of intercessor and judge 
 are so strengthening to faith, hope, ahd charity, that his 
 ministers should > dvvell on his name with affectionate 
 venerationr, and should delight to exhibit him to the 
 gratitude, love, imitation, and confidence of mankind. 
 But whilst the christian minister is often to iiisiston 
 the life, the character, the offices, and the benefits of 
 Jesus Christ, let him not imagine that he is preaching 
 Christ, only when these are his themes. If he confine 
 himself to' these, he will not in the full sense of the 
 word preach Christ ; for this is to preach the whole re- 
 ligion of Jesus ; and this religion is of vast extent. It 
 regards man in his diversified and ever multiplying re- 
 lations to his Creator and to, his fellow creatures, to the 
 present state and to, all future ages. Its aim is, to 
 instruct and quicken us to cultivate an enlarged virtue ; 
 to cultivate our whole intellectual and moral nature. 
 It collects and offets motives to piety from the past and 
 from the future, frorh heaven and hell, from nature and 
 experience, from human example, and frSm the imitable 
 excellences of God, from the world without and the 
 world within us. The gospel of Christ is indeed an 
 inexhaustible treasury of moral and ' religious truth. 
 Jesus, tlie first and best of evangelical teachers, did riot 
 confine himself to a few topics, but manifested himself 
 to be the wisdom of God by the richness and variety 
 
244 
 
 of his instructions. To preach Christ is to unfold, as 
 far as our feeble and narrow powers permit, all the doc- 
 trines, duties, and motives, which are recorded in the 
 gospels and in the writings of his inspired apostles. 
 
 It is not intended hy these remarks that all the in- 
 structions of Christ are of equal importance, and that 
 all are to be urged with equal frequency and zeal. 
 Some undoubtedly are of greater moment and of more 
 universal application than others. But a minister of a 
 sound and candid mind, will be very cautious lest he 
 assign so high a rank to a few doctrines, that the rest 
 wiir sink into comparative insignificance, and almost 
 fade from the minds of his hearers. He wiH labor to 
 give enlarged and harmonious views of all the principles 
 of Christianity, recollecting that each receives support 
 from the rest, and that no doctrine or precept will exert 
 its proper influence, if swelled into disproportioned im- 
 portance, or detached from the truths which ought to 
 modify and restrain it. 
 
 It has been the object of these remarks to show, that 
 preaching Christ does not imply that the offices and 
 character of Christ are to be made perpetually the sub- 
 jects of discourse. Where this idea prevails, it too of- 
 ten happens that the religion of Jesus is very partially 
 preached. A few topics are repeated without end. 
 Many delightful and ennobling views of Christianity are 
 seldom or never exhibited. The duties of the gospel 
 receive but a cursory attention. Religion is thought to 
 consist in a fervid state of mind, produced by the constant 
 conteinplation of a few affecting ideas ; whilst the only 
 acceptable religion, which consists in living ' soberly, 
 righteously and godly in the world,' seems to be under- 
 valued as quite an inferior attainment. — Where this 
 mistake prevails, we too often discover a censorious 
 
245 
 
 spirit among hearers, who pronounce with confidence 
 on this and another minister, that they do not preach 
 Christ, because their discourses do not turn on a few 
 topics in relation to the Saviour, which are thought to 
 contain the whole of Christianity. Very often the la- 
 bors of a pious and upright minister are defeated by this 
 prejudice ; nor must he wonder, if he find himself de- 
 cried, as an enemy to the faith, by those, whose want 
 of education or capacity confines them to the narrow- 
 est views of the christian system. — May I be permit- 
 ted," with deference and respect, to beseech christian 
 ministers not to encourage by example this spirit of 
 censure among private Christians. There is no lesson 
 which we can teach our hearers more easily, than to 
 think contemptuously and to speak bitterly of other 
 classes of Christians, and especially of their teachers. 
 Let us never forget, that we none of us preach Christ 
 in the full import of that phrasfe. None of us can 
 hope that we give a complete representation of the 
 religion of our Master ; that we exhibit every doctrine 
 without defect or vi'ithout excess, in its due propor- 
 tions, and in its just connexions. We of necessity 
 communicate a portion of our own weakness and dark- 
 ness to the religion which we dispense. The degree 
 of, imperfectioii indeed differs in different teachers ; but 
 none are free from the universal frailty, and none are 
 authorised to take the seat of judgment, and, on the 
 ground of imagined errors, to deny to others, whose 
 lives are as spotless as their own, a conscientious pur- 
 pose to learn and to teach the whole counsel of God. 
 
 11. Having thus considered what is intended by 
 
 preaching Christ, I proceed to consider, secondly, for 
 
 what end Christ is to be preached. We preach Christ, 
 
 says the apostle, ' warning every man, and teaching 
 
 21* 
 
246 
 
 every man, that we may present every man perfect in 
 Christ Jesus ^' that is, perfect in the religion of Christ, 
 or a perfect Christian. Fronj this passage we derive a 
 most important sentiment, confirmed by the whole New 
 Testament,, that the great, design of all the doptrines aijd 
 precepts of iTie gospel, is, to exalt the character, to pro- 
 mote eminent purity of heart andjife, to make men per- 
 fect as their Fcither in heaven is perfect. For what end 
 then is Christianity to be preached ? The answer is 
 plain. We must preach, not to make fiery partisans, and 
 to swell the number of a sect ; not to overwhelm the 
 mind with fear, or to heat it with feverish rapture,; not 
 to form men to the decencies of life, to a superficial 
 goodness, which will secure the admiration of mankind. 
 All these effects fall infinitely short of the great end of 
 the christian ministry. We should preach, that we may 
 make men perfect Chiristians ; perfect, not according to 
 the standard of the world, but according, to the law of 
 Christ; perfect in heart and in life,^n solitude and in so- 
 ciety, in the great and in the common concerns of life. 
 Here is the purpose of christian preaching. In this, as 
 in a common centre, all the truths of the gospel meet ; 
 to this they all conspire ; and no doctrine has an influ- 
 ence on salvation, any farther than it is an aid and ex- 
 citement to the perfecting of our nature. 
 
 The christian minister needs often to be reminded of 
 this great end of his office, the perfection of the human 
 character. He is too apt to rest in low attaiiiments 
 himself, and to be satisfied with low attainrnents in 
 others. He ought never to forget the great distinction 
 and glory of the gospel, that it is designed to perfect hu- 
 man nature. All the. precepts of this divine system are 
 rnarked by a sublime character. It demands that our 
 piety be fervent, our benevolence unbounded, and our 
 
247 
 
 thirst for righteousness strong and insatiable. It enjoins 
 a virtue which does not stop at \Vhat is positively pre- 
 scribed, but vi'hich is prodigal of service to God and to 
 mankind. The gospel enjoins inflexible integrity, fear- 
 less sincerity, fortitude which despises pain and tram- 
 ples pleasure under foot in the pursuit of duty, and an 
 independence of spirit which no s(;orn can deter and no 
 example seduce from asserting truth and adhering to 
 the cause which conscience approves. With this spirit 
 of martyrs, this hardness and intrepidity of soldiers of 
 the cross, the gospel calls us to unite the mildest and 
 mdekest virtues ; a sympathy which melts over others' 
 woes ; a disinterestedness vvhich finds pleasure in toils 
 and labors for others' good ; a humility which loves to 
 bless unseen, and forgets itself in the performance of 
 the noblest deeds. To this perfection of social duty, 
 the gospel commands us to join a piety which refers 
 every event to the providence of God, and every ac- 
 tion to his will ; a love which counts no service hard, 
 and a penitence which esteems no judgment severe ; a 
 gratitude which offets praise even in adversity ; a holy 
 trust unbroken by protracted suffering, and a hope tri- 
 umphant over death. In one word, it enjoins, that, lov- 
 ing and confiding in Jesus Christ, we make his spotless 
 character, his heavenly life, the model of our own. 
 Such. is the sublimity of character which the gospel de- 
 mands, and such the end to which our preaching should 
 ever be directed. 
 
 I have dwelt on this end of pleaching, because it is 
 too often forgotten, and because a strongef conviction 
 of it will give new force and elevation to our instruc- 
 tions. We need to feel more deeply, that we are en- 
 trusted with a religion which is designed to ennoble 
 htiman nature ; which recognises in man the capacities 
 
248 
 
 of^ all that is good, great and excellent ; and which offers 
 every encouragement and aid to the pursuit of perfec- 
 tion. The christian minister should often recollect, 
 that man, though propense to evil, has yet powers and 
 faculties which may be exalted and refined to angelic 
 glory ; that he is called by the gospel to prepare for the 
 community of angels ; that he is formed for unlimited 
 progress in intellectual and moral excellence and felici- 
 ty. He should often recollect, that in Jesus Christ our 
 nature has been intimately united with the divine, and 
 that in Jesus it is already enthroned in heaven. Fa- 
 miliarized to these generous conceptions, the christian 
 preacher, whilst he faithfully unfolds to men their guilt 
 and danger, should also unfold their capacities of great- 
 ness ; should reveal the splendor of that destiny to 
 which they are called by Christ ; should labor to awak- 
 en within them aspirations after a nobler character 
 and a higher existence, and to inflame them with the 
 love of all the graces and virtues with which Jesus 
 came to enrich and adorn the human soul. In this way 
 he will prove that he understands the true and great 
 design of the gospel and the ministry, which is nothing 
 less than the perfection of the human character. 
 
 May I be permitted to say, that perhaps one of the 
 greatest defects in our preaching, is, that it is not suffi- 
 ciently directed to ennoble and ielevate the minds of 
 men. It does not breathe a sufficiently generous spirit. 
 It appeals too constantly to the lowest principle of hu- 
 man nature ; I mean the principle of fear, which under 
 judicious excitement is indeed of great and undoubted 
 use, but which, as every parent knows, when habitual- 
 ly awakened, is always found to debase the mind, to 
 break the spirit, to give tameness to the character, and 
 to chill the best affections. Perhaps one cause of the 
 
249 
 
 limited influence of Christianity, is, that, as it is too of- 
 ten exhibited, it seems adapted to form an abject, ser- 
 vile character, rather than to raise its disciples to true 
 greatness and dignity. Perhaps, were Christianity 
 more habitually regarded as a system, whose great de- 
 sign it is to infuse honorable sentiments, magnanimity, 
 energy, an ingenuous love of God, a superiority to the 
 senses, a spirit of self-sacrifice, a virtue akin to that of 
 heaven, its reception would be more cordial, and its in- 
 fluence more extensive, more happy, more accordant 
 with its great end, the perfection of human nature. 
 
 III. Having thus considejed the end of Christian 
 preaching, I now come to offer, in the third place, a 
 few remarks on the best method of accomplishing it ; 
 and here I find myself obliged to omit a great variety 
 of topics, and can only ofier one or two of principal im- 
 portance. That the gospel may attain its end, may 
 exert the most powerful and ennobling influence on the 
 human character, it must be addressed at once to the 
 understanding and to the heart. It must be so preach- 
 ed as to be firmly believed and deeply felt. — To secure 
 to Christianity this firm belief, I have only time to ob- 
 serve, that it should be preached in a rational manner. 
 By this I mean, that a christian minister should beware 
 of offering interpretations of scripture, which are repug- 
 nant to any clear discoveries of reason or dictates of 
 conscience. This admonition is founded upon the very 
 obvious principle, that a revelation from God must be 
 adapted to the rational and moral nature which he has 
 conferred on man ; that God can never contradict in his 
 word what he has himself written on the human heart, 
 or teaches in his works and providence. Every man 
 who reads the bible knows, that like other books, it 
 has many passages v\fhich admit a variety of interpreta- 
 
tionsi. Human langt^iage does not ^dmit entire preci- 
 sion„i It has often beenobsfej^ved by philosophers, that 
 the most ifamiliar- sentejices owe their perspicility, Ttot 
 so HMidi to the definiteness of the language; as to an 
 almost, incredible activity of the inind, which selects 
 ironi a variety of meanings 'that ■which each word, de- 
 niands, and assigns such limits to every phrase as the 
 intention of the speaker, his character and situation, 
 require. In addition to this source of obscurity to 
 which all writings are exposed, wis must remember 
 that the scriptures were written in a distant age, in 
 a foreign language, by men who were unaccustomed 
 to the systematic arrangements of modern timies, and 
 who, although inspired, were left to communicate their 
 thoughts in the. style most natural or habitual. Can 
 we wonder then that they admit a variety of interpre- 
 tations ? Now we owe it to a book, which records, 
 as we believe, jevelations from Heaven, and which is 
 plainly designed for the moral improvement of the race, 
 to favor those explications of obscure passages, which 
 are seen to harmoriize with the moral attributes of God, 
 and with the acknowledged teachings of nature and 
 conscience. All those interpretations of the gospel, 
 which strike the mind at once as inconsistent with a 
 righteous government of the universe, which require of 
 man what is disproportioned to his nature, or which 
 shock any clear conviction which our experience has 
 furnished, cannot be viewed with too jealous an eye by 
 him, who, revering Christianity, desires to secure to it 
 an intelligent belief. 
 
 It is in vain to say that the first and most obvious 
 meaning of scripture is always to be followed, no 
 matter where it leads. I answer, that the first and 
 most obvious meaning of a passage, written in a foreign 
 
231 
 
 l9.nguage, and in remote ^antiquity, is very; oftea false, 
 and such as farther inquiry compels u& to abandon- I 
 answer too, that all sects; of Christians ag;ree, and are 
 forced to agree^ infrequently forsaking the literal sense, 
 on accpiint of its incongruity with acknowledged truth. 
 There, is in fact no book in the wfjrld,, which requires 
 us more frequently to restrain unlimited exiMessions, to 
 qualify the; letter by the spirit,,- and ,to seek the mean- 
 ing in the state and, customs of the i writer and of his 
 age, than tjhie New Testament.; No book is written in 
 a more popular, figurative, and animated style, the very 
 style which requires the, mos-t constant exercise of judg- 
 ment in the reader. The scriptures are not a frigid di- 
 gest of Christianity, as if this religion were; a mere code 
 of civil laws, They give us the gospel warm from the 
 hearts of its. preachers. The language is not that of 
 logicians, not the language of retired and inanimate 
 speculation, but of affection, of zeal, of men who burn- 
 ed to convey deep and ; vivid impressions of the truth. 
 In understanding such writers, moral feeling is often a 
 better guide than a servile adherence to : the literal and 
 most obvious meaning of every word and phrase. It 
 may be said of the New as well as the Old Testament, 
 that sometimes the letter killeth whilst the spirit giv- 
 eth life. Almost any system may be built on the 
 New Testarnent by a commentator, who, forgetting the 
 general scope of Christianity and, the lessons of nature 
 and experience, shall impose on every passage the lite- 
 ral signification which is first offered to the. mind. The 
 christian minister shoiild avail himself, in his exposition 
 of the divine word, of, the aids of learning and criticism, 
 and also of the aids of reason and conscience. Those 
 interpretations of difficult passages, which approve 
 themselves to his clear and established conceptions of 
 
252 
 
 rectitude and to his devout and benevolent afFections, 
 he should regard with a favorable eye ; whilst those 
 of an opposite character should be regarded with great 
 distrust. " 
 
 I have said, that this rational method of preaching 
 Christianity is important, if we would secure a firm be- 
 lief to Christianity. Some men may indeed be recon- 
 ciled to an unreasonable religion ; and terror, that pas- 
 sion which more than any other unsettles the intellect, 
 may silence every objection to the most contradictory 
 and degrading principles. But in general the under- 
 standing and conscience cannot be entirely subdued. 
 They resist the violence which is done them. A lurk- 
 ing incredulity mingles with the attempt to believe 
 what contradicts the highest principles of our nature. 
 Particularly the most intelligent part of the community, 
 who will ultimately govern public sentiment, will doubt 
 and disbelieve the unreasonable system, which perhaps 
 they find it prudent to acknowledge; and will either 
 convert it into an instrument of policy, or seize a fa- 
 vorable moment for casting off its restraints and level- 
 ling its institutions with the dust. Thus important is 
 it that Christianity should be recommended to the un- 
 derstandings of men. 
 
 But this is not enough. It is also most important 
 that the gospel should be recommended to the heart. 
 Christianity should be so preached, as to interest the 
 afFections, to awakerj contrition and fear, veneration and 
 love, gratitude and hope. Some preachers, from ob- 
 serving the pernicious effects of violent and exclusive 
 appeals to the passions, have fallen into an opposite 
 error which has rendered the labors of their lives almost 
 wholly unfruitful. They have addressed men as mere 
 creatures of intellect ; they have forgotten, that affec- 
 
253 
 
 tion is as essential to our nature as thought, that action 
 requires motive, that the union of reason and sensibility 
 is the health of the soul, and that without moral feeling 
 there can be no strength of moral purpose. They have 
 prieached ingeniously, and the hearer has pronounced 
 the teaching true. But the truth, coldly imparted, and 
 coldly received, has been forgotten as fast as heard ; no 
 energy of M^ill has been awakened ; no resistance to hab- 
 it and passion been called forth ; perhaps not a momen- 
 tary purpose of self-improvement has glanced through 
 the mind. Preaching, to be effectual, must be as vari- 
 ous as our nature. The sun warms, at the same mo- 
 ment that it enlightens ; and unless religious truth be 
 addressed at once to the reason and the affections, un- 
 less it kindles whilst it guides, it is a useless splendor ; 
 it leaves the heart barren ; it produces no fruits of god- 
 liness. Let the christian minister then preach the 
 gospel with earnestness, with affection, with a heart 
 warmed by his subject, not thinking of himself, not 
 seeking applause, but solicitous for the happiness of 
 mankind, tenderly concerned for his people, awake to 
 the. solemnities of eternity, and deeply impressed with 
 the worth of the human soul, with the glory and happi- 
 ness to which it may be exalted, and with the misery 
 and ruin into which it will be plunged by irreligion and 
 vice. Let him preach, not to amuse but to convince 
 and awaken, not to excite a momentary interest but a 
 deep and lasting seriousness ; not to make his hearers 
 think of the preacher, but of themselves, of their own 
 characters and future condition. Let him labor, by de- 
 lineating with unaffected ardor the happiness of virtue, 
 by setting forth religion in its most attractive forms, by 
 displaying the paternal character of God, and the love 
 of Christ which was stronger than death, by unfolding 
 22 
 
264 
 
 the purity and blessedness of the heavenly world, by 
 revealing to the soul its own greatness, by persua- 
 sion, by entreaty, by appeals to the best sentiments of 
 human nature, by speaking from a heart convinced of 
 immortality ; let him labor, by these methods, to touch 
 and to soften his hearers, to draw them to God and du- 
 ty, to awaken gratitude and love, a sublime hope and 
 a generous desire of exalted goodness. And let him 
 also labor, by solemn warning, by teaching men their 
 responsibility, by setting before, sinners the aggrava- 
 tions of their guilt, by showing them the ruin and im- 
 mediate wretchedness wrought by moral evil in the soul, 
 and by pointing them to approaching death, and the 
 retributions of the future World ; let him labor, by these 
 means, to reach the consciences of those whom higher 
 motives will not quicken, to break the slumbers of the 
 worldly, to cut oiF every false hope, and to persuade the 
 sinner by a salutary terror to return to God, and to seek 
 with a new earnestness, virtue, glory, and eternal life. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 on the IHrst Head of the preceding Discourse. 
 
 The «rror, which I have opposed on the subject of 
 ' preaching Christ,' may be traced in a great measure 
 to what appears to me a wrong interpretation of the two 
 first chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. In 
 these chapters, Paul say^, that he ' determined to know 
 nothing among the Corinthians save Jesus Christ and 
 him crucified,' and speaks once and again of ' preaching 
 Christ crucified,' &c. It has been supposed, that the 
 
256 
 
 apostle here intended to select the particular point on 
 which preaching should chiefly turn, and that we have 
 his authority for censuring a discourse which does not 
 relate immediately to the character of Christ, and espe- 
 cially to his sufferings on the cross. But I think that a 
 little attention to the circumstances of the apostle and 
 of the Corinthians will show us, that Paul referred to 
 the religion of Jesus generally, as the subject of his 
 preaching, and not to a very limited part of it. 
 
 Corinth, being the most commercial city of Greece, 
 was inhabited by Jews as well as Greeks. These 
 Jews, as Paul tells us, ' wanted a sign,' just as the 
 Pharisees in the time of Christ demanded ' a sign from 
 heaven.' That is, they wanted a Messiah who should 
 be marked out to them by a visible descent from heaven, 
 or by some glorious appearance from heaven, or by 
 some outward majesty which should be a pledge of his 
 breaking the Roman yoke, and raising Judea to the 
 empire of the world. They wanted a splendid and 
 temporal Messiah. The Greeks on the other hand, 
 who were a speculative people, wanted wisdom, or a 
 system of philosophy, and could hear nothing patiently 
 but the subtle disputations and kudied harangues with 
 which they were amused by those who pretended to 
 wisdom. Such was the state of Corinth, when Paul 
 entered it. Had he brought with him an account of a 
 triumphant Messiah, or an acute philosopher, he would 
 have been received with eagerness. But none were 
 desirous to hear the simple religion of Jesus of Naza- 
 reth, who proved his mission, not by subtilties of elo- 
 quence, but by miracles evincing the power of God, and 
 who died at last on the ignominious cross. Paul, how- 
 ever, in opposition to Jew and Greek, determined to 
 know nothing of a worldly Messiah, nothing of any old 
 
256 
 
 or new scheme of philosophy ; but to know iand to 
 preach Jesus Christ, and to exhibit him in a light which 
 Judaism and philosophy would alike abhor, as crucified 
 for the recovery of men from error, sin, and condemna- 
 tion. In other words, Jie resolved to preach the religion 
 of Jesus, in its greatest simplicity, without softening its 
 most offensive feature, the cross of its author, or with- 
 out borrowing anything from Moses or any Gentile phi- 
 losopher to give currency to his doctrines. This is the 
 amount of what P^ul teaches in these chapters. 
 
 We must not imagine, when we read these chapters, 
 that Corinth was a city of professing Christians ; that 
 among these Christians a difference of opinion had aris- 
 en as to the proper subjects of christian preaching, and 
 that Paul intended to specify the topic on which minis- 
 ters should chiefly or exclusively insist. This, I fear, 
 is the common impression under which this portion of 
 scripture is read ; but this is altogether erroneous. No 
 controversy of this kind existed ; and Paul, in these 
 chapters, had not the most distant idea of recommend- 
 ing one part of the gospel in preference to others, but 
 intended to recommend the whole , gospel, the whole 
 religion of Jesus Christ, in distinction from Judaism 
 and Gentile philosophy. The dangers of the Corinthian 
 Christians required that he should employ every effort 
 to secure their fidelity to the simple gospel of Jesus. 
 Having been educated in the Jewish or Heathen relig- 
 ions ; living in the midst of Jews and Heathens ; hear- 
 ing perpetually, from one class, that the Messiah was to 
 be a triumphant prince, and that withoiit submission to 
 the law of Moses no one could pairtake his blessings ; and 
 hearing from the other perpetual praises of this and 
 another philosopher, and perpetual derision of the gos- 
 pel, because in its doctrines and style it bore no resem- 
 
2o7 
 
 blance to the refinements and rhetoric of their most cele- 
 brated sages ; the Corinthian Christians, in these trying 
 circumstances, were strongly tempted to assimilate the 
 gospel to the prevalent religions, to blend with it foreign 
 doctrines, to keep the humiliation of its author out of 
 sight, and to teach it as a system of philosophy resting on 
 subtle reasoning rather than on miracles and the author- 
 ity of God. To save them from this danger, a danger 
 which at present we can hardly estimate, the apostle re- 
 minded them, that when he came to them he came not 
 with ' excellency of speech and with enticing words of 
 man's wisdom,' but in demonstration of the Spirit and 
 of miraculous powers ; that he did not comply with the 
 demands of Greek or Jew ; that he preached a crucified 
 Messiah, and no other teacher or deliverer ; and that he 
 always insisted, that the religion of Jesus, unaided by 
 Judaism or philosophy, was able to make men wise to 
 salvation. He also reminded them, that this preaching, 
 however branded as foolishness, had proved divinely 
 powerful, and had saved them from that ignorance of 
 God, from which human wisdom had been unable to 
 deliver them. These remarks, I hope, will assist com- 
 mon readers in understanding the chapters under con- 
 sideration. 
 
 We are too apt, in reading the New Testament and 
 particularly the Epistles, to forget, that the gospel was 
 a new religion, and that the apostles Avere called to 
 preach Jesus to those who perhaps had never before 
 heard his name, and whose prejudices and passions pre- 
 pared them to contemn and reject his claims. In these 
 circumstances, they had to begin at the very foundation, 
 to prove to the unbelieving world that Jesus -was the 
 Messiah, or sent from God to instruct and save mankind. 
 This is often called ' preaching Christ,' especially in the 
 22* 
 
258 
 
 Acts. — When converts were made, the work of the 
 apostles was not ended. These converts wished to 
 bring with them a part of their old religion into the 
 church; and some of the Jews even insisted that obe- 
 dience to Moses was essential to salvation. These 
 errors the apostles resolutely opposed, and having pre- 
 viously established the Messiahship of Jesus, they next 
 proceeded to establish the sufficiency and perfection of 
 his religion, to show that faith in him, or reception of his 
 gospel was all that was required to salvation. This is 
 sometimes called ' preaching Christ.' — These difficul- 
 ties, which called the apostles to so much anxiety and 
 toil, are now in a great measure removed. Christian 
 ministers, at the present day, are not often called to 
 preach Christ in opposition to the infidel, and never in 
 opposition to the weak convert who would incorporate 
 Judaism or Gentile philosophy with Christianity. The 
 great foundation, on which the apostles spent so much 
 strength, is now firmly laid. Our hearers generally ac- 
 knowledge Jesus to be the Messiah, sent by God to be 
 the light of the world, and ' able to save to the utter- 
 most all who come to God by him.' We are therefore 
 seldom called to preach Christ in the senses which have 
 just been considered, and our preaching must of course 
 differ in a measure from that of the apostles. But there 
 is another sense of preaching Christ, involved in both 
 the preceding, in which our work precisely accords with 
 theirs. Like them, we are to unfold to those who ac- 
 knowledge Jesus as their Lord, all the truths, motives, 
 and precepts which he has left to guide and quicken men 
 to excellence, and to prepare them for a happy immor- 
 tality. 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 BEFORE THE CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS OF MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 BOSTON, 1816. 
 
 ISAIAH II. 4. 
 
 'NATION SHALL NOT LIFT UP SWOED AGAINST NATION, NEITHER SHALL 
 THEY LEAKN WAR ANY MORE.' 
 
 I HAVE chosen a subject, which may seem at first 
 view not altogether appropriate to the present occasion, 
 the subject of war. It may be thought, that an ad- 
 dress to an assembly composed chiefly of the ministers 
 of religion, should be confined to the duties, dangers, 
 encouragements of the sacred ofiice. But I have been 
 induced to select this topic, because, after the slumber 
 of ages. Christians seem to be awakening to a sense of 
 the pacific character of their religion, and because I 
 understood, that this Convention were at this anniver- 
 sary to consider the interesting question, whether no 
 method could be devised for enlightening the public 
 mind on the nature and guilt of war. I was unwilling 
 that this subject should be approached and dismissed 
 as an ordinary affair. I feared, that in the pressure of 
 business, we might be satisfied with the expression of 
 customary disapprobation ; and that, having in this way 
 relieved our consciences, we should relapse into our 
 former indifference, and continue to hear the bowlings 
 
260 
 
 of this dreadful storm of human passions with as much 
 unconcern as before. I resolved to urge on you the 
 duty, and I hoped to excite in you the purpose, of mak- 
 ing some new and persevering efforts for the abolition 
 of this worst vestige of barbarism, this grossest outrage 
 on the principles of Christi?inity. The day I trust is 
 coming, when Christians will look back with gratitude 
 and aifection on those men, who, in ages of conflict and 
 bloodshed, cherished generous hopes of human improve- 
 ment, withstood the violence of corrupt opinioii, held 
 forth, amidst the general darkness, the pure and mild 
 light of Christianity, and thus ushered in a new and 
 peaceful era in the history of maiikind. May you, my 
 brethren, be included in the grateful recollection of that 
 day. 
 
 The miseries and crimes of war, its sources, its reme- 
 dies, will be the subjects of our present attention. 
 
 In detailing its miseries and crimes, there is no tempt- 
 ation to recur to unreal or exaggerated horrors. No 
 depth of coloring can approach reality. It is lamentable, 
 that we need a delineation of the calamities of war, to 
 rouse us to ex:ertion. The mere idea of human beings 
 employing every power aad faculty in the work of mu- 
 tual destruction, ought to send a shuddering through the 
 frame. • But on this subject, our sensibilities are dread- 
 fully sluggish and dead. Our ordinary sympathies seem 
 to forsake us, when war is named. The sufferings and 
 death of a single fellow being often excite a tender and 
 active compassion ; but we hear without emotion of 
 thousands enduring every variety of wo in war. A sin- 
 gle murder in peace thrills through our frames. The 
 countless murders of war are heard as an amusing tale. 
 The execution of a criminal depresses the mind, and 
 philanthropy is laboring to substitute milder punish- 
 
261 
 
 ments for death. But benevolence has hardly made 
 an effort to snatch from sudden and untimely death, the 
 innumerable ' victims immolated on the altar of war. 
 This insensibility demands, that the miseries and crimes 
 of war should be placed before us with minuteness, with 
 energy, with strong and indignant feeling. 
 
 The miseries of war may be easily conceived from 
 its very nature. By war, we understand the resort of 
 nations to force, violence, and the most dreaded me- 
 thods of destruction and devastation. In war, the 
 strength, skill, courage, energy, and resources of a 
 whole people are concentrated for the infliction of pain 
 and death. The bowels of the earth are explored, the 
 most active elements combined, the resources of art and 
 nature exhausted, to increase the power of man in de- 
 stroying his fellow creatures. 
 
 Would you learn what destruction man, when thus 
 aided, can spread around him ? Look then at that ex- 
 tensive region, desolate and overspread with ruins ; its 
 forests rent, as if blasted by lightning ; its villages pros- 
 trated, as by an earthquake ; its fields barren, as if 
 swept by storms. Not long ago, the sun shone on no 
 happier spot. But ravaging armies prowled over it ; 
 war frovi^ned on it ; and its fruitfulness and happiness 
 are fled. Here thousands and ten thousands were gath- 
 ered from distant provinces, not to embrace as brethren, 
 but to renounce the tie of brotherhood ; and thousands, 
 in the vigor of life, when least prepared for death, 
 were hewn down and scattered like chaff before the 
 whirlwind. 
 
 Repair, my friends, in thought, to a field of recent 
 battle. Here, are heaps of slain, weltering in their own 
 blood, their bodies mangled, their limbs shattered, and 
 almost every vestige of the human form and counte- 
 
262 
 
 nance destroyed. Here, are multitudes trodden under 
 foot, and the war-horse has left the trace of his hoof in 
 many a crushed and mutilated frame. Here, are se- 
 verer sufferers ; they live, but live without hope or con- 
 solation. Justice despatches the criminal with a single 
 stroke ; but the victims of war, fa.lling by casual, undi- 
 rected blows, often expire in lingering agony, their deep 
 groans moving no compassion, their limbs writhing on 
 the earth with pain, their lips parched with burning 
 thirst, their wounds open to the chilling air, the memo- 
 ry of home rushing on their minds, but not a voice of 
 friendship or comfort reaching their ears. Amidst this 
 scene of horrors, you see the bird and beast of prey 
 gorging themselves with the dead or dying, and hu- 
 man plunderers rifling the warm and almost palpitating 
 remains of the slain. If you extend your eye beyond 
 the immediate field of battle, and follow the track of 
 the victorious and pursuing army, you see the roads 
 strewed with the dead ; you see scattered flocks, and 
 harvests trampled under foot, the smoking ruins of cot- 
 tages, and the miserable inhabitants flying in want and 
 despair ; and even yet, the horrors of a single battle are 
 not exhausted. Some of the deepest pangs, which it 
 inflicts, are silent, retired, enduring, to be read in the 
 widow's countenance, in the unprotected orphan, in the 
 aged parent, in afiection cherishing the memory of the » 
 slain, and weeping that it could not minister to their 
 last pangs. 
 
 I have asked you to traverse in thought, a field of 
 battle. There is another scene often presented in war, 
 perhaps more terrible. I refer to a besieged city. The 
 most horrible pages in history are those, which record 
 the reduction of strongly fortified places. In a besieged ' 
 city, are collected all descriptions and ages of mankind, 
 
263 
 
 women, children, the old, the infirm. Day and night, 
 the weapons of death and conflagration fly around them. 
 They see the approaches of the foe, the trembling bul- 
 wark, and the fainting strength of their defenders. 
 They are worn with famine, and on famine presses pes- 
 tilence. At length the assault is made, every barrier is 
 broken down, and a lawless soldiery, exasperated by re- 
 sistance, and burning with lust and cruelty, are scattered 
 through the streets. The domestic retreat is violated ; 
 and even the house of God, is no longer a sanctuary. 
 Venerable age is no protection, female purity no de- 
 fence. Is woman spared amidst the slaughter of father, 
 brother, husband, and son ? She is spared for a fate, 
 which makes death in comparison a merciful doom. 
 With such heart-rending scenes, history abounds ; and 
 what better fruits can you expect from war ? 
 
 These views are the most obvious and striking which 
 war presents. There are more secret influences, ap- 
 pealing less powerfully to the senses and imagination, 
 but deeply affecting to a reflecting and benevolent mind. 
 — Consider, first, the condition of those who are imme- 
 diately engaged in war ? The sufferings of soldiers 
 from battle we have seen ; but their sufferings are not 
 limited to the period of conflict. The whole of war is 
 a succession of exposures too severe for human nature. 
 Death employs other weapons than the sword. It is 
 computed, that in ordinary wars, greater numbers per- 
 ish by sickness than in battle. Exhausted by long and 
 rapid marches, by unwholesome food, by exposure to 
 storms, by excessive labor under a burning sky through 
 the day, and by interrupted and restless sleep on the 
 damp ground and in the chilling atmosphere of night, 
 thousands after thousands of the young pine away and 
 die. They anticipated that they should fall, if to fall 
 
264 
 
 should be their lot, in what they called the field of 
 honor ; but they perish in the inglorious and crowded 
 hospital, surrounded with sights and sounds of wo, far 
 from home and every friend, and denied those tender 
 offices which sickness and expiring nature require. 
 
 Consider next the influence of war on the character 
 of those who make it their trade. They let themselves 
 for slaughter, place themselves servile instruments, pas- 
 sive machines, in the hands of rulers, to execute the 
 bloodiest mandates, without a thought on the justice of 
 the cause in which they are engaged. What a school 
 is this for the human character ! From naen trained in 
 battle to ferocity, accustomed to the perpetration of cru- 
 el deeds, accustomed to take human life without sorrow 
 or remorse, habituated to esteem an unthinking cour- 
 age a substitute for every virtue, encouraged by plun- 
 der to prodigality, taught improvidence by perpetual 
 hazard and exposure, restrained only by an iron disci- 
 pline which is withdrawn in peace, and unfitted by the 
 restless and irregular career of war for the calm and 
 uniform pursuits of ordinary life ; from such men, what 
 ought to be expected but contemj)t of human rights and 
 of the laws of God ? From the nature of his calling, 
 the soldier is almost driven to sport with the thought 
 of death, to defy and deride it, and of course, to banish 
 the thought of that retribution to which it leads ; and 
 though of all men the most exposed to sudden death, 
 he is too often of all men most unprepared to appear 
 before his judge. 
 
 The influence of war on the community at large, on 
 its prosperity, its morals, and its political institutions, 
 though less striking than on the soldiery, is yet baleful. 
 How often is a community impoverished to sustain a 
 war in which it has no interest. Public burdens are 
 
265 
 
 aggravated, whilst the means of sustaining them are 
 ^reduced. Internal improvements are neglected. The 
 revenue of the state is exhausted in military establish- 
 ments, or flows through secret channels into the coffers 
 of corrupt men, whom war exalts to power and office. 
 The regular employments of peace are' disturbed. In- 
 dustry in many ^of; its branches is suspended. The la- 
 borer, ground with want, and driven tP despair by the 
 clamor of his suffering family, becomes a soldier in a 
 cause which he condemns, and thus the country is drain- 
 ed of its most effective population. The people are 
 stripped and reduced, whilst the authors of war retrench 
 not a. comfort, and often fatten on the spoils and woes 
 of their country. 
 
 The influence of war on the morals of society is also 
 to be deprecated. The suspension of industry multi- 
 plies want ; and criminal modes of subsistence are the 
 resource , of the suffering. Commerce, shackled and 
 endangered, loses its upright and honorable character, 
 and becomes a system of stratagem and collusion. In 
 war, the moral sentiments of a community are perverted 
 by the admiration of military exploits. The milder 
 virtues of Christianity are eclipsed by the baleful lustre 
 thrown round a ferocious courage. The disinterested, 
 the benignant, the merciful, the forgiving, those whom 
 Jesus has pronounced blessed and honorable, must give 
 place to the h<?ro, whose character is stained not only 
 with blopd, but sometiipes with the foulest vices, but 
 all whose stains aris washed away by victory. War 
 especially injures the moral feelings of a people by 
 making humail nature cheap in their estimation, and 
 human life of as little worth as that of an insect or a 
 brute. 
 
 23 
 
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Missing Page 
 
268 
 
 nities, lest they rend the bosom of their own country. 
 Thus war extends and multiplies itself. No sooner is 
 one storm scattered, than the sky is darkened, with the 
 gathering horrors of another. Accordingly,: war has 
 been the mournful legacy of every generation to that 
 which succeeds it. Every age has had its conflicts. 
 Every country has in turn been the seat of devastation 
 and slaughter. The dearest interests and rights of 
 every nation have been again and again committed to- 
 the hazards of a game, of all others the most uncertain, 
 and in which, from its very nature, success too often 
 attends on the fiercest courage and the basest fraud. 
 
 Such, my friends, is an unexaggerated, and I will add, 
 a faint delineation of the miseries of war; and to all 
 these miseries and crimes the human race have been 
 continually exposed, for no worthier cause, than to en- 
 large an empire already tottering under its unwieldy 
 weight, to extend an iron despotism, : to support some 
 idle pretension, to repel some unreal or Exaggerated in- 
 jury. For no worthier cause, human blood has been 
 poured out as water, and millions of rational and immor- 
 tal beings have been driven like, sheep to the field of 
 slaughter. 
 
 Having considered the crimes and miseries of war, I 
 proceed, as I proposed, to inquire into its sources; an 
 important branch of our subject, for it is only by a 
 knowledge of the sources, that we can be guided to the 
 remedies of war. And here, I doubt not, many will 
 imagine that the first place ought to be given to malig- 
 nity and hatred. But justice to human nature requires, 
 that we ascribe to national animosities a more limited 
 operation, than is usually assigned to them, in the pro- 
 duction of this calamity. It is indeed, true, that ambi^ 
 
269 
 
 tious men, who have an interest in war, too often ac- 
 complish their views by appealing to the malignant 
 feelings of a community, by exaggerating its wrongs, 
 ridiculing its, forbearance, and reviving ancient jealous- 
 ies and resentmeiits. But it is believed, that were not 
 malignity and revenge aided by the concurrence of 
 higher principles, the false splendor of this barbarous 
 custom might easily be obscured, a:nd its ravages stayed. 
 One of the great springs of war may be found in a 
 very strong and general propensity of human nature, in 
 the love of excitement, of emotion, of strong interest ; 
 a propensity which gives a charm to those bold and 
 hazardous enterprises which call forth all the energies 
 of our nature. No state of mind, not even positive suf- 
 fering, is more painful than the want of interesting ob- 
 jects. The vacant soul preys on itself, and often rushes 
 with impatience from the security which demands no 
 eflFort, to tl>e brink of peril. This part of human nature 
 is seen in the kind of pleasures which have g.lways been 
 preferred. Why has the first rank among sports been 
 given to the chase ? Because its difficulties, hardships, 
 hazards, tumults, awaken the mind, and give to it a 
 new consciousness of existence, and a deep feeling of 
 its. powers. What is the charm which attaches the 
 statesman to an office which almost weighs him down 
 with labor and an appalling responsibility ? He finds 
 much of his compensation in the powerful emotion and 
 interest, awakened by the very hardships of his lot, by 
 conflict with vigorous minds, by the opposition of rivals, 
 and by the alternations of success and defeat. What 
 hurries to the gaming table the man of prosperous for- 
 tune and ample resource .'' The dread of apathy, the 
 love of strong feeling and of mental agitation. A deep- 
 er interest is felt in hazarding, than in securing wealth, 
 23* 
 
270 
 
 and the temptation is irresistible. One more example 
 of this, propensity may Be seen in the attachment of pi- 
 rates and highwaymen to their dreadful employment. 
 Its expess of peril has given it a terrible interest; and 
 to a man who has long conversed with its dangers, the 
 ordinary pursuits of life are vapid, tasteless, and disgust- 
 ing. We hcive here one spring of war. War is of all 
 games the deepest, awakening most powerfully the soul, 
 and, of course, presenting powerful attraction to those 
 restless and adventurous minds, which pant for scenes 
 of greater experiment and exposure than peace affords. 
 The savage, finding in his uncultivated modes of life 
 few objects of interest, few sources of emotion, burns for 
 war as a field for his restless energy. Civilized men, 
 too, find a pleasure in war, as an excitement of the mind. 
 They follow, with an eager concern, the movements of 
 armies, and wait the issue of battles with a deep sus- 
 pense, an alternation of hope and fear, inconceivably 
 more interesting than the unvaried uniformity of peace- 
 ful pursuits. 
 
 Another powerful principle of our nature, which is 
 the spring of war, is the passion for superiority, for tri- 
 umph, for power. The human mind is aspiring, impa- 
 tient of inferiority, and eager for preeminence and con- 
 trol. I need not enlarge on th^ predominance of this 
 passion in rulers, whose love of power is influenced by 
 the possession, and who are ever restless to extend 
 their sway. It is more important to observe, that were 
 this desire restrained to the breasts of rulers, war would 
 move with a sluggish pace. But the passion for pow- 
 er and superiority is universal ; and as every individual, 
 from his intimate union with the community, is accus- 
 tomed to appropriate its triumphs to himself, there is a 
 general promptness to engage in any contest, by which 
 
271 
 
 the community may obtain an ascendency over other 
 nations. The desire, that our country shpuld surpass 
 all others, would not be criminal, did we understand 
 in what respects it is most honorable for a nation to 
 excel ; did we feel, that the glory of a state consists in 
 intellectual and moral superiority, in preeminence of 
 knowledge, freedom, and purity,. But to the mass of a 
 people^ this form of preeminence is too refined and un- 
 substantial.. There is another kind of triumph which 
 they, better tinderstaad, the triumph of physical power, 
 triumph in battle, triumph, not over the minds, but the 
 territory i of another state. jHere is a palpable ^ visible 
 superiority ; and, for this, a people are willing to submit 
 to severe privations. A victory blots out the memory 
 of their suffierings, and in boasting of their extended 
 power, they find a compensation for many woes. 
 
 I, now proceed to another powerful spring of war, and 
 it is the admiration of the brilliant qualities displayed 
 in war. These qualities, more than all things, have 
 pevented an impression of the crimes and miseries of 
 this savage custom. Many delight in war, not for its 
 carnage and woes, but for its valor and apparent mag- 
 nanimity, for the self-command of the hero, the forti- 
 tude which despises suffering, the resolution which 
 courts, danger, the superiority of the mind to the body, 
 to sensation, to fear. Let us be just to human nature 
 even in its errors and excesses. Men seldom delight 
 in war, considered merely as a source of misery. When 
 they hear of battles, the picture which rises to their 
 view is not what it should be, a picture of extreme 
 wretchedness, of the wounded, the mangled, the slain. 
 These horrors are hidderj under the splendor of those 
 mighty energies, which break forth amidst the perils of 
 conflict, and which human nature contemplates with an 
 
272 
 
 intense and heartTthrilling delight. Attention hurries 
 from the heaps of the slaughtered to the victorious chief, 
 whose single mind pervades and animates a host, and 
 directs with stern composure ttie storm of battle ; and 
 the ruin which he spreads is forgotten in admiration of 
 his power. This admiration has, in all ages, been ex- 
 pressed by the most unequivocal signs. Why that gar- 
 land woven ? that arch erected ? that festive board 
 spread ? These are tributes to the "warrior. Whilst 
 the peaceful sovereign, who scatters blessings with the 
 silence and constancy of Providence, is received with a 
 faint applause, men assemble in crowds to hail the con- 
 queror, perhaps a monster in human form, whose private 
 life is blackened with lust and crime, and whose great- 
 ness is built on perfidy and usurpation. Thus war is 
 the surest and speediest road to renown ; and war will 
 never cease, while the field of battle is the field of glory, 
 and the most luxuriant laurels grovv from a root nourish- 
 ed with blood. 
 
 Another cause of war is a false patriotism. It is a 
 natural and a generous impulse of nature to love the 
 country which gave us birthj by whose institutions we 
 have been moulded, by whose laws defended, and with 
 whose soil and scenery innumerable associations of early 
 years, of domestic affection, and of friendship, have been 
 formed. But this sentiment often degenerates into a 
 narrow, partial, exclusive attachment, alienating us from 
 other branches of the human family, and instigating to 
 aggression on other states. In ancient times, this prin- 
 ciple was developed with wonderful energy, and some- 
 times absorbed every other sentiment. To the Roman, 
 Rome was the universe. Other nations were of no val- 
 ue but to grace her triumphs, and illustrate her power ; 
 and he, who in private life would have disdained injus- 
 
273 
 
 tice and oppression, exulted in the successful violence^ by 
 which other nations were bound to the chariot wheels 
 of this mistress of the world. This spirit still ex;ists. 
 The tie of country is thought to absolve men from the 
 obligations of universal justice and humanity. States- 
 men and rulers are expected to build up their own coun- 
 try at the expense of others ; and in the false patriotism 
 of the citizen, they have a security for any outrages, 
 which are sanctioned by success. 
 
 Let me mention one other spring of war. I mean 
 the impressions we receive in early life. In our early 
 years, we know war only as it offers itself to us at a 
 review ; iiot arrayed in terror, not stalking over fields 
 of the slain, and desolated regions, its eye flashing with 
 fury, and its sword reeking with blood. War, as we first 
 see it, is decked with gay and splendid trappings, and 
 wears a' countenance of joy. It moves with a measured 
 and graceful step, to the sound of the heart-stirring fife 
 and drum. Its instruments of deith wound only the 
 air. Such is war ; the youthful eye is dazzled with its 
 ornaments ; the youthful heart >dances to its animated 
 sounds. It seems a pastime full of spirit and ; activity, 
 the very sport in which yopth delights. These false 
 views of war are confirmed by our earliest reading. 
 We are intoxicated with the exploits of the conqueror, 
 as recorded in real history or in glowing fiction. We 
 follow, with a sympathetic ardor, his Jdpid and trium- 
 phant career in battle, and, unused as we are to suffering 
 and death, forget the fallen and miserable who are 
 crushed -under his victorious, car. 'Particularly by the 
 study of the ancient poets and historians, the senti- 
 ments of early and barbarous ages on the subject of war^ 
 are kfejpt alive in the mind. The trumpet. Which roused 
 the fury of Achilles and of the hordes of Greece, istil* 
 
274 
 
 resounds in our ears; and-though Christians by profes- 
 sion, some of our earliest and deepest impressions are 
 received in the school of uncivilized antiquity. Even 
 w^here these impressions in favor of war are iiot received 
 in youth, we yet learn from our. early familiarity with 
 it, to consider it as a necessary evil, an essential part 
 of our condition. We become reconciled to it as to a 
 fixed law of our nature ; and consider the thought of its 
 abolition as extravagant as an attempt to chain the 
 winds or arrest the lightning. 
 
 I have 'thus attempted to unfold the principal causes 
 of war. They are, you perceive, of, a moxal nature. 
 They may be resolved into wrong views of human 
 glory, and into excesses of passions and desires, which, 
 by right direction, would promote the best interests of 
 humanity. From these causes we learn, that this sav- 
 age custom is to be repressed by moral means, by salu-^ 
 tary influences on the sentiments and principles of man- 
 kind. And thus we are led to our last topic, the reme- 
 dies of war. In introducing the observations which I 
 have to offer on this branch of the subject, I feel myself 
 bound to suggest an important caution. Let not the 
 cause of peace be injured by the assertion of extreme 
 and indefensible principles. I particularly refer to the 
 principle, that war is absolutely, and in all possible 
 cases, unlawful, and prohibited by Christianity. This 
 doctrine is considered by a great majority of the judi- 
 cious and enlightened, as endangering the best interests 
 of society ; E^nd it ought not therefore to' be connected 
 with our efforts for the diffusion of peace, unless it ap- 
 pear to us a clear and indubitable truth. War, as it 
 is commonly waged, is indeed a tremendous evil ; bat 
 national subjugation is a greater evil than a war of 
 
275 
 
 defence; and a community, seems to me to iposs^ssan 
 indisiputaMe right to resort to such a war, when 4II other 
 means have failed for the security of , its existence or 
 freedoms It is universally admitted, that a community 
 may employ force to repress the rapacity and .violence 
 of its own citizens, to disarm and restrain its, internal 
 foes ; and on what ground can we deny to it the right 
 of repellipg the inroads and aggressions of a foreign 
 power ? If a government may not lawfully resist a for- 
 eign army, invading its territory to desolate and subdue, 
 on what principles can we justify a resistance of a com- 
 bination of its own citizens for the same injurious pur- 
 pose? Government is instituted for the very purpose of 
 protecting the community from all violence, no matter |jy 
 what hands it may be offered ; ; and rulers would be un- 
 faithful to their trust, wercx^itliey to abandon the rights, 
 interests, and improvements of society to unprincipled 
 rapacity, whether qf domestic or foreign foes. 
 
 We are indeed told, that the language of scripture is, 
 ' resist not evil.' But the scriptures are given to us as 
 reasonable beings. We must remember, that to the re- 
 nunciation of reason in the interpretation of iscripturcj 
 we owe those absurdities, which have sunk Christianity 
 almost to the level of Heathenism. If the precept to 
 ' resist not evil ' admit no exception, then civil govern- 
 ment is prostrated ; then the magistrate must, in no 
 case, resist the injurious ; then the subject must, in no 
 case, employ the aid of the laws to enforce his rights. 
 The very end and ofjfice of government is, to resist evil 
 men. For this, the civil magistrate bears the sword ; 
 and he should beware of interpretations of the scriptures, 
 which would lead him to bear it in vain. The doctrine 
 of the absolute unlav/fulness of war is thought by its 
 advocates to be necessary to a successful opposition to 
 
276 
 
 this barbarous custom. But, were we employed to re- 
 store peace to a contentious neighbourhood, 'we should 
 not consider ourselvies as obliged to teach, that self- 
 defence is in every possible case a crime ; and equally 
 useless is this principle, in our labors for the pacification 
 of the world. Without taking this uncertain and danger- 
 ous ground, we may, and ought to assail war, by assail- 
 ing the principles and passions which give it birth, and 
 by improving and exalting the moral sentiments of 
 mankind. 
 
 For example ; important service may be rendered to 
 the cause of peace, by communicating and enforcing 
 just and elevated, sentiments in relation to the true 
 honor of rulers. Let us teach, that the prosperity, and 
 not the extent of a state, is the measure of a ruler's 
 glory ; that the brute force and crooked policy which 
 annex a conquest, are infinitely inferior to the wisdom, 
 justice, and beneficence which make a country happy ; 
 and that the earth holds not a more abandoned mon- 
 ster, than the sovereign, who, intrusted with the dear- 
 est interests of a people, commits them to the dreadful 
 hazards of war, that he may extend his prostituted pow- 
 er, and fill the earth with his worthless name. Let us 
 exhibit to the honor and veneration of mankind the 
 character of the christian ruler, who; disdaining the 
 cheap and vulgar honor of a conqueror, aspires to a new 
 and more enduring glory ; who, casting away the long 
 tried weapons of intrigue and violence, adheres with a 
 holy and unshaken confidence to justice and philanthro- 
 py, as a nation's best defence ; and who considers him- 
 self as exalted by God, only that he may shed down 
 blessings, and be as a beneficent deity to the world. 
 
 To these instructions in relation to the true glory of 
 rulers, should be added, just sentiments as to the glqry 
 
277 
 
 of nations. Let us teach, that the honor of a nation 
 consists, not in the forced and reluctant submission of 
 other states, but in equal laws and free institutions, in 
 cultivated fields and prosperous cities, in the develope- 
 ttient of intellectual and moral pov/er, in the diflfusion 
 of knowledge, in magnanimity and justice, in the vir- 
 tues and blessings of peace. Let us never be weary in 
 reprobating that infernal spirit of conquest, by which a 
 nation becomes the terror and abhorrence of the world 
 and inevitably prepares a tomb, at best a splendid tomb, 
 for its own liberties and prosperity. Nothing has been 
 more common, than for nations to imagine themselves 
 great and glorious on the ground of foreign conquest, 
 when at home they have been loaded with chains. Can- 
 not these gross and monstrous delusions be scattered ? 
 Can nothing be done to persuade christian nations to 
 engage in a new and untried race of glory, in generous 
 competitions, in a noble contest for superiority in wise 
 legislation and internal improvements, in the spirit ■ of 
 liberty and humanity ? 
 
 Another most important method of promoting the 
 cause of peace is, to turn men's admiration from military 
 courage to qualities of " real nobleness and dignity. It 
 is time that the childish admiration of courage should 
 give place to more manly sentiments ; and in proportion 
 as we effect this change, we shall shake the main pillar 
 of war, we shall rob military life of its chief attraction. 
 Courage is a very doubtful quality, springing from very 
 different sources, and possessing a corresponding variety 
 of character. Courage sometimes results from mental 
 weakness. Peril is confronted, because the mind wants 
 comprehension to discern its extent. This is often the 
 courage of youth, the courage of unreflecting ignorance, 
 a contempt of peril because peril is but dimly seen. — 
 24 
 
278 
 
 Courage still more frequently springs from physical 
 temperament, from a rigid fibre and iron nerves, and 
 deserves as little praise, as the proportion of the form, 
 or the beauty of the countenance. — Again, every pas- 
 sion, which is strong enough to overcome the passion of 
 fear, and to exclude by its vehemence the idea of dan- 
 ger, communicates at least a temporary courage. Thus 
 revenge, w^hen it burns with great fury, gives a terrible 
 energy to the mind, and has sometimes impelled men 
 to meet certain death, that they might inflict the same 
 fate on an enemy. You see the doubtful nature of 
 courage. It is often associated with the wcwrst vices. 
 The most wonderful examples of it may be found in 
 the history of pirates and robbers, whose fearlessness is 
 generally proportioned to the insensibility of their con- 
 sciences, and to the enormity of their crimes. Courage 
 is also exhibited with astonishing power in barbarous 
 countries, where the child is trained to despise the hard- 
 ships and pains to which he is exposed by his condition ; 
 where the absence of civil laws obliges every man to 
 be his own defender ; and where, from the imperfec- 
 tion of moral sentiment, corporal strength and ferocious 
 courage are counted the noblest qualities of human na- 
 ture. The common courage of armies is equally worth- 
 less with that of the pirate and the savage. A consid- 
 erable part of almost every army, so far from deriving 
 their resolution from love of country and a sense of jus- 
 tice, can hardly be said to have a country, and have 
 been driven into the ranks by necessities, which were 
 generated by vice. These are the brave soldiers, whose 
 praises we hear ; brave from the absence of all reflec- 
 tion ; prodigal of life, because their vices have robbed 
 life of its blessings ; brave from sympathy ; brave from 
 the thirst of plunder ; and especially brave, because 
 
279 
 
 the sword of martial law is hanging over their heads. 
 Accordingly, military courage is easily attained by the 
 most debased and unprincipled men. The common 
 drunkard of the streets, who is enlisted in a fit of intox- 
 ication, when thrown into the ranks among the unthink- 
 ing and profane, subjected to the rigor of martial disci- 
 pline, familiarized by exposure to the idea of danger, 
 and menaced with death if he betray a symptom of fear, 
 becomes as brave as his officer, whose courage may of- 
 ten be traced to the same dread of punishment, and to 
 fear of severer infamy, than attends on the cowardice 
 of the common soldier. Let the tribute of honor be 
 freely and liberally given to the soldier of principle, who 
 exposes his life for a cause which his conscience ap- 
 proves, and who mingles clemency and mercy with the 
 joy of triumph. But as for the multitudes of military 
 men, who regard war as a trade by which to thrive, 
 who hire themselves to fight and slay in any cause, and 
 who destroy their fellow beings with as little concern, 
 as the husbandman does the vermin that infest his fields, 
 I know no class of men on whom admiration can 
 more unjustly and more injuriously be bestowed. Let 
 us labor, my brethren, to direct the admiration and love 
 of mankind to another and infinitely higher kind of 
 greatness, to that true magnanimity, which is prodigal 
 of ease and life in the service of God and mankind, and 
 "Vvhich proves its courage by unshaken adherence, atpidst 
 scorn and danger, to truth and virtue. Let the records 
 of past ages be explored, to rescue from oblivion, not 
 the wasteful conqueror, whose path was as the whirl- 
 wind, but the benefactors of the human race, martyrs 
 to the interests of freedom and religion, men who have 
 broken the chain of the Slave, who have traversed the 
 earth to shed consolation into the cell of the prisonrr. 
 
280 
 
 or whose sublime faculties have explored and revealed 
 useful and ennobling truths. Can nothing be done to 
 hasten the time, w^hen to such men eloquence and po- 
 etry shall offer their glowing homage ? when for these 
 the statue and monument shall be erected, the canvass 
 be animated, and the laurel entwined ? and when to 
 these the admiration of the young shall be directed, as 
 their guides and forerunners to glory and immortality ? 
 I proceed to another method of promoting the cause 
 of peace. Let christian ministers exhibit with greater 
 clearness and distinctness, than ever they have done, 
 the pacific and benevolent spirit of Christianity. My 
 brethren, this spirit ought to hold the same place-in our 
 preaching, which it holds in the gospel of our Lord. In- 
 stead of being crowded and lost among other subjects, 
 it should stand in the front of christian graces ; it should 
 be inculcated as the life and essence of our religion. 
 We should teach men, that charity is greater than faith 
 and hope ; that God is love or benevolence ; and that 
 love is the brightest communication of divinity to the 
 human soul. We should exhibit Jesus in all the ami- 
 ableness of his character, now shedding tears over Jeru- 
 salem, and now, his blood on Calvary, and in his last 
 hours recommending his own sublime love as the badge 
 and distinction of his followers. We should teach men, 
 that it is the property of the benevolence of Christiani- 
 ty, to diffuse itself like the light and rain of heaven, to 
 disdain the limits of rivers, mountains, or oceans, by 
 which nations are divided, and to embrace every human 
 being as a brother. Let us never forget, that our preach- 
 ing is evangelical, just in proportion as it inculcates 
 and awakens this disinterested and unbounded charity ; 
 and that our hearers are Christians, just as far, and no 
 farther than they delight in peace and beneficence. 
 
281 
 
 It is a painful truth, whicli ought not to be suppress- 
 ed, that the pacific influence of the gospel has been 
 greatly obstructed by the disposition, which has prevail- 
 ed in all ages, and especially among christian ministers, 
 to give importance to the peculiarities of sects, and to 
 rear walls of partition between different denominations. 
 Shame ought to cover the face of the believer, when he 
 remembers, that under no religion have intolerance and 
 persecution raged more fiercely, than under the gospel 
 of the meek and forbearing Saviour. Christians have 
 made the earth to reek with blood and to resound with 
 denunciation. Can we wonder, that, while the spirit 
 of war has been cherished in the very bosom of the 
 church, it has continued to ravage among the nations ? 
 Were the true spirit of Christianity to be inculcated 
 with but half the zeal, which has been wasted on doubt- 
 ful and disputed doctrines, a sympathy, a cooperation 
 might in a very short time be produced among Chris- 
 tians of every nation, most propitious to the pacification 
 of the world. In consequence of the progress of know- 
 ledge and the extension of commerce. Christians of both 
 hemispheres are at this moment brought nearer to one 
 another, than at any former period ; and an intercourse, 
 founded on religious sympathies, is gradually connecting 
 the most distant regions. What a powerful weapon is 
 furnished by this new bond of union to the ministers 
 and friends of peace ! Should not the auspicious mo- 
 ment be seized to inculcate on all Christians, in all re- 
 gions, that they owe their first allegiance to their com- 
 mon Lord in heaven, whose first, and last, and great 
 command is, love ? Should they not be taught to look 
 with a shuddering abhorrence on war, which continual- 
 V ly summons to the field of battle, under opposing stand- 
 ards, the followers of the same Saviour, and commands 
 24* 
 
282 
 
 them to imbrue their hands in each others' blood ? 
 Once let Christians of every nation be brought to es- 
 pouse the cause of peace with one heart and one voice, 
 and their labor will not be in vain in the Lord. Human 
 affairs will rapidly assume a new and milder aspect. 
 The predicted ages of peace will dawn on the world. 
 Public opinion will be purified. The false lustre of the 
 hero will grow dim. A nobler order of character will be 
 admired and diflFused. The kingdoms of the world will 
 gradually become the kingdoms of God and of his 
 Christ. 
 
 My friends, I did intend, but I have not time, to no- 
 tice the arguments which are urged in support of war. 
 Let me only say, that the common argument, that war 
 is necessary to awaken the boldness, energy, and no- 
 blest qualities of human nature, will, I hope, receive a 
 practical refutation in the friends of philanthropy and 
 peace. Let it appear in your lives, that you need not 
 this spark from hell to kindle a heroic resolution in 
 your breasts. Let it appear, that a pacific spirit "has 
 no affinity with a tame and feeble character. Let us 
 prove, that courage, the virtue which has been thought 
 to flourish most in the rough field of war, may be rear- 
 ed to a more generous height, and to a firmer texture, 
 in the bosom of peace. Let it be seen, that it is not 
 fear, but principle, which has made us the enemies of 
 war. In every enterprise of philanthropy which de- 
 mands daring, and sacrifice, and exposure to hardship 
 and toil, let us embark with serenity and joy. Be it 
 our part, to exhibit an undaunted, unshaken, unwearied 
 resolution, not in spreading ruin, but in serving God 
 and mankind, in alleviating human misery, in diffiising 
 truth and virtue, and especially in opposing war. The 
 doctrines of Christianity have had many martyrs. Let 
 
•283 
 
 us be willing, if God shall require it, to be martyrs to 
 its spirit, the neglected, insulted spirit of peace and 
 love. In a better service we cannot live ; in a nobler 
 cause we cannot die. It is the cause of Jesus Christ, 
 supported by Almighty Goodness, and appointed to 
 triumph over the passions and delusions of men, the 
 customs of ages, and the fallen monuments of the for- 
 gotten conqueror. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 I HAVE deferred to this place a few remarks on the 
 arguments which are usually adduced in support of war. 
 
 War, it is said, kindles patriotism ; by fighting for 
 our country, we learn to loVe it. But the patriotism, 
 which is cherished by war, is ordinarily false and spu- 
 rious, a vice and not a virtue, a scourge to the world, a 
 narrow, unjust passion, which aims to exalt a particular 
 state on the humiliation and destruction of other na- 
 tions. A genuine,^ enlightened patriot discerns, that the 
 welfare of his own country is involved in the general 
 progress of society ; and, in the character of a patriot 
 as well as of a Christian, he rejoices in the liberty and 
 prosperity of other communities, and is anxious to main- 
 tain with them the relations of peace and amity. 
 
 It is said, that a military spirit is the defence of a 
 country. But it more frequently endangers the vital 
 interests of a nation, by embroiling it with other states. 
 This spirit, like every other passion, is impatient for 
 gratification, and often precipitates a country into un- 
 necessary war. A people have no need of a military 
 spirit. Let them be attached to their government and 
 
284 
 
 institutions by habit, bj early associations, and espe- 
 cially by experimental conviction of their excellence, and 
 they will never want means or spirit to defend them. 
 
 War is recommended as a method of redressing na- 
 tional grievances. But unhappily, the weapons of war, 
 from their very nature, are oiten wielded most success- 
 fully by the unprincipled. Justice and force have lit- 
 tle congeniality. Should not Christians everywhere 
 strive to promote the reference of national as well as of 
 individual disputes to an impartial umpire ? Is a pro- 
 ject of this nature more extravagant than the idea of 
 reducing savage hordes to a state of regular society .'' 
 The last has been accomplished. Is the first to be 
 abandoned in despair ? 
 
 It is said, that war sweeps off the idle, dissolute, and 
 vicious members of the community. Monstrous argu- 
 ment ! If a government may for this end plunge a 
 nation into war, it may with equal justice consign to the 
 executioner any number of its subjects, whom it may 
 deem a burden on the state. The fact is, that war 
 commonly generates as many profligates as it destroys. 
 A disbanded army fills the community with at least 
 as many abandoned members as at first it absorbed. 
 There is another method, not quite so summary as war, 
 of ridding a country of unprofitable and injurious citi- 
 zens, but vastly more effectual ; and a method, which 
 will be applied with spirit and success, just in propor- 
 tion as war shall yield to the light and spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. I refer to the exertions, which Christians have 
 commenced, for the reformation and improvement of 
 the ignorant and poor, and especially for the instruction 
 and moral culture of indigent children. Christians are 
 entreated to persevere and abound in these godlike ef- 
 forts. By diffusing moral and religious principles and 
 
285 
 
 sober and industrious habits through the laboring clas- 
 ses of society, they will dry up one important source of 
 war. They will destroy in a considerable degree the 
 materials of armies. In proportion as these classes be- 
 come well principled and industrious, poverty will dis- 
 appear, the population of a country will be more and 
 more proportioned to its resources, and of course the 
 number will be diminished of those, who have no alter- 
 native but beggary or a camp. The moral care, which 
 is at the present day extended to the poor, is one of 
 the most honorable features of our age. Christians ! 
 remember, that your proper warfare is with ignorance 
 and vice, and exhibit here the same unwearied and in- 
 ventive energy, which has marked the warriors of the 
 world. 
 
 It is sometimes said, that a military spirit favors lib- 
 erty. But how is it, that nations, after fighting for 
 ages, are so generally enslaved ? The truth is, that lib- 
 erty has no foundation but in private and public virtue ; 
 and virtue, as we have seen, is not the common growth 
 of war. 
 
 But the great argument remains to be discussed. It 
 is said, that without war to excite and invigorate the 
 human mind, some of its noblest energies will slumber, 
 and its highest qualities, courage, magnanimity, forti- 
 tude, will perish. To this I answer, that if war is to be 
 encouraged among nations, because it nourishes energy 
 and heroism, on the same principle war in our families,, 
 and war between neighbourhoods, villages, and cities 
 ought to be encouraged ; for such contests would equally 
 tend to promote heroic daring and contempt of death. 
 Why shall not different provinces of the same empir6 
 annually meet with the Weapons of death, to keep alive 
 their courage ? We shrink at this suggestion with hor- 
 
286 
 
 ror 5 but whj shall contests of nations, rather than of 
 provinces or families, find shelter under this barbarous 
 argument ? 
 
 I observe again ; if war be a blessing, because it 
 awakens energy and courage, then the savage state is 
 peculiarly privileged ; for every savage is a soldier, and 
 his whole modes of life tend to form him to invincible 
 resolution. On the same principle, those early periods 
 of society were happy, when men were called to con- 
 tend, not only with one another, but with beasts of 
 prey ; for to these excitements we owe the heroism of 
 Hercules and Theseus. On the same principle, the 
 feudal ages were more favored than the present ; for 
 then every baron was a military chief, every castle 
 frowned defiance, and every vassal was trained to arms. 
 And do we really wish, that the earth should again 
 be overrun with monsters, or abandoned to savage or 
 feudal violence, in order that heroes may be multiplied ? 
 If not, let us cease to vindicate war as affording excite- 
 ment to energy and courage. 
 
 I repeat, what I have observed in the preceding dis- 
 course, we need not war to awaken human energy. 
 There is at least equal scope for courage and magna- 
 nimity in blessing, as in destroying mankind. The con- 
 dition of the human race offers inexhaustible objects for 
 enterprise, and fortitude, and magnanimity. In reliev- 
 ing the countless wants and sorrows of the world, in 
 exploring unknown regions, in carrying the arts and 
 virtues of civilisation to unimproved communities, in 
 extending the bounds of knowledge, in diffusing the 
 spirit of freedom, and especially in spreading the light 
 and influence of Christianity, how much may be dared, 
 how much endured ! Philanthropy invites us to servi- 
 ces, which demand the most intense, and elevated, and 
 
287 
 
 resolute, and adventurous activity. Let it not be imag- 
 ined, that were nations imbued w^ith the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity, they would slumber in ignoble ease, that instead 
 of the high minded murderers, who are formed on the 
 present system of war, we should have effeminate and 
 timid slaves. Christian benevolence is as active as it 
 is forbearing. Let it once form the character of a peo- 
 ple, and it will attach them to every important interest 
 of society. It will call forth sympathy in behalf of the 
 suffering in every region under heaven. It will give a 
 new extension to the heart, open a wider sphere to en- 
 terprise, inspire a courage of exhaustless resource, and 
 prompt to every sacrifice and exposure for the improve- 
 ment and happiness of the human race. The energy 
 of this principle has been tried and displayed in the for- 
 titude of the martyr, and in the patient labors of those 
 who have carried the gospel into the dreary abodes of 
 idolatry. Away then with the argument, that war is 
 needed as a nursery of heroism. The school of the 
 peaceful Redeemer is infinitely more adapted to teach 
 the nobler, as well as the milder virtues, which adorn 
 humanity. 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REV. JARED SPARKS. 
 
 BALTIMORE, 1810. 
 
 1 THESSALONIANS, V. 21. 
 
 ' PROVE ALL THINGS ; HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD.' 
 
 The peculiar circumstances of this occasion not on- 
 ly justify, taut seem to demand a departure from the 
 course generally followed by preachers at the introduc- 
 tion of a brother into the sacred office. It is usual to 
 speak of the nature, design, duties and advantages of 
 the christian ministry ; and on these topics I should now 
 be happy to insist, did I not remember that a minister 
 is to be given this day to a religious society, whose 
 peculiarities of opinion have drawn upon them much 
 remark, and may I not add, much reproach. Many good 
 minds, many sincere Christians, I am aware, are appre- 
 hensive that the solemnities of this day are to give a 
 degree of influence to principles which they deem false 
 and injurious. The fears and anxieties of such men I 
 respect ; and, believing. that they are grounded in part on 
 mistake, I have thought it my duty to lay before you, 
 as clearly as I can, some of the distinguishing opinions 
 of that class of Christians in our country, who are 
 known to sympathize with this religious society. I 
 25 
 
290 
 
 must ask your patience, for such a subject is not to be 
 despatched in a narrow compass. I must also ask you 
 to remember, that it is impossible to exhibit, in a single 
 discourse, our views of every doctrine of revelation, much 
 less the differences of opinion which are known to sub- 
 sist among ourselves. I shall confine myself to topics, 
 on which our sentiments have been misrepresented^ or 
 which distinguish us most widely from others. May I 
 not hope to be heard with candor. God deliver us all 
 from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love 
 of truth and virtue. 
 
 There are two natural divisions under which my 
 thoughts will be arranged. I shall endeavour to un- 
 fold, 1st, The principles which we adopt in interpreting 
 the Scriptures. And 2dly, Some of the doctrines, which 
 the Scriptures, so interpreted, seem to us clearly to 
 express. 
 
 I. We regard the Scriptures as the records of God's 
 successive revelations to mankind, and particularly of 
 the last and most perfect revelation of his will by Jesus 
 Christ. Whatever doctrines seem to us to be clearly 
 taught in the Scriptures, we receive without reserve or 
 exception. We do not, however, attach equal impor- 
 tance to all the books in this collection. Our religion, 
 we believe, lies chiefly in the New Testament. The 
 dispensation of Moses, .compared with that of Jesus, we 
 consider as adapted to the childhood of the human race, 
 a preparation for a nobler system, and chiefly useful 
 now as serving to confirm and illustrate the Christian 
 Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the only master of Chris- 
 tians, and whatever he taught, either during his person- 
 al ministry, or by his inspired apostles, we regard as of 
 divine authority, and profess to make the rule of our 
 lives. 
 
291 
 
 This authority, which we give to the Scriptures, is a 
 reason, we conceive, for studying them with peculiar 
 care, and for inquiring anxiously into the principles of 
 interpretation, by which their true meaning may be as- 
 certained. The principles adopted by the class of Chris- 
 tians, in whose name I speak, need to be explained, 
 because they^are often misunderstood. We are partic- 
 ularly accused of making an unwarrantable use of reason 
 in the interpretation of Scripture- We are said to ex- 
 alt reason above revelation, to prefer our own wisdotti 
 to God's. Loose and undefined charges of this kind 
 are circulated so freely, that we think it due to our- 
 selves, and to the cause of truth, to express our views 
 with some particularity. 
 
 Our leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this, 
 that the Bible is a book written for men, in the language 
 of men, and that its meaning is to be sought in the same 
 manner, as that of other books. We believe that God, 
 when he speaks to the human race, conforms, if we may 
 so say, to the established rules of speaking and writing. 
 How else would the Scriptures avail us more, than if 
 communicated in an unknown tongue .'' 
 
 Now^ all books, and all conversation, require in the 
 reader or hearer the constant exercise of reason ; or 
 their true import is only to be obtained by continual 
 comparison and inference. Human language, you well 
 know, admits various interpretations ; and every word 
 and every sentence must be modified and explained ac- 
 cording to the subject which is discussed, according to 
 the purposes, feelings, circumstances and principles of 
 the writer, and according to the genius and idioms of 
 the language which he uses. These are acknowledged 
 principles in the interpretation of human writings ; and 
 a man, whose words we should explain without reference 
 
292 
 
 to these principles, would reproach us justly with a 
 criminal want of candor, and an intention of obscuring 
 or distorting his meaning. 
 
 Were the Bible written in a language and style of its 
 own, did it consist of words, which admit but a single 
 sense, and of sentences wholly detached from each oth- 
 er, there would be no place for the prindples now laid 
 down. We could not reason about it, as about other 
 writings. But such a book would be of . little worth; 
 and perhaps, of all books, the Scriptures correspond least 
 to this description. The word of God bears the stamp 
 of the same hand, which we see in his works. It has 
 infinite connexions and dependencies. Every proposi- 
 tion is linked with others, and is to be compared with 
 others, that its full and precise import may be under- 
 stood. Nothing stands alone. The New Testament is 
 built on the Old. The Christian dispensation is a con- 
 tinuation of the Jewish, the completion of a vast scheme 
 of providence, requiring great extent of view in the 
 reader. Still more, the Bible treats of subjects on which 
 we receive ideas from other sources besides itself; such 
 subjects as the nature, passions, relations, and duties of 
 man ; and it expects us to restrain and modify its lan- 
 guage by the known truths, which observation and expe- 
 rience furnish on these topics. 
 
 We profess not to know a book, which demands a 
 mare frequent exercise of reason than the Bible. In 
 addition to the remarks now made on its infinite con- 
 nexions, we may observe, that its style nowhere affects 
 the precision of science, or the accuracy of definition. 
 Its language is singularly glowing, bold and figurative, 
 demanding more frequent departures from the literal 
 sense, than that of our own age and country, and con- 
 sequently demanding more continual exercise of judg- 
 
293 
 
 ment. — We find too, that the diiferent portions of this 
 book, instead of being confined to general truths, refer 
 perpetually to the times when they were written, to 
 j[Jates of society, to modes of thinking, to controversies 
 in the church, to feelings and usages which have passed 
 away, and without the knowledge of which we are con- 
 stantly in danger of extending to all times, and places, 
 what was of temporary aiid local application.*— We find, 
 too, that some of these books are strongly marked by 
 the genius and character of their respective writers, that 
 the Holy Spirit did not so guide the apostles as to sus- 
 pend the peculiarities of their minds, and that a know- 
 ledge of their feelings, and of the influences under which 
 they were placed, is one of the preparations for under- 
 standing their writings. With these views of the Bible, 
 we feel it our bounden duty to exercise our reason upon 
 it perpetually, to compare, to infer, to look beyond the 
 letter to the spirit, to seek in the nature of the subject, 
 and the aim of the writer, his true meaning ; and, in 
 general, to make use of what is known, for explaining 
 what is difficult, and for discovering new truths. 
 
 Need I descend to particulars to prove that the Scrip- 
 tures demand the exercise of reason ? Take, for exam- 
 ple, the style in which they generally speak of God, and 
 observe how habitually they apply to him human pas- 
 sions and organs. Recollect the declarations of Christ, 
 that he came not to send peace, but a sword ; that un- 
 less we eat his flesh, and drink his blood, we have no 
 life in us ; that we must hate father and mother, and pluck 
 out the right eye ; and a vast number of passages equal- 
 ly bold and unlimited. Recollect the unqualified man- 
 ner in which it is said of Christians, that they possess all 
 tilings, know all things, and can do all things. Recol- 
 lect the verbal contradiction between Paul and James, 
 25* 
 
294 
 
 and the apparent clashing of some parts of Paul's writ- 
 ings with the general doctrines and end of Christianity. 
 I might extend the enumeration indefinitely; and who 
 does not see, that we must limit all these passages by 
 the known attributes of God, of Jesus Christ, and of 
 human nature, and by the circumstances under which 
 they were written, so as to give the language a quite 
 different import from what it would require, had it been 
 applied to different beings, or used in different con- 
 nexionsi 
 
 Enough has been said to show, in what sense we 
 make use of reason in interpreting Scripture. From a 
 variety of possible interpretations, we select that, which 
 accords with the nature of the subject and the state of 
 the writer, with the connexion of. the passage, with the 
 general strain of Scripture, with the known character 
 and will of God, and with the obvious and acknowledg- 
 ed laws of nature. In other words, we believe that 
 God never contradicts, in one part of Scripture, what 
 he teaches in another ; and never contradicts, in revela- 
 tion, what he teaches in his works and providence. And 
 we, therefore, distrust every interpretation, which, after 
 deliberate attention, seems repugnant to any established 
 truth. We reason about the Bible precisely as civilians 
 do about the constitution under which we live ; who, you 
 know, are accustomed to limit one provision of that 
 venerable instrument by others, and to fix the precise 
 import of its parts, by inquiring into its general spirit, 
 into the intentions of its authors, and into the preva- 
 lent feelings, impressions, and circumstances of the time 
 when it was framed. Without these principles of in- 
 terpretation, we frankly acknowledge, that we cannot de- 
 fend the divine authority of thd Scriptures. Deny us this 
 latitude, and we must abandon this book to its enemies. 
 
296 
 
 We do not announce these principles as original, or 
 peculiar to ourselves. All Christians occasionally adopt 
 them, not excepting those, who most vehemently decry 
 them, v^hen they happen to menace some favorite arti- 
 cle of their creed. All Christians are compelled to use 
 them in their controversies with infidels. All sects em- 
 ploy them in their warfare with one another. All wil- 
 lingly avail themselves of reason, when it can be pressed 
 into the service of their own party, and only complain 
 of it, when its weapons wound themselves. None rea- 
 son more frequently than those from whom we differ. 
 It is astonishing what a fabric they rear from a few 
 slight hints about the fall of our first parents ; and how 
 ingeniously they extract, from detached passages, myste- 
 rious doctrines about the divine nature. We do not 
 blame them for reasoning so abundantly, but for violating 
 the fundamental rules of reasoning, for sacrificing thf 
 plain to the obscure, and the general strain of Scripture to 
 a scanty number of insulated texts. 
 
 We object strongly to the contemptuous manner in 
 which human reason is often spoken of by our adversa- 
 ries, because it leads, we believie, to universal skepti- 
 cism. If reason be so dreadfully darkened by the fall, 
 that its most decisive judgments on religion are unworthy 
 of trust, then Christianity, and even natural thexslogy, 
 must be abandoned ; for the existence and veracity of 
 God, and the divine original of Christianity, are conclu- 
 sions of reason, and must stand or fall with it. If reve- 
 lation be at war with this faculty, it subverts itself, for 
 the great question of its truth' is left by God to be de- 
 cided at the bar of reason. It is worthy of remark, how 
 nearly the bigot and the skeptic approach. Both would 
 annihilate our confidence in our faculties, and both throw 
 doubt and confusion over every truth. We honor reve- 
 
296 
 
 lation too highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or 
 to believe, that it calls us to renounce our highest powers. 
 We indeed grant, that the use of reason in religion, is 
 accompanied with danger. But we ask any honest rnan 
 to look back on the history of the church, and say, 
 whether the renunciation of it be not still more danger- 
 ous. Besideis, it is a plain fact, that men reason as 
 erroneously on all subjects, as on religion. Who does 
 not know the wild and groundless theories, which have 
 been framed in physical and political science ? But who 
 ever supposed, that we must cease to exercise reason 
 on nature and society, because men have eped for ages 
 in explaining them ? We grant, that the passions con- 
 tinually, and sometimes fatally, disturb the rational fac- 
 ulty in its inquiries into revelation. The ambitious 
 contrive to find doctrines in the Bible, which favor their 
 Jove of dominion. The timid and dejected discover 
 there a gloomy system, and the mystical and fanatical, a 
 visionary theology. The vicious can find examples or 
 assertions on which to build the hope of a late repen- 
 tance, or of acceptance on easy terms. The falsely re- 
 fined contrive to light on doctrines which have not been 
 soiled by vulgar handling. But the, passions do not dis- 
 tract the reason in religious, any more than in other in- 
 quirieSj which excite strong and general interest ; and 
 this faculty, of consequence, is not to be renounced in 
 religion, unless we are prepared to discard it universally. 
 The true inference from the almost endless errors, which 
 have darkened theology, is, not that we are to neglect 
 and disparage our powers, but to exert them more pa- 
 tiently, circumspectly, uprightly. The worst errors, 
 after all, have sprung up in that church, which proscribes 
 reason, and demands from its members implicit faith. 
 The most pernicious doctrines have, been the growth of 
 
297 
 
 the darkest times, when the general credulity encour- 
 aged bad men an^l enthusiasts to broach their dreams 
 and inventions, and to stifle the faint remonstrances of 
 reason, by the menaces of everlasting perdition. Say 
 what we may, God has given us a rational nature, and 
 will call us to account for it. We may let it sleep, but 
 we do so at our peril. Revelation is addressed to us as 
 rational beings. We may wish, in our sloth, that God 
 had given us a system, demanding no labor of compar- 
 ing, limiting and inferring. But such a system would 
 be at variance with the whole character of our present 
 existence ; and it is the part of wisdom to take revela- 
 tion, as it is given to us, and to interpret it by the help 
 of the faculties, which it everywhere supposes, and on 
 which it is founded. 
 
 To the views noW given, an objection is commonly 
 urged from the character of God. We are told, that 
 God being infinitely wiser than men, his discoveries wilF 
 surpass human reason. In a revelation from such a 
 teacher, we ought to expect propositions, which we can- 
 not reconcile with one another, and which may seem to 
 contradict established truths ; and it becomes us not to 
 question or explain them away, but to believe, and adore, 
 and to submit our weak and carnal reason to the divine 
 word. To this objection, we have two short answers. 
 We say, first, that it is impossible that a teacher of infi- 
 nite wisdom, should expose tiiOse, whom he would teach, 
 to infinite error. But if once we admit, that proposi-. 
 tions, which in their literal sense appear plainly repug- 
 nant to one another, or to any known truth, are still to 
 be literally understood; and received, what possible limit 
 can we set to the belief of i contradictions ? What shel- 
 ter have we from the wildest fanaticism, which can al- 
 
'238 
 
 wajs quote passages, that, in their literal aHd obvious 
 sense, give support to its extravagances ? How can 
 the Protestant escape from transubstantiation, a doc- 
 trine most clearly taught us, if the submission of reason, 
 novi' contended for, be a duty ? How can we even hold 
 fast the truth of revelation, for if one apparent contra- 
 diction may be true, so may another, and the proposi- 
 tion, that Christianity is false, though involving incon- 
 sistency, may still be a verity ? 
 
 We answer again, that, if God be infinitely wise, he 
 cannot sport with the understandings of his creatures. 
 A wise teacher discovers his wisdom in adapting himself 
 to the capacities of his pupils, not in perplexing them 
 with what is unintelligible, not in distressing them with 
 apparent contradictions, not in filling them with a skep- 
 tical distrust of their own powers. An infinitely wise 
 teacher, who knows the precise extent of our minds, and 
 the best method of enlightening them, will surpass all 
 other instructers in bringing down truth to our apprehen- 
 sion, and in showing its loveliness and harmony. We 
 ought, indeed, to expect occasional obscurity in such a 
 book as the Bible, which was written for past and future 
 ages, as well as for the present. But God's wisdom is 
 a pledge, that whatever is necessary for us, and necessa- 
 ry for salvation, is revealed too plainly to be mistaken, 
 and too consistently to be questioned, by a sound and 
 upright mind. It is not the mark of wisdom, to use an 
 .unintelligible phraseology, to communicate what is above 
 our capacities, to confuse and unsettle the intellect by 
 appearances of contradiction. We honor our heavenly 
 teacher too much to ascribe to him such a r<ivelatioB. 
 k revelation is a gift of light. It cannot thicken our 
 darkness, and multiply our perplexities. 
 
299 
 
 II. Having thus stated the principles according to ^ 
 which we interpret Scripture, I now proceed to the S;ec- 
 ond great head of this discourse, which is, to state some 
 of the views, which we derive from that sacred book, 
 particularly those which distinguish us from other Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 1. In the first place, we believe in the doctrine of 
 God's unity, or tha.t there is one God, and one only. 
 To, this truth we give infinite importance, and we feel 
 ourselves bound to take heed, lest any man spoil us of 
 it by vain philosophy. The proposition, that there is 
 one God, seems to us exceedingly plain. We understand 
 by it, that there is one being, one mind, one person, one 
 intelligent agent, and one only, to whom underived and 
 infinite perfection and dominion belong. We conceive, 
 that these words could have conveyed no other meaning 
 to the simple and uncultiyated people, who were set apart 
 to be the depositaries of this great truth, and who were 
 utterly incapable of understanding those hair-breadth 
 distinctions between being and person, which the saga- 
 city of latter ages has discovered. We find no intima- 
 tion, that this language was to be taken in an unusual 
 sense, or that God's unity was a quite different thing 
 from the oneness of other intelligent beings. 
 
 We object to the doctrine of the trinity, that whilst 
 acknowledging in words, it subverts in effect, the unity 
 of God. According to this doctrine, there are three in- 
 finite and equal persons, possessing supreme divinity, 
 called the Pather, Son, and Holy Ghost. Each of these 
 persons, as described by theologians, has his own partic- 
 ular consciousness, will, and perceptions. They love 
 each other, converse with each other, and delight in 
 each other's society. They perform different parts in 
 man's redemption, each having his appropriate office, 
 
300 
 
 and neither doing the work of the other. The Son is 
 mediator and not the Father, The Father sends the 
 Son, and is not himself sent ; nor is he conscious, like 
 the Son, of taking flesh. Here then, we have three in- 
 telligent agents, possessed of different consciousnesses, 
 different wills, and different perceptions, performing 
 different acts, and sustaining different relations ; and if 
 these things do not imply and constitute three minds 
 or beings, we are utterly at a loss to know how three 
 minds or beings are to be formed. It is difference of 
 properties, and acts, and consciousness, which leads us to 
 the belief of different intelligent beings, and if this 
 mark fails us, our whole knowledge falls ; we have no 
 proof, that all the agents and persons in the universe 
 are not one and the same mind. When we attempt to 
 conceive of three Gods, we can do nothing more, than 
 represent to ourselves three agents, distinguished from 
 each other by similar marks and peculiarities to those, 
 which separate the persons of the trinity ; and when 
 common Christians hear these persons spoken of as con- 
 versing with each other, loving each other, and perform- 
 ing different acts, how can they help regarding them as 
 different beings, different minds ? 
 
 We do then, with all earnestness, though without re- 
 proaching our brethren, protest against the irrational 
 and unscriptural doctrine of the trinity. ' To us,' as 
 to the apostle and the primitive Christians, ' there is one 
 God, even the Father.' With Jesus, we worship the 
 Father, as the only living and true God. We are aston- 
 ished, that any man can read the New Testament, and 
 avoid the conviction, that the Father alone is God. We 
 hear our Saviour continually appropriating this charac- 
 ter to the Father. We find the Father continually dis- 
 tinguished from Jesus by this title. ' God sent his Son.' 
 
301 
 
 * God anointed Jesus.' Now, how singular and. inex- 
 plicable is this phraseology, which fills the New Testa- 
 ment, if this title belong equally to Jesus, and if a prin- 
 cipal object of this book is to reveal him as God, as 
 partaking equally with the Father in supreme divinity ! 
 We challenge our opponents to adduce one passage in 
 the New Testament, where the word God means three 
 persons, where it is not limited to one person, and where, 
 unless turned from its usual sense by the connexion, it 
 does not mean the Father. Can stronger proof be 
 given, that the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead 
 is not a fundamental doctrine of Christianity ? 
 
 This doctrine, were it true, must, from its difficulty, 
 singularity, and importance, have been laid down with 
 great clearness, giiarded with great care, and stated 
 with all possible precision. But where does this state- 
 ment appear ? From the many passages which treat 
 of God, we ask for one, one only, in which we are told, 
 that he is a threefold being, or, that he is three persons, 
 or that he is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. On the 
 contrary, in the New Testament, where, at least, we 
 might expect many express assertions of this nature, 
 God is declared to be one, without the least attempt to 
 prevent the acceptation of the words in their common 
 sense ; and he is always spoken of and addressed in the 
 singular number, that is, in language which was univer- 
 sally understood to, intend a single person, and to which 
 no other idea could have been attached,, without an ex- 
 press admonition. So entirely do the Scriptures abstain 
 from stating the trinity, that when our opponents would 
 insert it into their creeds and doxologies, they are com- 
 pelled to leave the bible, and to invent forms of words 
 altogether unsanctioned by scriptural phraseology. That 
 a doctrine so strange, so liable to misapprehension, so 
 26 
 
302 
 
 fundamental as this is said to be, and requiring such care- 
 ful expositiouj should be left so undefined and unpro- 
 tected, to be made out by inference, and to be hunted 
 through distant and detached parts of scripture, this is 
 a difficulty, which, we think, no ingenuity can explain. 
 We have another difficulty. Christianity, it must be 
 remembered, was planted and grew up amidst sharp- 
 sighted enemies, who overlooked no objectionable part 
 of the system, and who must have fastened with great 
 earnestness on a doctrine involving such apparent con- 
 tradictions as the trinity. We cannot conceive an 
 opinion, agalinst which the Jews, who prided themselves 
 on an adherence to God's unity, would have raised an 
 equal clamor. , Now, how happens it, that in the apos- 
 tolic writings, which relate so much to objections 
 against Christianity, and to the controversies which 
 grew out of this religion, not one word is said, implying 
 that objections were brought against the gospel from 
 the doctrine of the trinity, not one word is uttered in 
 its defence and explanation, not a word to rescue, it from 
 reproach and mistake ? This argument has almost the 
 force of demonstration. We are persuaded, that had 
 three divine persons been announced by the first preach- 
 ers of Christianity, all equal, and all infinite, one gf 
 whom was the very Jesus, who had lately died on a 
 cross, this peculiarity of Christianity would have almost 
 absorbed every other, and the great labor of the apostles 
 would have been to repel the continual assaults, which 
 it would have awakened. But the fact is, that not a 
 whisper of objection to Christianity, on that account, 
 reaches our ears from the apostolic age. In the epistles 
 we see not a trace of controversy called forth by the 
 trinity. 
 
303 
 
 We have further objections to this doctrine^ drawn 
 from its practical influence. We regard it as unfavora- 
 ble to devotion, by dividing and distracting the mind in 
 its communion vs'ith God. It is a great excellence of 
 the doctrine of God's tinity, that it offers to us one ob- 
 ject of supreme homage, adoration and love, One Infi- 
 nite Father, one Being of beings, one original and 
 fountain, to v\fhom we may refer all good, in whom all 
 our powers and affections may be concentrated, and 
 whose lovely and venerable nature may pervade all our 
 thoughts. True piety, when directed to an undivided 
 Deity, has a chasteness, a singleness, most favorable to 
 religious awe and love. Now the trinity sets before 
 us three distinct objects of supreme adoration ; three 
 infinite persons, having equal claims on our hearts ; three 
 divine agents, performing different offices, and to be 
 acknowledged and worshipped in different relations. 
 And is it possible, we ask, that the weaTt and limited 
 mind of man can attach itself to these with the same 
 power and joy, as to One Infinite Father, the only 
 First Cause, in whom all the blessings of nature and 
 redemption meet as their centre and source ? Must 
 not devotion be distracted by the equal and rival claims 
 of three equal persons, and must not the worship of the 
 conscientious, consistent Christian be disturbed by an 
 apprehension, lest he withhold from one or another of 
 these, his due proportion of homage ? 
 
 We also think, that the doctrine of the trinity injures 
 devotion, not only by joining to the Father other objects 
 of worship, but by taking from the Father the supreme 
 affection, which is his due, and transferring it to the Son. 
 This is a most irhportant view. That Jesus Christ, if 
 exalted into the infinite Divinity, should be more inter- 
 esting than the Father, is precisely what might be ex- 
 
3Q4 
 
 pected from history, and frbm the principles of human 
 nature. Men want an object of worship like them- 
 selves, and the great secret of idolatry lies in this pro- 
 pensity. A God, clothed in our form, and feeling our 
 wants and sorrows, speaks to our weak nature more 
 strongly, than a Father in heaven, a pure spirit, invisi- 
 ble, and unapproachable, save by the reflecting and 
 purified mind. — We think too, that the peculiar oiifices 
 ascribed to Jesus by the popular theology, make him 
 the most attractive person in the Godhead. The Fa- 
 ther is the depositary of the justice, the vindicator of 
 the rights, the avenger of the laws of the Divinity. 
 On the other hand, the Son, the brightness of the divine 
 mercy, stands between the incensed Deity and guilty 
 humanity, exposes his meek head to the storms, and his 
 compassionate breast to the sword of the divine justice, 
 bears our whole load of punishment, and purchases with 
 his blood every blessing which descends from heaven. 
 Need we state the eifect of these representations, espe- 
 cially on common minds, for whom Christianity was 
 chiefly designed, and whom it seeks to bring to the Fa- 
 ther as the loveliest being ? We do believe, that the 
 worship of a bleeding, suffering Godj tends strongly to 
 absorb the mind, and to draw it from other objects, just 
 as the human tenderness of the Virgin Mary has given 
 her so conspicuous a place in the devotions of the 
 church of Rome. We believe too, that this worship, 
 though attractive, is not most fitted to spiritualize the 
 mind, that it awakens human transport, rather than that 
 deep veneration of the moral perfections of God, which 
 is the essence of piety. 
 
 2, Having thus given our views of the unity of God, 
 I proceed in the second place to observe, that webe- 
 lieve in the unity of Jesus Christ. We believe that 
 
305 
 
 Jesus is one mind, one soul, one being, as truly one as 
 we are, and equally distinct from the one God. We 
 complain of the doctrine of the trinity, that not satisfied 
 with making God three beings, it makes Jesus Christ 
 two beings, and thus introduces infinite confusion into 
 our conceptions of his character. This corruption of 
 Christianity, alike repugnant to common sense, and to 
 the general strain of scripture, is a remarkable proof of 
 the power of a false philosophy in disfiguring the simple 
 truth of Jesus. 
 
 According to this doctrine, Jesus Christ, instead of 
 being one mind, one conscious intelligent principle, 
 whom we can understand, consists of two souls, two 
 minds ; the one divine, the other human ; the one .weak, 
 the other almighty ; the one ignorant, the one omni- 
 scient. Now we maintain, that this is to make Christ 
 two beings. To denominate him one person, one being, 
 and yet to suppose him made up of two minds, infinitely 
 different from each other, is to abuse and confound lan- 
 guage, and to throw darkness over all our conceptions 
 of intelligent natures. According to the common doc- 
 trine, each of these two minds in Christ has its own 
 consciousness, its own will, its own perceptions. They 
 have in fact no common properties. The divine mind 
 feels none of the wants and sorrows of the human, and 
 the human is infinitely removed from the perfection and 
 happiness of the divine. Can you conceive of two be- 
 ings in the universe more distinct ? We have always 
 thought that one person was constituted and distinguish- 
 ed by one consciousness. The doctrine, that one and 
 the same person should have two consciousnesses, two 
 wills, two souls, infinitely different from each other, 
 this we think aii enormous tax on human credulity. 
 
 26* 
 
306 
 
 We say, that if a doctrine, so strange, so difficult, so 
 remote from all the previous conceptions of men, be in- 
 deed a part and an essential part of revelation, it must 
 be taught with great distinctness, and we ask our breth- 
 ren to point to some plain, direct passage, where Christ 
 is said to be composed of two minds infinitely different, 
 yet constituting one person. We find none. Other 
 Christians, indeed, tell us, that this doctrine is necessary 
 to the harmony of the Scriptures, that some texts as- 
 cribe to Jesus Christ human, and others divine proper- 
 ties, and that to reconcile these, we must suppose two 
 minds, to which these properties may be referred. In 
 other words, for the purpose of reconciling certain 
 difficult passages, which a just criticism can in a great 
 degree, if not wholly, explain, we must invent an 
 hypothesis vastly more difficult, and involving gross 
 absurdity. We are to find our way out of a labyrinth, 
 by a clue, which conducts us into mazes infinitely more 
 inextricable. 
 
 Surely if Jesus Christ felt that he consisted of two 
 minds, and that this was a leading feature of his reli- 
 gion, his phrasefllogy respecting himself would have been 
 colored by this peculiarity. The universal language of 
 men is framed upon the idea, that one person is one 
 person, is one mind, and one soul ; and when the multi- 
 tude heard this language from the lips of Jesus, they 
 must have taken it in its usual sense, and must have 
 referred to a single soul all which he spoke, unless 
 expressly instructed to interpret it differently. But 
 where do we find this instruction ? Where do you 
 meet, in the New Testament, the phraseology which 
 abounds in Trinitarian books, and which necessarily 
 grows from the doctrine of two natures in Jesus ? 
 Where does this divine teacher say, ' This I speak as 
 
307 
 
 God, and this as man ; this is true only of my human 
 mind, this only of my divine ? ' Where do we find in 
 the Epistles a trace of this strange phraseology ? No- 
 where. It was not needed in that day. It was de- 
 manded by the errors of a later age. 
 
 We believe, then, that Christ is one mind, one being, 
 and, I add, a being distinct from the one God. That 
 Christ is not the one God, not the same being with the 
 Father, is a necessary inference from our former head, 
 in which we saw that the doctrine of three persons in 
 God is a fiction. But on so important a subject, I 
 would add a few remarks. We wish, that thpse from 
 whom we ditfer, would weigh one striking fact. Jesus, 
 in his preaching, continually spoke of God. The word 
 was always in his mouth. We ask, does he, by this 
 word, ever mean himself? We say, never. On the 
 contrary, he most plainly distinguishes between God and 
 himself, and so do his disciples. How this is to be re- 
 conciled with the idea, that the manifestation of Christ, 
 as God, was a primary object of Christianity, our ad- 
 versaries must determine. 
 
 If we examine the passages in which Jesus is distin- 
 guished from God, we shall see, that they not only 
 speak of him as another being, but seem to labor to 
 express his inferiority. He is continually spoken of as 
 the Son of God, sent of God, receiving all his powers 
 from Crod, working miracles because God was with him, 
 judging justly because God taught him, having claims 
 on our belief, because he was anointed and sealed by 
 God, and as able of himself to do nothing. The New 
 Testament is filled with this language- Now we ask, 
 what impression this laiiguage was fitted and intended 
 to make ? Could ariy, who heard it, have imagined, 
 that Jesus was the very God, to whom he was so in- 
 
308 
 
 dustriously declared to be inferior; the very being, by 
 whom he was seint, and from whom he professed to 
 have received his message and power? Let it here be 
 remembei-ed, that the human birth, and bodily form, 
 and humble circumstances, and mortal suiFerings of Je- 
 sus, must all have prepared men to interpret, in the 
 most unqualified manner, the language in which his in- 
 feriority to God was declared. Why then was this 
 language used so continually, and without limitation, if 
 Jesus were the Supreme Deity, and if this truth were 
 an essential part of his religion ? I repeat it, the hu- 
 man condition and sufferings of Christ, tended strongly 
 to exclude from men's minds the idea of his proper God- 
 head ; and of course, we should expect to find in the 
 New Testament perpetual care and effort to counteract 
 this tendency, to hold him forth as the same being with 
 his Father, if this doctrine were, as is pretended, the 
 soul and centre of his religion. We should expect to 
 find the phraseology of scripture cast into the mould of 
 this doctrine, to hear familiaily of God the Son, of our 
 Lord God Jesus, and to be told, that to us there is one 
 God, even Jesus. But instead of this, the inferiority of 
 Christ pervades the New Testament. It is not only 
 implied in the general phraseology, but repeatedly and 
 decidedly expressed, and unaccompanied with any ad- 
 monition to prevent its application to his whole nature. 
 Could it then have been the great design of the sacred 
 writers, to exhibit Jesus as the Supreme God ? 
 
 I am aware that these remarks will be met by two oii 
 three texts, in which Christ is called God, and by a 
 class of passages^ not very numerous,, in which divine 
 properties are sa 1 to be ascribed to him. To these we 
 offer one plain r iswer. We say that it is one of the 
 most established and obvious principles of criticism, that 
 
309 
 
 language is to be explained according to the known pro- 
 perties of the subject to which it is applied. Every man 
 knows, that the same words convey very different ideas, 
 when used in relation to different beings. Thus Solo- 
 mon built the temple in a different manner from the 
 architect whom he employed ; and God repents differ- 
 ently from man. Now, we maintain, that the known 
 properties and circumstances of Christ, his birth, suffer- 
 ings, and death, his constant habit of speaking of God 
 as a distinct being from himself, his praying to God, his 
 ascribing to God all his power and offices, these ac- 
 knowledged properties of Christ, we say, oblige us to 
 interpret the comparatively few passages, which are 
 thought to make him the Supreme God, in a manner 
 consistent with his distinct and inferior nature. It is 
 our duty to explain such texts, by the rule which we 
 apply to other texts, in which human beings are called 
 Gods, and are said to be partakers of the divine nature, 
 to know and possess all things, and to be filled with all 
 God's fulness. These latter passages we do not hesitate 
 to modify, and restrain, and turn from the most obvious 
 sense, because this sense is opposed to the known pro- 
 perties of the beings to whom they relate ; and we 
 maintain, that we adhere to the same principle, and use 
 no greater latitude, in explaining, aS we do, the passa- 
 ges which are thought to support the Godhead of Christ. 
 Trinitarians profefes to derive some important advan- 
 tages from their mode of viewing Christ. It furnishes 
 them, they tell us, with an infinite atonement, for it 
 shows them an infinite being, suffering for their sins. 
 The confidence with which this fallacy is repeated as- 
 tonishes lis. When pressed with the question, whether 
 they really believe, that the infinite and unchangeable 
 God suffered and died on the cross, they acknowledge 
 
310 
 
 that this is not true,' but that^ Christ's human mind 
 alone smstained the ; pain^ of death. How have, wethen- 
 an infinite" sufferer? >' This language seems to us an 
 impositioia on common minds, and very derogatory to 
 God's justice, as if this attribute could 'be satisfied by a 
 sophism and a fiction. i- 
 
 We are also told, that Christ Js a more interesting 
 object, that his love and mercy are more felt, when he 
 is viewed as the Supreme i God, who left his glorj' to 
 take humanity and to suffer for men. That Trinitarians 
 are strongly moved by this representation, we. do not 
 mean to deny ; but we think their emotions altogether 
 founded on a misapprehension of their own doctrines. 
 They talk of the second personof the trinity's leaving 
 his glory and his Father's bosom, to visit and save the 
 world. But this second person, being the unchangeable 
 and infinite God, was evidently incapable of parting 
 with the least degree of his perfection and felicity. At 
 the moment of his taking flesh, he was as intimately 
 present with his Father as before, and equally with his 
 Father filled heaven, and earth, and immensity. This 
 Trinitarians acknowledge ; and still they profess to be 
 touched and overwhelmed by the amazing humiliation 
 of this immutable being ! But not only does their 
 doctrine, when fully explained, reduce Christ's humilia- 
 tion to a. fiction, it g.lmost v\?holly destroys the impres- 
 sions with which his cross ought to be viewed. Accor- 
 ding to their doctrine, Christ was^ comparatively, no 
 sufferer'at all. It is true, his human mind suffered; 
 but this, they tell us, was an infinitely small part of Je- 
 sus, bearing no more proportion to his whole nature, 
 than a single hair of our heads to the 'whole' body, or 
 than a drop to the ocean. The divine mind of Christy 
 that which was most properly himself, was infinitely 
 
311 
 
 happy, at the very moment of the suffermg of his human- 
 ity. Whilst hanging on the cross, he was the happiest 
 being in the universe, as happy as the infinite Father ; 
 so that his-pains, compared with his felicity, were noth- 
 ing. This Trinitarians do, and must acknowledge. It 
 follows necessarily from the immutableness of the di- 
 vine nature, which they ascribe to Christ ; so that their 
 system, justly viewed, robs his death of interest, weak- 
 ens our sympathy with his sufferings, and is, of all 
 others, most unfavorable to a love of Christ, founded on 
 a sense of his sacrifices for mankind. We esteem our 
 own views to be vastly more afiecting. It is our belief, 
 that Christ's humiliation was real and entire, that the 
 whole Saviour, and not a part of him, suffered, that his 
 crucifixion was a scene of deep and unmixed agony. 
 As we stand round his cross, our minds are not distract- 
 ed, nor our sensibility weakened, by contemplating him 
 as composed of incongruous and infinitely differing 
 minds, and as having a balance of infinite felicity. ' We 
 recognise in the dying Jesus but one mind. This, we 
 think, renders his sufferings, and his patience and love 
 in bearing them, incomparably more impressive and af- 
 fecting, than the system we oppose. 
 
 3. Having thus given our belief on two great points, 
 namely, that there is one God, and that Jesus Christ is 
 a being distinct from, and inferior to God, I now pro- 
 ceed to another point on which we lay still . greater 
 stress. We believe in the moral perfection of God. 
 We consider no part of theology so important as that 
 which treats of God's moral character ; and we value 
 our views of Christianity chiefly, as they assert his 
 amiable and venerable attributes. 
 
 It may be said, that in regard to this subject, all Chris- 
 tians agree, that all ascribe to the Supreme Being, infi- 
 
312 
 
 nite justice, goodness, and holiness. We reply, that it 
 is very possible to speak of God magnificently, and to 
 think of him meanly; to apply to his person high-sound- 
 ing epithets, and to his government, principles which 
 make him odious. The Heathens called Jupiter the 
 greatest and the best ; but his history was black with 
 cruelty and lust. We cannot judge of men's real ideas 
 of God, by their general language, for in all ages, they 
 have hoped to soothe the Deity by adulation. We must 
 inquire into their particular views of his purposes, of the 
 principles of his administration, and of his disposition 
 towards his creatures. 
 
 We conceive that Christians have generally leaned 
 towards a very injurious view of the Supreme Being, 
 They have too often felt, as if he were raised, by his 
 greatness and sovereignty, above the principles of moral- 
 ity, above those eternal laws of equity and rectitude, to 
 which all other beings are subjected. We believe, that 
 in no being is the sense of right so strong, so omnipo- 
 tent, as in God. We believe that his almighty power 
 is entirely submitted to his perceptions of rectitude; and 
 this is the ground of our piety. It is not because he is 
 our Creator merely, but beca.use he created us for good 
 and holy purposes ; it is not because his ^Vill is irresisti- 
 ble, but because his will is the perfection of virtue, that 
 we pay him allegiance. We cannot bow before a being, 
 however great and powerful, who governs tyrannically. 
 We respect nothing but excellence, whether on earth, 
 or in heaven. We venerate not the loftiness of God's 
 throne, but the equity and goodness in which it is estab- 
 lished. 
 
 We believe that God is infinitely good, kind, benevo- 
 lent, in the proper sense of these words ; good in dis- 
 position,' as well as in act ; good, not to a few, but to 
 
313 
 
 all ; good to every individual, as well as to the general 
 system. 
 
 We believe, too, that God is just ; but we never for- 
 get, that his justice is the justice of a good being, dwel- 
 ling in the same mind, and acting in harmony, with 
 perfect benevolence. By this attribute, we understand 
 God's infinite regard to virtue or moral worth, express- 
 ed in a moral government ; that is, in giving excellent 
 and equitable laws, and in conferring such rewards, and 
 inflicting such punishments, as are best fitted to secure 
 their observance. God's justice has for its end the 
 highest virtue of the creation, and it punishes for this 
 end alone, and thus it coincides with benevolence ; for 
 virtue and happiness, though nbt the same, are insepa- 
 rably conjoined. 
 
 God's justice thus viewed, appears to us to be in per- 
 fect harmony with his mercy. According to the preva- 
 lent systems of theology, these attributes are so discor- 
 dant and jarring, that to reconcile them is the hardest 
 task, and the most wonderful achievement, of infinite 
 wisdom. To us they seem to be intimate friends, al- 
 ways at peace, breathing the same spirit, and seeking 
 the same end. By God's mercy, we understand not a 
 blind instinctive compassion, which forgives without 
 reflection, and without regard to the interests of virtue. 
 This, we acknowledge, would be incompatible with 
 justice, and also with enlightened benevolence. God's, 
 mercy, as we understand it, desires strongly the happi- 
 ness of the guilty, but only through their penitence. It 
 has a regard to character as truly as his justice. It de- 
 fers punishment, and suffers long, that the sinner may 
 return to his duty, but leaves the impenitent and un- 
 yielding, to the fearful retribution threatened in God's 
 word. 
 
 27 
 
314 
 
 To give our views of God, in one word, we believe 
 in his Parental character! We ascribe to him, not only 
 the name, but the dispositions and principles of a father. 
 We believe that he has a father's concern for his crea- 
 tures, a father's desire for their improvement, a father's 
 equity in proportioning his commands to their powers, 
 a father's joy in their progress, a father's readiness to 
 receive the penitent, and a father's justice for the in- 
 corrigible. We look upon this world as a place of 
 education, in which he is training men by prosperity 
 and adversity, by aids and obstructions, by conflicts of 
 reason and passion, by motives to duty and temptations 
 to sin, by a various discipline suited to free and moral 
 beings, for union with himself, and for a sublime and ever 
 growing virtue in heaven. 
 
 Now we object to the systems of religion, which pre- 
 vail among us, that they are adverse, in a greater or 
 less degree, to these purifying, comforting, and honor- 
 able views of God, that they take from us our Father in 
 heaven, and substitute for him a being, whom we can- 
 not love if we would, and whom we ought not to love 
 if we could. We object, particularly on this ground, to 
 that system, which arrogates to itself the name of Or- 
 thodoxy, and which is now industriously propagated 
 through our country. This system indeed takes vari- 
 ous shapes, but in all it casts dishonor on the Creator. 
 According to its old and genuine form, it teaches, 
 that God brings us into life wholly depraved, so that 
 under the innocent features of our childhood, is hidden 
 a nature averse to all good and prepense to all evil, 
 a nature, which exposes us to God's displeasure and 
 wrath, even before we have acquired power to under- 
 stand our duties, or to reflect upon our actions. Accor- 
 ding to a more modern exposition, it teaches, that we 
 
315 
 
 came from the hands of our Maker with such a constitu- 
 tion and are placed under such influences and circum- 
 stances, as to render certain and infallible the total 
 depravity of every human being, from the first moment 
 of his moral agency ; and it also teaches, that the of- 
 fence of the child, who brings into life this ceaseless 
 tendency to unmingled crime, exposes him to the sen- 
 tence of everlasting damnation. Now, according to the 
 plainest principles of morality, we maintain, that a nat- 
 ural constitution of the mind, unfailingly disposing it to 
 evil and to evil alone, would absolve it from guilt ; that 
 to give existence under this condition would argue un- 
 speakable cruelty, and that to punish the sin of this 
 unhappily constituted child with endless ruin, would be 
 a wrong unparalleled by the most merciless despotism. 
 
 This system also teaches, that God selects from this 
 corrupt mass a number to be saved, and plucks them, 
 by a special influence, from the common ruin ; that the 
 rest of mankind, though left without that special grace 
 which their conversion requires, are commanded to re- 
 pent under penalty of aggravated wo ; and that forgive- 
 ness is promised them on terms, which their very consti- 
 tution infallibly disposes them to reject, and in rejecting 
 w^hich they awfully enhance the punishments of hell. 
 These proffers of forgiveness and exhortations of amend- 
 ment, to beings born under a blighting curse, fill our 
 minds with a horror, which we want words to ex- 
 press. 
 
 That this religious system does not produce all the 
 effects on character, which might be anticipated, we 
 most joyfully admit. It is often, very often"^, counter- 
 acted by nature, conscience, common sense, by the gene- 
 ral strain of scripture^ by the mild example and pre- 
 cepts of Christ, and by the njany positive declarations of 
 
 % 
 
316 
 
 God's uiuyersal kindness, and perfect equitjl'. But still 
 we think that we see its unhappy influence. It tends 
 to discourage the timid, to give excuses to the' bad, to 
 feed the vanity of the fanatical, and to offer shelter to 
 the bad feelings of the malignant. By shocking, as it 
 dbfes the fundamental principles of morality, and by ex- 
 hibiting a severe and partial Deity, it tends strongly to 
 pervert the moral faculty, to form a gloomy, forbidding, 
 and servile religion, and to lead men to substitute censo- 
 riousness, bitterness, and persecution, for a tender and 
 impartial charity. We think, too, that this system, 
 which begins with degrading human nature, may be 
 expected to tend in pride ; for pride grows out of a con- 
 sciousness of high distinctions, however obtained, and 
 no distinction is so great as that, which is made between 
 the elected and abandoned of God. 
 
 The false and dishonorable views of God, which have 
 now been stated, we feel ourselves bound to resist un- 
 ceasingly. Other errors we can pass over with com- 
 parative indifference. But we ask our opponents to 
 leave to us a God, worthy of our love and trust, in 
 whom our moral sentiments may delight, in whom our 
 weaknesses and sorrows may find refuge. We ciing 
 to the divine perfections. We meet them everywhere 
 in creation, we read th6ni in the scriptures, we see a 
 lovely image of them in Jesus Christ ; and gratitude, 
 love and veneration call on us to assert them. Re- 
 proached, as we often are, by men, it is our consolation 
 ai)d happiness, that one of our chief offences is the zeal 
 with which we vindicate the dishonored goodness and 
 rectitude of God. 
 
 4. Having thus spoken of the unity of God ; of 
 the unity of Jesus, and his inferiority to God ; and of 
 the perfections of the diviiie character; I now proceed 
 
317 
 
 to give our views of the mediation of Christ and of the 
 purposes of his mission. With regard to the great ob- 
 ject, vi'hich Jesus came to accomplish, there seems to be 
 no possibility of mistake. We believe, that he was sent 
 by the Father to effJect a moral, or spiritual deliverance 
 of mankind ; that is, to rescue men from sin and its 
 consequences, and to bring them to a state of everlast- 
 ing purity and happiness. We believe, too, that he ac- 
 complishes this sublime purpose by a variety of methods ; 
 by his instructions respecting God's unity, parental 
 character, and moral government, which are admi- 
 rably fitted to reclaim the world from idolatry and im- 
 piety, to the knowledge, love, and obedience of the 
 Creator ; by his promises of pardon to the penitent, and 
 of divine assistance to those, who labor for progress in 
 moral excellence ; by the light which he has thrown on 
 the path of duty ; by his own spotless example, in 
 which the loveliness and sublimity of virtue shine forth 
 to warm and quicken, as well as guide us to perfection ; 
 by his threatenings against incorrigible guilt ; by his 
 glorious discoveries of immortality ; by his sufferings and 
 death ; by that signal event, the resurrection, which 
 powerfully bore witness to his divine mission, and 
 brought down to men's senses a future life ; by his con- 
 tinual intercession, which obtains for us spiritual aid and 
 blessings ; and by the power with which he is invested 
 of raising the dead, judging the world, and conferring 
 the everlasting rewards, promised to the faithful. 
 
 We have no desire to conceal the fact, that a differ- 
 ence of opinion exists among us, in regard to an inter- 
 esting part of Christ's mediation ; I mean, in regard to 
 the precise influence of his death, on our forgiveness. 
 Many suppose, that this event contributes to our pardon, 
 as it was a principal means of confirming his religion, 
 27* 
 
318 
 
 and of giving it a power over the mind ; in other words, 
 that it procures forgiveness by leading to that repent- 
 ance and virtue, which is the great and only condition 
 on which forgiveness is bestowed. Many of us are 
 dissatisfied with tWs explanation, and think that the 
 scriptures ascribe the remission of sins to Christ's 
 death,^ with an emphasis so peculiar, that we ought to 
 consider this event as having a special influence in 
 removing punishment, though the scriptures may not 
 reveal the way, in which it contributes to this end. 
 
 Whilst, however, we differ in explaining the connexion 
 between Christ's death and human forgiveness, a con- 
 nexion, vvhich we all gratefully acknowledge, we agree 
 in rejecting many sentiirients, which prevail in regard to 
 his mediation. The idea, which is conveyed to com- 
 mon minds by the popular system, that Christ's death 
 has an influence in making God placable or merciful, in 
 awakening his kindness towards men, we reject with 
 strong disapprobation. We are happy to find, that this 
 very dishonorable notion is disowned by intelligent 
 Christians of that class from which we differ. We 
 recollect however, that not long ago, it was common to 
 hear of Christ, as having died to appease God's wrath, 
 and to pay the debt of sinners to his inflexible justice ; 
 and we have a strong persuasion, that the language 
 of popular religious books, and the common mode 
 of stating the doctrine of Christ's mediation, still 
 communicate very degrading views of God's char- 
 acter. They give to multitudes the impression, that 
 the death of Jesus produces a change in the mind of 
 God towards man, and that in this its efficacy chiefly 
 consists. No error seems to us more pernicious. We 
 can endure no shade over the pure goodness of God. 
 We earnestly maintain, that Jesus, instead of calling 
 
319 
 
 forth in any way or degree, the mercy of the Father, 
 was sent by that mercy, to be our Saviour ; that he is 
 nothing to the human race, but what he is by God's 
 appointment ; that he communicates nothing but what 
 God empowers him to bestow ; th^t our Father in heav- 
 en is originally, essentially and eternally placable, and 
 disposed to forgive; and that his unborrowed, unde- 
 rived, and unchangeable love, is the only fountain of 
 what flows to us through his Son. We conceive, that 
 Jesus is dishonored, not glorified, by ascribing to him 
 an influence, which clouds the splendor of divine be- 
 nevolence. 
 
 We farther agree in rejeqting, as unscriptural and ab- 
 surd, the explanation given by the popular system, of 
 the manner in which Christ's death procures forgiveness 
 for men. This system used to teach as its fundamen- 
 tal principle, that man, having sinned against an infinite 
 being, has contracted infinite guilt, and is consequently 
 exposed to an infinite penalty. We believe however, 
 that this reasoning, if reasoning it may be called, which 
 overlooks the obvious maxim, that the guilt of a being 
 must be proportioned to his nature and powers, has 
 fallen into disuse.' Still the system teaches, that sin, 
 of whatever degree, exposes to endless punishment, and 
 that the whole human race, being infallibly involved by 
 their nature in sin, owe this awful penalty to the justice 
 of their Creator. It teaches, that this penalty cannot 
 be remitted, in consistency with the honor of the divine 
 law, unless a substitute be found to endure it or to suf- 
 fer an equivalent. It also teaches, that, from the nature 
 of the case, no substitute is adequate to this work, save 
 the infinite God himself ; and accordingly, God, in his 
 second person, took on him human nature, that he might 
 
320 
 
 pay to his own justice the debt of punishment incurred 
 by men, and might thus reconcile forgiveness with the 
 claims and threatenings of his law. Such is the preva- 
 lent system. Now, to us, this doctrine seems to carry 
 on its front, strong marks of absurdity, and we maintain 
 that Christianity ought not to be encumbered with it, 
 unless it be laid down in the New Testament fully and 
 expressly. We ask our adversaries, then, to point tp 
 some plain passages where it is taught. We ask for one 
 text, in which we are told that God took human nature, 
 that he might make an infinite satisfaction to his own 
 justice ; for one text, which tells us, that human guilt 
 requires an infinite substitute ; that Christ's sufferings 
 owe their efficacy to their being borne by an infinite 
 being ; or that his divine nature gives infinite value to 
 the sufferings .of the human. Not one word of this 
 description can we find in the scriptures ; not a text, 
 which even hints at these strange doctrines. They . 
 are altogether, we believe, the fictions of theologians. 
 Christianity is in no degree responsible for them. We 
 are astonished at their prevalence. What can be plain- 
 er, than that God cannot, in any sense, be a sufferer, or 
 bear a penalty in the room of his creatures ? How dis- 
 honorable to him is the supposition, that his justice is 
 now so severe, as to exact infinite punishment for the 
 sins of frail and feeble men, and now so easy and yield- 
 ing, as to accept the limited .pains of Christ's human 
 soul, as a full equivalent for the endless woes due from 
 the world ? How plain is it also, according to this 
 doctrine, that God, instead of being plenteous in for- 
 giveness, never forgives; for it seems absurd to speak 
 of men as forgiven, when their whole punishment, or an 
 equivalent to it, is borne by a substitute ? A scheme 
 
521 
 
 more fitted to obscure the brightness of Christianity and 
 the mercy of God; or less suited to give comfort to a 
 guilty and troubled mind, could not, we think, be easily 
 framed. 
 
 We believe too, that this system is unfavorable to the 
 cbaractsr. It naturally leads men to think^ that Christ 
 came to change God's mind, rather than their own ; that 
 the highest object of his mission, was to avert punish- 
 ment, rather than to communicate holiness; and that a 
 large part of religion consists in disparaging good works 
 and human virtue, for the purpose of magnifying the 
 value of Christ's vicarious sufferings. In this way, 
 a sense of the infinite importance and indispensable 
 necessity of personal improvement is weakened, and 
 high sounding praises of Christ's cross seem often to be 
 substituted for obedience to his precepts. For our- 
 selves, we have not so learned Jesus. Whilst we 
 gratefully acknowledge, that he came to rescue us from 
 punishment, we believe, that he was sent on a still no- 
 bler errand, namely, to deliver us from sin itself, and to 
 form us to a sublime and heavenly virtue. We regard 
 him as a Saviour, chiefly as he is the light, physician, 
 and guide of the dark, diseased, and wandering mind. 
 No influence in the universe seems to us so gJorious, 
 as that over the character ; and no redemption so worthy 
 of thankfulness, as the restoration of the soul to purity. 
 Without this, pardon, were it possible, would be of little 
 value. Why pluck the sinner fron; hell, if a hell be left 
 to burn in his own breast? Why raise him to. heaven, 
 if he remain a stranger to its sanctity and love ? With 
 these impressions, we , are accustomed to value the 
 gospel chiefly, as it abounds in effectual aids, motives, 
 exciteirients to a generous and divine virtue. In this 
 vii'tue, as in a common celitre, vve ^ee all its < doctrines, 
 
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Missing Page 
 
324 
 
 travagances, which have brought contempt on piety. 
 Most certainly, if the love of God be that, which often 
 bears its name, the less we have of it, the better. If 
 religion be the shipwreck of understanding, we cannot 
 keep too far from it. On this subject, we always speak 
 plainly. We cannot sacrifice our reason to the repu- 
 tation of zeal. We owe it to truth and religion, to 
 maintain, that fanaticism, partial insanity, sudden im- 
 pressions, and ungovernable transports, are anj'thing, 
 rather than piety. 
 
 We conceive, that the true love of God is a moral 
 sentiment, founded on a clear perception, and consist- 
 ing in a high esteem and veneration, of his moral per- 
 fections. Thus, it perfectly coincides, and is in fact 
 th« same thing, with the love of virtue, rectitude, and 
 goodness. You will easily judge then, what we esteem 
 the surest and only decisive signs of piety. We lay no 
 stress on strong excitements. We esteem him, and 
 him only a pious man, who practically conforms to 
 God's moral perfections and government; who shows 
 his delight in God's benevolence, by loving and serving 
 his neighbour ; his delight in God's justice, by being 
 resolutely upright ; his sense of God's purity, by regu- 
 lating his thoughts, imagination, and desires ; and whose 
 conversation, business, and domestic life are svi^ayed 
 by a regard to God's presence and authority. In all 
 things else men may deceive themselves. Disordered 
 nerves may give them strange sights, and sounds, and 
 impressions. Texts of scripture may come to them as 
 from Heaven. Their whole souls may be moved, and 
 their confidence in God's favor be undoubting. But in 
 all this there is no religion. The t|uestion is, do they 
 love God's commands, in which his character is fully 
 
326 
 
 expressed, and give up to these their habits and passions ? 
 Without this, ecstasy is a mockery. One surrender of 
 desire to God's will, is worth a thousand transports. 
 We do not judge of the bent of pieii's minds by their 
 raptures, any more than we judge of the natural direc- 
 tion of a tree, during a storm. We rather suspect loud 
 profession, for we have observed, that deep feeling is 
 generally noiseless, and least seeks display. 
 
 We would not, by these remarks, be understood as 
 wishing to exclude from religion warmth, and even 
 transport. We honor, and highly value true religious 
 sensibility. We believe, that Christianity is intended 
 to act powerfully on our whole nature, on the heart, as 
 well as the understanding and the conscience. We 
 conceive of heaven as a state, where the love of God 
 will be exalted into an unbounded fervor and joy ; and 
 we desire, in our pilgrimage here, to drink into the 
 spirit of that betfer world. But we think, that re- 
 ligious warmth is only to be valued, when it springs 
 naturally from an improved character, when it comes 
 unforced, when it is the recompense of obedience, when 
 it is the warmth of a mind which understands God by 
 being like him, and when, instead of disordering, it 
 exalts the. understanding, invigorates conscience, gives 
 a pleasure to common duties, and is seen to exist in 
 connexion with cheerfulness, judiciousness, and a rea- 
 sonable frame of mind. When we observe a fervor, 
 cflled religious, in men whose general character ex- 
 presses little refinement and elevation, and whose piety- 
 seems at war with reason, we pay it little respect. We 
 honor religion too much to give its sacred name to a 
 feverish, forcpd, fluctuating zeal, which has little power 
 over the life. 
 
 28 
 
326 
 
 Another important branch of virtue, we believe to be 
 love to Christ. The greatness of the work of Jesus, 
 the spirit with which he executed it, and the sufferings 
 which he bore for our salvation, we feel to be strong 
 claims on our gratitude and veneration. We see in na- 
 ture no beauty to be compared with the loveliness of 
 his character, nor do we find on earth a benefactor, to 
 whom we owe an equal debt. We read his history 
 with delight, and learn from it the perfection of our na- 
 ture. We are particularly touched by his death, which 
 was endured for our redemption, and by that strength 
 of charity, which triumphed over his pains. His resur- 
 rection is the foundation of our hope of immortality. 
 His intercession gives us boldness to draw nigh to the 
 throne of grace, and we look up to heaven with new de- 
 sire, when we think, that if we follow him here, we 
 shall there see his benignant countenance and enjoy his 
 friendship forever. 
 
 I need- not express to you our views on the subject 
 of the benevolent virtues. We attach such importance 
 to these, that we are sometimes reproached with exalt- 
 ing them above piety. We regard the spirit of love, 
 charity, meekness, forgiveness, liberality, and benefi- 
 cence, as the badge and distinction of Christians, as the 
 brightest image we can bear of God, as the best proof 
 of piety. On th'is subject, I need not, and cannot en- 
 large ; but there is one branch of benevolence,- which I 
 ought not to pass over in silence, because we think tBat 
 we conceive of it more highly and justly, than many of 
 our brethren. I refer to the duty of candor, charitable 
 judgment, especially towards those who differ in reli- 
 gious opinion. We think, that in nothing have Chris- 
 tians so widely departed from their religion, as in this 
 
327 
 
 particular. We read with astonishment and horror, the 
 history of the church ; and sometimes when we look 
 back on the fires of persecution, and on the zeal of 
 Christians, in building up walls of separation, and in 
 giving up one another to perdition, we feel as if we 
 were reading the records of an infernal, rather than a 
 heavenly kingdom. An enemy to every religion, if ask- 
 ed to describe a Christian, would, with some show of 
 reason, depict him as an idolater of his own distinguish- 
 ing opinions, covered with badges of party, shutting his 
 eyes on the virtues and his ears on the arguments of 
 his opponents, arrogating all excellence to his own sect 
 and all saving power to his own creed, sheltering under 
 the name of pious zeal the love of domination, the con- 
 ceit of infallibility, and the spirit of intolerance, and 
 trampling on men's rights under the pretence of saving 
 their souls. 
 
 We can hardly conceive of a plainer obligation on be- 
 ings of our frail and fallible nature, who are instructed 
 in the duty of candid judgment, than to abstain from 
 condemning men of apparent conscientiousness and sin- 
 cerity, who are chargeable with no crime but that of 
 differing from us in the interpretation of the scriptures, 
 and differing too, on topics of great and acknowledged 
 obscurity. We are astonished at the hardihood of those, 
 who, v\^ith Christ's warnings sounding in their ears, take 
 on them the responsibility of making creeds for his 
 church, and cast out professors of virtuous lives for im- 
 agined errors, for the guilt of thinking for themselves. 
 We know that zeal for truth, is the cover for this usur- 
 pation of Christ's prerogative ; but we think that zeal 
 for truth, as it is called, is very suspicious, except in 
 men, whose capacities and advantages, whose patient 
 
328 
 
 deliberation, and whose improvements in humility, 
 mildness, and candor, give them a right to hope, that 
 their views are more just than those of their neigh- 
 bours. Much of what passes for a zeal for truth, we 
 look, upon with little respect, for it often appears tQ 
 thrive most . luxuriantly where other virtues shoot up 
 thinly and feebly ; and we have no gratitude for those 
 reformers, who would force upon us a doctrine, which 
 has not sweetened their own tempers, or made them 
 better men than their neiglAours. 
 
 We are accustomed to think much of the difficulties 
 attending religious inquiries ; difficulties springing from 
 the slow developement of our minds, from the power 
 of early impressions, from the state, of society, from hu- 
 man authority, from the general neglect of the reason- 
 ing powers, from the want of just principles of criticism 
 and of important helps in interpreting scripture, and 
 from various other causes. We find, that on no sub- 
 ject have men, and even good men, engrafted so many 
 strange conceits, wild theories, and fictions of fancy, as 
 on religion; and remembering, as we do, that we our- 
 selves are sharers of the common frailty, we dare not 
 assume infallibility in the treatment of our fellow Chris- 
 tians, or encourage in common Christians, who have lit- 
 tle time for investigation, the habit of denouncing and 
 contemning other denominations, perhaps more enlight- 
 ened and virtuous than, their own. Charity, forbearance, 
 a delight in the virtues of different sects, a backward- 
 ness to censure and condemn, these are virtues, which, 
 however poorly practised by us, we admire and recom- 
 mend, and we would rather join ourselves to the church 
 in which they abound, than to any other communion, 
 however elated with the belief of its own orthodoxy, 
 
329 
 
 however strict in guarding its creed, however burning 
 with zeal against imagined error. 
 
 I have thus given the distinguishing views of those 
 Christians in whose names I have spoken. We have 
 embraced this system, not hastily or lightly, but after 
 rauch deliberation, and we hold it fast, not merely be- 
 cause we believe it to be true, but because we regard 
 it as purifying truth, as a doctrine according to godli- 
 ness, as able to 'work mightily' and to 'bring forth 
 fruit' in them who believe. That we wish to spread 
 it, we have no desire to conceal ; but we think, that 
 we wish its diflfusion, because we regard it as more 
 friendly to practical piety and pure morals, than the 
 opposite doctrines, because it gives clearer and nobler 
 views of duty, and stronger motives to its performance, 
 because it recommends religion at once to the under- 
 standing and the heart, because it asserts the lovely and 
 venerable attributes of God, because it tends to restore 
 the benevolent spirit of Jesus to his divided and afflicted 
 church, and because it cuts off every hope of God's 
 favor, except that which springs from practical conformi- 
 ty to the life and precepts of Christ. We see nothing 
 in our views to give offence, save their purity, and it is 
 their purity, which makes us seek and hope their ex- 
 tension through the world. 
 
 My friend and brother ; — You are this day to take 
 upon you important duties ; to be clothed with an office, 
 which the Son of God did not disdain ; to devote your- 
 self to that religion, which the most hallowed lips have 
 preached, and the most precious blood sealed. We 
 trust that you will bring to this work a willing mind, a 
 firm purpose, a martyr's spirit, a readiness to toil and 
 28* 
 
330 
 
 suffer for the truth, a devotioo of your best powers to 
 the interests of piety and virtue. I- have spoken of the 
 doctrines, which you will p;-obably preach ; but I do 
 not mean, that you are to give yourself to controversy. 
 You will remember, that good practice is the end of 
 preaching, and will labor to make your people holy 
 livers,, rather than skilful disputants. Be careful, lest 
 the 'desire of defending what you deem truth, and of 
 repelling reproach and misrepresentation, turn you aside 
 from yoiir great business, which is to fix in men's minds 
 a living conviction of the obligation, sublimity and hap- 
 piness of christian virtue. The best way to vindicate 
 your sentiments, is to show, in your preaching and life, 
 their intimate connexion with christian morals, with a 
 high and delicate sense of duty, with candor towards 
 your opposers, with inflexible integrity, and with an habi- 
 tual reverence for God. If any light can pierce and scat- 
 ter the clouda of prejudice, it is that of a pure example. 
 My brother, riiay your life preach more loudly than your 
 lips. Be to this people a pattern of all good works, and 
 may your instructions derive authority from a well 
 grounded belief in your heareirs, that you speak from 
 the heart, that you preach from experience, that the 
 truth which you dispense has wrought powerfully in 
 your own heart, that God, and Jesus, and heaven are 
 not merely words on your lips, but most aflfecting reali- 
 ties to your mind, and springs of hope and consolation, 
 and strength, in all your trials. Thus laboring, may 
 you reap abundantly, and have a testimony of your faith- 
 fulness, not only in your own conscience, but in the es- 
 teem, love, virtues, and improvements of your people. 
 
 To all who hear me, I would say, with the apostle ; 
 Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. Do noty 
 
331 
 
 brethren, shrink from the duty of searching God's word 
 for yourselves through fear of human censure and de- 
 nunciation. Do not think that you may innocently 
 follow the opinions, which prevail around you, without 
 investigation, on the ground, that Christianity is now 
 so purified from errors, as to need no laborious research. 
 There is much reason to believe, that Christianity is at 
 this moment dishonored by gross and cherished corrup-" 
 tions. If you remember the darkness, which hung over 
 the gospel for ages ; if you consider the impure imion, 
 which still subsists in alrhost every christian country 
 between the church, and the state, and which enlists 
 men's selfishness and ambition, on the side of establish- 
 ed error ; if you recollect in what degree the spirit of 
 intolerance has checked free inquiry, not only before, 
 but since the reformation ; you will see that Christian- 
 ity cannot have freed itself from all the human inven- 
 tions, which disfigured it under the papal tyranny. No. 
 Much stubble is yet to be burnt ; much rubbish to be 
 removed ; many gaudy decorations, which a false taste 
 has hung around Christianity, must be swept away ; 
 and the earth-born fogs, which have long shrouded it, 
 must be scattered, before this divine fabric will rise be- 
 fore us in its native and awful majesty, in its harmo- 
 nious proportions, in its mild and celestial splendors. 
 This glorious reformation in_ the church, we hope, under 
 God's blessing, from the progress of the human intel- 
 lect, from the moral progress of society, from the con- 
 sequent decline of prejudice and bigotry, and, though 
 last not least, from the subversion of huinan authority 
 in matters of religion, from the fall of those hierarchies, 
 and other human institutions, by which the minds of in- 
 dividuals are oppressed under the weight of numbers, 
 
332 
 
 and a papal dominion is perpetuated in the protestant 
 church. Our earnest prayer to God is, that he will 
 overturn, and overturn, and overturn the strong holds 
 of spiritual usurpation, until he shall come, whose right 
 it is to rule the minds of men ; that the conspiracy of 
 ages against the liberty of Christians may be brought 
 to an end ; that the servile assent, so long yielded to 
 human creeds, may give place to honest and devout in- 
 quiry into the scriptures ; and that Christianity, thus 
 purified from error, may put forth its almighty energy, 
 and prove itself, by its ennobling influence on the mind, 
 to be indeed ' the power of God unto salvation.' 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 ON THE EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION, DELIVERED BEFORE 
 THE UNIVERSITY IN CAMBRIDGE, AT THE DUDLEIAN LECTURE, 
 14 MARCH, 1821. 
 
 JOHN III. 2. 
 
 "THE SAME CAME TO JESUS BY NIGHT, AND SAID UNTO HIM, RABBI, WE 
 KNOW THAT THOU ART A TEACHER COME FROM GOD : FOR NO MAN CAN 
 DO THESE MIRACLES THAT THOU DOEST, EXCEPT GOD BE WITH HIM.' 
 
 The evidences of revealed religion are the subject 
 of this lecture, a subject of great extent, as well as of 
 vast importance. In discussing it, an immense variety 
 of learning has been employed, and all the povs^ers of 
 the intellect been called forth. History, metaphysics, 
 ancient learning, criticism, ethical science, and the sci- 
 ence of human nature, have been summoned to the con- 
 troversy, and ha;ve brought important contributions to 
 the Christian cause. To condense into one discourse 
 what scholars and grea:t men have written on this point, 
 is impossible, even if it were desirable ; and I have sta- 
 ted the extent of speculation into which our subject has 
 led, not because I propose to give an abstract of others' 
 labors, but because I wish you to understand, that the 
 topic is one not easily despatched, and because I would 
 invite you to follow me in a discussion, which will re- 
 quire concentrated and continued attention. A subject 
 more worthy of attention, than the claims of that religi- 
 on, which was impressed on our childhood, and: which is 
 
334 
 
 acknowledged to be the only firm foundation of the 
 hope of immortality, cannot be presented ; and our 
 minds must want the ordinary seriousness of human 
 nature, if it cannot arrest us. 
 
 That Christianity has been'Cip'posed, is a fact, implied 
 in the establishment of this lecture. That it has had 
 adversaries of no mean intellect, you know. I propose 
 in this discourse to make some remarks on what seems 
 to me the great objection to Christianity, on the general 
 principle on which its evidences rest, and on some of its 
 particular evidences. 
 
 The great objection to Christianity, the only one 
 which has much influence at the present day, meets us 
 at the very threshold. We cannot, if we would, evade 
 it, for it is founded on a primary and essential attribute 
 of this religion. The objection is oftener felt than ex- 
 pressed, and amounts to this,— ;-that miracles are incredi- 
 ble, and that the supernatural character of an alleged 
 fact is proof enough of its falsehood. So strong is this 
 propensity to doubt of departures from the order of 
 nature, that there are sincere Christians, who incline to 
 rest their religion wholly on its internal evidence, and 
 to overlook the outward extraordinary interposition of 
 God, by which it was at first established. But the dif- 
 ficulty cannot in this way be evaded ; for Christianity is 
 not only confirmed by miracles, but is in itself, in its 
 very essence, a miraculous religion. It is not a system, 
 which the human mind might have gathered, in the 
 ordinary exercise of its powers, from the ordinary 
 course of nature. Its doctrinesj especially those which 
 relate to its founder, claim for it the distinction of being 
 a supernatural provision for the recovery of the human 
 race. So that the objection which I have stated still 
 
335 
 
 presses upon us, and, if it be well grounded, it is fatal 
 to Christianit}'. 
 
 It is proper then to begin the discussion, with inquir- 
 ing, whence the disposition to discredit miracles springs, 
 and how far it is rational. A preliminary remark of 
 some importance is, that this disposition is not a neces- 
 sary part or principle of our mental constitution, like 
 the disposition to trace effects to adequate causes. We 
 are indeed so framed, as to expect a continuance of 
 that order of nature which we have uniformly experien- 
 ced ; but not so framed as to revolt at alleged viola- 
 tions of that order, and to account them impossible or 
 absurd. On the contrary, men at large discover a 
 strong and incurable propensity to believe in miracles. 
 Almost all histories, until within the two last centuries, 
 reported seriously supernatural facts. Skepticism, as 
 to miracles, is comparatively a new thing, if we except 
 the epicurean or atheistical sect among the ancients ; 
 and so far from being founded in human nature, it is 
 resisted by an almost infinite preponderance of belief 
 on the other side. 
 
 Whence then has this skepticism sprung ? It may 
 be explained by two principal causes. 1. It is now an 
 acknowledged, fact, among enlightened men, that in 
 past times and in our own, a strong disposition has ex- 
 isted and still exists to admit miracles without exami- 
 nation. Human credulity is found to bave devoured 
 nothing more eagerly than reports of prodigies. Now 
 it is argued, that we discover here a principle of hu- 
 man nature, namely, the love of the supernatural and 
 marvellous, which accounts sufficiently for the belief 
 of miracles, wherever we find it ; and that it is conse- 
 quently unnecessary and unphilosophical to seek for other 
 causes, and especially to admit that most improbable 
 
336 
 
 one, the actual existence of miracles. This sweeping 
 conclusion is a specimen of that rash habit of general- 
 izing, which rather distinguishes our times, and shows 
 that philosophical reasoning has made fewer advances 
 than we are apt to boast. It is true, that there is a 
 principle of credulity as to prodigies in a considerable 
 part of society, a disposition to believe without due 
 scrutiny. But this principle, like every other in our 
 nature, has its limits ; acts acfcording to fixed laws ; is 
 not omnipotent ; cannot make the eyes see, and the 
 ears hear, and the understanding credit delusions, Qnder 
 all imaginable circumstances ; but requires the concur- 
 rence of various circumstances and of other principles 
 of our nature in order, to its operation. For example, 
 the belief of spectral appearances has been very com- 
 mon ; but under what circumstances and in what state 
 of mind has it occurred ? Do liien see ghosts in broad 
 day, and amidst cheerful society? Or in solitary places ; 
 in grave yards ; in twilights or mists, where outward 
 objects are so undefined, as easily to take a form from 
 imagination ; and in other circumstances favorable to 
 terror, and associated with the delusion in question ? 
 The principle of credulity is as regular in its operation, 
 as any other principle of the mind ; and is so dependent 
 on circumstances and so restrained and checked by 
 other parts of human nature, that sometimes the most 
 obstinate incredulity is found in that very class of peo- 
 ple, whose easy belief on other occasions moves our 
 contempt., It is vi^ell known, for example, that the 
 efficacy of the vaccine inoculation has been encountered 
 with much more unyielding skepticism among the vul- 
 gar, than among the improved ; and in general, it may 
 be affirmed, that the credulity of the ignorant operates 
 under the control of their strongest passions and im- 
 
337 
 
 pressions, and that no class of society yield a sjower 
 assent to positions, which manifestly subvert their old 
 modes of thinking and most settled prejudices. It is 
 then very unpWlosophical to assume this principle as an 
 explanation of all miracles whatever. I grant that the 
 fact, that accounts of supernatural agency so generally 
 prove false, is a reason for looking upon them With pe- 
 culiar distrust. Miracles ought on this account to be 
 sifted more than common facts, But if we find, that a 
 belief in a series of supernatural works has occurred 
 under circumstances very diiferent from those, under 
 which false prodigies have been received, under circum- 
 stances most unfavorable to the operation of credulity ; 
 then this belief cannot be resolved into the common 
 causes, which have blinded men in regard to supernatu- 
 ral agency. * We must look for other causes, and if none 
 can be found but the actual existence of the miracles, 
 then true philosophy binds us to believe them. I close 
 this head with observing, that the propensity of men to 
 believe in what is strange and miraculous, though a 
 presumption against particular miracles, is not a pre- 
 sumption against miracles universally, but rather the re- 
 verse ; for great principles of human nature. have gene- 
 rally a foundation in truth, and one explanation of this 
 propensity so common to mankind is obviously this, 
 that in the earlier ages of the human race, miraculous 
 interpositions, suited to man's infant state, were not 
 uncommon, and, being the most striking facts of human 
 history, they spread through all future times a belief 
 and expectation of miracles. 
 
 I proceed now to the second cause of the skepticism 
 
 in regard to supernatural agency, which has grown up, 
 
 especially among the more improved, in later times. 
 
 These latei" tiines are distinguished, as you well know, 
 
 29 
 
338 
 
 by successful researches into nature ; and the discove- 
 ries of science have continually added strength to that 
 great principle, that the phenomena of the universe are 
 regulated by general and permanent laws, or that the 
 Author of the universe exerts his power according to an 
 established order. Nature, the more it is explored, is 
 found to be uniform. We observe an unbroken suc- 
 cession of causes and eifects. Many phenomena, once 
 denominated irregular, and ascribed to supernatural 
 agency, are found to be connected with preceding cir- 
 cumstances, as regularly as the most common events. 
 The comet, we learn, observes the same attraction, as 
 the sun and planets. When a new phenomenon now 
 occurs, no one thinks it miraculous, but believes, that 
 when better understood, it may be reduced to laws 
 already known, or is an example of a law not yet inves- 
 tigated. 
 
 Now this increasing acquaintance with the uniformi- 
 ty of nature begets a distrust of alleged^violations of it, 
 and a rational distrust too ; for while many causes of 
 mistake in regard to alleged miracles may be assigned, 
 there is but one adequate cause of real miracles, that is, 
 the power of God ; and the regularity of nature forms 
 a strong presumption against the miraculous exertion 
 of this power, except in extraordinary circumstances, 
 and for extraordinary purposes, to which the established 
 laAvs of the creation are not competent. But the ob- 
 servation of the uniformity of nature produces in multi- 
 tudes, not merely this rational distrust of alleged viola- 
 tions of it, but a secret feeling, as if such violations were 
 impossible. That attention to the powers of nature, 
 which is implied in scientific research, tends to weaken 
 the practical conviction of a higher power ; and the laws 
 of the creation, instead of being regarded as the modes 
 
339 
 
 of divine operation, come insensibly to be considered as 
 fetters on his agency, as too sacred to be suspended 
 even by their Author. This secret feeling, essentially 
 atheistical, and at war with all sound philosophy, is the 
 chief foundation of that skepticism, which prevails in 
 fegard to miraculous agency, and deserves our partic- 
 ular consideration. 
 
 To a man, whose belief in God is strong and practi- 
 cal, a miracle will appear as possible as any other effect, 
 as the most common event in life ; and the argument 
 against miracles, drawn from the uniformity, of natur^, 
 will we^h with him, only as far as this uniformity is- a 
 pledge and proof of the Creator's disposition to accom- 
 plish his purposes by a fixed order or mode of operation. 
 Now it is freely granted, that the Creator's regard or 
 attachment to such an order may be inferred from the 
 steadiness with which he observes it ; and a strong pre- 
 sumption lies against any violation of it on slight occa- 
 sions, or for purposes to which the established laws of 
 nature are adequate. But this is the utmost, which 
 the order of nature authorises us to infer respecting its 
 Author. It forms no presumption against miracles uni- 
 versally, in all imaginable cases ; but may even furnish 
 a presumption in their favor. 
 
 We are never to forget, that God's adherence to the 
 order of the universe is not necessary ^and mechanical, 
 but intelligent and voluntary. He adheres to it not 
 for its own sake, or because it has a sacredness which 
 compels him to respect it, but because it is most suited 
 to accomplish his purposes. It is a means and not an 
 end ; and like all other means must give way, when the 
 end can best be promoted without it. It is the mark of 
 a weak mind, to make an idol of order and method ; to 
 cling to established forms of business, when they clog in- 
 
340 
 
 stead of advancing it. If then the great purposes of the 
 universe can best be accomplished by departing from its 
 established laws, these laws will undoubtedly be sus- 
 pended ; and though broken in the letter, they will be 
 observed in their spirit, for the ends, for which they were 
 first instituted, vrill be advanced by their violation. 
 Now the question arises, for what purposes were nature 
 and its order appointed ; and there is no presumption in 
 saying,^ that the highest of these is the improvement of 
 intelligent beings. Mind, (by which we mean both mor- 
 al and intellectual powers,) is God's first end. The 
 great purpose, for which a,n order of nature is fixed, is 
 plainly the formation of Mirjd. In a creation without 
 order, where events would follow without any regular 
 succession, it is obvious, that Mind must be kept in per- 
 petual infancy ; for in such a universe, there could be no 
 reasonii]g from effects to causes, no induction to establish 
 general truths, no adaptation of means to ends ; that is, 
 no science relating to God, or matter, or mind ; no ac- 
 tion ; no virtue. The great purpose of God then, I re- 
 peat it, in establishing the order, of nature, is to form 
 and advance the mind ; and if the case should occur, 
 in which the interests of the mind could best be advan- 
 ced by departing from this order or by miraculous agen- 
 cy, then the great purpose of the creation, the great 
 end of its laws and regularityi^ould demand such de- 
 parture ; and miracles, instead'xjf warring against, would 
 concur with nature. 
 
 Now we Christians maintain, that such a case has ex- 
 isted. We affirm, that when Jesus Christ came into 
 the world, nature had fiailed to communicate instructions 
 to men, in which, as intelligent beings, they had the 
 deepest concern, and on which the full developement 
 of their highest faculties essentially depended ; and we 
 
341 
 
 affirm, that there was no prospect of relief-from nature , 
 so that an exigence had occurred, in which additional 
 communications, supernatural lights, might rationally 
 be expected from the Father of spirits. Let me state 
 two particulars out of many, in which men needed in- 
 tellectual aids, not given by nature. I refer to the doc- 
 trine of one God and Father, on which all piety rests ; 
 and to the doctrine of Immortality, which is the great 
 spring of virtuous effort. Had I time to enlarge on the 
 history of that period, , I might show you under what 
 heaps of rubbish and superstition these doctrines were 
 buried. But I should repeat only what you know fa- 
 miliarly. The works of ancient genius, which form 
 your studies, carry on their front the brand of polythe- 
 ism, and of debasing error on subjects of the first and 
 • deepest concern. It is more important to observe, that 
 the very uniformity of nature had some tendency to ob- 
 scure the doctrines which I have named, or at least to 
 impair their practical power, so that a departure from 
 this uniformity was needed to fasten them on men's 
 minds. 
 
 That a fixed order of nature, though a proof of the 
 One God to reflecting and enlarged understandings, 
 has yet a tendency to hide him from men in general, 
 will appear, if we consider first, that, as the human 
 mind is constituted, what is regular and of constant oc- 
 currence, excites it feebly ; and benefits, flowing to it 
 through fixed, unchanging laws, seem to come by a kind 
 of necessity, and are apt to be traced up to natural caus- 
 es alone. Accordingly religious convictions and feelings, 
 even in the present advanced condition of society, are ex- 
 cited, not so much by the ordinary course of God's provi- 
 dence, as by sudden, unexpected events, which rouse and 
 startle the mind, and speak of a power higher than na- 
 29* 
 
342 
 
 ture. — There is another way, in which a fixed order of 
 nature seems unfavorable to just impressions respecting 
 its Author. It discovers to us in the Creator a regard 
 to general good, rather than an affection to individuals. 
 The laws of nature, operating, as thej do, with an inflex- 
 ible steadiness, never varying to meet the cases and 
 wants of individuals, and inflicting much private sufler- 
 Ing in their stern administration for the general weal, 
 give the idea of a distant, reserved sovereign, m»ch more 
 than of a tender -parent ; and yet this last view of God 
 is the only effectual security from superstition and idola- 
 try. Nature then, we fear, would not have brought back 
 the world to its Creator. — ^And as to the doctrine of Im- 
 mortality, the order of the natural world had little ten- 
 dency to teach this, at least with clearness and energy. 
 The natural world contains no provisions or arrangements . 
 for reviving the dead. The sun and the rain, which 
 cover the tomb with verdure, send no vital influences 
 to the mouldering body. The researches of science de- 
 tect no secret processes for restoring the lost powers 
 of life. If man is to live again, he is not to live through 
 any known laws of nature, but by a power higher than 
 nature ; and how then can we be assured of this truth, 
 but by a manifestation of this power, that is, by miracu- 
 lous agency confirming a future life ? 
 
 I have labored in these remarks to show, that the 
 uniformity of nattire is no presumption against miracu- 
 lous agency, when employed in confirmation of such a 
 religion as Christianity. Nature, on the contrary, fur- 
 nishes a presumption in its favor. Nature clearly shows 
 to us a power above itself, so that it proves miracles to 
 be possible. Nature reveals purposes and attributes in 
 its Author, with which Christianity remarkably agrees. 
 N?iture too has deficiencies, which show that it was not 
 
343 
 
 intended by its Author to be his whole method of in- 
 structing mankind ; and iq this way it gives great confir- 
 mation to Christianity, which meets its wants, supplies 
 its chasms, explains its mysteries, and lightens its heart- 
 oppressing cares and sorrows. 
 
 Before quitting the general consideration of miracles, 
 I ought to take some notice of Hume's celebrated argu- 
 ment on this subject ; not that it merits the attention 
 which it has received, but because it is specious, and has 
 derived weight from the name of its author. The argu- 
 ment is briefly this, — 'that belief is founded upon and reg- 
 ulated by experience. Now We often experience testi- 
 mony to be false, but nevjer witness a departure from the 
 order of nature. That men may deceive us when they 
 testify to miracles, is therefore more accordant with 
 experience, than that nature should be irregular ; and 
 hence there is a balance of proof against miracles, a 
 presumption so strong as to oqtweigh the strongest tes- 
 timony.' The usual replies. to this argument I have not 
 time to repeat. Dr. Campbell's work, which is accessi- 
 ble to all, will show you, that it rests on an equivocal 
 use of terms, and will famish you with many fine remarks 
 on testimony and: on the conditions or qualities which 
 give it validity. I will only add a few remarks which 
 seem to me worthy of attention. 
 
 1. This a:rgument affirms, that the credibility of facts 
 or statements is to be decided by their accordance with 
 the established order of nature, and by this standard 
 only. Now if nature comprehended all existences and 
 all powers, this position might be admitted. But if 
 there is a Being higher than nature, the origin of all its 
 powers and motions, and whose character falls under 
 our notice and experience as truly as the creation, then 
 there is an additional standard, to which facts and state- 
 
344 
 
 ments are to be referred : and works, which violate na- 
 ture's order, will still be credible, if they agree with the 
 known properties and attributes of its author ; because 
 for such works we can assjgn an adequate cause and 
 sufficient reasons, and these are the qualities and con- 
 ditions, on which credibility depends. 
 
 2. This argument of Hume proves too much, and 
 therefore proves nothing. It proves too much ; for if I 
 am to reject the strongest testimony to miracles, because 
 testimony has often deceived me, whilst nature's order 
 has never been found to fail, then I ought to reject a 
 miracle, even if I should see it with my own eyes, and 
 if all my senses should attest it ; for all my senses have 
 sometimes given false reports, whilst nature has never 
 gone astray ; and, therefore, be the circumstances ever so 
 decisive or inconsistent with deception, still I must not 
 believe what I see, and hear, and touch, what my sen- 
 ses, exercised according to the most deliberate judgment, 
 declare to be true. All this the argument requires ; and 
 it proves too much ; for disbelief, in the case supposed, 
 is out of our power, and is instinctively pronounced ab- 
 surd ; and what is more, it would subvert that very 
 order of nature on >vhich the argument rests ; for this 
 order of nature is learned only by the exercise of my 
 senses and judgment, and if these fail me, in the most 
 unexceptionable circumstances, then their testimony to 
 nature i^ of little worth. -^ 
 
 Once more ; this argument is built on an ignorance 
 of the nature of testimony. Testimony, we are told, 
 cannot prove a miracle. Now the truth is, that testi- 
 mony, of itself and immediately, proves no fact what- 
 ever, not even the most common. Testimony can do 
 nothing more than show us the state of another's mind 
 in regard to a given fact. It can anily show us, that the 
 
346 
 
 testifier has a belief, a conviction, that a certain phe- 
 nomenon or event has occurred. Here testimony stops ; 
 and the reality of the event is to be judged altogether 
 from the nature and degree of this conviction, and from 
 the circumstances undent' which it exists. This convic- 
 tion is an effect, which must have a cause, and needs 
 to be explained ; and if no cause can be found but the 
 real occurrence of the event, then this occurrence is ad- 
 mitted as true. Such is the extent of testimony. Now 
 a man, who affirms a miraculous phenomenon or event, 
 may give us just as decisive proofs, by his character 
 and conduct, of the strength and depth of his conviction, 
 as if he were affirming a common occurrence. Testi- 
 mony then does just as much in the case of miracles, as 
 of common events ; that isj, it discloses to us the convic- 
 tion of another's mind. Now this conviction in the 
 case of miracles requires a cause, an explanation, as 
 much as in every other ; and if the scircumstances be 
 such, that it could not have sprung Up and been estab- 
 lished but by the reality of the alleged miracle, then 
 that great and fundamental principle of humah belief, 
 namely, that every effect must have a cause, compels 
 us to jadmit the miracle. 
 
 It may be observed of Hume and of Other philosophi- 
 cal opposers of our religion, that they are much more 
 inclined to argue against miracles in g<;neral, than 
 against the particular miracles, on which Christianity 
 rests. And the reason is obvious. Mir&ctes, when 
 considered; in a general, abstract manner,, that is, when 
 divested of all cirGumStancos, and supposed to occur as 
 disconnected facts, to stand alone in history, to have no 
 explanatioiiiS or reasons in pteced(i«g' events^ aiuj no in- 
 fluence on those which follow, are indeed: <!»pen to gj-Bat 
 objection, as wanton and uselftss violations of nature's 
 
346 
 
 order ; and it is; accordingly against miracles, Considered 
 in this naked, general form, that the arguments of infi- 
 delity are chiefly urged. But it is great disingenuity 
 to class under this head the miracles of Christianity. 
 They are palpably different. They do not stand alone 
 in history ; but are most intimately incorporated with it. 
 They were demanded by the state of the world which 
 preceded them, and they Bare left deep traces on all 
 subsequent ages. In fact, the history of the whole 
 civilized world, since their alleged occurrence, has been 
 swayed and colored by them, and is wholly inexplicable 
 without them. Now sudh miracles are not to be itiet 
 and disposed of by general reasonings, which apply only 
 to insulated,' unimportant, uninfluential prodigies. 
 
 I have thus considered the objections to miracles in 
 general ; and I would close this head with observing, 
 that these objections will lose their weight, just in pro- 
 portion as we strengthen our conviction of God's power 
 over nature and of his paternal interest in his creatures. 
 The great repugnance to the belief of miraculous agency 
 is founded in a lurking atheism, which ascribes supre- 
 macy to nature, and which, whilst it professes to believe 
 in God, questions his tender concern for the improve- 
 ment of men. To a man who cherishes a sense of God, 
 the great difficulty is, not to account for miracles, but 
 to account for their rare occurrence. One of the mys- 
 teries of ,the universe is this, that its Author retires so 
 continually behind the veil of his wbrks, that the great 
 and good Father does not manifest himself more dis- 
 tinctly to his creatures. There is something like cold- 
 ness and repulsiveness, in instructing us only by fixed, 
 inflexible laws of nature. The intercourse of God vnth 
 Adam and the patriarchs suits our best conceptions of 
 the relation which he bears to the human race, and 
 
347 
 
 ought not to surprise us more, than the expression of a 
 human parent's tenderness and concern towards his 
 offspring. 
 
 After the remarks now made to remove the objection 
 to revelation in general, I , proceed to consider the evi- 
 dences of the christian religion in particular; and these 
 are so numerous, that should I attempt to compress 
 them into the short space which now remains, I could 
 give but a syllabus, a dry and uninteresting index. It 
 will be more useful to state to you, with some distinct- 
 ness, the general principle into which all christian evi- 
 dences may be resolved, and on which the whole religion 
 rests, and then to illustrate it in a few striking particulars. 
 
 All the evidences of Christianity may be traced to 
 this great principle, — that every effect must have an 
 adequate cause. We claim for our religion a divine 
 original, because no adequate cause for it can be found 
 in the powers or passions of human nature, or in the 
 circumstances under which it appeared ; because it can 
 only be accounted for by the interposition of that Being, 
 to whom its first preachers universally ascribed it, and 
 with whose nature it perfectly agrees. 
 
 Christianity, by which we mean not merely the doc- 
 trines of the religion, but everything relating to it, its 
 rise, its progress, the character of its author, the conduct 
 of its propagators ; Christianity, in this broad sense, can 
 only be accounted for in two ways. It either sprung 
 from the principles of human nature, under the excite- 
 ments, motives, impulses of the age in which it was 
 first preached ; or it had its origin in a higher and 
 supernatural agency. To which of ^hese causes the re- 
 ligion should be referred, is not a question beyond our 
 reach ; for being partakers of human nature, and know- 
 
348 
 
 ing more of it than of any other part of creation, we 
 can judge with sufficient accuracy of the operation of 
 its principles, and of the effects to which they are com- 
 petent. It is indeed true, that human powers are not 
 exactly defined, nor can we state precisely the bounds 
 beyond which they cannot pass ; but still the dispropor- 
 tion between human nature and an effect ascribed to it 
 may be so vast and palpable, as to satisfy us at once, 
 that the effect is inexplicable by human power. I know 
 not precisely what advances may be made by the intel- 
 lect of an unassisted savage ; but that a savage in the 
 woods could not compose the Prineipia of Newtoh is 
 about as plain, as "that he could not create the world. 
 I know not the point, at which bodily strength ihust 
 stop ; but that a man cannot carry Atlas or Andes on 
 his s'houlders is a safe position. The question, there- 
 fore, whether the principles of human nature, under the 
 circumstances in which it was placed at Christ's birth, 
 will explain his religion, is one to which we are com- 
 petent, and is the great question on which the whole 
 controversy turns. 
 
 Now we maintain, that a great variety of facts be-' 
 longing to this religion, — such as the character of its 
 Founder ; its peculiar principles ; the style and charac- 
 ter of its records ; its progress ; the conduct, circum- 
 stances, and sufferings of its first propagators ; the recep- 
 tion of it from the first on the ground of miraculous 
 attestations ; the prophecies which it fulfilled and which 
 it contains ; its influence on society, and other circum- 
 stances connected with it ; are utterly inexplicable by 
 human powers and principles, but accord with and are 
 fully explained by the power and perfections of God. 
 
 These virions particulars I cannot attempt to unfold. 
 One or two may be illustrated, to show you the mode of 
 
349 
 
 applying the principles which I have laid down. I will 
 take first the character of Jesus Christ. How is this to 
 be explained by the principles of human nature ? — We 
 are immediately struck with this peculiarity in the Au- 
 thor of Christianity, that whilst all other men are formed 
 in a measure by the spirit of the age, we can discover in 
 Jesus no impression of the period in which he lived. 
 We know with considerable accuracy the state of soci- 
 ety, the modes of thinking, the hopes and expectations 
 of the country in which Jesus was born and grew up ; 
 and he is as free from them, and as exalted above them, 
 as if he had lived in another world, or, with every sense 
 shut on the objects around him. His character has in 
 it nothing local or temporary. It can be explained by 
 nothing around him. His history shows him to us a 
 solitary being, living for purposes which none but him- 
 self comprehended, and enjoying not so much as the 
 sympathy of a single mind. His apostles, his chosen 
 companions, brought to him the spirit of the age ; and 
 nothing shows its strength more strikingly, than the 
 slowness with which it yielded in these honest men to 
 the instructions of Jesus. 
 
 Jesus came to a nation expecting a Messiah ; and he 
 claimed this character. But instead of conforming to 
 the opinions which prevailed in regard to the Messiah, 
 he resisted them wholly and without reserve. To a 
 people anticipating a triumphant leader, under whom 
 vengeance as well as ambition was to be glutted by the 
 prostration of their oppressors, he came as a spiritual 
 leader, teaching humility and peace. This undisguised 
 hostility to the dearest hopes and prejudices of his na- 
 tion ; this disdain of the usual compliances, by which am- 
 bition and imposture conciliate adherents ; this deliberate 
 exposure of himself to rejection and hatred, cannot 
 30 
 
350 
 
 easily be explained by the common principles of human 
 nature, and excludes the possibility of selfish aims in 
 the Author of Christianity. 
 
 One striking peculiarity in Jesus is the extent, the 
 vastness of his views. Whilst all around him looked 
 for a Messiah to liberate God's ancient people, whilst 
 to every other Jew, Judea was the exclusive object of 
 pride and hope, Jesus came, declaring himself to be the 
 deliverer and light of the world, and in his whole teach- 
 ing and life, you see a consciousness, which never for- 
 sakes him, of a relation to the whole human race. 
 This idea of blessing mankind, of spreading a universal 
 religion, was the most magnificent which had ever 
 entered man's mind; All previous religions had been 
 given to particular nations. No conqueror, legislator, 
 philosopher, in the extravagance of ambition, had ever 
 dreamed of subjecting all nations to a common faith. 
 
 This conception of a universal religion, intended alike 
 for Jew and Gentile, for all nations and climes, is whol- 
 ly inexplicable by the circumstances of Jesus. He was 
 a Jew, and the first and deepest and most constant im- 
 pression on a Jew's mind, was that of the superiority, 
 conferred on his people and himself by the national re- 
 ligion introduced by Moses. The wall between the 
 Jew and the Gentile seemed to. reach to heaven. The 
 abolition of the peculiarity of Moses, the prostration of 
 the temple on Mount Zion, the erection of a new reli- 
 gion, in which all men would meet as brethren, and 
 which would be the common and equal property of Jew 
 and Gentile, these were of all ideas the last to spring 
 up in Judea, the last for enthusiasm or imposture to 
 originate. 
 
 Compare next these views of Christ with his station 
 in life. He was of humble birth and education, with 
 
361 
 
 nothing in his lot, with no extensive means, no rank, 
 or wealth, or patronage, to infuse vast thoughts and ex- 
 travagant plans. The shop of a carpenter, the village 
 of Nazareth, were not spots for ripening a scheme, more 
 aspiring and extensive than had ever been formed. It 
 is a principle of human nature, that, except in case of 
 insanity, some proportion is observed between the pow- 
 er of an individual, and his plans and hopes. The pur- 
 pose, to which Jesus devoted himself, was as ill suited 
 to his condition as an attempt to change the seasons, 
 or to make the sun rise in the west. That a young 
 man, in obscure life, belonging to an oppressed nation, 
 should seriously think of subverting the time-hallowed 
 and deep-rooted religions of the world, is a strange 
 fact ; but with this purpose we see the mind of Jesus 
 thoroughly imbued ; and, sublime as it is, he never falls 
 below it in his language or conduct, but speaks and acts 
 with a consciousness of superiority, with a dignity and 
 authority, becoming this unparalleled destination. 
 
 In this connexion I cannot but add another striking 
 circumstance in Jesus, and that is, the calm confidence 
 with which he always looked forward to the accomplish- 
 ment of his design. He fully knew the strength of the 
 passions and powers which were arrayed against him, 
 and, was perfectly aware that his life was to be shorten- 
 ed by violencfe ; yet not a word escapes him implying a 
 doubt of the ultimate triumphs of his religion. One of 
 the beauties of the gospels, and one of the proofs of 
 their genuineness, is found in our Saviour's indirect and 
 obscure allusions to his approaching suflFerings, and to 
 the glory which was to follow ; allusions showing us 
 the workings of a mind, thoroughly conscious of being 
 appointed to accomplish infinite good through great 
 calamity. This entire and patient relinquishment of 
 
362 
 
 immediate success, this ever present persuasion tliat he 
 was to perish before his religion would advance, and 
 this calm, unsTiaken anticipation of distant and un- 
 bounded triumphs, are remarkable traits, throwing a 
 tender and solemn grandeur over our Lord, and wholly 
 inexplicable by human principles, ' or by the circum- 
 stances in which he was placed. 
 
 The views hitherto taken of Christ relate to his public 
 character and office. If we pass to what may be called 
 his private character, we shall receive the same impres- 
 sion of inexplicable excellence. The most striking 
 trait in Jesus was, undoubtedly, benevolence ; and al- 
 though this virtue had existed before, yet it had not 
 been manifested in the same form and extent. Christ's 
 benevolence was distinguished first by its expansiveness. 
 At that age, an unconfined philanthropy, proposing and 
 toiling to do good without distinction of country or rank, 
 was unknown. Love to man as man, love comprehend- 
 ing the hated Samaritan and the despised publican, was 
 a feature which separated Jesus from the best men of 
 his nation and of the world. Another characteristic of 
 the benevolence of Jesus was its gentleness and tender- 
 ness, forming a strong contrast with the hardness and 
 ferocity of the spirit and manners which then prevailed, 
 and with that sternness and inflexibility which the pur- 
 est philosophy of Greece and Rome inculcated as the 
 perfection of virtue. But its most distinguishing trait 
 was its superiority to injury. Revenge was one of the 
 recognised rights of the age in which he lived ; and 
 though a few sages, who had seen its inconsistency with 
 man's dignity, had condemned it, yet none had inculcat- 
 ed the duty of regarding one's worst enemies with that 
 kindness which God manifests to sinful men, and of re- 
 turning curses with blessings and prayers. This form 
 
353 
 
 of benevolence, the most disinterested and divine form, 
 was, as you well know, manifested by Jesus Christ in 
 infinite strength, amidst injuries and indignities which 
 cannot be surpassed. Now this singular eminence of 
 goodness, this superiority to the degrading influences 
 of the ages, under which all other men suffered, needs 
 to be explained ; and one thing it demonstrates, that 
 Jesus Christ was not an unprincipled deceiver, expos- 
 ing not only his own life, but the lives of confiding 
 friends, in an enterprise next to desperate. 
 
 I cannot enlarge on other traits of the character of 
 Christ. I will only observe, that it had one distinction, 
 which, more than anything, forms a perfect character. 
 It was made up of contrasts ; in other words, it was a 
 union of excellences which are not easily reconciled, 
 which seem at first sight incongruous, but which, when 
 blended and duly proportioned, constitute moral harmo- 
 ny, and attract, with equal power, love and veneration. 
 For example, we discover in Jesus Christ an unparalleled 
 dignity of character, a consciousness of greatness, never 
 discovered or approached by any other individual in 
 history ; and yet this was blended with a condescen- 
 sion, lowliness, and unostentatious simplicity, which had 
 never before been thought consistent with greatness. In 
 like manner he united an utter superiority to the world, 
 to its pleasures and ordinary interests, with suavity of 
 manners and freedom of austerity. He joined strong 
 feeling and self-possession ; an indignant sensibility to 
 sin and compassion to the sinner ; an intense devotion 
 to his work, and calmness under opposition and ill suc- 
 cess ; a universal philanthropy, and a susceptibility of 
 private attachments ; the authority which became the 
 Saviour of the world, and the tenderness and gratitude 
 of a son. Such was the author of our religion, And is 
 30* 
 
354 
 
 his character to be explained by imposture or insane 
 enthusiasm ? Does it not bear the unambiguous marks 
 of a heavenly origin ? , 
 
 Perhaps it may be said, this character never existed. 
 Then the invention of it is to be explained, and the re- 
 ception which this fiction met vs'ith ; and these perhaps 
 are as difficult of explanation on natural principles, -as 
 its real existence. Christ's history bears all the marks 
 of reality; a more frank, simple, unlabored, unosten- 
 tatious narrative was never penned. Besides, his cha- 
 racter, if invented, must have been an invention of 
 singular difficulty, because no models existed on which 
 to frame it. He stands alone in the records of time. 
 The conception of a being, proposing such new and ex- 
 alted ends, and governed by higher principles than the 
 progress of society had developed, implies singular in- 
 tellectual power. That several individuals should join 
 in equally vivid conceptions of this character ; and should 
 not merely describe in general terms the fictitious being 
 to whom it was attributed, but should introduce him 
 into real life, should place him in a great variety of cir- 
 cumstances, in connexion with various ranks of men, 
 with friends and foes, and should in all preserve his 
 identity, show the same great and singular mind always 
 acting in harmony with itself ; this is a supposition hard- 
 ly credible, and, when the circumstances of the writers 
 of the New Testament are considered, seems to be as 
 inexplicable on human principles, as what I before sug- 
 gested, the composition of Newton's Principia by a sav- 
 age. The character of Christ, though delineated in an 
 age of great moral darkness, has stood the scrutiny of 
 ages ; and in proportion as men's moral sentiments have 
 been refined, its beauty has been more seen and felt. 
 To suppose it invented, is to suppose that its authors, 
 
355 
 
 outstripping their age, had attained to a singular delica- 
 cy and elevation of moral perception and feeling. But 
 these attainments are not very reconcilable with the 
 character of its authors, supposing it to be a fiction ; 
 that is, with the character of habitual liars and impious 
 deceivers. 
 
 But we are not only unable to discover powers ade- 
 quate to this invention. There must have been motives 
 for it ; for men do not make great eiforts, without strong 
 motives ; and in the whole compass of human incite- 
 ments, we challenge the infidel to suggest any, which 
 could have prompted to the work now to be explained. 
 
 Once more, it must be recollected, that this invention, 
 if it were one, was received as real, at a period so near 
 to the time ascribed to Christ's appearance, that the 
 means of detecting it were infinite. That men should 
 send out such a forgery, and that it should prevail and 
 triumph, are circumstances not easily reconcilable with 
 the principles of our nature. 
 
 The character of Christ then was real. Its reality 
 is the only explanation of the mighty revolution pro- 
 duced by his religion. And how can you account for 
 it, but by that cause to which he always referred it, ^a 
 mission from the Father ? 
 
 Next to the character of Christ, his religion might 
 be shown to abound in circumstances which contradict 
 and repel the idea of a human origin. For example, its 
 representations of the paternal character of God ; its in- 
 culcation of a universal charity ; the stress which it lays 
 on inward purity ; its substitution of a spiritual worship 
 for the forms and ceremonies, which everywhere had 
 usurped the name and extinguished the life of religion ; 
 its preference of humility, and of the mild, unostenta- 
 
356 
 
 tious, passive virtues, to the dazzling qualities M^hich 
 had monopolized men's admiration ; its consistent and 
 bright discoveries of immortality ; its adaptation to the 
 wants of man as a sinner ; its adaptation to all the con- 
 ditions, capacities, and sufferings of human nature ; its 
 pure, sublime, yet practicable morality ; its high and 
 generous motives ; and its fitness to form a character, 
 which plainly prepares for a higher life than the present ; 
 these are peculiarities of Christianity, which will strike 
 us more and more, in proportion as we understand dis- 
 tinctly the circumstances of the age and country in 
 which this religion appeared, and for which no adequate 
 human cause has been or can be assigned. 
 ■ Passing over these topics, each of which might be 
 enlarged into a discourse, I will make but one remark 
 on this religion, which strikes my own mind very forci- 
 bly. Sinfce its introduction, human nature has made 
 great progress, and society experienced great changes ; 
 and in this advanced condition of the world, Christiani- 
 ty, instead of losing its application and importance, is 
 found to be more and more congenial and adapted to 
 man's nature and wants. Men have outgrown the oth- 
 er institutions of that period when Christianity appear- 
 ed, its philosophy, its modes of warfare, its policy, its 
 public and private economy ; but Christianity has never 
 shrunk as intellect has opened, but has always kept in 
 advance of men's faculties, and unfolded nobler views 
 in proportion as they have ascended. The highest 
 powers and affections, which our nature has developed, 
 find more than adequate objects in this religion. Chris- 
 tianity is indeed peculiarly fitted to the more improved 
 stages of society, to the more delicate sensibilities of 
 refined minds, and especially to that dissatisfaction with 
 the present state, which always grows with the growth 
 
357 
 
 of our moral powers and affections. As men advance 
 in civilisation, they become susceptible of mental suf- 
 ferings, to which ruder ages are strangers ; and these 
 Christianity is fitted to assuage. Imagination and in- 
 tellect become more restless ; and Christianity brings 
 them tranquillity by the eternal and magnificent truths, 
 the solemn and unbounded prospects, which it unfolds. 
 This fitness of our religion to more advanced stages of 
 society than that in which it was introduced, to wants 
 of human nature not then developed, seems to me very 
 striking. The religion bears the marks of having come 
 from a being who perfectly understood the human mind, 
 and had power to provide for its progress. This fea- 
 ture of Christianity is of the nature of prophecy. It 
 was an anticipation of future and distant ages ; and 
 when we consider among whom our religion sprung, 
 where, but in God, can we find an explanation of this 
 peculiarity ? 
 
 I have now offered a few hints on the character of 
 Christ, and on the character of his religion ; and before 
 quitting these topics, I would observe, that they form a 
 strong presumption in favor of the miraculous facts of 
 the Christian history. These miracles were not wrought 
 by a man, whose character, in other respects, was ordi- 
 nary. They were acts of a being, whose mind was as 
 singular as his works, who spoke and acted with more 
 than human authority, whose moral qualities and sub- 
 lime purposes were in accordance with superhuman 
 powers. Christ's miracles are in unison with his whole 
 character, and bear a proportion to it, like that which 
 we observe in the most harmonious productions of na- 
 ture ; and in this way they receive from it great con- 
 firmation, And the same presumption in their , favor 
 arises from his religion. That a religion, carrying in 
 
358 
 
 itself such marks of divinity, and so inexplicable on 
 human principles, should receive outward confirmations 
 from Omnipotence, is not surprising. The extraordinary 
 character of the religion accords with, and seems to de- 
 mand, extraordinary interpositions in its behalf. Its 
 miracles are not solitary, naked, unexplained, discon- 
 nected events, but are bound up with a system, which 
 is worthy of God, and impressed with God ; which oc- 
 cupies a large, space, and is operating with great aiid 
 increasing energy, in human affairs* 
 
 As yet I have not touched on what seem to many 
 writers the strongest proofs of Christianity, I mean the 
 direct evidences of its miracles, by which we mean the 
 testimony borne to them, including the character, con- 
 duct, and condition of the witnesses. These I have not 
 time to unfold ; nor is this labor needed ; for Paley's 
 inestimable work, which is one of your classical books, 
 has stated these proofs with great clearness and power. 
 I would only observe, that they may all be resolved 
 into this single principle, namely, that the christian 
 miracles were originally believed under such circumstan- 
 ces, that this belief can only be explaihed by their actual 
 occurrence. That Christianity was received at first on 
 the ground of miracles, and that its first preachers and 
 converts proved the depth and strength of their convic- 
 tion of these facts, by attesting them in sufferings and 
 in death, we know from the most ancient records; which 
 relate to this religion, both christian and heathen ; and, 
 in fact, this conviction can alone explain their adherence 
 to Christianity. Now that this conviction could only 
 have sprTing from the reality of the miracles, we infer 
 from the known circumstances of these witnesses, whose 
 passions, interests, and strongest prejudices, were origi- 
 
359 
 
 nally hostile to the new religion ; whose motives for 
 examining with care the facts on which it rested were 
 as urgent and solemn, and whose means and opportuni- 
 ties of ascertaining their truth were as ample and unfail- 
 ing, as can be conceived to conspire ; so that the suppo- 
 sition of their falsehood cannot be admitted, without 
 subverting our trust in human judgment and human 
 testimony under the most favorable circumstances for 
 discovering truth ; that is, without introducing universal 
 skepticism. 
 
 There is one class of christian evidences, to which I 
 have but slightly referred, but which has struck with 
 peculiar force men of reflecting minds. I refer to the 
 marks of truth and reality, which are found in the Chris- 
 tian records ; to the internal proofs which the books of 
 the New Testament carry with them, of having been 
 written by men, who lived in the first age of Christiani- 
 ty, who believed and felt its truth, who bore a part in 
 the labors and conflicts which attended its establishment, 
 and who wrote from personal knowledge and deep con- 
 viction. A few remarks to illustrate the nature and 
 power of these internal proofs, which are furnished by 
 the books of the New Testament, I will now subjoin. 
 
 The New Testament consists of histories and epis- 
 tles. The historical books, namely, the Gospels and 
 the Acts, are a coiitinued narrative, embracing many 
 years, and professing to give the histor^t of the rise and 
 progress of the religion. Now it is worthy of observa- 
 tion, that these writings completely answer their end ; 
 that they completely solve the problem, how this peculiar 
 religion grew up and established itself in the world ; 
 that they furnish precise and adequate causes for this 
 stupendous revolution in human affairs. It is also wor- 
 
360 
 
 thy of remark, that they relate a series of facts, which 
 are not only connected with one another, but are inti- 
 mately linked with the long series which has followed 
 them, and agree accurately with subsequent history, so 
 as to account for and sustain it. Now that a collection 
 of fictitious narratives, coming from different hands, 
 comprehending many years, and spreading over many 
 countries, should not only form a consistent whole, 
 when taken by themselves ; but should also connect and 
 interweave themselves with real history so naturally 
 and intimately, as to furnish no clue for detection, as to 
 exclude the appearance of incongruity and discordance, 
 and as to give an adequate explanation and the only ex- 
 planation of acknowledged events, of the most important 
 revolution in society ; this is a supposition, from which 
 an intelligent man at once revolts, and which, if admit- 
 ted, would shake a principal foundation of history. 
 
 I have before spoken of the unity and consistency of 
 Christ's character as developed in the Gospels, and of 
 the agreement of the different writers in giving us the 
 singular features of his mind. Now there are the same 
 marks of truth running through the whole of these nar- 
 ratives. For example, the effects produced by Jesus 
 on the various classes of society ; the different feelings 
 of admiration, attachment, and envy, which he called 
 forth ; the various expressions of these feelings ; the 
 prejudices, mistakes, and gradual illumination of his 
 disciples ; these are all given to us with such marks of 
 truth and reality as could not easily be counterfeited. 
 The whole history is precisely such, as might be expect- 
 ed from the actual appearance of such a person as Jesus 
 Christ, in such a state of society as then existed. 
 
 The Epistles, if possible, abound in marks of truth 
 and reality even more than the Gospels. They are im- 
 
361 
 
 baed thoroughly with the spirit of the first age of Chris- 
 tianity. They bear all the marks of having come from 
 men, plunged in the conflicts which the new religion 
 excited, alive to its interests, identified with its fortunes. 
 They betray the very state of mind, which must have 
 been generated by the peculiar condition of the first 
 propagators of the religion. They are letters written 
 on real business, intended for immediate effects, design- 
 ed to meet prejudices and passions, which such a reli- 
 gion must at first have awakened. They contain not a 
 trace of the circumstances of a later age, or of the feel- 
 ings, impressions, and modes of thinking by which later 
 times were characterised, and from which later writers 
 could not easily' have escaped. The letters of Paul 
 have a remarkable agreement with his history. They 
 are precisely such as might be expected from a man of 
 a vehement mind, who had been brought up in the 
 schools of Jewish literature, who had been converted 
 by a sudden, overwhelming miracle, who had been en- 
 trusted with the preaching of the new religion to the 
 Gentiles, and who was everywhere met by the prejudi- 
 ces and persecuting spirit of his own nation. They are 
 full of obscurities growing out of these points of Paul's 
 history and character, and out of the circumstances of 
 the infant church, and which nothing but an intimate 
 acquaintance with that early period can illustrate. This 
 remarkable infusion of the spirit of the first age into 
 the christian records cannot easily be explained but by 
 the fact, that they were written in that age by the real 
 and zealous propagators of Christianity, and that they 
 are records of real convictions and of actual events. 
 
 There is another evidence of Christianity, still more 
 internal than, any on which I have yet dwelt, an evi- 
 31 
 
362 
 
 dence to be felt rather than described, but not less real, 
 because founded on feeling. I refer to that conviction 
 of the divine original of our religion, vs^hich springs up 
 and continually gains strength, in those who apply it 
 habitually to their tempers and lives, and who imbibe 
 its spirit and hopes. In such men, there is a conscious- 
 ness of the adaptation of Christianity to their noblest 
 faculties ; a consciousness of its exalting and consoling 
 influences, of its power .to confer the true happiness of 
 human nature, to give that peace, which the world can- 
 not give ; which assures them, that it is not of earthly 
 origin, but a ray from the Everlasting Light, a stream 
 from the fountain of Heavenly Wisdom and Love. 
 This is the evidence which sustains the faith of thou- 
 sands, who never read and cannot understand the 
 learned books of christian apologists, who want, perhaps, 
 words to explain the ground of their belief, but whose 
 faith is of adamantine firmness, who. hold the gospel 
 with a conviction more intimate and unwavering, than 
 mere argument ever produced. 
 
 But I must tear myself from a subject, which opens 
 upon me continually as I proceed. — Imperfect as this 
 discussion is, the conclusion, I trust, is placed beyond 
 doubt, that Clhristianity is true. And, my hearers, if 
 true, it is the greatest of all truths, deserving and de- 
 manding our reverent attention and fervent gratitude. 
 This religion must never be confounded with our com- 
 mon blessings. It is a revelation of pardon, which, as 
 sinners, we all need. Still more, it is a revelation of 
 human immortality ; a doctrine, which, however under- 
 valued amidst the bright anticipations of inexperienced 
 youth, is found to be our strength and consolation, and 
 die only effectual spring of persevering and victorious 
 virtue, when the realities of liffe, have scattered our vis- 
 
363 
 
 ionary hopes ; when pain, disappointment, and tempta- 
 tion press upon us ; when this world's enjoyments are 
 found unable to quench that deep thirst of happiness 
 which burns in every breast ; when friends, whom we 
 love as our own souls, die ; and our own graves open 
 before us. — To all who hear me, and especially to my 
 young hearers, I would say, let the truth of this religion 
 be the strongest conviction of your understandings ; let 
 its motives and precepts sway with an absolute power 
 your characters and lives. 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REV. E. S. GANNETT. 
 
 BOSTON, 1824. 
 
 MATTHEW X. 16. 
 
 ' BEHOLD, I SEND YOU FORTH AS SHEEP IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES : BE YB 
 THEREFORE WISE AS SERPENTS AND HARMLESS AS DOVES. 
 
 The communication of moral and religious truth is 
 the most important office committed to men. The Son 
 of God came into the world, not to legislate for nations, 
 not to command armiies, not to sit on the throne of uni- 
 versal monarchy ; but to teach religion, to establish 
 truth and holiness. The highest end of human na- 
 ture is duty, virtue, piety, excellence, moral greatness, 
 spiritual glory ; and he, who effectually labors for these, 
 is taking part with God, in God's noblest work. The 
 christian ministry, then, which has for its purpose men's 
 spiritual improvement and salvation, and which is in- 
 trusted for this end with weapons of heavenly temper 
 and power, deserves to be ranked amongst God's most 
 beneficent institutions and men's most honorable labors. 
 The occasion requires that this institution should be 
 our principal topic. 
 
 How happy a change has taken place since the words 
 of Christ in the text were «poken ! Ministers are no 
 longer sent forth into the midst of wolves. Through 
 31* 
 
366 
 
 the labors, suiFerings, and triumphs of apostles, martyrs, 
 and good and great men in successive ages, Christianity 
 has become the professed and honored religion of the 
 most civilized nations, and its preachers are exposed to 
 very different temptations from those of savage persecu- 
 tion. Still our text has an application to the present 
 time. We see our Saviour commanding his apostles, 
 to regard in their ministry the circumstances of the age 
 in which they lived. Surrounded with foes, they were 
 to exercise the wisdom or prudence, of which the ser- 
 pent was in ancient times the emblem, and to join witn 
 it the innocence and mildness of the dove. And in like 
 manner, the christian minister is at all periods to regard 
 the signs, the distinctive marks and charficter of the age 
 to which he belongs, and must accommodate his ministry 
 to its wants and demands. Accordingly, I "propose to 
 consider some of the leading traits of the present age, 
 and the influence which they should have on a christian 
 teacher. 
 
 I. The state of the World, compared with the past, 
 may bei called enlightened, and requires an enlightened 
 ministry. It hardly seems necessary to prove, that re- 
 ligion should be dispensed by men, Tvho, at least keep 
 pace with the intellect of the age in which they live. 
 Some passages of scripture however have been wrested 
 to prove, that an unlearned ministry is that which God 
 particularly honors. He always chooses, we are told, 
 ' the foolish things of the world to confound, the wise.' 
 But texts of this description are misunderstood, tteough 
 the very ignorance which they are adduced to support. 
 The wise, who are spoken of contemptuously in the New 
 Testament, were not reaUy enlightened men,, but pre- 
 tenders to wisdom, who substituted dreams of imagina- 
 
367 
 
 tion and wild hypotheses for sober inquiry into God's 
 works, and who knew comparatively nothing of nature 
 or the human mind. The present age has a quite diifer- 
 ent illumination from that, in which ancient philosophy 
 prided itself. It is marked by great and obvious im- 
 provements in, the methods of reasoning and inquiry, and 
 by the consequent discovery and diffusion of a great mass 
 of physical and moral truth, wholly unknown in the 
 time of Christ. Now we affirm, that such an age de- 
 mands an enlightened ministry. We want teachers, 
 who will be able to discern and unfold the consistency 
 of revealed religion with the new lights which are 
 breaking in from natm'e ; and who will be able to draw, 
 from all men's discoveries in the outward world and in 
 their own souls, illustrations, analogies, and arguments 
 for .Christianity. We have reason to believe, that God, 
 the author of nature and revelation, has established a 
 harmony between them, and that their beams are in- 
 tended to mingle and shed a joint radiance; and conse- 
 quently, other things being equal, that teacher is best 
 fitted to dispense Christianity, whose compass of mind 
 enables him to compare what God is teaching in his 
 works and in his word, and to present the truths of 
 religion with those modifications and restraints which 
 other acknowledged truths require. Christianity now 
 needs dispensers, who will make history, nature, and the 
 improvements of society, tributary to its elucidation and 
 support ; who will show its adaptation to man as an ever 
 progressive being ; who will be able to meet the objec- 
 tions to its truth, which will naturally be started in an 
 active, stirring, inquiring age ; and though last not least, 
 who will have enough of mental and moral courage to 
 (Jetect and renounce the errors in the Church, on which 
 such objections are generally built. In such an age, a 
 
368 
 
 ministry is wanted, which will furnish discussions of 
 religious topics, not inferior at least in intelligence to 
 those, which people are accustomed to read and hear on 
 other subjects. Christianity will suffer, if at a time, 
 when vigor and acuteness of thinking are carried into 
 all other departments, the pulpit should send forth 
 nothing but wild declamation, positive assertion, or dull 
 commonplaces, with which even childhood is satiated. 
 Religion must be seen to be the friend and quickener of 
 intellect. It must be exhibited with clearness of rea- 
 soning and variety of illustration ; nor ought it to be 
 deprived of the benefits of a pure and felicitous diction 
 and of rich and glowing imagery, where these gifts fall 
 to the lot of the teacher. It is not meant that every 
 minister must be a man of genius ; for genius is one of 
 God's rarest inspirations ; and of all the breathings of 
 genius, perhaps the rarest is eloquence. I mean only 
 to say, that the age demands of those, who devote them- 
 selves to the administration of Christianity, that they 
 should feel themselves called upon for the highest cul- 
 tivation and fullest developement of the intellectual 
 nature. Instead of thinking, that the ministry is a 
 refuge for dulness, and that whoever can escape from 
 the plough is fit for God's spiritual husbandry, W£ ought 
 to feel that no profession demands more enlarged think- 
 ing and more various acquisitions of truth. 
 
 In proportion as society becomes enlightened, talent 
 acquires influence. In rude ages hodily strength is the 
 most honorable distinction, and in subsequent times 
 military prowess and skill confer mastery and eminence. 
 But as society advances, mind, thought, becomes the 
 sovereign of the world ; and accordingly, at the present 
 moment, profound arid glowing thought, though breath- 
 ing only from the silent page, exerts a kind of omnipo- 
 
369 
 
 tent and omnipresent energy. It crosses oceans and 
 spreads through nations ; and at one and the same mo- 
 ment, the conceptions of a single mind are electrifying 
 and kindling multitudes, through wider regions than the 
 Roman Eagle overshadowed. This agency of mind on 
 mirid, I repeat it, is the true sovereignty of the world, and 
 kings and heroes are becoming impotent by the side of 
 men of deep and -fervent thought. In such a state of 
 things. Religion would wage a very unequal war, if di- 
 vorced from talent and cultivated intellect, if committed 
 to weak and untaught minds. God plainly intends, that 
 it should be advanced by human agency; and does he 
 not then intend, to summon to its aid the mightiest and 
 noblest' power with which man is gifted ? 
 
 Let it not be said, that 'Christianity has an intrinsic 
 glory, a native beauty, which no art or talent of man can 
 heighten ; that Christianity is one and the same, by what- 
 ever lips it is communicated, and that it needs nothing 
 but the most naked exposition of its truths, to accomplish 
 its saving purposes. Who does not know, that all truth 
 takes a hue and form from the soul through which it 
 passes, that in every mind it is invested with peculiar 
 associations, and that consequently the same truth is 
 quite a different thing, when exhibited by men of differ- 
 ent habits of thought and feeling ? Who does not know, 
 that the subliniest doctrines lose in some hands all their 
 grandeur, and the loveliest all their attractiveness? 
 Who does not knowj how much the diffusion and power 
 of any system, whether physical, moral, or political, de- 
 pend on the, order according to which it is arranged, on 
 thelbrokd and consistent views, which are given of it, on 
 the connexions which: it ' is shown to hold with other 
 truths, on the (analogies by I which it is illustrated, adorn- 
 ed, and enforced, and though last not least, on the 
 
370 
 
 clearHess.and energy of the style in which it is convey* 
 ed? •Nothing is needed in religion,' some say^ .' but 
 the maked truth.' But I apprehend, that there is no 
 such thing as naked truth, at least as far as moral sub- 
 jects are concerned. Truth which relates to God, and 
 duty, and happiness, and a ; future states is always hu- 
 manized,: if I may .so use the word, by passing through 
 a human mind ; and when communicated pawerfully; it 
 always comes to us in drapery, thrown round it by the 
 imagination j reason, and moral feelings of the teacher. 
 It comes to us warm and living iwith the impressions and 
 affections, which it has produced in the soul from which 
 it issues ; and it ought so to come ; for the -highest evi- 
 dence of moral truth is found ifl the moral principles and 
 feelings of our nature, and therefore it fails of its best 
 support, unless it is seen to accord with and to, act upon 
 these. The evidence of Christianityy which operates 
 most universally, is not history nor miracles, but its cor- 
 respondence to the noblest capacities^ deepest wants, and 
 purest aspirations of our nature, to the cravings of an 
 immortal spirit ; and when it comes to us from a mind, 
 in which it has discovered nothing of this adaptation, 
 and has touched none of these springs, it wants one of 
 its chief signatures of divinity. Christianity is not then 
 to be exhibited nakedly. It owes much of its power to 
 the mind, which communicates it ; and the greater the 
 enlargement and developement of the mind of which it 
 has possessed itself, and from which it flows, the wider 
 and deeper will be its action on other souls. 
 
 It may be said without censoriousness, that the ordi^ 
 nary modcj in which Christianity has been exhibited in 
 past times, does not suit the illumination of the present. 
 That mode has been; too narrow, technical, pedantic. 
 Religion has been made a separate business, and a dull, 
 
371 
 
 Unaocial, melancholy busiiaess too, instead of bmng 
 manifested as a truth, which -bears on and touches 
 everything human, as a universal spirit, which ought to 
 breathe through and modify all our desires and pursuits, 
 all, our trains of thought and emotion. And this narrow, 
 forbidding mode of exhibiting Christianity is easily ex- 
 plained by its early history. Monks shut up in cells; 
 a priesthood cut off by celibacy from the sympathies and 
 most interesting relations of life ; and universities en- 
 slaved to a scholastic logic, and taught to place wisdom 
 in verbal subtilties and unintelligible definitions ; these 
 took Christianity into their keeping ; and at their chHling 
 touch this generous religion, so full of life and affection, 
 became a dry, frigid, abstract system. Christianity, as 
 it came from. their hands, and has been transmitted by 
 a majority of protestant divines, reminds us of the hu- 
 man form, compressed by swathing bands, until every 
 joint is rigid, every movement constrained, and alniost 
 all the beauty and grace of nature obliterated. Instead 
 of regarding it as a heavenly institution, designed to 
 perfect our whole nature, to offer awakening and puri- 
 fying objects to the intellect, imagination, a«d heart, to 
 develope every capacity jqf devout and social feeling, to 
 form a rich, various, generous virtue, divines have 
 cramped and tortured the gospel into various systems, 
 composed in the main of theological riddles and contra- 
 dictions ; and this religion of love has been made to in- 
 culcate a monkish and dark visaged piety, very hostile 
 to the free expansion and full enjoyment of all our fac- 
 ulties and social affections. Great improvements indeed 
 in this particular are taking place among Christians of 
 almost every denomination. Religion has been brought 
 from the cell of the monk, and the school of the verbal 
 disputant, into life and society ; and its connexions 
 
372 
 
 with all our pursuits and feelings have been made mani- 
 fest. Still, Christianity, I apprehend, is not viewed in 
 sufficiently broad lights to meet the spirit of an age, 
 whifch is tracing connexions between all objects of 
 thought and branches of knowledge, and which cannot 
 but distrust an alleged revelation, in as far as it is 
 seen to want harmonies and affinities with other parts 
 of God's system, and especially with human nature and 
 human life. 
 
 II. The age in which we live demands not only an 
 enlightened but an earnest ministry, for it is an age of 
 earnestness and excitement. Men feel and think at 
 present with more energy than formerly. There is 
 more of interest and fervor. We learn now from expe- 
 rience what might have been inferred from the purposes 
 of our Creator, thiat civilisation and refinement are not, 
 as has been sometimes thought, inconsistent with sensi- 
 bility ; that the intellect may grow without exhausting 
 or overshadowing the heart. The human mind was 
 never more in earnest than at the present moment. 
 The political revolutions, which form such broad fea- 
 tures and distinctions of our age, have sprung from a 
 new and deep working in the human soul. Men have 
 caught glimpses, however indistinct, of the worth, dig- 
 nity, rights, and great interests of their nature ; and a 
 thirst for untried good, and impatience of long endured 
 wrongs, have broken out wildly, like the fires of Etna, 
 and shaken and convulsed the earth. It is impossible 
 not to discern this increased fervor of mind in every 
 department of life. A new spirit of improvement is 
 abroad. The imagination can no longer be confined to 
 the acquisitions of past ages, but is kindling the passions 
 by vague but noble ideas of blessings never yet attained. 
 
373 
 
 Multitudes, unwilling to wait the slow pace of that 
 great innovator, time, are taking the work of reform 
 into their own hands. Accordingly the reverence for 
 antiquity and forage-hallowed establishments, and the 
 passion for change and amelioration, are now arrayed 
 against each other in open hostility, and all great ques- 
 tions, affecting human happinesk, are debated with the 
 eagerness of party. The character of the age is stamped 
 very strongly on its literary productions. Who, that can 
 compare the present with the past, is not struck with 
 the bold and earnest spirit of the literature of bur times. 
 It refuses to waste itself on trifles, or to minister to mere 
 gratification. Almost all that is written has now some 
 bearing on great interests of human nature. Fiction is 
 no longer a mere amusement ; but transcendent genius, 
 accommodating itself to the character of the age,- has 
 seized upon this province of literature, and turned fiction 
 from a toy into a mighty engine, and, under the light 
 tale, is breathing through the community either its 
 reverence for the old or its thirst for the new, commu- 
 nicates the spirit and lessons .of history, unfolds the 
 operations of religious and civil institutions, and defends 
 or assails new theories of education or morals by ex- 
 hibiting them in life and action. The poetry of the age 
 is equally characteristic. It has a deeper and more 
 impressive tone than comes to us from what has been 
 called the Augustan- age of English literature. The 
 regular, elaborate, harmonious strains which delighted 
 a former generation, are now accused, I say not how 
 justly, of playing too much on the surface of nature and 
 of the heart. Men want and demand a more thrilling 
 note, a poetry which pierces beneath the exterior of 
 life to the depths of the soul, and which lays open its 
 mysterious workings, borrowing from the whole outward 
 32 
 
374 
 
 creation fresh images and correspondences, with which 
 to illumiiiate the secrets of the world within us. So 
 keen is this appetite, that extravagances of imagina- 
 tion, and gross violations both of taste and moral senti- 
 ment, are forgiven, when conjoined with what awakens 
 strong emotion ; and unhappily the most stirring, is the 
 most popular poetry, even though it issue from the 
 desolate soul of a misanthrope' and a libertine, and ex- 
 hale poison and death. 
 
 Now, religion ought to be dispensed in accommoda- 
 tion to this spirit and character of our age. Men desire 
 excitement, and religion must be communicated in a 
 more exciting form. It must be seen not only to cor- 
 respond and to be adapted to the intellect, but to furnish 
 nutriment arid appeals to the highest and profoundest 
 sentiments of our nature. It must not be exhibited in 
 the dry, pedantic divisions of a scholastic theology ; nor 
 must it be set forth and tricked out in the light drapery 
 of an artificial rhetoric, in prettinesses of style, in meas- 
 ured sentences, with an insipid floridness, and in the 
 form of elegantly feeble essays. No ; it must come 
 from the soul in the language of earnest conviction and 
 strong feeling. Men will not now be trifled with. 
 They listen impatiently to great subjects treated with 
 apathy. They want a religion whjch will take a strong 
 hold upon them ; and no system, I am sure, can now 
 maintain its ground, which wants the power of awaken- 
 ing real and deep interest in the soul. It, is objected 
 to Unitarian Christianity that it does not, possess this, 
 heart-stirring energy, and if so it will, and still more, it 
 ought to fall ; for it doe§ not suit the spirit of our times, 
 nor the essential and abiding spirit of human nature. 
 Men will prefer even a fanaticism which is in earnest, 
 to a pretended rationality, which leaves untouched all 
 
375 
 
 the great springs of the soul, which never lays a quick- 
 ening hand on our love and veneration, our awe and 
 fear, our hope and joy. 
 
 It is obvious, I think, that the spirit of the age, which 
 demands a more exciting administration of Christianity, 
 begins to be understood and is responded to by preachers. 
 Those of us, whose memory extends back but a little 
 way, can see a revolution taking place in this country. 
 ' The repose of the pulpit' has been disturbed. In 
 England the established Church gives broad symptotns 
 of awaking ; and the slumbering incumbents of a state 
 religion, either roused by sympathy. Or aware of the 
 necessity of self-defence, are beiginning to exhibit the 
 energy of the freer and more zealous sects around them. 
 
 In such an age earnestness should characterize the 
 ministry ; and by this I mean not a louder voice or a 
 more vehement gesture ; I mean no tricks of dratory ; 
 but a solemn conviction that religion is a great concern, 
 and a solemn purpose that its claims shall be felt by 
 others. To suit such an age, a minister must commu- 
 nicate religion, not only as a result of reasoning, but as 
 a matter of experience, with that inexpressible character 
 of reality, that' life and power, which accompany truths 
 drawn from a man's own soul. We ought to speak of 
 religion as something which we ourselves know. Its 
 influences, .struggles, joys, sorrows, triumphs, should be 
 delineated from our own history. The life and sensi- 
 bility which we would spread should be strong in our 
 own breasts* This is the only genuine, unfailing spring 
 of an earnest ministry. Men may work themselves for 
 a time into a fervor by artificial means ; but the flame 
 is unsteady, 'a crackling of thorns' on a cold hearth; 
 and after all, it is hard for the most successful art to 
 give even for a time that soul-subduing tone to the 
 
376 
 
 voice, that air of native feeling to the countenance, and 
 that raciness and freshness to the conceptions, which 
 come from an experimental conviction of religious truth ; 
 and accordingly I w^ould suggest, that the most im- 
 portant part of theological education, even in this en- 
 lightened age, is not the communication of knovs^ledge, 
 essential as that is, but the conversion and exaltation 
 of religious knowledge into a living, practical, and 
 soul-kindling conviction. Much as the age requires 
 intellectual culture in a minister, it requires still more, 
 that his acquisitions of truth should be instinct with life 
 and feeling ; that he should deliver his message not 
 mechanically and ' in the line of his profession,' but with 
 the sincerity and earnestness of a man bent on great 
 effects ; that he should speak of God, of Christ, of the 
 dignity and loveliness of christian virtue, of heaven and 
 redemption, not as of traditions and historical records, 
 about which he has only read, but as of realities which 
 he understands and feels in the very depths of his soul. 
 
 HI. The present is an age of free and earnest inquiry 
 on the subject of religion, and consequently an age, in 
 vv^hich the extremes of skepticism and bigotry, and a 
 multiplicity of sects, and a diversity of interpretations of 
 the sacred volume, must be expected ; and tbese circum- 
 stances of the times influence and modify the duties of 
 the ministry. Free inquiry cannot exist without gene- 
 rating a degree of skepticism ; and against this influence, 
 more disastrous than any error of any sect, a minister 
 is bound to erect every barrier. The human mind by a 
 natural reaction is undoubtedly tending, after its long 
 vassalage, to licentious speculation. Men have begun 
 to send keen, searching glances, into old institutions, 
 whether of religion, literature, or policy; and have de- 
 
377 
 
 tected so many abuses, that a suspicion of what is old has 
 in many cases taken place of the veneration for antiquity. 
 In such an age Christianity must be subjected to a rigid 
 scrutiny. Church establishments and state patronage 
 cannot screen it from investigation ; and its ministers, 
 far from being called to removfe it from the bar of rea- 
 son, where God has chosen that it should appear, are 
 only bound to see that its claims be fairly and fully made 
 known ; and to this they are solemnly bound .; and con- 
 sequently it is one of their first duties, to search deeply 
 and understand thoroughly the true foundations and 
 evidences, on which the. religion stands. Now it seems 
 to me, that just in proportion as the human mind makes 
 progress, the inward evidences of Christianity, the marks 
 of divinity which it wears on its own brow^ are becom- 
 ing more and more important. T refer to the evidences 
 which are drawn from its excellence, purity, and happy 
 influences ; from its adaptation to the spiritual wants, 
 to the weakness and the greatness of human nature ; 
 from the original and unborrowed character, the great- 
 ness of soul, and the celestial loveliness of its founder ; 
 from its unbounded benevolence, corresponding with 
 the spirit of the universe ; and from its views of God's 
 parental character and purposes, of human duty and 
 perfection, and of a future state ; views manifestly tend- 
 ing to the exaltation and perpetual improvement of our 
 nature, yet wholly opposed to the character of the age 
 in which they were unfolded. The historical and mi- 
 raculous proofs of Christianity are indeed essential and 
 impregnable ; but, 'without superseding these, the in- 
 ward proofs, of which I speak, are becoming more and 
 more necessary, and exert a greater power, in proportion 
 as the moral discernment and sensibilities" of men are 
 strengthened and enlarged. And if this be true, then 
 32* 
 
378 
 
 Christianity is endangered, and skepticism fortified, by 
 nothing so much as by representations of the religion, 
 which sully its native lustre and darken its inward sig- 
 natures of a heavenly origin ; and accordingly the first 
 and most solemn duty of its ministers, is, to rescue it 
 from' such perversions ; to see that it be not condemned 
 for doctrines, for which it is in no respect responsible ; 
 and to vindicate its character as eminently a rational 
 religion, that is, a religion consistent with itself, with 
 the great principles of human nature, with God's ac- 
 knowledged attributes, and with thos.e indestructible 
 convictions, which spring almost instinctively from our 
 moral constitution, and whicH grow stronger and strong- 
 er as the human mind is developed. A professed reve- 
 lation, carrying contradiction on its front, and wounding 
 those sentiments of justice and goodness, which are the 
 highest tests of moral truth, cannot stand ; and those, 
 who thus exhibit Christianity, however pure their aim, 
 are shaking its foundations more deeply than its open 
 and inveterate foes. 
 
 But free inquiry not only generates occasional skep- 
 ticism, but much more a diversity of opinion among the 
 believers of Christianity ; and to this the ministry must 
 have a special adaptation. In such an age the ministry 
 must in a measure be controversial. In particular, a 
 minister, who after serious investigation attaches himself 
 to that class of Christians, to which we of this religious 
 society are known to belong, cannot but feel that the 
 painful office of coiiflict with other denominations is laid 
 upon him ; for, whilst we deny the Christian name to 
 none who acknowledge Jesus as their Saviour and Loi:d, 
 we do deliberately believe, that by many who confess 
 him his religion is mournfully disfigured. We believe, 
 that piety at present is robbed in no small degree of its 
 
379 
 
 singleness, energy, and happiness, by the multiplication 
 in the church of objects of supreme worship ; by the 
 division of the one God into three persons, who sustain 
 different relations to mankind ; and above all by the 
 dishonorable views formed of the moral character and 
 administration of the Deity. Errors relating to God 
 seem to us among the most pernicious that can grow up 
 among Christians ; for they darken, and, in the strong 
 language of scripture, ' turn into blood,' the Sun of the 
 Spiritual Universe. Around just views of the Divine 
 Character all truths and all virtues naturally gather ; and 
 although some minds of native irrepressible vigor may 
 rise to greatness, in spite of dishonorable conceptions 
 of God, yet, as a general rule, human nature cannot 
 spread to its just and full proportions under their appal- 
 ling, enslaving, heart-withering control. We discover 
 very plainly, as we think, in the frequent torpor of the 
 conscience and heart in regard to religious obligation, 
 the melancholy influences of that system, so prevalent 
 among us, which robs our heavenly Father of his pa- 
 rental attributes. Indeed it seems impossible for the 
 conscience, under such injurious representations of the 
 divine character, to discharge intelligently its solemn 
 office of enforcing love to God as man's highest duty ; 
 and accordingly when religious excitements take place 
 under this gloomy system, they bear the marks of a 
 morbid action, much more than of a healthy, restorative 
 process of the moral nature. 
 
 These errors a minister of liberal viev/s of Christiani- 
 ty will feel himself bound to withstand. Brut let me 
 not be understood, as if I would have the ministry 
 given chiefly to controversy, and would turn the pulpit 
 into a battery for the perpetual assault of adverse sects. 
 Oh no. Other strains than those of warfare should 
 
380 
 
 predominate in this sacred place. A minister maybe 
 faithful to truth, without brandishing perpetually the 
 weapons of controversy. Occasional discussions of dis- 
 puted doctrines are indeed demanded by the zeal, with 
 which error is maintained. But it becomes the preach- 
 er to remember, that there is a silent, indirect influence, 
 more sure and powerful than direct assault on false 
 opinions. The most effectual method of expelling error 
 is, not to meet it sword in hand, but gradually to instil 
 great truths, with which it cannot easily coexist, and 
 by which the mind outgrows it. Men, who have been 
 recovered from false systems, will generally tell you, that 
 the first step of their deliverance was the admission of 
 some principle, which seemed not to menace their past 
 opinions, but which prepared the mind for the entrance 
 of another and another truth, until they were brought, 
 almost without suspecting it, to look on almost every 
 doctrine of religion with other eyes, and in another 
 and more generous light. The old superstitions about 
 ghosts and dreams'were not expelled by argument, for 
 hardly a book was written against them; but men 
 gradually outgrew them ; and the spectres, which had 
 haunted the terror-stricken soul for ages, fled before an 
 improved philosophy, just as they were supposed to 
 vanish before the rising sun. And in the same manner, 
 the errors which disfigure Christianity, and from which 
 no creed is free, are to yiejd to the growth of the human 
 mind. Instead of spending his strength in tracking and 
 refuting error, let the minister, who would serve the 
 cause of truth, labor to gain and diffuse more and more 
 enlarged and lofty views of our religion, of its nature, 
 spirit, and end. Let him labor, to separate what is of 
 Universal and everlasting application from the local and 
 the temporary ; to penetrate beneath the letter to the 
 
381 
 
 spirit; to detach the primary, essential, and all-com- 
 prehending principles of Christianity from the incrus- 
 tations, accidental associations, and subordinate appen- 
 dages by which they are often obscured ; and to fix and 
 establish these in men's minds as the standard, by which 
 more partial views are to be tried. , Let him especial- 
 ly set forth the great moral purpose of Christianity, 
 always teaching, that Christ came to deliver from the 
 power still more than from the punishment of sin ; that 
 his most important operation is within us ; and that the 
 highest end of his mission, is the erection of God's 
 throne in the soul, the inspiration of a fervent filial 
 piety, a piety founded in confiding views of God's paren- 
 tal character, and manifested in a charity corresponding 
 to God's unbounded and ever active love. In addition 
 to these efforts, let him strive to communicate the just 
 principles of interpreting the scriptures, that men, read- 
 ing them more intelligently, may read them with new 
 interest, and he will have discharged his chief duty in 
 relation to controversy. 
 
 It is an interesting thought, that, through the influ- 
 ences now described, a sensible progress is taking place 
 in mea's conceptions of Christianity. It is a plain mat- 
 ter of fact, that the hard features of that religious 
 system, which has been ' received by tradition from our 
 fathers,' are greatly softened ; and that a necessity is 
 felt by those ivho hold it, of accommodating their rep- 
 resentations of it more and more to the improved phi- 
 losophy of the human mind and to the undeniable 
 principles of natural and revealed religion. Uncondi- 
 tional Election is seldom heard of among us. The 
 Imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is hastening 
 to join the exploded doctrine of TransubStantiation. 
 The more revolting representations of man's state by 
 
382 
 
 nature are judiciously 'kept ont>of «ight ; and what is of 
 ^till greater importance, preaching is liflOOttipatably ttidrie 
 practical than formerly. •• And all these tih&nges are 
 owing, not to theological 'controversy, so much as to 
 the general progress of the human mind. This iprogress 
 is especially discernible in the dinriftiished importance 
 now ascribed to the out^aird ipatfts of Christianity. 
 Christians, having grown up to understand llhat their 
 religion is a spirit and not a fofrwi, ate beginning to feel 
 the puerility as well as guilt of brteaking 'Christ's follow^ 
 ers into factions, on Sttch cfoestidns as these, HoW tntidh 
 a Bishop differs from a Presbyter ? and, How great a 
 quantity of water should be used in baptism ? A'bi- 
 whilst they desire to ascertain the truth in these paiv 
 ticulars, they look back on the uncharitable heat, with 
 which these and similar topics were once discussed, 
 with something of the wonder which they feel, on tecol- 
 lecting the violence 6f the Papists during the memorable 
 debate. Whether the Virgin Mary were born with origi- 
 nal sin ? It is a consoling and delightful thought, that 
 God, who uses Christianity to advance civilisation and 
 kriowledge, makes use of this very advancement to briiig 
 back Christianity to a purer state, thus binding together 
 and carrying forward by mutual action the cause of 
 knowledge and the cause of religion, and strengthening 
 perpetually their blended and blessed influences on 
 human nature. 
 
 IV. The age is in many respects a corrupt one, and 
 needs and demands in the ministry a spirit of reform. 
 The age, I say, is corrupt ; not because I consider it as 
 falling below the purity of past times, but because it is 
 obviously ?nd grossly defective, when measured by the 
 christian standard and by the lights and advantages 
 
383 
 
 which it enjoys. I know nothing to justify the cry of 
 modern degeneracy, but rather incline to the belief, that 
 here at least the sense of religion was never stronger 
 than at present. In comparing different periods as to 
 virtue and piety, regard myst be had to difference of 
 circumstances. It would argue little wisdom or candor, 
 to expect the same freedom from luxury and dissipation 
 in this opulent and flourishing community, as marked 
 the first settlement of our country, when the inhabitants, 
 scarcely sheltered from the elements, and almost wholly 
 cut off from intercourse with the civilized world, could 
 command little more than the necessaries of life ; and 
 yet it is through superficial comparisons in such particu- 
 lars, that the past is often magnified at the expense of 
 the present. I mean not to strike a balance between 
 this age and former ones. I look on this age in the light 
 of Christianity, as a minister ought to look upon it ; and 
 whilst I see much to cheer and encourage, I see much 
 to make a good man mourn, and to stir up Christ's 
 servants to prayer and toil. That our increased com- 
 forts, improved arts, and overflowing prosperity, are 
 often abused to. licentiousness ; that Christianity is with 
 multitudes a mere name and form ; that a practical 
 atheism, which ascribes to nature and fortune the gifts 
 and operations of God, and a practical infidelity, which 
 lives and cares and provides only for the present state, 
 abound on every side^ of us ; that much, which is called 
 morality, springs from a prudent balancing of the passions 
 and a discreet regard to worldly interests ; that there is 
 an insensibility to God, which, if our own hearts were 
 not infected by it, would shock and amaze us ; that edu- 
 cation, instead of guarding and rearing the moral and 
 religious nature as its supreme care, often betrays and 
 sacrifices it to accomplishments and acquisitions which 
 
384 
 
 relate only to the present life ; that there is a mournful 
 prevalence of dissoluteness among the young and of in- 
 temperance among the poor ; that the very religion of 
 peace is made a torch of discord ; and that the fires of 
 uncharitableriess and bigotry, fires kindled from hell, 
 often burn on altars consecrated to the true God ;— that 
 such evils exist, who does not know ? What Christian 
 can look round him and say, that the state of society 
 corresponds to what men may and should be, under the 
 light of the gospel, and in an age of advanced intelli- 
 gence ? As for that man, who, on surveying the world, 
 thinks its condition almost as healthy as can be desired 
 or hoped ; who sees but a few superficial blots on the 
 general aspect of society ; who thinks the ministry es- 
 tablished for no higher end, than to perpetuate the pre- 
 sent state of morals and religion ; whose heart is never 
 burdened and sorrow-smitten by the fearful doom, to 
 which multitudes around him are thoughtlessly hasten- 
 ing ; Oh let not that man take on him the care of souls. 
 The physician, who should enter a hospital, to congrat- 
 ulate his dying patients on their pleasant sensations and 
 rapid convalescence, would be as faithful to his trust, as 
 the minister, who sees no deep moral maladies around 
 him. N,o man is fitted to withstand great evils with ener- 
 gy, unless he be impressed by their greatness. No man is 
 fitted to enter upon that warfare with moral evil, to which 
 the ministry is set apart, who is not pained and pierced 
 by its extent and woes ; who does not burn to witness 
 and advance a great moral revolution in the world. 
 
 Am I told, that ' romantic expectations of great chan- 
 ges in society will do more harm than good ; that the 
 world will move along in its present course, let the 
 ministry do what it may ; that we must take the present 
 state as God has made it and pot waste our strength ia 
 
386 
 
 useless lamentation for incurable evils?' I hold this 
 language, though it takes the name of philosophy, to be 
 wholly unwarranted by. experience and revelation. If 
 there be one striking feature in human nature, it is its 
 susceptibleness of improvement ; and who is authorised 
 to say, that the limit of christian improvement is reach- 
 ed ? that whilst science and art, intellect and imagination, 
 are extending their domains, the conscience and affec- 
 tions, the moral and religious principles of our nature, 
 aire incapable of increased power, and elevation ? Have 
 we not pledges, in man's admiration of disinterested, 
 heroic love ; in his power of conceiving and thirsting 
 for unattained heights of excellence ; and in the splen- 
 dor and sublimity of virtue already manifested in not a 
 few who ' shine as lights' in the darkness of past ages, 
 that man was created for perpetual moral and religious 
 progress. True, the minister should not yield himself 
 to romantic anticipations ; for disappointment may de- 
 ject him. Let him not expect to break in a moment 
 chains of habit, which years have rivetted, or to bring 
 back to immediate intimacy with God souls which have 
 wandered long and far from him. This is romance ; but 
 there is something to be dreaded by the minister more 
 than this ; I mean that frigid tameness of mind, too 
 common in christian teachers, which confounds the ac- 
 tual and the possible ; which cannot burst the shackles 
 of custom ; which never kindles at the thought of great 
 improvements of human nature ; which is satisfied if 
 religion receive an outward respect, and never dreams of 
 eiithroning it in men's souls ; which looks on the strong 
 holds of sin with despair ; which utters by rote the sol- 
 emn and magnificent language of the gospel without 
 expecting it to ' work mightily ; ' which sees in the 
 ministry, a part of the mechanism of society, a useful 
 33 
 
386 
 
 guardian of public order, but never suspects the powers 
 with which it is armed by Christianity, 
 
 The ministry is indeed armed with great powers for 
 great effects. The doctrines, which Christianity com- 
 mits to its teachers, are mighty engines. The perfect 
 character of God ; the tender and solemn attributes, 
 which belong to him as our Father and Judge ; his 
 purposes of infinite and everlasting mercy towards the 
 human race ; the character and history of Christ ; his en- 
 tire, self-immolating devotion to the cause of mankind ; 
 his intimate union with his followers ; his sufferings, and 
 cross, his resurrection, ascension, and intercession ; the 
 promised aids of the Holy Spirit ; the immortality of 
 man ; the retributions which await the mirepenting, and 
 the felicities and glories of heaven, here are truths, able 
 to move the whole soul and to war victoriously with its 
 host of passions. The teacher, to whom are committed 
 the infinite realities of the spiritual world, the sanctions 
 of eternity, ' the powers of the life to copie,' has instru- 
 ments to work with, which turn to feebleness all other 
 means of influence. There is liot heard on earth a 
 voice so powerful, so penetrating, as that of an enlight- 
 ened minister, who, under the absorbing influence of 
 these mighty truths, devotes himself a living sacrifice, 
 a whole burnt offering, to the cause of enlightening and 
 saving his fellow creatures. 
 
 No ; there is no romance in a minister's proposing, 
 and hoping to forward, a great moral revolution on the 
 earth ; for the religion, which he is appointed to preach, 
 was intended and iS adapted to work deeply and widely, 
 and to change the face of society. Christianity was 
 not ushered into the world with such a stupendous pre- 
 paration ; it was not foreshown through so many ages 
 by enraptured prophets ; it was not proclaimed so joy- 
 
387 
 
 fully by the songs of angels ; it was not preached by 
 such holy lips and sealed by such precious blood, to be 
 only a pageant, a form, a sound, a show. Oh no. It 
 has come from heaven, with heaven's life and power, — 
 come to ' make all things new,' to make ' the wilder- 
 ness glad and the desert blossom as the rose,' to break 
 the stony heart, to set free the guilt-burdened and 
 earth-bbuad spirit, and to ' present it faultless before 
 God's glory with exceeding joy.' With courage and 
 hope becoming such a religion, let the minister bring to 
 his work his concentrated powers of intellect and affec- 
 tion, and God, in whose cause he labors, will accompany 
 and crown the labor with an almighty blessing. 
 
 My brother, you are now to be set apart to the chris ■ 
 tian ministry. I bid you welcome to its duties, and im- 
 plore for you strength to discharge them, a long and 
 prosperous course, increasing success, and everlasting 
 rewards. I also welcome you to the connexion which 
 is this day formed between you and myself: I thank 
 God for an associate, in whose virtues and endowments 
 I have the promise of personal comfort and relief, and, 
 still more, the pledges of usefulness to this people. I 
 have lived too long, to expect unmingled good in this or 
 in any relation of life ; nor am I ignorant of the difficul- 
 ties and trials, which are thought to attend the union 
 of different minds and different hands in the care of the 
 same church. God grant us that singleness of purpose, 
 that sincere concern for the salvation of our hearers, 
 which will make the success of each the happiness of 
 both. 1 I know, for I have borne, the anxieties and suf- 
 ferings which belong to the first years of the christian 
 ministry, and I beg you to avail yourself of whatever aid 
 my experience can give you. But no human aid can 
 
388 
 
 lift every burden from your mind ; nor would the truest 
 kindness desire for you exemption from the universal 
 lot. May the discipline, which awaits you, give purity 
 and loftiness to your motives ; give energy and tender- 
 ness to your character, and prepare you to minister to 
 the wants of a tempted and afflicted world with that 
 sympathy and wisdom, which fellowship in suffering can 
 alone bestow. May you grow in grace, and in the 
 spirit of the ministry, as you grow in years ; and when 
 the voice which now speaks to you shall cease to be 
 heard within these walls, may you, my brother, be left 
 to enjoy and reward the confidence, to point out the 
 path and the perils, to fortify the virtues, to animate the 
 piety, to comfort the sorrows, to save the souls pf this 
 much loved people. 
 
 Brethren of this Christian Society ! I rejoice in the 
 proof, which this day affords, of your desire to secure 
 the administration of Christ's word and ordinances to 
 yourselves and your children; and I congratulate you on 
 the prospects which it opens before you. The recol- 
 lections, which rush upon my mind, of your sympathy 
 and uninterrupted kindness through the vicissitudes 9f 
 my health and the frequent suspensions of my labors, 
 encourage me to anticipate for my young brother that 
 kindness and candor, on which the happiness of a minis- 
 ter so much depends. I cannot ask for him sincerer 
 attachment, than it has been my lot to enjoy. I re- 
 member, however, that the reciprocation of kind feelings 
 is not the highest end of the ministry ; and accordingly 
 my most earnest desire and prayer to God is, that with 
 a new pastor, he may send you new influences of his 
 spirit, and that, through our jpint labors, Christianity, 
 being rooted in your understandings and hearts, may 
 
389 
 
 spring up into a rich harvest of universal goodness. May 
 a more earnest concern for salvation, and a thirst for 
 more generous improvement, be excited in your breasts. 
 May a new life breathe through the worship of this 
 house, and a new love join the hearts of the worshippers. 
 May our ministry produce everlasting fruits ; and on 
 that great day, which will summon the teacher and the 
 taught before the judgment seat of Christy may you, my 
 much. loved and respected people, be 'our joy and 
 crown ;' and may we, when all hearts shall be revealed, 
 be seen to have sought your good with unfeigned and 
 disinterested love ! 
 
 33* 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 AT THE DEDICATION OF THE SECOND CONGREGATIONAL 
 
 UNITARIAN CHURCH. NEW YORK, 1826. 
 
 MARK XII. 2V80. 
 
 AND JESUS ANSWERED flIM, THE FIRST OF ALL THE COMMANDMENTS IS 
 HEAR, O ISRAEL ; THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD. 
 
 AND THOD SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART, AND 
 WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY MIND, AND WITH ALL THY 
 
 STRENGTH. THIS IS THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. 
 
 We have assembled to dedicate this building to the 
 worship of the only living and true God, and to the 
 teaching of the religion of his son, Jesus Christ. By 
 this act we do not expect to confer on this spot of ground 
 and these walls any peculiar sanctity or any mysterious 
 properties. We do not suppose that, in consequence 
 of rites now performed, the worship offered here will be 
 more acceptable, than prayer uttered in the closet, or 
 breathed from the soul in the midst of business ; or that 
 the instructions delivered from this pulpit will be more 
 effectual, than if they were uttered in a private ' dwell- 
 ing or the open air. By dedication we understand only 
 a solemn expression of the purpose for which this build- 
 ing is reared, joined with prayer to Him, who alone can 
 crown our enterprise with success, that our design may 
 be accepted and fulfilled. For this religious act we 
 find, indeed, no precept in the New Testament, and on 
 this account some have scrupled as to its propriety. 
 But we are not among those who consider the written 
 
392 
 
 word as a statute book, by the letter of which every 
 step in life must be governed. We believe, on the other 
 hand, that one of the great excellences of Christianity 
 is, that it does not deal in minute regulation, but that, 
 having given broad views of duty, and enjoined a pure 
 and disinterested spirit, it leaves us to apply these rules 
 and express this spirit, according to the promptings of 
 the divine monitor within us, and according to the claims 
 and exigences of the ever varying conditions in which 
 we are placed. We believe, too, that revelation is not 
 intended to supersede God's other modes of instruction; 
 that it is not intended to drown, but to make more 
 audible, the voice of nature. Now nature dictates the 
 propriety of such an act as we are this day assembled 
 to perform. Nature has always taught men, on the 
 completion of an important structure, designed for public 
 and lasting good, to solemnize its first appropriation to 
 the purpose for which it was reared, by some special 
 service. To us there is a sacredness in this moral in- 
 stinct, in this law written on the heart ; and in listening 
 reverently to God's dictates, however conveyed, we 
 doubt not that we shall enjoy his acceptance and bles- 
 sing- 
 
 1 have said, we dedicate this building to the teaching 
 of the gospel of Christ. But in the present state of the 
 christian church, these words are not as definite as they 
 one day will be. This gospel is variously interpreted. 
 It is preached in various forms. Christendom is parcel- 
 ed out into various sects. When, therefore, we see a 
 new house of worship reared, the question immediately 
 arises. To what mode of teaching Christianity is it to be 
 devoted ? I need not tell you, my hearers, that this 
 house has been built by that class of Christians, who 
 are called Unitarians, and that the gospel will here be 
 
393 
 
 taught, as interpreted bj that body of believers. This 
 you all know ; but perhaps all present have not attached 
 a very precise meaning to the w^ord, by which our par- 
 ticular views of Christianity are designated. Unitari- 
 anism has been made a term of so much reproach, and 
 has been uttered in so many tones of alarm, horror, in- 
 dignation, and scorn, that to many it gives only a vague 
 impression of something monstrous, impious, unuttera- 
 bly perilous. To such, I would say, that this doctrine, 
 which is considered by some, as the last and most per- 
 fect invention of Satan, the consummation of his blas- 
 phemies, the most "cunning weapon ever forged in the 
 fires of hell, amounts to this — That there is One God, 
 even the Father ; and that Jesus Christ is not this One 
 God, but his son and messenger, who derived all his 
 powers and glories from the Universal Parent, and who 
 came into the world not to claim supreme homage for 
 himself, but to carry up the soul to his Father as the 
 Only Divine Person, the Only Ultimate Object of reli- 
 gious worship. To us, this doctrine seems not to have 
 sprung from hell, but to have descended from the throne 
 of God, and to invite and attract us thither. To us it 
 seems to come from the scripture^, with a voice loud as 
 the sound of many waters, and as articulate and clear as 
 if Jesus, in a bodily form, were pronouncing it distinctly 
 in our ears. To this doctrine, and to Chrisfianity inter- 
 preted in consistency with it, we dedicate this building. 
 That we desire to propagate this doctrine, we do not 
 ' conceal. It is a treasure, which we wish not to confine 
 to ourselves, which we dare not lock -up in our own 
 breasts. We regard it as given to us for others, as well 
 as for ourselves. We should tejoice to spread it through 
 this great city, to carry it into every dwelling, and to send 
 it far and wide to the remotest settlements of our country. 
 
394 
 
 Am I asked, why we wish this diffusion? We dare 
 not say, that we are in ho' degree influenced by sectari- 
 an feeling ; for we see it raging around us, and we 
 should be more than men, were we wholly to escape ein 
 epidemic passion. We do hope, however, that our main 
 purpose aind aim is not sectarian, but to promote a purer 
 and nobler piety than now prevails. We are not indu- 
 ced to spread our opinions by the mere conviction that 
 they are true ; for there are many truths, historical, met- 
 aphysicail, scientific, literary, which we have no anxiety 
 to propagate. We regard themi as the highest, most 
 important, most efficient truths, and therefore demand- 
 ing a firm testimony, and earnest eflForts to make them 
 known. In thus speaking, we do not mean, that we 
 regard our peculiar views as essential to salvation. Far 
 from us be this spirit of exclusion, the very spirit of 
 antichrist, the worst of all the delusions of popery and 
 of protestantism. We hold nothing to be essential, but 
 the simple and supreme dedication of the mind, heart, 
 and life to God and to his will. This inward and prac- 
 tical devotedness to the Supreme Being, we are assured, 
 is attained and accepted under all the forms of Christi- 
 anity. We believe, however, that it is favored by that 
 truth which we maintain, as by no other system of faith. 
 We regard Unitarianism as peculiarly the friend of in- 
 ward, living, practical religion. For this we value it. 
 For this we would spread it ; and we desire none to 
 embrace it, but such as shall seek and derive from it 
 this celestial influence. 
 
 This character and property of Unitarian Christian- 
 ity, Its fitness to promote true, deep, and living piety, 
 being our chief ground of attachment to it, and our 
 chief motive for dedicating this house to its inculcation, 
 I have thought proper to make this the topic of my 
 
395 
 
 present discourse. I do not propose to prove the trutJi 
 of Unitarianism bj scriptural authorities, for this argu- 
 ment would exceed the limits of a sermon, but to show 
 its superior tendency to form an elevated religious char- 
 acter. Jf, however, this position can be sustained, I 
 shall have contributed no weak argument in support of 
 the truth of our views ; for the chief purpose of Christi- 
 anity undoubtedly is, to promote piety, to bring us to 
 God, to fill our souls with that Great Being, to make 
 us alive to Him ; and a religious system can carry no 
 more authentic mark of a divine original, than its obvi- 
 ous, direct, and peculiar adaptation to quicken and raise 
 the mind to its Creator. — In speaking thus of Unitarian 
 Christianity as promoting piety, I ought to observe, 
 that I use this word in its proper and highest sense. 
 I mean not everything which bears the name of piety, 
 for under this title superstition, fanaticism, and formality 
 are walking abroad and claiming respect. I mean not 
 an anxious frame of mind, not abject and slavish fear, 
 not a dread of hell, not a repetition of forms, not church- 
 going, not loud profession, not severe censure of others' 
 irreligion ; but filial love and reverence towards God, 
 habitual gratitude, cheerful trust, ready obedience, and, 
 though last not least, an imitation of the ever active 
 and unbounded benevolence of the Creator. 
 
 The object of this discourse requires me to speak 
 with great freedom of different systems of religion. 
 But let me not be misunderstood. Let not the un- 
 charitableness, which I condemn, be lightly laid to my 
 charge. Let it be remembered, that I speak only of 
 systems, not of those who embrace them. In setting 
 forth with all simplicity what seem to me the good or 
 bad tendencies of doctrines, I have not a thought of 
 giving standards or measures by which to estimate the 
 
396 
 
 virtue or vice of their professors. Nothing would be 
 more unjust, than to decide on men's characters from 
 their peculiarities of faith ; and the reason is plain. 
 Such peculiarities are not the only causes which im- 
 press and determine the mind. Our nature is exposed 
 to innumerable other influences. If indeed a man were 
 to know nothing but his creed, were to meet with no 
 human beings but those who adopt it, were to see no 
 example and to hear no conversation, but such as were 
 formed by it ; if his creed were to meet him everywhere, 
 and to exclude every other object of thought ; then his 
 character might be expected to answer to it with great 
 precision. But our Creator has not shut us up in so 
 narrow a school. The mind is exposed to an infinite 
 variety of influences, and these are multiplying with the 
 progress of society. Education, friendship, neighbour- 
 hood, public opinion, the state of society, ' the genius 
 of the place ' where we live, books, events, the pleas- 
 ures and business of life, the outward creation, our 
 physical temperament, and innumerable other causes, 
 are perpetually pouring in upon the soul thoughts, views, 
 and emotions ; and these influences are so complicated, 
 so peculiarly combined in the case of every individual, 
 and so modified by the original susceptibilities and con- 
 stitution of every mind, that on no subject is there 
 greater uncertainty than on the formation of character. 
 To determine the precise operation of a religious 
 opinion amidst this host of influences surpasses human 
 power. A great truth may be completely neutralized 
 by the countless impressions and excitements, which the 
 mind receives from other sources ; and so a great error 
 may be disarmed of much of its power, by the superior 
 energy of other and better views, of early habits, and of 
 virtuous examples. Nothing is more common than to 
 
397 
 
 see a doctrine believed without swaying the will. Its 
 :^fficacy depends, not on the assent of the intellect, but 
 on the place which it occupies in the thoughts, on the 
 distinctness and vividness with which it is conceived, 
 on its association with our common ideas, on its fre- 
 quency of recurrence, and on its command of the atten- 
 tiop, without which it has no life. Accordingly, perni- 
 cious opinions, are not seldom held by men of the most 
 illustrious virtue. I mean not then, in commending or 
 condemning systems, to pass sentence on their profes- 
 sors. I know the power of the mind to select from a 
 multifarious system, for its habitual use, those features 
 or principles which are generous, pure, and ennobling, 
 and- by these, to sustain its spiritual life amidst the 
 nominal profession of many errors. I know that a 
 creed is one thing, as written in a book, and another, 
 as it exists in the minds of its advocates,. In the book, 
 all the doctrines appear in equally strong and legible 
 lines. In the mind, many are faintly traced and sel- 
 dom recurred to, whilst others are inscribed as with 
 sunbeams, and are the chosen, constant lights of the 
 soul.. Hence, in good men of opposing denominations, 
 a real agreement may subsist as to their vital principles 
 of faith ; and amidst the division of tongues^ there may 
 be unity of soul, and the same internal worship of God. 
 By these remarks I do not mean, that error is not evil, 
 or that it bears no pernicious fruit. Its tendencies are 
 always bad. But I mean, that these tendencies exert 
 themselves amidst so many counteracting influences ; 
 and that injurious opinions so often lie dead, through 
 the want of mixture with the common thoughts, through 
 the mind's not. absorbing them, and changing them into 
 its own su"bstance ; that the highest respect may, and 
 ought to be cherished for men, in whose creed we find 
 34 
 
398 
 
 much to disapprove. In this discourse I shall speak 
 Jfreely, and some may say severely, of Triiiitarianism ; 
 but I love and honor not a few of its advocates ; and in 
 opposing what 1 deem their error, I would on no account 
 detract from their worth. After these remarks, I hope 
 that the language of earnest discussion and strong con- 
 viction will not be construed into the want of that 
 charity, which I acknowledge as the first grace of our 
 religion. 
 
 I now proceed to illustrate and prove the superiority 
 of Unitarian Christianity, as a means of promoting a 
 deep and noble piety. 
 
 I. Unitarianism is a system most favorable to piety, 
 because it presents to the mind One, and only one, Infi- 
 nite Person, to whom supreme homage is to be paid. 
 It does not vveaken the energy of religious sentiment by 
 dividing it among various objects. It collects and con- 
 centrates the soul on One Father of unbounded, undivi- 
 ded, unrivalled glory. To Him Jt teaches the mind to 
 rise through all beings. Around Him it gathers all the 
 splendors of the universe. To Him it teaches us to as- 
 cribe whatever good we receive or behold, the beauty 
 and magnificence of nature, the liberal gifts of provi- 
 dence, the capacities of the soul, the bonds of society, 
 and especially the riches of grace and redemption, the 
 mission, and powers, and beneficent influences of Jesus 
 Christ. All happiness it traces up to the Father, as the 
 sole source ; and the mind, which these views have pen- 
 etrated, through this intimate association of everything 
 exciting and exalting in the universe with One Infinite 
 Parent, can and does offer itself up to him with the in- 
 tensest and profoundest love, of which human nature is 
 susceptible. The Trinitarian iildeed professes to be- 
 lieve in one God and means to hold fast this truth. But 
 
399 
 
 three persons, having distinctive qualities and relations, 
 of whom one is sent and another the sender, one is given 
 and another the giver, of whom one intercedes and 
 another hears the intercession, of whom one takes flesh, 
 and another never becomes incarnate, three persons, 
 thus discriminated, are as truly three' objects of the 
 mind, as if they were acknowledged to be separate 
 divinities ; and from the principles of our nature, they 
 cannot act on the mind as deeply and powerfully as One 
 Infinite Person, to whose sole goodness all happiness is 
 ascribed. To multiply infinite objects for the heart, is 
 to distract it. To scatter the attention among three 
 equal persons, is to impair the power of each. The 
 more strict and absolute the unity of God, the more 
 easily and intimately all the impressions and emotions of 
 piety flow together, and are condensed into one glowing 
 thought, one thrilling love. No language can express 
 the absorbing energy of the thought of one Infinite Fa- 
 ther. When vitally implanted in the soul, it grows and 
 gains strength forever. It enriches itself by every new 
 view of God's word and works ; gathers tribute from 
 all regions and all ages ; and attracts into itself all the 
 rays of beauty, glory, and joy, in the material and 
 spiritual creation. 
 
 My hearers, as you would feel the full influence of 
 God upon your souls, guard sacredly, keep unobscured. 
 and unsullied, that fundamental arid glorious truth, that 
 there is One, and only One Almighty Agent in the uni- 
 verse. One Infinite Father. Let this truth dwell in me 
 in its uncorrupted simplicity, and I jiave the spring and 
 nutriment of an ever growing piety. I have an object 
 for my mind towards which all things bear me. I know 
 whither to go in all trial, whom to bless in all joy, whom 
 to adqre in all I behold. But let three persons claim 
 
400 
 
 from me supreme homage, and claim it on different 
 grounds, one for sending and another for coming to my 
 relief, and I^am divided, distracted, perplexed. My frail 
 intellect is overborne. Instead of One Father, on whose 
 arm I can rest, my mind is torn from object to object, and 
 I tremble, lest, among so many claimants of supreme 
 love, I should withhold from one or another his due. 
 
 II. Unitarianism is the system most favorable to 
 piety, because it holds forth and preserves inviolate the 
 spirituality of God. ' God is a spirit, and they that 
 worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.' 
 It is of great importance to the progress and elevation 
 of the religious principle, that we should refine more 
 and more our conceptions of God ; that we should sepa- 
 rate from him all material properties, and whatever is 
 limited or imperfect in our own nature ; that we should 
 regard him as a pure intelligence, an unmixed and infi- 
 nite Mind. When it pleased God to select the Jewish 
 people and place them under miraculous interpositions, 
 one of the first precepts given them was, that they 
 should not represent God under any bodily form, any 
 graven image, or the likeness of any creature. Next 
 came Christianity, which had this as one of its great 
 objects, to render religion still more spiritual, by abol- 
 ishing the ceremonial and outward worship of former 
 times, and by discarding those grosser modes of des- 
 cribing God, through which the ancient prophets had 
 sought to impress an unrefined people. 
 
 Now Unitarianism concurs with this sublime moral 
 purpose of God. It asserts his spirituality. It ap- 
 proaches him under no bodily form, but as a pure spirit, 
 as the infinite and universal Mind. On the other hand, 
 it is the direct influence of Trinitarianism to materialize 
 men's conceptions of God ; and, in truth, this system is 
 
■401 
 
 a relapse into the error of the rudest and earliest ages, 
 into the worship of a corporeal God. Its leading fea- 
 ture isj the doctrine of a God clothed with a body, and 
 acting and speaking through a material frame, — of the 
 Infinite Divinity dying on a cross ; a doctrine, which in 
 earthliness reminds us of the mythology of the rudest 
 pagans, and which a pious Jew, in the twilight of the 
 Mosaic religion, would have shrunk from with horror. 
 It seems to me no small objection to the Trinity, that 
 it supposes God to take a body in the later arid more 
 improved ages of the world, when it is plain, that such 
 a manifestation, if needed at all, was peculiarly required 
 in the infancy of the race. The effect of such a system 
 in debasing the idea of God, in associating with the 
 Divinity human passions and infirmities, is too obvious 
 to need much elucidation. On the supposition that the 
 second person of the Trinity became incarnate, God 
 may be said to be a material being, on the same general 
 ground, on which this is affirmed of man ; for man is 
 material only by the union of the mind with the body ; 
 and the very meaning of incarnation is, that God took 
 a body, through which he acted and spoke, as the hu- 
 man soul operates through its corporeal organs. Every 
 bodily affection may thus be ascribed to God. Accord- 
 ingly the Trinitarian, in his most solemn act of adora- 
 tion, is heard to pray in these appalling words : ' Good 
 Lord, deliver us; by the mystery of thy holy incarna- 
 tion, by thy holy nativity and circumcision, by thy bap- 
 tism, fasting, and temptation, by thine agony and bloody 
 sweat, by thy cross arid passion, good Lord, deliver us.' 
 Now I ask you to judge, from the principles of human 
 nature, whether to worshippers, who adore their God 
 for his wopnds and tears, his agony, and blood, and 
 sweat, the ideas of corporeal existence and human suf-' 
 34* 
 
4i)2 
 
 fering will not predominate over the conceptions of a 
 purely spiritual essence ; whether the mind, in clinging 
 to the man, will not l,ose the God ; whether a surer 
 method for depressing and adulterating the pure thought 
 of the Divinity could have been devised. Th^t the 
 Trinitarian is unconscious of this influence of his faith, 
 I know, nor do I charge it on him as a crime. Still it 
 exists and cannot be too much deplored. 
 
 The Roman CathoRcs, true to human nature and 
 their creed, have sought, by painting and statuary, to 
 bring their imagined God before their eyes ; and have 
 thus obtained almost as vivid impressions of him, as if 
 they had lived with him on the earth. The Protestant 
 condemns them for using these similitudes and represen- 
 tations in their worship ; but if a Trinitarian, he does so 
 to his own condemnation. For if, as he believes, it was 
 once a duty to bow in adoration before the living body 
 of his incarnate God, what possible guilt can there be 
 in worshipping before the pictured or sculptured memo- 
 rial of the same being ? Christ's body may as truly be 
 represented by the artist, as any other human form ; and 
 its image may be used as effectually and properly, as 
 that of an ancient sage or hero, to recall him with viv- 
 idness to the mind. — Is it said, that God has expressly 
 forbidden the use of images in our worship ? But why 
 was that prohibition laid on the Jews ? For this ex- 
 press reason, that God had not presented himself to 
 them in any form, which admitted of representation. 
 H'fear the language of Moses : ' Take good heed lest ye 
 make you a graven image, for ye saw no manner of 
 similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in 
 Horeb out of the midst of the fire.' * If, since that 
 
 * Dent. ir. IS, 16. — The airangement of the text is a little changed, to put the 
 reader immediately in possession of the meaning. 
 
403 
 
 peFiod, God has taken a body, then the reason of the 
 prohibition has ceased; and if he took a body, among 
 other purposes, that he might assist the weakness of 
 the intellect, which needs a material form, then a statue, 
 which^ lends so great an aid to the conception of an ab- 
 sent friend, is not only justified, but seems to be required. 
 This* materializing, and embodying of the Supreme 
 Being, which is the essence of Trinitarianism, cannot 
 but be adverse to a growing ailfd exalted piety. Hu- 
 man and divine properties, being confounded in one 
 being, lose their distinctness. The splendors of the 
 Godhead are dimmed. The worshippers of an incar- 
 nate Deity, through the frailty of their nature, are 
 strongly tempted to fasten chiefly on his human attri- 
 butes ; and their devotion, instead of rising to the Infi- 
 nite God, and taking the peculiar character which In- 
 finity inspires, becomes rather a human affection, bor- 
 rowing much of its fervor from the ideas of suffering, 
 blood, and death. It is indeed possible, that this God- 
 man (to use the strange phraseology of Trinitarians) 
 may excite the mind more easily, than a purely spirit- 
 lial divinity ; just as a tragedy, addressed to the eye 
 and ear, will interest the multitude more than the con- 
 templation of the most exalted character. But the 
 emotions, which are the most easily roused, are not the 
 profoundest or most enduring. This human love, in- 
 " spired by a human God, though at first more fervid, 
 canjaot grow and spread through the soul, like the reve- 
 rential attachment, which an infinite, spiritual Father 
 a^Sfakens. Refined conceptipns of God,' though more 
 slowly attained, have a more quickening and all-per- 
 vading energy, and admit of perpetual accessions of 
 brightness,, life, and strength. 
 
404 
 
 True, we shall be told, that Tiinitarianism has con- 
 verted only, one of its three ;persons into a human Deity, 
 and that the other two remain purely spiritual beings. 
 But who does not know, that man will attach himself 
 most strongly to the God who has become a man ? Is 
 not this even a duty, if the Divinity has taken a body 
 to place himself within the reach of human comprehen- 
 sion and sympathy? That the Trinitarian's views of 
 the Divinity will be colored more by his visible, tangi- 
 ble, corporeal God, than by those persons of the Trin- 
 ity, who remain comparatively hidden in their invisible 
 and spiritual essence, is so accordant with the princi- 
 ples 6f our nature, as to need no labored proof. 
 
 My friends, hold fast the doctrine of a purely spiritual 
 divinity. It is one of the great supports and instru- 
 ments of a vital piety. It brings God near, as no other 
 doctrine can. One of the leading purposes of Christi- 
 anity, is to give us an ever growing sense of God's im- 
 mediate presence, a consciousness of him in our souls. 
 Now just as far as corporeal or limited attributes enter 
 into our conception of him, we remove him from us. 
 He becomes an outward, distant being, instead of being 
 viewed and felt as dwelling in the soul itself. It is an 
 unspeakable benefit of the doctrine of a purely spiritual 
 God, that he can be regarded as inhabiting, filling oiir 
 spiritual nature ; and through this union with our minds, 
 he can and does become the object of an intimacy and 
 friendship, such as no embodied being can call forth. 
 
 III. Unitarianisni is the system most favorable to 
 piety, because it presents a distinct and intelligible 
 object of worship, a being, whose nature, whilst inex- 
 pressibly sublime, is yet simple and suited to human 
 apprehension. An infinite Father is the most exalted 
 
405 
 
 of all conceptions, and yet the least perplexing. It 
 involves no incongruous ideas. It is illustrated by 
 analogies from our own nature. It coincides vi^ith that 
 fundamental law of the intellect, through which we 
 demand a cause proportioned to effects. It is also as 
 interesting as it is rational ; so that it is peculiarly con- 
 genial with the improved mind. The sublime simplici- 
 ty of God, as he is taught in Unitarianism, by relieving 
 the understanding from perplexity, and by placing him 
 within the reach of thought and affection, gives him 
 peculiar power over the soul. Trinitarianism, on the 
 other hand, is a riddle. Men call it a mystery ; but it 
 is rfiysterious, not like the great truths of religion, by 
 its yastness and grandeur, but by the irreconcilable 
 ideas which it involves. One God, consisting of three 
 persons or agents, is so strange a being, so unlike our 
 own minds, and all others with which we hold inter- 
 course, is so misty, so incongruous, so contradictory, 
 that he cannot be apprehended with that distinctness 
 and that feeling of reality, which belong to the opposite 
 , system. Such a heterogeneous being, who. is at the 
 same moment one and many ; who includes in his own 
 nature the relations of Father and Son, or, in other 
 words, is Father and Son to himself ; who, in one of 
 his persons, is at the same moment the supreme God 
 and a mortal man, omniscient and ignorant, almighty 
 and impotent ; such a being is certainly the most puz- 
 zling and distracting object ever p'reisented to human 
 thought. Trinitarianism,/instead of teaching an intel- 
 ligifble God, offefs to the mind a strange compound of 
 hostile attributes, ibeaiing plain marks of ' those aiges of 
 darknessi^ wheri ) Christianity shed biita faint ray, and' 
 the disposed fancy teemed with' prodigies and unnatural 
 creajtiqqSii 1 In conteimplatiBg a.being, fvi^ho prf^sents 
 
406 
 
 such. difFere «i and , inconsistent aspects, the naind finds 
 nothing to rest upgn ; aod, instead pf receiving distinct 
 and harmonious impressionsj is'disturbed by shifting, 
 unsettled images. To; commuQe with such a being 
 BBUst be asi hard, as to converse with a man of three 
 different countenances, speaking with three different 
 tongues. The believer in this system must forget it, 
 when he prays, or he could find no repose in devotion. 
 Who can compare it indistinctness, reality, and power, 
 with the simple doctrine of One Infinite Father? 
 
 IV. Unitarianism promotes a fervent and enlightened 
 piety, by asserting the absoltite and; unbounded perfec- 
 tion of God's character. This is the highest service 
 Avhich can be rendered to mankind. Just andgenerous 
 conceptions of the Divinity are the soul's true wealth. 
 To spread these, is to contribute more effectually, than 
 by any other agency, to the progress and happiness "^of 
 the intelligent creation. To obscure God's glory is to 
 do greater wrong, than to blot out the' sun. The char- 
 acter and influence of a religion must answer to the 
 views which it gives of the Divinity; and there is a 
 plain tendency in that system, which manifests the 
 divine perfections most resplendently, .to awaken the 
 sublimest and most blessed, piety. 
 
 Now Trinitarianism has a fatal tendency to degrade 
 the character of the Supreme Being, though its advo- 
 cates, I am sure, intend no such wrong. By multiplying 
 divine persons, it takes from each the glory of indepen- 
 dent, all-sufficient, absolute perfection. This may be 
 shown in various particulars. And in the first place, the 
 very idea^ that three persons in the diyinity are in any 
 degree important, implies and involves the imperfection 
 of each ; for it is plain, that if one divine person posses- 
 ses all possible power, wisdotn, Ibve, and happiness, 
 
407 
 
 Jiothing will be gained to himself or to the creation by 
 joining with him two, or two hundred other persons. 
 To say that he needs others for any purpose or in any 
 degree, is to strip him of independent and all-sufficient 
 majesty. If our Father in Heaven, the God and Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not of himself sufficient to 
 all the wants of his creation ; if, by his union with other 
 persons, he can accomplish any good to which he is not 
 of himself equal ; or if he thus acquires a claim to the 
 least degree of trust or hope, to which he is not of him- 
 self entitled by his own independent attributes; then it 
 is plain, he is not a being of infinite and absolute per- 
 fection. Now Trinitarianism teaches, that the highest 
 good accrues to the, human race from the existence of 
 three divine persons, sustaining different offices and 
 relations to the world ; and it regards the Unitarian, as 
 subverting the foundation of human hope, by asserting 
 that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus is alone 
 and singly God. Thus it derogates from his infinite 
 glory. 
 
 In the next place, Trinitarianism degrades the charac- 
 ter of the Supreme Being, by laying its disciples under 
 the necessity of making such a distribution of offices and 
 relations among the three persons, as will serve to de- 
 signate and distinguish them ; for in this way it inter- 
 feres with the sublime conceptions of One Infinite 
 Person, in whom all glories are concentred. If we are 
 required to worship three persons, v^e must view them 
 in different lights, or they will be mere repetitions of 
 each other, mere names and sounds, presenting no 
 objects, conveying no meaning to the mind. Some 
 iippropriate character, some peculiar acts, feelings, and 
 relations must be ascribed to each. In other words, 
 the glory of all must be shorn, that some special distin- 
 
408 
 
 guishing lustre may be thrown on each. Accordingly, 
 creation is associated peculiarly with the conception of 
 the Father; satisfaction for human guilt with that of 
 the Son ; whilst sanctification, the noblest work of all, 
 is given to the Holy Spirit as his more particular work. 
 By a still more fatal distribution, the work of justice, the 
 office of vindicating the rights of the Divinity, falls pe- 
 culiarly to the Father, whilst the loveliness- of interposing 
 mercy clothes peculiarly the person of the Son. By 
 this unhappy influence of Trinitarianism, from which 
 common minds at least cannot escape, the splendors of 
 the Godhead, being scattered among three objects, in- 
 stead of being united in One Infinite Father, are dimmed; 
 and he, whose mind is thoroughly and practically pos- 
 sessed by this system, can hardly conceive the effulgence 
 of glory in which the One God offers liimself to a pious 
 believer in his strict unity. 
 
 But the worst has not been told. I observe, then, 
 in the third place, that if Three Divine Persons are be- 
 lieved in, such an administration or government of the 
 world must be ascribed to them, as will furnish them 
 with a sphere of operation. No man will admit three 
 persons into his creed, without finding' a use for them. 
 Now it is an obvious remark, that a system of the uni- 
 verse, which involves and demands more than one Infi- 
 nite Agent, must be wild, extravagant, and unworthy 
 the perfect God ; because there is no possible or con- 
 ceivable good, to which such an agent is not adequate. 
 Accordingly we find ' Trinitarianism connecting itself 
 with a scheme of administration, exceedingly derogato- 
 ry to the divine character. It teaches, that the Infinite 
 Father sa\v fit to put into the hands of our first parents 
 the character and condition of their whole progeny ; and 
 that, through one act of disobedience, the whole race 
 
409 
 
 bring with them into being a corrupt nature, or are born 
 depraved. It teaches, that the offences of a short life, 
 though begun and spent under this disastrous influence, 
 merit endless punishment, and that God's law threatens 
 this infinite penalty ; and that man is thus burdened with 
 a guilty which no sufferings of the created universe can 
 expiate, which nothing but the sufferings of an Infinite 
 Being can purge away. In this condition of human 
 nature, Trinitarianism finds a sphere of action for its 
 different persons. I am aware that some Trinitarians, 
 on hearing this statement of their system, may reproach 
 me with ascribing to them the errors of Calvinism, a 
 system which they abhor as much as ourselves. But 
 none of the peculiarities of Calvinism enter into this 
 exposition. I have given what I understand to be the 
 leading features of Trinitarianism all the world over ; 
 and the benevolent professors of that faith, who recoil 
 from this statement, must blame not the preacher, but 
 the creeds and establishments by which these doctrines 
 are diflfiised. For ourselves, we look with horror and 
 grief on the views of God's government, which are 
 naturally and intimately united with Trinitarianism. 
 They take from us our Father in heaven, and substitute 
 a stern and unjust lord. Our filial love and reverence 
 rise up against them. We say to the Trinitarian, touch 
 anything but the perfections of God. Cast no stain on 
 that spotless purity and loveliness. We can endure 
 any errors but those, which subvert or unsettle the con- 
 viction of God's paternal goodness. Urge not upon us 
 a system, which makes existence a curse, and wraps 
 the universe in gloom. Leave us the cheerful light, the 
 free and healthful atmosphere, of a liberal and rational 
 faith ; the ennobling and consoling influences of the 
 doctrine, which nature and revelation in blessed concord 
 35 
 
410 
 
 teach us, of One Father of Unbounded and Inexhausti- 
 ble Love. 
 
 V. Unitarianism is peculiarly favorable to piety, be- 
 cause it accords vs'ith nature, with the w^orld around 
 and the world within us ; and through this accordance 
 it gives aid to nature, and receives aid from it, in im- 
 pressing the mind with God. We live in the midst of 
 a glorious universe, which was meant to be a witness 
 and a preacher of the Divinity ; and, a revelation from 
 God may be expected to be in harmony with this sys- 
 tem, and to carry on a common ministry with it in lift- 
 ing the soul to God. Now Unitarianism is in accord- 
 ance with nature. It teaches One Father, and so does 
 creation, the more it is explored. Philosophy, in pro- 
 portion as it extends its views of the universe, sees in 
 it, more and more, a sublime and beautiful unity, and 
 multiplies proofs, that all things have sprung from one 
 intelligence, one power, one love. The whole outward 
 creation proclaims to the Unitarian the truth in which 
 he delights. So does his own soul. But neither na- 
 ture nor the soul bears one trace of Three Divine Per- 
 sons. Nature is no Trinitarian. It gives not a hint, 
 not a glimpse of a tri-personal author. Trinitarianism 
 is a confined system, shut up in a few texts, a few 
 written lines, where many of the wisest minds have 
 failed to discover it. It is not inscribed on the heavens 
 and the earth, not borne on every wind, not resounding 
 and re-echoing through the universe. The sun and 
 stars say nothing of a God of three persons. They all 
 speak of the One Father whom we adore. To our ears, 
 one and the same voice comes from God's word and 
 works, a full and swelling strain, growing clearer, loud- 
 er, more thrilling as we listen, and with one blessed 
 influence lifting up our souls to the Almighty Father. 
 
411 
 
 This accordance between nature and revelation in- 
 ::reases the power of both over the mind. Concurring 
 as they do in one impression, thej make that impres- 
 sion deeper. To men of reflection, the conviction of 
 the reality of religion is exceedingly heightened, by a 
 perbeption of harmony in the views of it which they 
 derive from various sources. Revelation is never re- 
 ceived with so intimate a persuasion of its truth, as 
 when it is seen to conspire to the same ends and im- 
 pressions, for which all other things are made. It is 
 no small objection to Trinitarianism, that it is an in- 
 sulated doctrine, that it reveals a God whom we meet 
 nowhere in the universe. Three Divine Persons, I re- 
 peat it, are found only in a few texts, and those so dark, 
 that the gifted minds of Milton, Newton, and Locke 
 could not find them there. Nature gives them not a 
 whisper of evidence. And can they be as real and 
 powerful to the mind, as that One Father, whom the 
 general strain and common voice of Scripture, and the 
 universal voice of nature call us to adore ? 
 
 VI. Unitarianism favors piety by opening the mind to 
 new and ever enlarging views of God. Teaching, as it 
 does, the same God with nature, it leads us to seek 
 him in nature. It does not shut us up in the written 
 word, precious as that manifestation of the Divinity is. 
 It considers revelation, not as independent on his other 
 means of instruction ; not as a separate agent; but as 
 a part of the great system of God for enlightening and 
 elevating the human soul ; as intimately joined with 
 creation and providence, and intended to concur with 
 them ; and as given to assist us in reading the volume 
 of the universe. Thus Unitarianism, where its genuine 
 influence is experienced, tends to enrich and fertilize 
 the mind ; opens it to new lights, wherever they spring 
 
412 
 
 up ; and bj combining, makes more efficient, the means 
 of religious iinowiedge. Trinitarianism, on the other 
 hand, is a system which tends to confine the mind ; to 
 shut it up in what is written ; to diminish its interest in 
 the universe ; and to disincline it to bright andrfinlarged 
 views of God's works. — This effect will be explained, 
 in the first place, if we consider, that the peculiarities 
 of Trinitarianisi;n differ so much from the teachings of 
 the universe, that he, who attaches himself to the one, 
 will be in danger of losing his interest in the other. 
 The ideas of Three Divine Persons, of God clothing 
 himself in flesh, of the infinite Creator saving the guilty 
 by transferring their punishment to an innocent being, 
 these ideas cannot easily be made to coalesce in the 
 mind with that, which nature gives, of One Almighty 
 Father and Unbounded Spirit, whom no worlds can 
 contain, and whos6 vicegerent in the human breast pro- 
 nounces it a crime, to lay the penalties. of vice on the 
 pure and unoffending. 
 
 But Trinitarianism has a still more positive influence 
 in shutting the mind against improving views from the 
 universe. It tends to throw gloom over God's vvorks. 
 Imagining that Christ is to be exalted, by giving him an 
 exclusive agency in enlightening and recovering man- 
 kind, it is tempted to disparage other lights and influen- 
 ces ; and for the purpose of magnifying his salvation, it 
 inclines to exaggerate the darkness and desperateness 
 of man's present condition. The mind, thus impressed, 
 naturally leans to those views of nature and of society, 
 which will strengthen the ideas of desolation and guilt. 
 It is tempted to aggravate the miseries of life, and to 
 see in them only the marks of divine displeasure and 
 punishing justice; and overlooks their obvious fitness 
 and design to awaken our powers, exercise our virtues, 
 
413 
 
 and strengthen our social ties. In like manner it exag- 
 gerates the sins of men, that the need of an Infinite 
 atonement may be maintained. Some of the most af- 
 fecting tokens of God's love within and around us are 
 obscured by this gloomy theology. The glorious facul- 
 ties of the soul, its high aspirations, its sensibility to the 
 great and good in character, it^ sympathy with disin- 
 terested and suffering virtue, its benevolent and religious 
 instincts, its thirst for a happiness not found on earth, , 
 these are overlooked or thrown into the shade, that 
 they may not disturb the persuasion of man's natural 
 corruption. Ingenuity is employed to disparage what 
 is interesting in the human character. Whilst the 
 bursts of passion in the newborn child are gravely 
 urged, as iiidications of a native rooted corruption ; itg 
 bursts of affection, its sweet smile, its innocent and ir- 
 repressible joy, its loveliness and Beauty, are not listen- 
 ed to, though they plead more eloquently its alliance 
 with higher natures. The sacred and tender affections 
 of home ; the unvVearied watchings and cheerful sacrifi- 
 ces of parents ; the reverential, grateful assiduity of 
 children, smoothing an aged father's or mother's descent 
 to the grave j woman's love, stronger than death ; the 
 friendship of brothers and sisters ; the anxious affection, 
 which tends around the bed of sickness ; the subdued 
 voice, which breathes comfort into the mourner's heart ; 
 all the endearing offices, which shed a serene light 
 through our dwellings ; these are explained away by the 
 thorough advocates of this system, so as to include no 
 real virtue, so as to consist with a natural aversion to 
 goodness. Even the higher efforts of disinterested be- 
 nevolence, and the most unaffected expressions of piety, 
 if not connected with what is called ' the true faith,' 
 are, by the most rigid disciples of the doctrine which I 
 36* 
 
414 
 
 oppose, resolved into the pc^ssion for distinction, or some 
 other working of ' unsanctified nature.' Thus Trinita- 
 rianism and its kindred doctrines have a tendency to 
 veil God's goodness, to sully- his fairest works, to dim 
 the ,lustre of those innocent and pure affections, which 
 a divine breath kindles in the soul, to blight the beauty 
 and freshness of creation, and in this way to consume the 
 very nutriment of piety. We know, and rejoice to 
 know, that in multitudes this tendency is counteracted 
 by a cheerful temperament, a benevolent nature, and a 
 strength of gratitude, which bursts the shackles of a 
 melancholy system. But from the nature of the doc- 
 ,trine, the tendency exists and is strong ; and an impar- 
 tial observer vvil^l often discern it resulting in gloomy, 
 depressing viev/s of life and the universe. 
 
 Trinitarianism, by thus tending to exclude bright and 
 enlarging views of the creation, seems to me not only 
 to chill the heart, but to injure the understanding, as far 
 as moral and religious truth is concerned. It does not 
 send the mind far and wide for new and elevating ob^ 
 jects ; and we have here one explanation of the barren- 
 ness and feebleness, by which theological writings are 
 so generally marked. It is not wonderful, that the pre- 
 valent theology should want vitality and enlargement of 
 thought, for it does not accord with the perfections of 
 God and the spirit of the universe. It has not its root 
 in eternal truth ; but is a narrow, technical, artificial 
 system, the fabrication of unrefined ages, and conse- 
 quently incapable of being blended with the new lights 
 which are spreading over the most interesting subjects, 
 and of being incorporated with the results and anticipa- 
 tions of original and progressive minds. It stands apart 
 in the mind, instead of seizing upon new truths, and 
 converting them into its own nutriment. With few 
 
415 
 
 ekceptions, the Trinitarian theology of the present day 
 is greatly deficient in freshness of thought, and in power 
 to awaken the interest and to meet the intellectual and 
 spiritual wants of thinking men. I see indeed superior 
 minds and great minds among the adherents of the pre- 
 valent system ; but they seem to me to move in chains, 
 and to fulfil poorly their high function of adding to the 
 wealth of the human intellect. In theological discus- 
 sion, they remind me more of Samson grinding in the 
 narrow mill of the Philistines, than of that undaunted 
 champion achieving victories for God's people, and en- 
 larging the bounds of their inheritance. Now a system, 
 which has a tendency to confine the mind, and to im- 
 pair its sensibility to the manifestations of God, in the 
 universe, is so far unfriendly to piety, to a bright, joyous, 
 hopeful, ever growing love of the Creator. It tends to 
 generate and nourish a religion of a melancholy tone, 
 such, 1 apprehend, as now predotninates in the christian 
 world. 
 
 VII. Unitarianism promotes piety by the high place, 
 which it assigns to piety in the character and work of 
 Jesus Christ. What is it which the Unitarian regards 
 as the chief glory of the character of Christ ? I answer, 
 his filial devotion, the entireness with which he sur- 
 rendered himself to the will and benevolent purposes 
 of God. The piety of Jesus, which, on the supposi- 
 tion of his Supreme Divinity, is a subordinate and in- 
 congruousj is, to ug, his prominent and crowning, attri- 
 bute. We place his 'oneness with God,' not in a'n 
 unintelligible unity of essence, but in unity of mind and 
 heart, in the strength of his love, through which he re- 
 nounced every separate interest, and identified himself 
 with his Father's designs. In other words, filial piety, 
 the consecration of his whole being to the benevolent 
 
416 
 
 will of his Father, this is the mild glbry in which he 
 always offers himself to our minds ; and, of consequence, 
 all our sympathies with him, all our love and veneration 
 towards him, are so many forms of delight in a pious 
 character, and our whole knowledge of him incites us 
 to a like surrender of our whole nature and existence 
 to God. 
 
 In the next place, Unitariani.sm teaches, that the 
 highest work or office of Christ is to call forth and 
 strengthen piety in the human breast, and thus it sets 
 before us this character as the chief acquisition and end 
 of our being. To us, the great glory of Christ's mis- 
 sion consists in the power, with which he ' reveals the 
 Father,' and establishes the 'kingdom or reign of God 
 within ' the soul. By the crown, which he wears, we 
 understand the eminence which he enjoys in the most 
 beneficent work in the universe, that of bringing back 
 the lost mind to the knowledge, love, and likeness of 
 its Creator. With these views of Christ's office, noth- 
 ing can seem to us so important as an enlightened and 
 profound piety, and we are quickened to seek it, as the 
 perfection and happiness, to which nature and redemp- 
 tion jointly summon us. 
 
 Now we maintain, that Trinitarianism obscures and 
 weakens these views of Christ's character and work ; 
 and this it does, by insisting perpetually on others of 
 an incongruous, discordant nature. It diminishes the 
 power of his piety. Making him, as it does, the Su- 
 preme Being, and placing him as an equal on his Fa- 
 ther's throne, it turns the mind from him as the meekest 
 worshipper of God ; throws into the shade, as of very 
 inferior worth, his self-denying obedience ; and gives 
 us other grounds for revering him, than his entire hom- 
 age, his fervent love, his cheerful self-sacrifice to the 
 
417 
 
 Universal Parent. There is a plain incongruity in the 
 belief of his Supreme Godhead with the ideas of filial 
 piety and exemplary devotion. The mind, which has 
 been taught to regard him as of equal majesty and 
 authority with the Father, cannot easily feel the power 
 of his character as the affectionate son, whose meat it 
 was to do his Father's, will. The mind, accustomed to 
 make him the Ultimate Object of worship, cannot easily 
 recognise in him the pattern of that^ worship, the guide 
 to the Most High. The characters are incongruous, 
 and their union perplexing, so that neither exerts its 
 full energy on the mind. 
 
 Trinitarianism also exhibits the work, as well as 
 character of Christ, in lights less favorable to piety. 
 It does not make the promotion of piety his chief end. 
 It teaches, that the highest purpose of his mission was 
 to reconcile God to man, not man to God. It teaches, 
 that the most formidable obstacle to human happiness 
 lies in the claims and threatenings of divine justice; 
 Hence it leads men to prize Christ more, for answering 
 these claims and averting these threatenings, than for 
 awakening in the human soul sentiments of love to- 
 wards its Father in heaven. Accordingly, multitudes 
 seem to prize pardon more than piety, and think it 
 a greater boon to escape, through Christ's sufferings, the 
 fire of hell, than to receive, through his influence, the 
 spirit of heaven, the spirit of devotion. Is such a system 
 propitious to a generous and evergrowing piety ? 
 , If I may be allowed a short digression, I would con- 
 clude this head with the general observation, that we 
 deem our views of Jesus Christ more interesting than 
 those of Trinitarianism. We feel, that we should lose 
 much, by exchanging the distinct character and mild 
 radiance, with which he offers himself to our minds, for 
 
418 
 
 the confused and irreconcilable gloiies with which that- 
 system labors to invest him. According to Unitarian- 
 ism, he is a being who may be understood, for he is, one 
 tnindy one conscious nature. According to the opposite 
 faith, he is an inconceivable Compound of two most dis- 
 similar minds, joining" in one person a hnite and infinite 
 nature, a soul weak and ignorant, and a soul almighty 
 arid omniscient. And is such a being a proper object for 
 human thought and affection ? — I add, as another im- 
 portant consideration, that to us Jesus, instead of being 
 the second of three obscure unintelligible persons, is 
 first and preeminent in the sphere in which he acts, and 
 is thus the object of a distinct attachment, which he 
 shares with no equals or rivals. To us, he is first of 
 the sons of God, the Son by peculiar nearness and like- 
 ness to the Father. He is first of all the ministers of 
 God's mercy and beneficence, and through him the 
 largest stream of bounty flows to the creation. He is 
 first in God's favor and love, the most accepted of 
 worshippers, the most prevalent of intercessors. In this 
 mighty universe, framed to be a mirror of its author, 
 we turn to Jesus as the brightest image of God, and 
 gratefully yield him a place in our souls, second only to 
 the Infinite Father, to whom he himself directs our su- 
 preme affection. 
 
 VIII. I now proceed to a great topic. Unitarianism 
 promotes piety, by meeting the wants of man as a sin- 
 ner. The wants of the sinner may be expressed almost 
 in one word. He wants assurances of mercy in his 
 Creator. He wants pledges, that God is Love in its 
 purest form, that is, that He has a goodness so disin- 
 terested, free, full, strong, and immutable, that the in- 
 gratitude and disobedienc.e of his creatures cannot over- 
 come it. This unconquerable love, which in Scripture 
 
419 
 
 is denominated grace, and which waits not fof merit to 
 call it forth, but flows out to the most guilty, is the sin- 
 ner's only hope, and it is fitted to call forth the most 
 devoted gratitude. Now this grac^ or mercy of God, 
 which seeks the lost, and receives and blesses the re- 
 turning child, is proclaimed by that faith, which we 
 advocate, with a clearness and energy, which cannot be 
 surpassed. Unitarianism will not listen for a moment 
 to the common errors, by which this bright attribute is 
 obscured. It will not hear of a vindictive wrath in God, 
 which must be quenched by blood ; or of a justice, which 
 binds his mercy with an iron chain, until its demands 
 are satisfied to the full. It will not hear that God needs 
 any foreign influence to awaken his mercy ; but teaches, 
 that the yearnings of the tenderest human parent to- 
 wards a lost child are but a faint image of God's deep 
 and overflowing compassion towards erring man. This 
 essential and unchangeable propensity of the divine 
 mind to forgiveness, the Unitarian beholds shining forth 
 through the whole word of God, and especially in the 
 mission and revelation of Jesus Christ, who lived and 
 died to make manifest the inexhaustible plenitude of di- 
 vine grace ; and, aided by revelation, he sees this attribute 
 of Go4 everywhere, both around him and within him. 
 He sees it in the sun which shines, and the rain which 
 descends, on the evil and unthankful ; in the peace, 
 which retulns to the mind in proportion to its return to 
 God and duty ; in the sentiment of compassion, which 
 springs up spontaneously in the human breast towards 
 the fallen and lost ; and in the moral instinct, which 
 teaches us to cherish this compassion as a sacred prin- 
 ciple, as an emanation of God's infinite love. In truth, 
 Unitarianism asserts so strongly the mercy of God, that 
 
421 
 
 In the next place, Trinitarianism obscures God's 
 mercy, by the manner in which it supposes pardon to 
 be communicated. It teaches, that God remits the pun- 
 ishment of the offender, in consequence of receiving an 
 equivalent from an innocent person ; that the sufferings 
 df the sinner are removed by a full satisfaction made t 
 divine justice in the sufferings of a substitute. And is 
 this ' the quality of mercy ?' What means forgiveness, 
 but the reception of the returning child through the 
 strength of parental love ? This doctrine invests the 
 Saviour with a claim of merit, with a right to the re- 
 mission of the sins of his followers ; and represents God's 
 reception of the penitent as a recompense due to the 
 worth of his son. And is mercy, which means free and 
 undeserved love, made rriore manifest, more resplendent, 
 by the introduction of merit and right as the ground of 
 our salvation ? Could a surer expedient be invented 
 for obscuring its freeness, and for turning the sinner's 
 gratitude from the sovereign who demands, to the suf- 
 ferer who offers, full satisfaction for his guilt ? 
 
 I know it is said, that Trinitarianism magnifies God's 
 mercy, because it teaches, that he himself provided the 
 substitute for the guilty. But I reply, that the work 
 here ascribed to mercy is not the most appropriate, nor 
 most fitted to manifest it and impress it on the heart. 
 This may be made apparent by familiar illustrations. 
 Suppose that a creditor, through compassion to certain 
 debtors, should persuade a benevolent and opulent man 
 to pay him in their stead. Would not the debtors see 
 a greater mercy, and feel a weightier obligation, if they 
 were to receive a free, gratuitous release ? And will 
 not their chief gratitude stray beyond the creditor to the 
 benevolent substitute ? Or suppose, that a parent, un- 
 willing to inflict a penalty on a "disobedient but feeble 
 36 
 
421 
 
 In the next place, Trinitarianism obscures God's 
 mercy, by the manner in which it supposes pardon to 
 be communicated. It teaches, that God remits the pun- 
 ishment of the ofifender, in consequence of receiving an 
 equivalent from an innocent person ; that the sufferings 
 of the sinner are removed by a full satisfaction made t 
 divine justice in the/sufferings of a substitute. And is 
 this ' the quality of mercy ?' What means forgiveness, 
 but the reception of the returning child through the 
 strength of parental love ? This doctrine invests the 
 Saviour with a claim of merit, with a right to the re- 
 mission of the sins of his followers ; and represents God's 
 reception of the penitent as a recompense due to the 
 worth of his son. And is mercy, which means free and 
 undeserved love, made more manifest, more resplendent, 
 by the introduction of merit and right as the ground of 
 our salvation ? Could a surer expedient be invented 
 for obscuring its freeness, and for turning the sinner's 
 gratitude from the sovereign who demands, to the suf- 
 ferer who offers, full satisfaction for his guilt ? 
 
 I know it is said, that Trinitarianism magnifies God's 
 mercy, because it teaches, that he himself provided the 
 substitute for the guilty. But I reply, that the work 
 here ascribed to mercy is not the most appropriate, nor 
 most fitted to manifest it and impress it on the heart. 
 This may be made apparent by familiar illustrations. 
 Suppose that a creditor, through compassion to certain 
 debtors, should persuade a benevolent and opulent man 
 to pay him in their stead. AVould not the debtors see 
 a greater mercy, and feel a weightier obligation, if they 
 were to receive a free, gratuitous release ? And will 
 not their chief gratitude stray beyond the creditor to the 
 benevolent substitute ? Or suppose, that a parent, un- 
 willing to inflict a penalty on a disobedient but feeble 
 36 
 
422 
 
 child, should persuade a stronger child to bear it. Would 
 not the offender see a more touching mercj in a free 
 forgiveness, springiilg iojmediately from a parent's heart, 
 than in this circuitous remission ? And will he not be 
 tempted to turn with his strongest love to the generous 
 sufferer ? In this process of substitution, of which 
 Trinitarianism boasts so loudly, the mercy of God be- 
 comes complicated with the rights and merits of the 
 substitute, and is a more distant cause of our salvation. 
 These rights and merits are nearer, more visible, and 
 more than divide the glory with grace and mercy in our 
 rescue. They turn the inind from Divine Goodness as 
 the only spring of its happiness, and only rock of its 
 hope. Now this is to deprive piety of one of its chief 
 means of growth and joy. Nothing should stand be- 
 tween the soul and God's mercy. Nothing should share 
 with mercy the work of our salvation. Christ's inter- 
 cession should ever be regarded as an application to love 
 and mercy, not as a demand of justice, not as a claim of 
 merit. I grieve to say, that Christ, as now viewed by 
 multitudes, hides the lustre of that very attribute, which 
 it is his great purpose to display. I fear, that to many, 
 Jesus wears the glory of a more winning, tender mercy, 
 than his Father, and that he is regarded as the sinner's 
 chief resource. Is this the way to invigorate piety ? 
 
 Trinitarians imagine, that there is one view of their 
 system, peculiarly fitted to give peace and hope to the 
 sinner, and consequently to promote gratitude and love. 
 It is this. They say, it provides an Infinite substitute 
 for the sinner, than which • nothing can give greater 
 relief to the burdened conscience. Jesus, being the 
 second person of the Trinity, was able to make infinite 
 satisfaction for sin ; and what, they ask, in Unitarian- 
 ism, can compare with this ? I have time only for two 
 
423 
 
 brief replies. And first, this doctrine of an Infinite 
 satisfaction, or, as it is improperly called, of an Infinite 
 atonement, subverts j instead of building up, hope ; be- 
 cause it argues infinite severity in the government which 
 requires it. Did I believe, what Trinitarianism teaches, 
 that not the least transgression, not even the first sin 
 of the dawning mind of the child, could be remitted 
 without an infinite expiation, I should feel myself liv- 
 ing under a legislation unspeakably dreadful, under 
 laws written, like Draco's, in blood; and instead of 
 thanking the sovereign for providing an infinite substi- 
 tute, I should shudder at the attributes, which render 
 this expedient necessary. It is commonly said, that an 
 infinite atonement is needed to make due and deep 
 impressions of the evil of sin. But he, who framed all 
 souls and gave them their susceptibilities, ought not to 
 be thought so wanting in goodness and wisdom, as to 
 have constituted a universe, which demands so dreadful 
 and degrading a method of enforcing obedience, as the 
 penal sufferings of a God. This doctrine of an Infinite 
 ^ substitute, suffering the penalty of sin, to manifest God's 
 wrath against sin, and thus to support his government, 
 is, I fear, so familiar to us all, that its severe character 
 is overlooked. Let me then set it before yon, in new 
 terms,>and by a new illustration ; and if in so doing, I 
 may wound the feelings of some who hear me, I beg 
 them to believe, that I do it with pain, and from no 
 impulse but a desire to serve the cause of truth. — 
 Suppose, then, that a teacher should come among you, 
 and should tell yqu, that the Creator, in order to pardon 
 his own children, had erected a gallows in the centre 
 of the universe, and had publicly executed upon it, in 
 room of the offenders, an Infinite Being, the partaker 
 of his own Supreme Divinity ; suppose him to declare, 
 
424 
 
 that this execution was appointed, as a most conspicu- 
 ous and terrible manifestation of God's justice, amd 
 of the infinite wo denounced by his law ; and suppose 
 him to add, that all beings in heaven and earth are 
 required to fix their eyes on this fearful sight, as the 
 most powerful enforcement of obedience and virtue. 
 Would you hot tell him, that he calumniated his 
 Maker ? Would you not say to him, that this central 
 gallows threw gloom over the universe ; that the 
 spirit of a government, whose very acts of pardon wiere 
 written in such blood,' was terror, not paternal love ; 
 and that the obedience, which needed to be upheld by 
 this horrid spectacle, was nothing worth ? Would you 
 not say to him, that even you, in this infancy and im- 
 perfection of your being, were capable of being wifought 
 upon by nobler motives, and of hating sin through more 
 generQUs views ; and that much mor« the angels, those 
 pure flames of love, need not the gallows and an exe- 
 cuted God, to confirm their loyalty ? You would all so 
 feel at such teaching as I have supposed ; and yet how 
 does this diflfeT from the popular doctrine of atonement ? 
 According to this doctrine, we have an Infinite Beitig 
 sentenced to suffer as a substitute the death of the 
 cross, a punishment more ignominious and agonizing 
 than the gallows, a punishment reserved for slaves and 
 the vilest malefactors ; and he suffers this punishment, 
 that he may show forth the terrors of God's law, and 
 strike a dread of sin through the universe.^— I am indeed 
 aware that multitudes, who profess this doctrine, are 
 not accustoihed to bring it to their minds distinctly in 
 this light; that they do not ordinarily regard the death 
 of Christ, as a criminal execution, as an infinitely 
 dreadful infliction of justice, as intended to show, that, 
 without an infinite satisfaction, they must hope nbth- 
 
425 
 
 ing from God. Their minds turn by a generous instinct 
 from these appalling views, to the love, the disinterest- 
 edness, the moral grandeur and beauty of the sufferer ; 
 and through such thoughts they make the cross a source 
 of peace, gratitude, love, and hope ; thus affording a 
 delightful exemplification of the power of the human 
 mind to attach itself to what is good and purifying in 
 the most irrational system. Not a few may shudder 
 at the illustration which I have here given ; but in 
 what respects it is unjust to the popular doctrine of 
 atonement, I cannot discern. I grieve to shock sincere 
 Christians, of whatever name ; but I grieve more for the 
 corruption of our common faith, which I have now felt 
 myself bound to expose. 
 
 I have a second objectioti to this doctrine of Infinite 
 atonement. When examined minutely, and freed from 
 ambiguous language, it vanishes into air. It is wholly 
 delusion. The Trinitarian tells me, that, according to 
 his system, we have an infinite substitute ; that the In- 
 finite God was pleased to bear our punishment, and 
 consequently, that pardon is made sure. But I ask 
 him, Do I understand you? Do you mean that the 
 Great God, who never changes, whose happiness is the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forever, that this Eternal 
 Being really bore the penalty of my sins, really suf- 
 fered and died ? Every pious man, when pressed by 
 this question, answers. No. What then does the doc- 
 trine of Infinite atonement mean ? Why, this ; that 
 God took into union with himself our nature, that is, 
 a human body and soul ; and these bore the suffering 
 for our sins ; and, through his union with these, God 
 may be said to have borne it himself. Thus this vaunted 
 system goes out — in words. The Infinite victim proves 
 to be a frail man, and God's share in the sacrifice is a 
 36* 
 
426 
 
 mere fiction. I ask with solemnitj, Can tins doctrine 
 give one moment's ease to the conscience of an unbias- 
 sed, thinking man ? Does it not unsettle all hope, by 
 making the whole religion suspicious and unsure ? I am 
 compelled to say, that I see in it no impression of majes- 
 ty, or wisdom, or love, nothing worthy of a God ; and 
 when I compare it with that nobler faith, which directs 
 our eyes and hearts to God's essential mercy, as our 
 only hope, I am amazed that any should ascribe to it 
 superior efficacy, as a j-eligion for sinners, as a means 
 of filling the soul with pious trust and love. I know, 
 indeed, that some will say, that, in giving up an infi- 
 nite atonement, I deprive myself; of all hope of divine 
 favor. To such, I would say, You do wrong to God's 
 mercy. On that mercy I cast myself without a fear. 
 I indeed desire Christ to intercede for me. I regard his 
 relation to me as God's kindest appointment. Through 
 him, ' grace and truth come ' to me from Heaven, and 
 I look forward to his friendship, as among the highest 
 blessings of my whole future being. But I cannot, and 
 dare not ask hinai, to offer an infinite satisfaction for my 
 sins ; to appease the wrath of God ; to reconcile the 
 Universal Father to his own offspring ; to open to me 
 those arms of Divine mercy, which have encircled and 
 borne me from the first moment of my being. The es- 
 sential and unbounded mercy of ffly Creator is the foun- 
 dation of my hope, and a broader and surer the universe 
 cannot give me. 
 
 IX. I now proceed to the last consideration, which 
 the limits of this discourse will permit me to urge. It 
 has been more than once suggested, but deserves to be 
 distinctly stated. I observe, then, that Unitarianism 
 promotes piety, because it is a rational religion. By 
 this, I do not mean, that its truths can be fully compre- 
 
427 
 
 hended; for there is not an object in nature or religion, 
 which has not innumerable connexions and relations be- 
 yond our grasp of thought. I mean, that its doctrines 
 are consistent with one another, and with all established 
 truth. Unitarianism is in harmony with the great and 
 clear principles of revelation ; with the laws and powers 
 of human nature ; with the dictates of the moral sense ; 
 with the noblest instincts and highest aspirations of the 
 soul ; and with the lights, which the universe throws on 
 the character of its author. We can hold this doctrine 
 without self-contradiction, without rebelling against our 
 rational and moral powers, without putting to silence 
 the divine monitor in the breast. And this is an un- 
 speakable benefit ; for a religion, thus coincident with 
 reason, conscience, and our whole spiritual being, has 
 the foundations of universal empire in the breast ; and 
 the heart, finding no resistance in the intellect, yields 
 itself wholly, cheerfully, without doubts or misgivings, 
 to the love of its Creator. 
 
 To Trinitarianism we object, what has always been 
 objected to it, that it contradicts and degrades reason, 
 and thus exposes the mind to the worst delusions. 
 Some of its advocates, more courageous than prudent, 
 have even recommended ' the prostration of the under- 
 standing' as preparatory to its reception. Its chief 
 doctrine is an outrage on our rational nature. Its three 
 persons, who constitute its God, must either be frittered 
 away into three unmeaning distinctions, into sounds 
 signifying nothing ; or they are three conscious agents, 
 who cannot, by any human art or metaphysical device, 
 be made to coalesce into one being ; who cannot be re- 
 ally viewed as one mind, having one consciousness and 
 one will. Now a religious system, the cardinal princi- 
 
428 
 
 pie of which offends the understanding, very naturally 
 conforms itself throughout to this prominent feature, 
 and becomes prevalently irrational. He, who is com- 
 pelled to defend his faith in any particular by the plea, 
 that human reason is so depraved through the fall, as 
 to be an inadequate judge of religion, and that God is 
 honored by our reception of what shocks the intellect, 
 seems to have no defence left against accumulated ab- 
 surdities. According to these principles, the fanatic, 
 who exclaimed, ' I believe, because it is, impossible,' 
 had a fair title to canonization. Reason is too Godlike 
 a faculty, to be insulted with impunity. Accordingly 
 Triuitarianism, as we have seen, links itself with several 
 degrading errors ; and its most natural alliance is with 
 Calvinism, that cruel faith, which, stripping God of 
 mercy and man of power, has made Christianity an in- 
 strument of torture to the timid, and an object of doubt 
 or scorn to hardier spirits. I repeat it, a doctrine, which 
 violates reason like the Trinity, prepares its advocates, 
 in proportion as it is incorporated into the mind, for 
 worse and worse delusions. It breaks down the dis- 
 tinctions and barriers between truth and falsehood. It 
 creates a diseased taste for prodigies, fictions, and ex- 
 aggerations, for startling mysteries, and wild dreams of 
 enthusiasm. It destroys the relish for the simple, 
 chaste, serene beauties of truth. Especially when the 
 prostration of understanding is taught as an art of piety, 
 we cannot wonder, that the grossest superstitions should 
 be devoured, and that the credulity of the multitude 
 should keep, pace with the forgeries of imposture and 
 fanaticism. The history of the church is the best com- 
 ment on the effects of divorcing reason from religion ; 
 and if the present age is disburdened of many of the 
 
429 
 
 superstitions, under which Christianity and human 
 nature groaned for ages, it owes its relief in no small 
 degree, to the reinstating of reason in her long violated 
 rights. , 
 
 The injury to religion, from irrational doctrines when 
 thoroughly believed, is immense. The human soul has 
 a unity. Its various faculties are adapted to one another. 
 One life pervades it ; and its beauty, strength, and 
 growth, depend on nothing so much, as on the harmony 
 and joint action of all its principles. To wound and 
 degrade it in any of its powers, and especially in the 
 noble and distinguishing power of reason, is to inflict on 
 it universal injury. No notion is more false, than that 
 the heart is to thrive by dwarfing the intellect ; that 
 perplexing doctrines are the best food of piety ; that 
 religion flourishes most luxuriantly in mists and dark- 
 ness. Reason was given for God as its great object; 
 and for him it should be kept sacred, invigorated, clari- 
 fied, protected from human usurpation, and inspired 
 with a meek self-reverence. 
 
 The soul never acts so effectually or joyfully, as when 
 all its powers and affections conspire ; as when thought 
 and feeling, reason and sensibility, are called forth to- 
 gether by one great and kindling object. It will never 
 devote itself "to God with its whole energy, whilst its 
 guiding faculty sees in him a being to shock and confound 
 it. We want a harmony in our inward nature. We 
 want a piety, which will join light and fervor, and on 
 which the intellectual power will-fdook benignantly. 
 We want religion to be so exhibited, that, in the clear- 
 est moments of the intellect, its signatures of truth will 
 grow brighter ; that instead of tottering, it will gather 
 strength and stability- from the progress of the human 
 mind. These wants we believe to be met by Unita- 
 
430 
 
 rian Christianity, and therefore we prize it as the best 
 friend of piety. 
 
 I have thus stated the chief grounds, on which I rest 
 the claim of Unitarianism to the honor of promoting an 
 enlightened, profound, and happy piety. 
 
 Am I now asked, why we prize our system, and why 
 we build churches for its inculcation ? If I may be 
 allowed to express myself in the name of conscientious 
 Unitarians, who apply their doctrine to their own 
 hearts and lives, I would reply thus : We prize and 
 would spread our views, because we believe that they 
 reveal God to us in greater glory, and bring us nearer 
 to him, than any other. We are conscious of a deep 
 want, which the creation cannot supply, the want of a 
 Perfect Being, on whom the strength of our love may 
 be centred, and of an Almighty Father, in whom our 
 weaknesses, imperfections, and sorrows may find re- 
 source ; and such a Being and Father, Unitarian Chris- 
 tianity sets before us. For this we prize it above all 
 price. We can part with every other good. We can 
 endure the darkening of life's fairest prpspects. But 
 this bright, consoling doctrine of One God, even the 
 Father, is dearer than life, and we cannot let it go. — 
 Through this faith, everything grows brighter to our 
 view. Born of such a Parent, we esteem our existence 
 an inestimable gift. We meet everywhere our Father, 
 and his presence is as a sun shining on our path. We 
 see him in his works, and hear his praise rising from 
 every spot which we tread. We feel him near in our 
 solitudes, and sometimes enjoy communion with him 
 more tender than human friendship. We see him in 
 our duties, and perform them more gladly, because they 
 are the best tribute we can offer our Heavenly Bene- 
 
431 
 
 factor. Even the consciousness of sin, mournful as it 
 is, does not subvert our peace ; for in the mercy of God, 
 as made manifest in Jesus Christ, vs^e see an inexhausti- 
 ble fountain of strength, purity, and pardon for all vi^ho, 
 in filial reliance, seek these heavenly gifts. — Through 
 this faith, we are conscious of a new benevolence 
 springing up to our fellow creatures, purer and more 
 enlarged than natural affection. Towards all mankind 
 we see a rich and free love flowing from the common 
 Parent, and touched by this love, we are the friends of 
 all. We compassionate the most guilty, and would 
 win them back to God. — Through this faith, we re- 
 ceive the happiness of an ever enlarging hope. There 
 is no good too vast for us to anticipate for the universe 
 or for ourselves, from such a Father as we believe in. 
 We hope from him, what we deem his greatest gift, 
 even the gift of his own Spirit, and the happiness of 
 advancing foreyer in truth and virtue, in power and 
 love, in union of mind with the Father and the Son. — 
 We are told, indeed, that our faith will not prove an 
 anchor in the last hour. But we have known those, 
 who?e departure it has brightened ; and our experience 
 of its power, in trial and peril, has proved it to be equal 
 to all the wants of human nature. We doubt not, that, 
 to its sincere followers, death will be a transitionto the 
 ca'lm, pure, joyful mansions prepared by Christ for his 
 disciples. There we expect to meet that great and 
 gpod Deliverer. With the eye of faith, we already see 
 him looking round him with celestial love on all of every 
 name, who have imbibed his spirit. His spirit ; his loyal 
 and entire devotion to the will of his Heavenly Father; 
 his universal, unconquerable benevolence, through vvhich 
 he freely gave from his pierced side his blood, his life 
 for the salvation of the world ; this divine love, and not 
 
432 
 
 creeds, and names, and fprms, will then be found to at- 
 tract his supreme regard. This spirit we trust to see 
 in multitudes of every sect and name ; and we trust, too, 
 that thejj who now reproach us, will at that day recog- 
 nise, in the dreaded Unitarian, this only badge of Christ, 
 and will bid him welcome to the joy of our common 
 Lord. — I have thus stated the views with which we 
 have reared this building. We desire to glorify God, 
 to promote a purer, nobler, happier piety. Even if we 
 err in doctrine, we think, that these motives should 
 shield us from reproach ; should disarm that intolerance, 
 which would exclude us from the church on earth, and 
 from our Father's house in heaven. 
 
 We end, as we began, by offering up this building 
 to the Only Living and True God. We have erected 
 it amidst our private . habitations, as a remembrancer 
 of our Creator. We have reared it in this busy city, 
 as a retreat for pious meditation and prayer. We dedi- 
 cate it to the King and Father Eternal, the King of 
 kings, and Lord of lords. We dedicate it to his Unity, 
 to his unrivalled and undivided majesty. We dedicate 
 it to the praise of his free, unbought, unmerited Grace. 
 We dedicate it to Jesus Christ, to the memory of bis 
 love, to the celebration of his divine virtue, to the 
 preaching of that truth, which he sealed with blood. 
 We dedicate it to the Holy Spirit, to the sanctifying 
 influence of God, to those celestial emanations of light 
 and strength, which visit and refresh the devout mind. 
 We dedicate it to prayers and praises, which we trust 
 will be continued and perfected in heaven. We dedicate 
 it to social worship, to christian intercourse, to the com- 
 munion of saints. We dedicate it to the cause of pure 
 morals, of public order, of temperance, uprightness, and 
 general good will. We dedicate it to christian admo- 
 
433 
 
 nition, to those warnings, remonstrances, and earnest 
 and tender persuasions, -by which the sinner maybe 
 arrested, and brought back to God. We dedicate it to 
 christian consolation, to those truths which assuage 
 sorrow, animate penitence, and lighten the load of hu- 
 man anxiety and fear. We dedicate it to the doctrine 
 of Immortality, to sublime and joyful hopes which reach 
 beyond the grave. In a word, we dedicate it to the 
 great work of perfecting the human soul, and fitting it 
 for nearer approach to its Author. Here may heart 
 meet heart. Here may man meet God. From this 
 place may the song of praise, the ascription of gratitude, 
 the sigh of penitence, the prayer for grace, and the holy 
 resolve, ascend, as fragrant incense, to Heaven ; and 
 through many generations may parents bequeath to 
 their children this house, as a sacred spot, where God 
 had ' lifted upon them his countenance,' and given 
 them pledges of his everlasting love. 
 
 37 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 AT THE INSTALLATION OF THE REV. M. I. MOTTE. 
 
 BOSTON, 1828. 
 
 II. TIMOTHY I. 7. 
 
 FOE GOD HATH NOT GIVEN US THE SPIRIT OF FEAR, BUT OF POWER, AND 
 OP LOVE, AND OF A SOUND MIND. 
 
 Why was Christianity given ^ Why did Christ seal 
 it with his blood ? Why is it to be preached ? What 
 is the great happiness it confers ? What is the chief 
 blessing for which it is to be prized ? What is its 
 preeminent glory, its first claim on the gratitude of 
 mankind .'' These are great questions. I wish to an- 
 swer them plainly, according to the light and ability 
 which God has given me. I read the answer to them 
 in the text. There I learn the great good which God 
 confers through Jesus Christ. ' He hath given us not 
 the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a 
 sound mind.' The glory of Christianity is, the pure and 
 lofty action which it communicates to the human mind. 
 It does not breathe a timid, abject spirit. If it did, it 
 would deserve no praise. It gives power, energy, cour- 
 age., constancy to the will ; love, disinterestedness, en- 
 larged affection to the heart ; soundness, clearness, and 
 vigor to the understanding. It rescues him who re- 
 ceives it from sin, from the sway of the passioi\s ; gives 
 him the full and free use of his best powers ; brings out 
 
436 
 
 and brightens the divine image in which he was created; 
 and in this way not only bestows the promise, but the 
 beginning of heaven. This is the excellence of. Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 This subject I propose to illustrate. Let me begin 
 it with one remark, which I would williiigly avoid, but 
 which seems to me to be demanded by the circumstances 
 in which I am placed. I beg you to remember, that 
 in this discourse I speak in my own name, and in no 
 other. I am not giving you the opinions of any sect of 
 body of men, but my own. I hold myself alone respon- 
 «sib]e for whit I utter. Let none listen to me for the 
 purpose of learning what others think. I indeed belong 
 to that class of Christians, who are distinguished, by 
 believing that there is one God, even the Father, and 
 that Jesus Christ is not this one God, but his dependent 
 and obedient Son. But my accordance with these is 
 far from being universal, nor have I any desire to extend 
 it. What other men believe is to me of little moment. 
 Their arguments I gratefully hear. Their conclusions 
 I am free to receive or reject. I have no anxiety to 
 wear the livery of any party. I indeed take cheerfully 
 the name of a Unitarian, because unwearied etforts are 
 used to raise ag;ainst it a popular cry ; and I have not 
 so learned Christ, as to shrink from reproaches cast on 
 what I deem his truth. Were the name more honored, 
 I should be glad to throw it off; for I fear the shackles 
 which a party connexion imposes. I wish to regard 
 myself as belonging, not to a sect, but to the commu- 
 nity of free minds, of lovers of truth, of followers of 
 Christ, both on earth and in heaven. I desire to escape 
 the narrow walls of a particular church, and to live un- 
 der the open sky, in the broad light, looknig far and 
 wide, seeing with my own eyes, hearing with my own 
 
437 
 
 ears, and following truth meekly, but resolutely, how- 
 ever arduous or solitary be the path in which she leads. 
 I am then no organ of a sect, but speak from myself 
 alone ; and I thank God that I live at a time, and under 
 circumstances, which make it my duty to lay open my 
 whole mind with freedom and simplicity. 
 
 I began with asking. What is the main design and 
 glory of Christianity ? and I repeat the answer, that its 
 design is to give, not a spirit of fear, but of power, of 
 love, and of a sound mind. In this its glory chiefly 
 consists. In other words, the influence which it is in- 
 tended to exert on the human mind, constitutes its su- 
 preme honor and happiness., Christ is a great Saviour, 
 as he redeems or sets free the mind, cleansing it from 
 evil, breathing into it the love of virtue, calling forth its 
 noblest faculties and' affections, enduing it with moral 
 power, restoring it to order, health and liberty. fSuch 
 was his great aim. To illustrate these views will be 
 the object of the present discourse. 
 
 In reading the New Testament, 1 everywhere meet 
 the end here ascribed. to Jesus Christ. ■ He came, as I 
 am there taught, not to be an outward, but inward de- 
 liverer ; not to rear an outward throne, but to establish 
 his kingdom within us. He came, according to the 
 express language and plain import of the sacred writers, 
 ' to save us from sin,' ' to bless us by turning us from 
 our iniquities,' 'to redeem us' from corruptions 'handed 
 down by tradition,' to form ' a glorious and spotless 
 church ' or community, to ' create us anew after the 
 image of God,' to make us by his ' promises partakers 
 of a divine nature,' and to give us pardon and heaven 
 by calling us to repentance and a growing virtue. In 
 reading the New Testament, I everywhere learn, '"that, 
 Christ lived, taught, died, and rose again, to exert ^ 
 37* 
 
438 
 
 purifying and ennobling influence on the human charac- 
 ter ; to make us victorious over sin, over ourselves, over 
 peril and pain ; to join us to God bj filial love, and above 
 all, by likeness of nature, by participation of his spirit 
 This is plainly laid down in the New^ Testament as the 
 supreme end of Christ. 
 
 Let me now ask, Can a nobler end be ascribed to 
 Jesus? I affirm, that there is, and can be no greater 
 work on earth, than to purify the soul from evil, and to 
 kindle in it new light, life, energy, and love. I main- 
 tain, that the true measure of the glory of a religion, 
 is to be found in the spirit and power which it commu- 
 nicates to its disciples. This is one of the plain teach- 
 ings of reason. The chief blessing to an intelligent 
 being, that which makes all other blessings poor, is the 
 improvement of his own mind. Man is glorious and 
 happy, not by what he has, but by what he is. He 
 can receive nothing better or nobler than the unfolding 
 of his own spiritual nature. The highest existence in 
 the universe is Mind ; for God is mind ; apd the devel- 
 opement of that principle which assimilates us to God, 
 must be our supreme good. The omnipotent Creator, 
 we have reason to think, can bestow nothing greater 
 than intelligence, love, rectitude, energy of will and of 
 benevolent action ; for these are the splendors of his own 
 nature. We adore him for these. In imparting these, 
 he imparts, as it were, himself. We are too apt to look 
 abroad for good. But the only true good is within. In 
 this outward universe, magnificent as it is, in the bright 
 day and the starry night, in the earth and the skies, 
 we can discover nothing so vast as thought, so strong 
 as the unconquerable purpose of duty, so sublime as the 
 spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice. A mind, 
 
439 
 
 which withstands all the powers of the outward uni- 
 verse, all the pains which fire, and sword, and storm 
 can inflict, rather than swerve from uprightness, is 
 nobler -than the universe. Why will we not learn the 
 glory of the soul ? We are seeking a foreign good. 
 But we all possess within us what is of more worth 
 than the external creation. For this outward system 
 is the product of Mind. AU its harmony, beauty, and 
 beneficent influences, are the fruits and manifestations 
 of Thought and Love ; and is it not nobler and happier, 
 to be enriched with these energies, from which the 
 universe springs, and to which it owes its magnificence, 
 than to possess the universe itself? It is not what we 
 have, but what we are, which constitutes our glory and 
 felicity. The only true and durable riches belong to 
 the mind. A soul, narrow and debased, may extend 
 ts possessions to the ends of the earth, but is poor and 
 wretched still. It is through inward health that we 
 enjoy all outward things. Philosophers teach us, that 
 the mind creates the beauty which it admires in nature ; 
 and we all know, that, when abandoned to evil pas- 
 sions, it can blot out this beauty, and spread over the 
 fairest scenes the gloom of a dungeon. We all know, 
 that by vice it can turn the cup of social happiness into 
 poison, and the most prosperous condition of life into a 
 curse. From these views we learn, that the true friend 
 and Saviour, is not he who acts for us abroad, but who 
 acts within, who sets the soul free, touches the springs 
 of thought and affection, binds us to God, and by as- 
 similating us to the Creator, brings us into harmony 
 with the creation. Thus the end which we have as- 
 cribed to Christ; is the most glorious and beneficent 
 which can be accomplished by any power on earth or 
 *n heaven. 
 
440 
 
 That the highest purpose of Christianity is such as 
 has now been affirmed, might easily be shown from a 
 survey of all its doctrines and precepts. It might be 
 shown, that every office with w^hich Jesus Christ is in- 
 vested, was intended to give him power over the human 
 character ; and that his great distinction consists in the 
 grandeur and beneficence of his influence on the soul. 
 But a discussion of this extent cannot be comprehended 
 in a single discourse. Instead 6f a general survey of 
 the subject, I shall take one feature of it, a primary 
 and most important one^ and shall attempt to show that 
 the great aim of this is to call forth the soul to a higher 
 life, to a nobler exercise of its power and affections. 
 
 This leading feature of Christianity, is the knowledge 
 which it gives of the character of God. Jesus Christ 
 came to reveal the Father. In the prophecies concern- 
 ing him in the Old Testament, no characteristic is so 
 frequently named, as that he should spread the know- 
 ledge of the true God. Now I ask, wliat constitutes the 
 importance of such a revelation ? Why has the Creator 
 sent his Son to make himself known? I answer, God 
 is most worthy to be known because he is the most 
 quickening, purifying and ennobling object for the mind ; 
 and his great purpose in revealing himself, is, that he 
 may exalt and perfect human nature. God, as he is 
 manifested by Christ, is another name for intellectual 
 and moral excellence ; and in the knowledge of him, 
 our intellectual and moral powers find their element, 
 nutriment, striength, expansion and happiness. To 
 know God is to attain to the sublimest conception in 
 the universe. To love God is to bind ourselves to a 
 being, who is fitted, as no other being is, to penetrate 
 and move our whole hearts ; in loving whom we exalt 
 ourselves ; in loving whom, we love the great, the good, 
 
441' 
 
 the beautiful, and the infinite ; and under whose influ- 
 ence, the soul unfoMs itself as a perennial plant under 
 the cherishing sun. This constitutes the chief glory of 
 religion. It ennobles the soul. In this its unrivalled 
 dignitj and happiness consist. 
 
 I fear that the world at large think religion a very 
 different thing from what has now been set forth. Too 
 many think it a depressing, rather than an elevating 
 service, that it breaks rather than ennobles the spirit, 
 that it teaches us to cower before an almighty and irre- 
 sistible being ; arid I must confess, that religion, as it 
 bas been generally taught, is anything but an elevating 
 principle. It has been used to scare the child and appal 
 the adult. Men have been virtually taught to glorify 
 God by flattery, rather than by becoming excellent and 
 glorious themselves, and thus doing honor to their 
 Maker. Our dependence on God has been so taught 
 as to extinguish the consciousness of our free nature and 
 moral power. Religion, in one or another form, has 
 always been an engine for crushing the human soul. 
 But such is not the religion of Christ. If it were, it 
 would deserve no respect. We are not, we cannot be 
 bound to prostrate ourselves before a deity, who makes 
 us abject and base. That moral principle within us, 
 which calls us to watch over and to perfect our own 
 souls, is an inspiration, which no teaching can supersede 
 or abolish. But I cannot bear, even in way of argu- 
 ment, to speak of Christianity as giving views of God 
 depressing and debasirg to the human mind. Christ 
 hath revealed to us God as The Father, and as a Father 
 in the noblest sense of that word. He hath revealed 
 him, as the author and lover of all souls, desiring to re- 
 deem all from sin, and to impress his likeness more and 
 more resplendently on all ; as proffering, to all that best 
 
442 
 
 gift in the universe, Jiis ' holy spirit ; ' as having sent 
 his beloved Son to train us up, and to introduce us to an 
 ' inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading in 
 the heavens.' Such is the God of Jesus Christ; a 
 being not to break the spirit, but to breathe trust, 
 courage, constancy, magnanimity, in a word, all the 
 sentiments which form an elevated mind. 
 
 This sentiment, that the knowledge of God, as given 
 by Christ, is important and glorious, because quickening 
 and exalting to the human soul, needs to be taught 
 plainly and forcibly. The main ground of the obliga- 
 tion of being religious, I fear, is not understood among 
 the multitude of Christians. Ask them, why they must 
 know and worship God, and I fear, that were the heart 
 to speak, the answer would be, because he can do with 
 us what he will, and consequently our first concern is 
 to secure his favor. Religion is a calculation of interest, 
 a means of safety. God is worshipped too often on 
 the same principle, on which flattery' and personal atten- 
 tions are lavished on human superiors, and the worship- 
 per cares not how abjectly he bows, if he may win to 
 his side the power which he cannot resist. I look with 
 deep sorrow on this common perversion of the highest 
 principle of the soul. My friends, God is not to be 
 worshipped, because he has much to give, for on this 
 principle a despot, who should be munificent to his 
 slaves, would merit homage. He is not to be adored 
 for mere power ; for power, when joined with selfishness 
 and crime, ought to be withstood, and the greater the 
 might of an evil agent, the holier and the loftier is tlie 
 spirit which will not bend to him. True religion is the 
 worship of a perfect being, who is the author of perfec- 
 tion to those who adore him. On this ground, and on 
 no other, religion rests. 
 
443 
 
 Why is it, my hearers, that God has discovered such 
 solicitude, if I may use the word, to make himself 
 known atid obtain our worship ? Think you, that he 
 calls us to adore him from a love of homage or service ? 
 Has God man's passion for ruling, man's thirst for 
 applause, man's desire to have his name shouted by 
 crowds ? Could the acclamations of the universe, 
 though concentrated into one burst of praise, give our 
 Creator a new or brighter consciousness of his own 
 majesty and goodness ? Oh ! no. He has manifested 
 himself to us, because, in the knowledge and adoratioq 
 of his perfections, our own intellectual and moral per- 
 fection is found. What he desires, is, not our subjec- 
 tion, but our excellence. He has no love of praise. 
 He calls us as truly to honor goodness in others as in 
 himself, and only claims supreme honor, because he 
 transcends all others, and because he communicates to 
 the mind which receives him, a light, strength, purity, 
 which no other being can confer. God has no love of 
 empire. It could give him no pleasure to have his 
 footstool worn by the knees of infinite hosts. It is to 
 make us his children in the highest sense of that word, 
 to make us more and more the partakers of his own na- 
 ture, not to multiply slaves, that he hath sent his Soil to 
 make himself known. God indeed is said to seek his 
 own glory ; but the glory of a creator must consist in 
 the glory of his works ; and we may be assured, that 
 he cannot wish any recognition of himself, but that 
 which will perfect his noblest, highest work, the im- 
 mortal mind. 
 
 Do not, my friends, forget the great end for which 
 Christ enjoins on us the worship of God. It is not, 
 that we may ingratiate ourselves with an almighty 
 agent, whose frown is destruction. It is, that we may 
 
444 
 
 Bold communion with an intelligence and goodness, in- 
 finitely surpassing our own ; that we n^aj ris6 above 
 imperfect and finite natures ; that we may attach our- 
 selves by love and reverence to the best, Being in the 
 universe ; and that through veneration and love we may 
 receive into our own minds the excellence, disinterest- 
 edness, wisdom, purity, and power, which we adore. 
 This reception of the divine attributes, I desire espe- 
 cially to hold forth, as the most gloi'ious end for which 
 God reveals himself. To praise him is not enough. 
 Xhat homage, which has no power to assimilate us to 
 him, is of little 'or no worth. The truest admiration is 
 that by which we receive other minds into our own. 
 True praise is a sympathy with excellence, gaining 
 strength by utterance. Such is the praise which God 
 demands. Then only is the purpose of Christ's reve- 
 lation of God accomplished, when, by reception of the 
 doctrine of a Paternal Divinity, we are quickened to 
 ' follow him, as dear children,' and are ' filled with his 
 fulness,' and become ' his temples,' and ' dwell in God, 
 and have God dwelling in ourselves.' 
 
 I have endeavoured to show the great purpose of the 
 christian doctrine respecting' God, or in what its impor- 
 tance and glory consist. Had I time, I might show, 
 that every other doctrine of our religion has the same 
 end. I might particularly show how wonderfully fitted 
 are the character, example, life, death, resurrection, and 
 all the offices of Christ, to cleanse the mind from moral 
 evil, to quicker, soften, elevate, and transform it into 
 the divine image ; and I might show that these are the 
 influences which true faith derives from him, and through 
 which he works out our salvation. But I cannot enter 
 on this fruitful subject. Let me only say, that I see, 
 
446 
 
 everywhere in Christianity, this great design of liberat- 
 ingi and raising the human mind, on which I have en- 
 larged. I see in Christianity nothing narrowing or de- 
 pressing, nothing of the littleness of the systems which 
 human fear, and craft, and ambition, have engendered. 
 I meet there no minute legislation, no descending to 
 precise details, no arbitrary injunctions, no yoke of 
 ceremonies, no outward religion. Everything breathes 
 freedom, liberality, enlargement. I meet there, not a 
 formal, rigid creed, binding on the intellect, through all 
 ages, the mechanical, passive repetition of the same 
 words, and the same ideas ; but I meet a few grand, all 
 comprehending truths, which are given to the soul, to 
 be developed and applied by itself; given to it, as seed 
 to the Sower, to be cherished and expanded by its own 
 thought, love, and obedience into more and more glori- 
 ous fruits of wisdom and virtue. I see it everywhere 
 inculcating an enlarged spirit of piety and philanthropy, 
 leaving each of us to manifest this spirit according to 
 the monitions of his individual conscience. I hear it 
 everywhere calling the soul to freedom and power, by 
 calling it to guard against the senses, the passions, the 
 appetites, through which it is chained, enfeebled, de- 
 stroyed. I see it everywhere aiming to give the mind 
 power over the outward world, to make it superior to 
 events, to suffering, to material nature, to persecution, 
 to death. I see it everywhere aiming to give the mind 
 power over itself, to invest it with inward sovereignty, 
 to call forth witfiin us a mighty energy for our own 
 elevation. I meet in Christianity only discoveries 6f a 
 vast, bold, illimitable character ; fitted and designed to 
 give energy and expansion! to the soul. By its doctrine 
 of a Universal Father, it sweeps away all the farriers 
 of sect, party, rank, and nation, in which men have 
 38 
 
446 
 
 labored to shut up their love ; makes us members of an 
 unbounded family ; and establishes sympathies between 
 man and the whole intelligent creation. In the char- 
 acter of Christ, it sets before us moral perfection, that 
 greatest and most quickening miracle in human history, 
 a purity, which shows no stain or touch of the earth, 
 an excellence unborrowed, unconfined, bearing no im- 
 press of any age or any nation, the very image of the 
 Universal Father ; and it encourages us, by assurances 
 of God's merciful aid, to propose this enlarged, unsul- 
 lied virtue, as the model and happiness of our moral 
 nature. By the cross of Christy it sets forth the spirit 
 of self-sacrifice with an energy never known before, 
 and, in thus crucifying selfishness, frees the mind from 
 its worst chain. By Christ's resurrection, it links this 
 short life with eternity, discovers to us in the fleeting 
 present, the germ of an endless future, reveals to us 
 the human mind ascending to other worlds, breathing a 
 freer air, forming higher connexions, and summons us 
 ^to a force of holy purpose becoming such a destination. 
 To conclude, Christianity everywhere sets before us 
 God in the character of infinitely free, rich, boundless 
 Grace, in a clemency which is ' not overcome by evil, 
 but overcomes evil with good ; ' and a more aniinating 
 and ennobling truth, who of us can conceive ? I have 
 hardly glanced at what Christianity contains. But 
 who does not see that it was sent from heaven, to call 
 forth, and exalt human nature, and that this is its great 
 glory ? 
 
 It has been my object in this discourse to lay open 
 a great truth, a central, all-comprehending truth of 
 Christianity. > Whoever intelligently and cordially em- 
 braces it, obtains a standard by which to try all other 
 doctrines, and 'to measure the importance of all other 
 
447 
 
 truths. Is it so embraced ? I fexir not. I apprehend 
 that it is diolly discerned by many who acknowledge 
 it, whilst on many more it has hardly dawned. I see 
 other views prevailing, and prevailing in a greater or 
 less degree among all bodies of Christians, and they 
 seem to me among the worst errors of our times. 
 Some of these I would now briefly notice. 
 
 1. There are those!, who, instead of placing the glory 
 of Christianity in the pure and powerful action which 
 it gives to the human mind, seem to think, that it is 
 rather designed to substitute the activity of another for 
 our own. They imagine the benefit of the religion to 
 be, that it enlists on our side an almighty being who 
 does everything for us. To disparage human agency, 
 seems to them the essence of piety. They think 
 Christ's glory to consist, not in quickening free agents 
 to act powerfully on themselves, but in changing them 
 by an irresistible energy. They place a Christian's 
 happiness, not so much in powers and affections unfold- 
 ed in his own breast, as in a foreign care extended over 
 him, in a foreign wisdom which takes the place of his 
 own intelligence. Now the great purpose of" Christi- 
 anity is, not to procure or offer to the mind a friend on 
 whom it may passively lean, but to make th^e mind 
 itself wise, strong, and efficient. Its end is, not that 
 wisdom and strength, as subsisting in another, should 
 do everything for us, but that these attributes should 
 grow perpetually in our own souls. According to 
 Christianity, we are not carried forward as a weight by 
 a foreign agency; but God, by means suited to our 
 moral naturej quickens and strengthens us to walk our- 
 selves. The great design of Christianity is to build up 
 in our own souls a power to withstand; to endure, to 
 triumph. Inward vigor is its aim. That we should do 
 
448 
 
 most for ourselves and most for others, this is the glory 
 it confers, and in this its happiness is found. 
 
 2. I pass to another illustration of the insensibility 
 of men to the great doctrine, that the happiness and 
 glory of Christianity consist in the healthy and lofty 
 fyame to which it raises the mind. I refer to the pro- 
 pensity of multitudes to make a wide separation between 
 religion or christian virtue, and its rewards. That the 
 chief reward lies in the very spirit of religion, they do 
 not dream. They think of being Christians for the 
 sake of somethihg beyond the christian character, and 
 something more precious. They think that Christ has 
 a greater good to give, than a strong and generous love 
 towards God and mankind ; and would almost turn 
 from him with scorn, if ,they thought him only a bene- 
 factor to the mind. It is this low view, which dwarfs 
 the piety of thousands. Multitudes are serving God 
 for wages distinct from the service, and hence supersti- 
 tion, slavishness, and formality are substituted for in- 
 ward energy and spiritual worship. 
 
 3. Men's ignorance of the great truth stated in this 
 discourse, is seen in the low ideas attached by multi- 
 tudes to the word, salvation. Ask multitudes, what is 
 the chief evil from which Christ came to save them, 
 and they will tell you, ' From hell, from penal fires, 
 from future punishment.' Accordingly they think, that 
 salvation is something which another may achieve for 
 them, very much as a neighbour may quench a confla- 
 gration that menaces their dwellings and lives. That 
 word hell, which is used so seldom in the sacred pages, 
 which, in a faithful translation, would not once occur 
 in the writings of Paul, and Peter, and John, which we 
 meet only in four or five discourses of Jesus, and which 
 all persons, acquainted with Jevvish geography, know to 
 
449 
 
 be a metaphor, a figure of speech, and not a literal ex 
 pression, this word, by a perverse and exaggerated use, 
 has done unspeakable injury to Christianity. It has 
 possessed and diseased men's imaginations with outward 
 torturies, shrieks, and flames ; given them the idea of an 
 outward ruiii as what they have chiefly to dread; turned 
 their thoughts to Jesus, as an outward deliverer; and 
 thus blinded them to his true glory, which consists in 
 his setting free and exalting the soul. Men are flying 
 from an outward hell, when in truth they carry within 
 them the hell which they should chiefly dread. The 
 salvation which man chiefly needs, and that which 
 brings with it all other deliverance, is salvation from the 
 evil of his own mind. There is something far worse 
 thaii outward punishment. It is sin ; it is the state of 
 a soul, which has revolted from God, and cast off" its 
 allegiance to conscience and the divine word ; which 
 renounces its Father, and hardens itself against Infinite 
 Love ; which, endued with divine powers, enthrals it- 
 self to animal lusts ; which makes gain its god ; which 
 has capacities of boundless and ever growing love, and 
 shuts itself up in the dungeon of private interests ; 
 which, gifted with a self-directing power, cotisents to be 
 a slave, and is passively formed by custom, opinion, and 
 changing events ; which, living under God's eye, dreads 
 man's frown or scorn, and prefers human praise to its 
 own calm consciousness of virtue ; which tamely yields 
 to temptation, shrinks with a coward's baseness from 
 the perils of duty, and sacrifices its glory and peace in 
 parting with self-control. No ruin can be compared to 
 this. This the impenitent man carries with him beyond 
 the grave, and there meets its natural issue, and inevita- 
 ble retribution, in remorse, self-torture, and woes un- 
 known on earth. This we cannot too strongly fear. 
 38* 
 
450 
 
 To save, in the highest sense of that wore], is to lift the 
 fallen spirit from this depth, to heal the diseased mind', 
 to restore it to energy and freedom of thought, con- 
 sciencie, and love. This was ' chiefly the salvation for 
 which Christ shed his blood. For this the holy spirit, is 
 given ; and to this all the truths of Christianity conspire. 
 
 4. Another illustration of the error which I am 
 laboring to expose, and which places the glory and im- 
 portance of Christianity in something besides its quick- 
 ening influence on the soul, is afforded in the common 
 apprehensions formed of heaven, and of the methods by 
 which it may be obtained. Not a few, I suspect, con- 
 ceive of heaven as a foreign good. It is a distant coun- 
 try, to which we are to be conveyed by an outward 
 agency. How slowly do men learn, that heaven is the 
 perfection of the mind, and that Christ giv^s it now 
 just as far as he raises the mind to celestial truth and 
 virtue. It is true, that this word is often used to express 
 a future felicity ; but the blessedness of the_ future 
 world is only a continuance of what is begun here. 
 There is but one true happiness, that of a mind unfold- 
 ing its best powers, and attaching itself to great objects ; 
 and Christ gives heaven, only in proportion as he gives 
 this elevation of character. The disinterestedness, and 
 moral strength, and filial piety of the Christian, are not 
 mere means of heaven, but heaven itself, and heaven 
 now. 
 
 The most exalted idea we can form of the future 
 state, is, that it brings and joins us to God. But is not 
 approach to this great being begun on earth ? ^nQtl^^^" 
 delightful view of heaven, is, that it unites us with the 
 good and great of our own race, and even with higher 
 orders of beings. But this union is one of spirit, not 
 of mere place ; it is accordance of thought and feeling, 
 
451 
 
 not an outward relation ; and does not this harmony 
 begin even now? and is not virtuous friendship on 
 evuth essentially the pleasure Avhich w« hope hereafter? 
 What place w.ould be drearier than the future mansions 
 of Christ, to one who should want sympathy with their 
 inhabitants, who could not understand their language, 
 who would feel himself a foreigner there, who would 
 be taught, by the joys which he could not partake, his 
 own loneliness and desolation ? These views, I know, 
 are often given with greater or less distinctness ; but 
 they seem to me not to have brought home to men the 
 truth, that the fountain of happiness must be in our own 
 souls. Gross ideas of futurity still prevaiL I should 
 not be surprised if to some among us the chief idea of 
 heaven were that of a splendor, a radiance, like that 
 which Christ wore on the Mount of Transfiguration. 
 Let us all consider, and it is a great truth, that heaven 
 has no lustre surpassing that of intellectual aind moral 
 worth ; and that, were the effulgence of the sun and 
 stars concentrated in the Christian, even this would be 
 darkness, compared with the pure beamings of wisdom, 
 love and power from his mind. Think not then that 
 Christ has come to give heaven as something distinct 
 from virtue. Heaven is the freed and sanctified mind, 
 enjoying God through accordance with his attributes, 
 , multiplying its bonds and sympathies with excellent 
 beings, putting forth noble powers, and ministering, in 
 union with the enlightened and holy, to the happiness 
 and virtue of the universe. 
 
 My friends, I fear I have been guilty of repetition. 
 But I feel the greatness of the truth v^hich I dieliver, 
 and I am anxious to make it plain; Men need to be 
 taught it perpetually. They have always been inclined 
 to look to Christ for something better, as they have 
 
452 
 
 dreamed, than the elevation of their own souls. The 
 great purpose of Christianity to unfold and strengthen 
 and lift up the mind, has been perpetually thrown out of 
 sight. In truth, this purpose has been more than over- 
 looked. It has been reversed. The very religion, given 
 to exalt human nature, has been used to make it abject. 
 The very religion, which was given to create a generous 
 hope, has been made an instrument of servile and tortur- 
 ing feat. . The very religion, which came from God's 
 goodness to enlarge the human sbul with a kindred good- 
 ness, has been employed to narrow it to a sect, to rear the 
 Inquisition, and to kindle fires for the martyr. The very 
 religion, given to make the understanding and conscience 
 free, has, by a criminal perversion, served to break them 
 into subjection to priests, ministers, and human creeds. 
 Ambition and craft have seized on the solemn doctrines 
 of an omnipotent God and of future punishment, and 
 turned them into engines against the child, the trem- 
 bling female, the ignorant adultj until the skeptic has 
 been emboldened to charge on religion the chief mise- 
 ries and degradation of human nature. It is from a 
 deep and sorrowful conviction of the injuries inflicted 
 on Christianity and on the human soul, by these per- 
 versions and errors, that I have reiterated the great 
 truth of this discourse. I would rescue our hbly faith 
 from this dishonor. - Christianity has no tendency to 
 break the human spirit, or to make man a slave. It 
 has another aim ; and as far as it is understood, it puts 
 forth another power. God sent it from heaven, Christ 
 sealed it with his blood, that it might give force of 
 thought and purpose to the human mirid, might free it 
 from all fear but the fear of wrong doing, might make 
 it free of its fello>v beings, might break from it every 
 outward and inward chain. 
 
463 
 
 My hearers, I close with exhorting you to remember 
 this great purpose of our religion. Receive Christianity 
 as given to raise you in the scale of spiritual being. 
 Expect from it no good, any farther than it gives strength 
 and worth to your characters. Think not, as some seem 
 to think, that .Christ has a higher gift than purity to 
 bestow, even pardon to the sinner. He does bring 
 pardon. But once separate the idea of pardon from 
 , purity ; once imagine that forgivdness is possible to him 
 who does not forsake sin ; once make it an exemption 
 from outward punishment, and not the admission of the 
 reformed mind to favor and communion with God ; and 
 the doctrine of pardon becomes your peril, and a system, 
 so teaching it, is fraught with evil. Expect no good 
 from Christ, any farther than you are exalted by his 
 character and teaching. Expect nothing from his cross 
 unless a power comes from it, strengthening you to 
 'bear his cross,' to 'drink his cup,' with his own un- 
 conquerable love. This is its highest influence. Look 
 not abroad for the blessings of Christ. His reign and 
 chief blessings are within you. The human soul is his 
 kingdom. There he gains his victorie;s, there rears his 
 temples, there lavishes his treasures. His noblest mon- 
 ument is a mind, redeemed from iniquity, brought back 
 and devoted to God, forming itself after the perfection 
 of the Saviour, great through its power to suffer for 
 truth, lovely through its meek and gentle virtues. No 
 other monument does Christ desire ; for this will endure 
 and increase in splendor, when earthly thrones shall 
 have fallen, and even when the present order of the 
 out^yard universe shall have accomplished its work, and 
 shall have passed away. 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REV. F. A. FARLEY, 
 PEOVIDENCE, E. I. 1828. 
 
 EPHESIANS, V. 1. 
 
 BE YE THEREFORE FOLLOWERS OF GOD, AS DEAR CHILDREN 
 
 To promote true religion is the purpose of the chris- 
 tian ministry. For this it was ordained. On the 
 present occasion, therefore, when a new teachier is to 
 be given to the church, a discourse on' the character of 
 true religion will not be inappropriate. I do not mean, 
 that I shall attempt, in the limits to which I am now 
 confined, to set before you all its properties, signs, and 
 operations ; for in so doing I should burden your memo- 
 ries with divisions and vague generalities, as uninterest- 
 ing as they would be unprofitable. My purpose is, to 
 select one view of the subject, which seems to me of 
 primary ^ignity and importance ; and I select this, be^ 
 cause it is greatly neglected, and because I attribute to 
 this neglect much of the inefficacy, and many of the 
 corruptions of religion. 
 
 The text calls~us to follow or imitate God, to seek 
 accordance with or likeness to him ; and to do this, not 
 fearfully and faintly, but with the spirit and hope of 
 beloved children. The doctrine, which I propose to 
 illustrate, is derived immediately from these words, and 
 
456 
 
 is incorporated with the whole New Testament. I 
 affirm, and would maintain, that true religion consists 
 in proposing as our great end, a growing likeness to the 
 Supreme Being. Its noblest influence consists, in 
 making us more and more partakers of the Divinity. 
 For this it is to be preached. Religious instruction 
 should aim chiefly to turn men's aspirations and efibrts 
 to that perfection of the soul, which constitutes it a 
 bright image of God. Such is the topic now to be dis- 
 cussed ; and I implore Him, whose glory I seek, to aid 
 me in unfolding and enforcing it with simplicity and 
 clearness, with a calm and pure zeal, and with imfeign- 
 ed charity. 
 
 *I begin with observing, what all indeed will under- 
 stand, that the likeness to God, of which I propose to 
 speak, belongs to man's higher or spiritual nature. It 
 has its foundation in the original and essential capacities 
 of the mind. In proportion as these are unfolded by 
 right and vigorous exertion, it is extended and brighten- 
 ed. In proportion as these lie dormant, it is obscured. 
 In proportion as they are perverted and overpowered by 
 the appetites and passions, it is blotted out. In truth, 
 moral 6vil, ifunresisted and habitual, may so blight and 
 lay waste these capacities, that the image of God in 
 man may seem to be wholly destroyed. 
 
 The importance of this assimilation to our Creator, 
 is a topic, which needs no labored discussion. All men, 
 of whatever name, or sect, or opinion, will meet me on 
 this ground. All, I presume, will allow, that no good 
 in the compass of the universe, or within the gift of 
 omnipotence, can be compared to a resemblance of God, 
 or to a participation of his attributes. I fear no contra- 
 diction here. Likeness to God is the supreme gift. 
 He can communicate nothing so precious, glorious, 
 
457 
 
 blessed as himself. To hold intellectual and moral 
 affinity with the Supreme Being, to partake his spirit, 
 to be his children by derivations of kindred excellence, 
 to bear a growing conformity to the perfection which 
 we adore, this is a felicity which obscures and annihi- 
 lates all other good. 
 
 It is only in proportion to this likeness that we can 
 enjoy either God, or the universe. That God can be 
 known and enjoyed only through sympathy or kindred 
 attributes, is a doctrine which even Gentile philosophy 
 discerned. That the pure in heart can alone see and 
 commune with the pure Divinity, was the sublime in- 
 struction of ancient sages as well as of inspired prophets. 
 It is indeed the lesson of daily experience. To under- 
 stand a great and good being, we must have the seeds 
 of the same excellence. How quickly, by what an 
 instinct, do accordant minds recognise one another ! 
 No attraction is so powerful as that which subsists be- 
 tween the trulj' wise, and good ; whilst the brightest 
 excellence is lost on those, who have nothing congenial 
 in their own breasts. God becomes a real being to us, 
 in proportion as his own nature is unfolded within us. 
 To a man who is growing in the likeness of God, faith 
 begins even here to change into vision. He carries 
 within himself a proof of a Deity, which can only be 
 understood by experience. He more than believes, he 
 feels the divine presence ; and gradually rises to an in- 
 tercourse with his Maker, to which it is not irreverent 
 to apply the name of friendship and intimacy. The 
 apostle John intended to express this truth, when he 
 tells us that he, in whom a principle of divine charity 
 or benevolence has become a habit and life, ' dwells in 
 God and God in him.' 
 39 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
460 
 
 men as a friend and brother, offering laimself as their 
 example, and promising to his true followers a share in 
 all his splendors and joys. In the New Testament, 
 God is said to communicate his own spirit, and all his 
 fulness to the human soul. In the New Testament 
 man is exhorted to aspire after ' honor, glory, and im^ 
 mortality ;' and Heaven, a Avord expressing the nearest 
 approach to God, and a divine happiness, is everywhere 
 proposed as the end of his being. In truth, the very 
 essence of christian faith is, that we trust in God's 
 mercy, as revealed in Jesus Christ, for a state of celes- 
 tial purity, in which we shall grow forever in the like- 
 ness, and knowledge, and enjoyment of the Infinite 
 Father. Lofty views of the nature of man are bound 
 up and interwoven with the whole christian system. 
 Say not, that these are at war with humility ; for who 
 was ever humbler than Jesus, and yet who ever pos- 
 sessed such a consciousness of greatness and divinity.^ 
 Say not that man's business is to think" of his sin, and 
 not of his dignity ; for great sin implies a great capacity ; 
 it is the abuse of a noble nature ; and no man can be 
 deeply and rationally contrite, but he who feels, that in 
 wrong doing he has resisted a divine voice, and warred 
 against a divine principle, in his own soul. — I need not, 
 I trust, pursue the argument from revelation. There is 
 an argument from nature and reason, which seems to 
 me so convincing, and is at the same time so fitted to 
 explain what I mean by man's possession of a like nature 
 to God, that I shall pass at once to its exposition. 
 
 That man has a kindred nature with God, and may 
 bear most important and ennobling relations to him, 
 seems to me to be established by a striking proof. This 
 proof you will understand, by considering, for a moment, 
 how we obtain our ideas of God. Whence come the 
 
461 
 
 conceptions, which we inciL'de under that august name ? 
 Whence do we derive our knowledge of the attributes 
 and perfections, which constitute the Supreme Being ? 
 I answer, we derive them from our own souls. The 
 divine attributes are first developed in ourselves, anil 
 thence transferred to our Creator. The idea of God, 
 sublime and awful as it is, is the idea of our own spirit- 
 ual nature, purified and enlarged to infinity. In our- 
 selves are the elements of the Divinity. God then 
 does not sustain a figurative resemblance to man. It 
 is the resemblance of a parent to a child, the likeness 
 of a kindred nature. 
 
 We call God a Mind. He has revealed himself as a 
 spirit. But what do we know of mind, but through the 
 unfolding of this principle in our own breasts ? That 
 unbounded spiritual energy which we call God, is con- 
 ceived by us only through consciousness, through the 
 knowledge of ourselves. — We ascribe thought or intel- 
 ligence to the Deity as one of his most glorious attri- 
 butes. And what means this language ? These terms 
 we have framed to express operations or faculties of our 
 own souls. The Infinite Light would be forever hid- 
 den from us, did not kindred rays dawn and brighten 
 within us. God is another name for human intelligence, 
 raised above all error and imperfection, and extended, 
 to all possible truth. 
 
 The same is true of God's goodness. How do we 
 understand this but by the principle of love implanted 
 in the human breast ? Whence is it, that this divine 
 attribute is so faintly comprehended, but from the feeble 
 developement of it in the multitude of men ? Who 
 can understand the strength, purity, fulness, and extent 
 of divine philanthropy, but he in whom selfishness has 
 been swallowed up in love ? 
 39* 
 
462 
 
 The same is true of all the moral perfections of the 
 Deity. These are comprehended by us, only through 
 our own moral nature. It is conscience within us, 
 which, by its approving and condemning voice, inter- 
 prets to us God's love of virtue and hatred of sin; and 
 without conscience, these glorious conceptions would 
 never have opened on the mind. It is the lawgiver in our 
 own breasts, which gives us the idea of divine authority, 
 and binds us to obey it. The soul, by its sense of 
 right, or its perception of moral distinctions, is clothed 
 with sovereignty over itself, and through this alone, it 
 understands and recognises the Sovereign of the Uni- 
 verse. Men, as by a natural inspiration, hftve agreed 
 to speak of conscience as the voice of God, as the 
 Divinity within us. This principle, reverently obeyed, 
 makes us more and more partakers of the moral per- 
 fection of the Supreme Being, of that very excellence, 
 which constitutes the rightfulness of his sceptre, and 
 enthrones him over the universe. Without this inward 
 law, we should be as incapable of receiving a law from 
 Heaven, as the brute. Without this, the thunders of 
 Sinai might startle the outward ear, but would have no 
 meaning, no authority to- the mind. I have expressed 
 here a great truth. Nothing teaches so encouragingly 
 our relation and resemblance to God ; for the glory of 
 the Supreme Being, is eminently moral. We blind 
 ourselves to his chief splendor, if we think only or 
 mainly of his power, and overlook those attributes of 
 rectitude and goodness, to which he subjects his omnipo- 
 tepce, and which are the foundations and very substance 
 of his universal and immutable Law. And are these 
 attributes revealed to us through the principles and con- 
 victions of our own souls ? Do we understand through 
 sympathy God's perception of the right, the good, the 
 
463 
 
 holy, the just? Then with what propriety is it said, 
 that in his own image he made man ! 
 
 I am aware, that it may be objected to these views, 
 that we receive our idea of God from the universe, 
 from his works, and not so exclusively from our own 
 souls. The universe, I know, is full of God. The 
 heavens and earth declare his glory. In other words, 
 the effects and signs of power, wisdom, and goodness, 
 are. apparent through the whole creation. But apparent 
 to what? Not to the outward eye ; not to the acutest 
 organs of sense ; but to a kindred mind, which inter- 
 prets the universe by itself. It is only through that 
 energy of thought, by which we adkpt various and com- 
 plicated means to distant ends, and give harmony and 
 a common bearing to multiplied exertions, that we un- 
 derstand the creative intelligence which has established 
 the order, dependencies and harmony of nature. We 
 see God ai .und us, because he dwells within us. It is 
 by a kindred wisdom, that we discern his wisdom in 
 his works. The brute, with an eye as piercing as ours, 
 looks on the universe ; and the page, which to ns is 
 radiant with characters of greatness and goodness, is to 
 him a blank. In truth, the beauty and glory of God's 
 works are revealed to the mind by a light beaming from 
 itself. We discern the impress of God's attributes in 
 the universe by accordance_of nature, and enjoy them 
 through sympathy. — I hardly need observe, that these 
 remarks ia relation to the universe apply with equal, if 
 not greater force, to revelation. 
 
 1 shall now be met by another objection which to 
 many may seem strong. It will be said, that these 
 various attributes of which I have spoken, exist in God 
 in Infinite Perfection, and that this destroys all affinity 
 between the human and the divine mind. To this 
 
464 
 
 I have two replies. In the first place, an attribute, 
 by becoming perfect, does not part with its essence. 
 Love, wisdom, power, and purity, do not change their 
 nature by enlargement. If they did, we should lose the , 
 Supreme Being through his very infinity. Our ideas 
 of him would fade away into mere sounds. For exam- 
 ple, if wisdom in God, because unbounded, have no 
 affinity with that attribute in man, why apply to him 
 that term ? It must signify nothing. Let me ask 
 what we mean, when we say that we discern the marks 
 of intelligence in the universe ? We mean, that we 
 meet there the proofs of a mind like our own. We 
 certainly discern proofs of no other ; so that to deny 
 this doctrine, would be to deny the evidences of a God, 
 and utterly to subvert the foundations of religious belief. 
 What man can examine the structure of a plant or an 
 animal, and see the adaptation of its parts to each other 
 and to common ends, and not feel, that it is the work 
 of an intelligence akin to his own, and that he traces 
 these marks of design by the same spiritual energy in 
 which .they had their origin ? 
 
 But I would offer another answer to this objection, 
 that God's infinity places him beyond the resemblance 
 and approach of man. I affirm, and I trust that I do 
 not speak too strongly, that there' are traces of infinity 
 in the human mind, and that in this very respect, it 
 bears a likeness to God. The very conception of in- 
 finity is the tnafk of a nature, to which no limit can be 
 prescribed. This thought indeed comes to us not so 
 much from abroad as from our own souls. We ascribe 
 this attribute to God, because we possesk^ capacities and 
 wants, which only an unbounded being can fill, and be- 
 cause we are conscious of a tendency in spiritual facul- 
 ties to unlimited expansion. We believe in the divine 
 
466 
 
 infinity through something congenial with it in our own 
 breasts. I hope I speak clearly, and if not, I would 
 ask those to whom I am obscure, to pause before they 
 condemn. To me it seems, that the soul, in all its 
 higher actions, in original thought, in the creations of 
 genius, in the soarings of imagination, in its love of 
 beauty and grandeur, in its aspirations after a pure and 
 unknown joy, and especially in disinterestedness, in the 
 spirit of selfsacrifice, and in enlightened devotion, has 
 a character of infinity. There is often a depth in hu- 
 man love which may be strictly called unfathomable. 
 There is sometimes a lofty strength in moral principle, 
 which all the power of the outward universe cannot 
 overcome. There seems a might within which can 
 more than balance all might without. There is, too, » 
 a piety, which swells into a transport too vast for ut- 
 terance, and into an immeasurable joy. I am speaking 
 indeed of what is uncommon, but still of realities. We 
 see however the tendency of the soul to the infinite in 
 more familiar and ordinary forms. Take for example 
 the delight which we find in the vast scenes of nature, 
 in prospects which spread around us without limits, in 
 the immensity of the heavens and the ocean, and espe- 
 cially in the rush and roar of mighty winds, waves, and 
 torrents, when, amidst our deep awe, a power within 
 seems to respond to the omnipotence around us. The 
 same principle is seen in the delight ministered to us 
 by •Works of fiction or of imaginative art, in which our 
 own nature is set before us in more than human beauty 
 and power. In truth the soul is always bursting its 
 limits. It thirsts: coritinuallv for wider knowledge. It 
 rushes forward to untried happiness; It has deep wants 
 which nothing limited can appease. Its true element 
 and end is ' an uribounded good; Thus God's infinity 
 
466 
 
 has its image in the soul, and through the soul much 
 more than through the universe, we arrive at this con- 
 ception of the Djeitj. 
 
 In these remarks I have spoken strongly. But I have 
 no fear of expressing too strongly the connexion between 
 the divine and the human mind. My only fear is, that 
 I shall dishonor the great subject. The danger to 
 which we are most exposed, is that of severing the 
 Creator from his creatures. The propensity of human 
 sovereigns to cut off communication between themselves 
 and their subjects, and to disclaim a common nature 
 with their inferiors, has led the multitude of men, who 
 think of God chiefly under the character of a king, to 
 conceive of him as a being, who places his glory in 
 multiplying distinctions between himself and all other 
 beings. The truth is, that the union between the 
 Creator and the creature surpasses all other bonds in 
 strength and intimacy. He penetrates all things and 
 delights to irradiate all with his glory. Nature, in its 
 lowest and inanimate forms, is pervaded by his power ; 
 and when quickened by the mysterious property of life, 
 how wonderfully does it show forth the perfections of 
 its Author ! How much of God may be seen in the 
 structure of a single leaf, which, though so frail as to 
 tremble in every wind, yet holds connexions and living 
 communications with the earth, the air, the clouds, and 
 the distant sun ; and, through these sympathies with 
 the universe, is itself a revelation of an omnipotent mind. 
 God delights to diffuse himself everywhere. Through 
 his energy, unconscious matter clothes itself with pro- 
 portions, powers, and beauties which reflect his wisdom 
 and love. How much more must he delight to frame 
 conscious and happy recipients of his perfections, in 
 whom his wisdom and love may substantially dwell, 
 
467 
 
 with whom he may form spiritual ties, and to whom he 
 may be an everlasting spring of moral energy and hap- 
 piness. How far the Supreme Being may communicate 
 his attributes to his intelligent, oifspring, I stop not to 
 inquire. But.that his almighty goodness will impart to 
 them powers and glories, of which the material universe 
 is but a faint emblem, I cannot doubt. That the soul, 
 if true to itself and its Maker, will be filled with God, 
 and will manifest him, more than that sun, I cannot 
 doubt. Who can doubt it, that believes and under- 
 stands the doctrine of human immortality ? 
 
 The views which I have given in this discourse re- 
 specting man's participation of the divine nature, seem 
 to me to receive strong confirmation, from the title or 
 relation most frequently applied to God in the New 
 Testament ; and I have reserved this as the last corro- 
 boration of this doctrine, because to my own mind it is 
 singularly affecting. In the New Testament God is 
 made known to us as a Father, and a brighter feature 
 of that book cannot be named. Our worship is to be 
 directed to him as our Father. Our whole religion is 
 to take its character from this view of the Divinity. 
 In this he is to rise always to our minds: And what is 
 it to be a Father ? It is to communicate one's own 
 nature, to give life to kindred beings ; and the highest 
 function of a Father is to educate the mind of the child, 
 and to impart to it what is noblest and happiest in his 
 own mind. God is our Father, not merely because he 
 created us, or because he gives us enjoyment ; for he 
 (;reated the flower and the insect, yet we call him not 
 their Father. This bond is a spiritual one. This name 
 belongs to God, because he frames spirits like himself, 
 and delights to give them what is most glorious and 
 blessed in his own nature. Accordingly Christianity is 
 
468 
 
 said with special propriety, to reveal God as the Father, 
 because it reveals him as sending his Son, to cleanse 
 the mind from every stain, and to replenish it forever 
 with the spirit and moral attributes of its Author. Sep- 
 arate from God this idea of his creating and training up 
 beings after his own likeness, and you rob him of the 
 paternal character. This relation vanishes, and with 
 it, vanish the glory of the gospel, and the dearest hopes 
 of the human soul. 
 
 The great use which I would make of the principles 
 laid down in this discourse, is to derive from them just 
 and clear views of the nature of religion. What then 
 is religion ? I answer ; it is not the adoration of a God, 
 with whom' we have no common properties; of a dis- 
 tinct, foreign, separate being ; but of an all-communi- 
 cating Parent. It recognises and adores God as a be- 
 ing, whom we know through our own souls, who has 
 made man in his own image, who is the perfection of 
 our own spiritual nature, who has sympathies with us as 
 kindred beings, who is near us, not in place only like 
 this all surrounding atmosphere, but by spiritual influ- 
 ence and love, who looks on us with parental interest, 
 and whose great design it is to communicate to us for- 
 ever, and in freer and fuller str'eams, his own power, 
 goodness, and joy. The conviction of this near and 
 ennobling relation of God to the soul, and of his great 
 purposes towards it, belongs to the very essence of true 
 religion ; and true religion manifests itself chiefly and 
 most conspicuously in desires, hopes, and efforts corres- 
 ponding to this truth. It desires and seeks supremely 
 the assimilation of the mind to God, or the perpetual 
 unfolding and enlargement of those powers and virtues 
 by which it is constituted his glorious image. The 
 
469 
 
 mind, inproportion as it is enlightened and penetrated 
 by true religion, thirsts and labors for a godlike eleva- 
 ti'®n. rWhat else indeed can it seek, if this good be 
 pladed within its reach ? If I am capable of receiving 
 and reflecting the intellectual and moral glory of my 
 Creator, what else in comparison shall I desire ? Shall 
 I deem a property in the outward universe as the high- 
 est good, when I may become partaker of the very 
 mind from which it springs, of the prompting love, the 
 disposing wisdom, the quickening power, through which 
 its order, beauty, and beneficent influences subsist ? 
 True religion is known by these high aspirations, hopes, 
 and efforts. And this is the religion which most truly 
 hbiiors God. To honor him, is not to tremble before 
 him as^ an unapproachable sovereign, nor to utter barren 
 praise which leaves, us as it found us. It is to become 
 what we praise. It is to approach God as an inexhaus- 
 tible Fountain of light, power, and purity. It is to feel 
 the quickening and transforming energy of his perfec- 
 tions. It is to thirst for the growth and invigoration of 
 the divine principle within us. It is to seek the very 
 spirit of God. It is to trust in, to bless, to thank him 
 for that rich grace, mercy, love, which was revealed and 
 proffered by Jesus Christ, and which proposes as its 
 great end the perfection of the human soul. 
 
 I regard this view of religion as infinitely important. 
 It does more than all things to make our connexion with 
 our Creator ennobling and happy ; and in proportion as 
 we want it, there is danger that the thought of God may 
 itself become the instrument of our degradation. That 
 religion has been so dispensed as to depress the human 
 mind, I need not tell you ; and it is a truth, which ought 
 to be known, that the greatness 'of the Deity, when 
 separated in our thoughts from his parental character, 
 40 
 
470 
 
 especially tends to crush human energy and hope. To 
 a frail dependent creature, an omnipotent Creator easily 
 becomes a terror, and his worship easily degenerates 
 into servility, flattery, self-contempt, and selfish calcu- 
 lation. Religion only ennobles us, in as far as it re- 
 veals to us the tender and intimate connexion of God 
 with his creatures, and teaches us to see in the very 
 greatness which might give alarm, the source of great 
 and glorious communications to the human soul. You 
 cannot, my hearers, think too highly of the majesty of 
 God. But let not this majesty sever him from you. 
 Remember, that his greatness is the infinity of attributes 
 which yourselves possess. Adore his infinite wisdom ; 
 but remember that this wisdom rejoices to diffuse itself, 
 and let an exhilarating hope spring up, at the thought of 
 the immeasurable intelligence which siich a Father must 
 communicate to his children. In like manner adore his 
 power. Let the boundless creation fill you with awe 
 and admiration of the energy which sustains it. But 
 remember that God has a nobler work than the outward 
 creation, even the spirit within yourselves ; and that it 
 is his purpose to replenish this with his own energy, 
 and to crown it with growing power and triumphs over 
 the material universe. Above all, adore his unutterable 
 goodness. But remember, that this attribute is particu- 
 larly proposed to you as your model ; that God calls 
 you, both by nature and revelation, to a fellowship in 
 his philanthropy ; that he has placed you in social rela- 
 tions for the very end of rendering you ministers and 
 representatives of his benevolence ; that he even sum- 
 mons you to espouse and to advance the sublimest pur- 
 pose of his goodness, the redemption of the human 
 race, by extending the knowledge and power of chris- 
 tian truth. It is through such views, that religion 
 
471 
 
 raises up the soul, and binds man by ennobling bonds 
 to his Maker. 
 
 To complete my views of this topic, I beg to add an 
 important caution. I have said that the great work of 
 religion is to conform ourselves to God, or to unfold the 
 divine likeness within us. Let none infer from this 
 language, that I place religion in unnatui"al effort, in 
 straining after excitements which do not belong to the 
 present state, or in anything separate from the clear and 
 simple duties of life. I exhort you to no extravagance. 
 I reverence human nature too much to do it violence. 
 I see too much divinity in its ordinary operations, to 
 urge on it a forced and vehement virtue. To grow in 
 the likeness of God, we need not cease to be men. 
 This likeness does not consist in extraordinary or mi- 
 raculous gifts, in supernatural additions to the soul, or 
 in anything foreign to bur original constitution ; but in 
 our essential faculties, unfolded by vigorous and con- 
 scientious exertion in the ordinary circumstances assign- 
 ed by God. To resemble our Creator, we need not 
 fly from society, and entrance ourselves in lonely con- 
 templation and prayer. Such processes might give a 
 feverish strength to one class of emotions, but would 
 result in disproportion, distortion, and sickliness of mind. 
 Our proper work is to approach God by the free and 
 natural unfolding of our highest powers, of understand- 
 ing, conscience, love, and the mpral will. 
 
 Shall I be told that by such language, I ascribe to 
 nature the effects which can only be wrought in the 
 soul by the Holy Spirit? I anticipate this objection^ 
 and wish to meet it by a simple exposition of my views, 
 r would on no account disparage the gracious aids and 
 influences which God imparts to the human soul. The 
 prornise of the Holy Spirit is ahiong the most precious 
 
■472 
 
 in the sacred volume. W^orfds cpuld not. tempt me to 
 part with the doctrine of God's intimate connexion with 
 the mind, and of his free and full communications to it. 
 But .these views are in no respsct at variance with what 
 I, have taught of the method, bj which ^e are to grow 
 in the likeness of God. . Scripture and experience con- 
 cur in teaching, that by the Holy Spirit, we are, to 
 understand a divine assistance adapted to our moral 
 freedom, and accordant with the fundamenta,! truths that 
 virtue is the mind's own work. By the Holy Spirit, I 
 understand an aid, which must be gained and made ef- 
 fectual by our own activity; an aid, which no more 
 interferes with our faculties, than the assistance which 
 we receive from our fellovv beings; an aid, vvhich silently 
 mingles and conspires vvith all other helps aiid means 
 of goodness ; an aid by which we unfold our natural 
 powers in a natural order, and by which we are 
 strengthened to understand and apply the resources de- 
 rived from our munificent Creator. This aid we cannot 
 prize too much, or pray for too earnestly. But Avhere- 
 in,,.let me ask, does it war with the doctrine, that God 
 is to be approached by the exercise and unfolding of 
 our highest powers and affections, in the ordinary cir- 
 cumstances of human life ? 
 
 I repeat it, to resemble our Maker we need not quar- 
 rel with our nature or our lot. Our present state, made 
 up, as it is, of aids and trials, is worthy of God, and 
 may be used throughout to assiitvilate us to him. For 
 example, our domestic ties, the relations of neighbour- 
 hood and country, the daily interchanges of thouglits 
 and feelings, the daily occasioiis of kindness, the daily 
 qlaims ; of want and suffering, these and the other cir- 
 cumstances of our social state, form the best sphere and 
 school for that benevolence, which is Gqd's brightest 
 
473 
 
 attribute ; and we should make a sad- exchange, by sub- 
 stituting for these natural aids, any self-invented iartifi- 
 cial means of sanctity. Christianity, our great guide 
 to God, never leads us away from the path of nature, 
 and never wars with the unsophisticated dictates of 
 conscience. We approach our Creator by every right 
 exertion of the powers he gives us. Whenever we in- 
 vigorate the understanding by honestly and resolutely 
 seeking truth, and by withstanding whatever might warp 
 the judgment; whenever we invigorate the conscience 
 by following it in opposition to the passions ; whenever 
 we receive a blessing gratefully, bear a trial patiently', 
 or encounter peril or scorn with moral courage ; when- 
 ever we perform a disinterested deed ; whenever we 
 lift up the heart in true adoration to God ; w"henevfer 
 we war against a habit or desire which is strengthening 
 itself against our higher principles ; whenever we think, 
 speak, or act, with moral energy, and resolute devotion 
 to duty, be the occasion ever so humble, obscure, famil- 
 iar ; then the divinity is growing within us, and we are 
 ascending towards our Author. True religion thus 
 blends itself with common life. We are thus to draw 
 nigh to God, without forsaking men. We are thus, 
 without parting with our human nature, to clothe our- 
 selves with the divine. 
 
 My views on the great subject of this discourse have 
 now been given. 1 shall close with a brief considera- 
 tion of a few objections, in the course of which I shall 
 offer some views of the christian ministry, which this 
 occasion and the state of the world, seem to me to de- 
 mand. — I anticipate from some an objection to this dis- 
 course, drawn as they will say from experience. I may 
 be told, that I have talked of the godlike capacities of 
 40* 
 
474 
 
 human nature, and have spoken of man as a divinity , 
 and where, it will be asked, are the warrants of this 
 high estimate of our race ? I may be told that I dream, 
 and that I have peopled the world with the creatures 
 of my lonely imagination. What ! Is it only in dreams, 
 that beauty and loveliness have beamed on me from the 
 human countenance, that I have heard tones of kind- 
 ness, which have thrilled through my heart, that I have 
 found sympathy in suffering, and a sacred joy in friend- 
 ship ? Are all ^he great and good men of past ages 
 only dreams ? Are such names as Moses, Socrates, 
 Paul, Alfred, Milton, only the fictions of my disturbed 
 slumbers ? Are the great deeds of history, the discove- 
 ries of philosophy, the creations of genius, only visions ? 
 Oh ! no. I do not dream when I speak of the divine 
 capacities of human nature. It is a real page in 
 which I read of patriots and martyrs, of Fenelon and 
 Howard, of Hampden and Washington. And tell me 
 not that these were prodigies, miracles, immeasurably 
 separated from their race ; lor the very reverence, which 
 has treasured up and hallowed their memories, the very 
 sentiments of admiration and love with which their 
 names are now heard, show that the principles of their 
 greatness are diffused through all your breasts. The 
 germs of sublime virtue are scattered liberally on our 
 earth. How often have I seen in the obscurity of do- 
 mestic life, a strength of love, of endurance, of pious 
 trust, of virtuous resolution, which in a public sphere 
 would have attracted public homage. I cannot but pity 
 the man, who recognises nothing godlike in his own 
 pature. I see the marks of God in the heavens and 
 the earth ; but how much more in a liberal intellect, in 
 magnanimity, in unconquerable rectitude, in a philan- 
 thropy which forgives every wrong, and which never 
 
475 
 
 despairs of the cause of Christ and human virtue. I do 
 and I must reverence human nature. Neither the 
 sneers of a worldly skepticism, nor the groans of a 
 gloomy theology, disturb my faith in its godlike powers 
 and tendencies. I know how it is despised, how it has 
 been oppressed, how civil and religious establishments 
 have for ages conspired to crush it. I know its history. 
 I .shut my eyes on none of its weaknesses and crimes. 
 I understand the proofs, by which despotism demon- 
 strates, that man is a wild beast, in want of a master, 
 and only safe in chains. But injured, trampled on, ^nd 
 scorned as our nature is, I still turn to it with intense 
 sympathy and strong hope. The signatures of its origin 
 and its end are impressed too deeply to be ever wholly 
 effaced. I bless it for its kind affections, for its strong 
 and tender love. I honor it for its struggles against 
 oppression, for its growth and progress under the weight 
 of so many chains and prejudices, for its achievements 
 in science and art, and still more for its examples of 
 heroic and saintly virtue. These are marks of a divine 
 origin and the pledges of a celestial inheritance ; and I 
 thank God that my own lot is bound up with that of 
 the human race. 
 
 But another objection starts up. It may be said, 
 ' Allow these views to be true ; are they fitted fbr the 
 pulpit ? fitted to act on common minds ? They may 
 be prized by men of cultivated intellect and taste ; but 
 can the multitude understand them ? Will the multi- 
 tude feel them ? On whom has a minister to act ? 
 On men immersed in business, and buried in the flesh ; 
 on men, whose whole power of thought has been spent 
 on pleasure or gain ; on men, chained by habit, and 
 wedded to sin. Sooner may adamant be riven by a 
 child's touch, than the human heart be pierced by re- 
 
476 
 
 fined and elevated sentiment. Gross instruments will 
 alone act on grossrninds. Men sleep, and nothing but 
 thunder, nothing but flashes from the everlasting fire of 
 hell, will thoroughly wake them.' 
 
 I, have all along felt that such objections would he 
 made to the views I have urged. But they do not 
 move me. I answer, that I think these views singularly 
 adapted to the pulpit, and I think them full of power. 
 The objection is that they are refined. But I see God 
 accomplishing his noblest purposes by what may be 
 called refined means. All the great agents of nature, 
 attraction, heat, and the principle of life, are refined, 
 spiritual, invisible, acting gently, silently, imperceptibly; 
 and yet brute matter feels their pow^er, and is trans- 
 formed by them into surpassing beauty. The electric 
 fluid, unseen, unfelt, and everywhere diffused, is infi- 
 nitely more efficient, and ministers to infinitely nobler 
 productions, than when it breaks forth in thunder. 
 Much less can I believe, that in the moral world, noise, 
 menace, and violent appeals to gross passions, to fear 
 and selfishness, are God?s chosen means of calling forth 
 spiritual life, beauty, and greatness. It is seldom that 
 human nature throws off all susceptibility of grateful and 
 generous impressions, all sympathy with superior virtue; 
 and here are springs and principles to which a generous 
 teaching, if simple, sincere^ and fresh from the soul, 
 may confidently appeal. 
 
 It is said, men cannot understand the views which 
 seem to me so precious. This objection I am anxious 
 to repelj for the common intellect has been grievously 
 kept down and wronged through the belief of its inca- 
 pacity. The pulpit would do more good, were not the 
 mass of men looked upon and treated as children. 
 Happily for the race, the time is passing away, in which 
 
477 
 
 ujtellect was thought the monopoly of a few, and the 
 majority were given over to hopeless ignorance. Science 
 is leaving her solitudes to enlighten the multitude. 
 How much more may religious teachers take courage 
 to speak to men on subjects, which are nearer to them 
 than ,thej properties and liaws of matter, I mean their 
 o>vn souls. The multitude, you say, want capacity to 
 receive great truths relating to their spiritual nature. 
 But , what, let me ask you, is the , christian religion .'' 
 A: spiritual system,, intended! to turn men's minds upon 
 themselves, to frame them to watchfulness over thought, 
 imagination, and passion,, to establish them in an inti- 
 macy with their own souls. What are all the christian 
 virtues, which jnen are exhorted to love and seek ? 1 
 aijiswer, pure and highimotionslor determinations of, the 
 m^nd. That refinement of thought, which, I am told, 
 transcesnds the common intellect, belongs to the very 
 essence of Christianity. Iriconfirmation of these views, 
 th^e human mirid seems to me to be turning itself more 
 and pore inwards and to be, growing, more alive to its 
 ovvn worth, ^nd its capacities of progress. The spirit 
 of education shows this, and' spidoes the spirit of free- 
 dom. There is a spreading conviction that man was 
 made for a higher purpose thgnjtpbe.a beast of burden^ 
 or a creature of sense. The divinity, is stirring within 
 the hui^an breast, and demanding a culture and a libt 
 erty worthy of the child of Godi. ' Let religious teaching 
 correspond to this ^dvancepent of; the mindi Let it 
 rise above the,te;chnical,, obscurCj ^fld frigid theology 
 ^hich has, come:,, down to us fronO) times of ignorance^ 
 ?Hp(ersti,t)i|(jn, , and islayery..^ u, ; Lejt it penetrate ■, the; hlurtiaa 
 sqiil,.wri reveal jt.toi itself., I J>j^p;, preaching, liibpliewej 
 \st;m ip.t^l%iW¥Vsi a9K^h*"-t')Wihi.9fe)ip true- to human ©a^oj 
 ^i?4,J^4pg,«et\,.t(?ir^f^dth8WioSHgwspintg«ori <^ 'n-.-ih -y -ih 
 
478 
 
 , But the objection which J have stated not only repre- 
 sents men as incapable of understanding, but still more 
 of being moved, quickened, sanctified, and saved, by 
 such views as I have given. If by this objection 
 nothing more is meant, than that these views are not 
 alone or of themselves sufficient, I shall not dispute it; 
 for true and glorious as they are, they do not constitiite 
 the whole truth, and I do not expect great moral 
 effects from narrow and partial views of our nature. I 
 have spoken of the godlike capacities of the soul. 
 But other and very different elements enter into the 
 human being. Man has animal propensities as well as 
 intellectual and morale powers. He has a body as well 
 as mind. He has passions to war with reason, and self- 
 love with conscience. He is a free being, and a tempt- 
 ed being, and, thus constituted he may abd does sin, 
 and often sins grievously. To such a being, religion, 
 or virtue, is a conflict, requiring great spiritual effort, 
 put forth in habitual watchfulness and prayer ; and all 
 the motives are needed, by which force and constancy ' 
 may be communicated to the will. I exhort not the 
 preacher, to talk perpetually of man as 'made but a lit- 
 tle lower than the angels.' I would not narrow him to 
 any class of topics. Let him adapt himself to our whole 
 and various nature. Let him summon to his aid all 
 the powers of this world, and the world to come. Let 
 him bring to bear on the conscience and the heart, God's 
 milder and more awful attributes, the promises and 
 threatenings of the divine word, the lessons of history, 
 the warnings of experience. Let the wages of sin here 
 and hereafter be taught clearly and earnestly. But 
 amidst the various motives to spiritual effort, whith be- 
 long to the minister, none are more quickening than 
 those drawn from the soul itself, and from God's desire 
 
479 
 
 and purpose to exalt it, by every aid consistent with its 
 u freedom. These views 1 conceive are to mix with all 
 others, and without them all others fail to promote a 
 generous virtue. Is it said, that the minister's propeu 
 work is, to preach Christ and not the dignity of human 
 nature ? I answer, that Christ's greatness is manifest- 
 ed in the greatness of the nature which he was sent to 
 redeem ; and that his chief glory consists in this, that 
 he came to restore God's image where it was obscured 
 or effaced, and to give an everlasting impulse and life 
 to what is divine within us. Is it said, that the malig- 
 nity of sin is to be the minister's great theme ? I an- 
 swer, that this malignity can only be understood and felt, 
 when sin is viewed as the ruin of God's noblest work, 
 as darkening a light brighter than the sun, as carrying 
 discord, bondage, disease, and death into a mind framed 
 for perpetual progress towards its Author. Is it said, 
 that terror is the chief instrument of saving the soul ? 
 I answer, that if by terror, be, meant a rational and mor- 
 al fear, a conviction and dread of the unutterable evil 
 iqcurred by a mind which wrongs, betrays, and destroys 
 itself, then I am the last to deny its importance. But 
 a fear like this, which regards the debasement of the 
 soul as the greatest of evils, is plainly founded upon and 
 proportioned to our conceptions of the greatness of our 
 nature. The more common terror, excited by vivid 
 images of torture and bodily pain, is a very questionable 
 means of virtue. When strongly awakened, it general- 
 ly injures the character, breaks men into cowards and 
 slaves, brings the intellect to cringe before , human au- 
 thority, makes man abject before his Maker, and, by a 
 natural reaction of the mind, often terminates in a pre- 
 sumptuous confidence, altogether distinct from virtuous 
 self-respect, and singularly hostile to the unassuming, 
 
480 
 
 charitable spirit of Christianitj. The preacher should 
 rather strive to fortify the soul against physical pains, 
 than to bow it to their mastery, teaching it to dread 
 ftothing in comparison with sin, and to dread sin as the 
 ruin of a noble nature. 
 
 , Men, I repeat it, are to be quickened and raised by 
 appeals to their highest principles. Even the convicts 
 of a prison may be touched by kindness, generosity, and 
 especially by a tone, look, and address, expressing hope 
 and respect for. their nature. I know, that thedoctrinfe 
 of ages has been, that terror, restraint, and bondage are 
 the chief safeguards of human virtue and peace. But 
 we have begun to learn that affection, confidence, re- 
 spect, and freedom are mightier as well as nobler agents. 
 Men can be wrought upon by generous influences. I 
 would that this truth were better understood by religi- 
 ous teachers. From the pulpit generous influences too 
 seldom proceed. In the x-hurch men too seldom hear a 
 voice to quicken and exalt them. Religion, speaking 
 through her public organs, seems often to forget her 
 natural tone of elevation. The character of God, the 
 principles of his government, his relations to the human 
 family, the purposes for which he brought us into being, 
 the, nature which he has given us, and the condition in 
 which he has placed us, these and the like topics, though 
 the sublimest which can enter the mind, are not un- 
 frequently so set forth as to narrow and degrade the 
 hearers, disheartening' and oppressing with gloom the 
 timid and sensitive, and infecting coarser minds with 
 the unhallowed spirit of intolerance, presumption, and 
 exclusive pretension to the favor of God. I know, 
 and rejoice to know, that preaching in its worst forms 
 does good; for so bright and piercing is the light of 
 
 Christianity, that it penetrates in a measure the thick- 
 
481 
 
 est clouds in which men contrive to involve it. But 
 that evil mixes with the good, I also know ; and I should 
 be unfaithful to my deep convictions, did I not say, that 
 human nature requires for its elevation, more generous 
 treatment from the teachers of religion. 
 
 I conclude with saying, let the minister cherish a 
 reverence for his own nature. Let him never despise 
 it even in its most forbidding forms. Let him delight 
 in its beautiful and lofty manifestations. Let him hold 
 fast as one of the great qualifications for his office, a 
 faith in the greatness of the humati soul, that faith, 
 which looks beneath the perishing body, beneath the 
 sweat of the laborer, beneath the rags and ignorance 
 of the poor, beneath the vices of the sensual and selfish, 
 and discerns in the depths of the soul a divine principle, 
 a ray of the Infinite Light, which may yet break forth 
 and ' shine as the sun' in the kingdom of God. Let 
 him strive to awaken in men a consciousness of the 
 heavenly treasure within them, a consciousness of pos- 
 sessing what is of more worth than the outward universe. 
 Let hope give life to all his labors. Let him speak to 
 men, as to beings liberally gifted, and made for God. 
 Let him always look round on a congregation with the 
 encouraging trust, that he has hearers prepared to re- 
 spond to the simple, unaffected utterance of great truths, 
 and to the noblest workings of his own mind. Let him 
 feel deeply for those, in whom the divine nature is 
 overwhelmed by the passions. Let him sympathize 
 tenderly with those, in whom it begins to struggle, to 
 mourn for sin, to thirst for a new life. Let him guide 
 and animate to higher and diviner virtue those, in whom 
 it has gained strength. Let him strive to infuse cour- 
 age, enterprise, devout trust, and an inflexible will, 
 into men's labors for their own perfection. In one 
 41 
 
482 
 
 word, let him cherish an unfaltering and growing faith 
 in God as the Father and quickener of the human mind, 
 and in Christ as its triumphant and immortal friend. 
 That by such preaching he is to work miracles, I <io 
 not say. That he will rival in sudden and outward 
 effects what is wrought by the preachers of a low and 
 terrifying theology, I do not expect or desire. That 
 all will be made better, I am far from believing. His 
 office is^ to act on free beings, who after all must de- 
 termine themselves ; who have power to withstand all 
 foreign agency ; who are to be saved, not by mere 
 preaching, but by their own prayers and toil. Still I 
 Relieve that such a minister will be a benefactor beyond 
 all praise to the human soul. I believe, and know, that 
 on those, who will admit his influence, he will work 
 deeply, powerfully, gloriously. His function is the sub- 
 limest under heaven ; and his reward will be, a growing 
 power of spreading truth, virtue, moral strength, love, 
 and happiness, without limit, and without end. 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 AT THE DEDICATION OF DIVINITY HALL. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, 1836. 
 
 LUKE IV. 32. 
 
 HfS WORD WAS WITH POWER. 
 
 We are assembled to set apart and consecrate this 
 building to the education of teachers of the christian 
 religion. Regarding, as we do, this . religion as God's 
 best gift to mankind, we look on these simple walls 
 reared for this holy and benevolent work, with an in- 
 terest, which more splendid edifices, dedicated to inferior 
 purposes, would fail to inspire. We thank Grod for the 
 zeal which has erected them. We thank him for the 
 hope, that here will be trained, and hence will go forth, 
 able ministers of the New Te^stament. God accept 
 our oflfering and fulfil our trust. May he shed on this 
 Spot the copious dew of his grace, and compass it with 
 his favor as with a shield. 
 
 To what end do we devote this building.'' How 
 may this end be accomplished.'' These questions will 
 guide our present i-eflections. 
 
 To what end is this edifice dedicated ? The answer 
 to this question may be given in various forms, or ex- 
 panded into various particulars. From this wide range 
 of topics, I shall select one, which, from its comprehen- 
 siveness and importance, will be acknowledged to de- 
 
484 
 
 serve peculiar attention. I say then, that this edifice is 
 dedicated to the training of ministers, whose word, like 
 their master's, shall be ' loith power.'' Power, energy, 
 efficiency, this is the endowment to be communicated 
 most assiduously by a theological institution. Such is the 
 truth, which I would now develope. My meaning may 
 easily be explained. By the power, of which I have spo- 
 ken, I mean that strong action of the understanding, con- 
 science, and heart, on moral and religious truth, through 
 which the preacher is quickened and qualified to awaken 
 the same strorig action in others. I mean energy of 
 thought and feeling in the minister, creating for itself 
 an appropriate expression, and propagating itself to the 
 hearer. What this power is, all men understand by ex- 
 perience. All know, how the same truth differs, when 
 dispensed by different lips ; how doctrines, inert and unin- 
 teresting as expounded by one teacher, come fraught with 
 life from another ; arrest attention, rouse emotion, and 
 give a new spring to the soul. In declaring this power 
 to be the great object of a theological institution, 1 an- 
 nounce no discovery. I say nothing new. But this truth, 
 like many others is too often acknowledged only to be 
 slighted. It needs to be brought out, to be made promi- 
 nent, to become the living, guiding principle of education 
 for the ministry. Power, then, I repeat it, is the great 
 good to be communicated by theological institutions. 
 To impart knowledge is indeed their indispensable duty, 
 but not their whole, nor most arduous, nor highest work. 
 Knowledge is the means, power the end. The form- 
 er, when accumulated, as it often is, with no strong 
 action of the intellect, no vividness of conception, no 
 depth of conviction, no force of feeling, is of little or 
 no worth to the preacher. It comes from him as a faint 
 echo, with nothing of that mysterious energy, which 
 
486 
 
 strong conviction throws into style and utterance. His 
 breath, which should kindle, chills his hearers, and the 
 nobler the truth with which he is charged, the less he 
 succeeds in carrying it far into men's souls- We want 
 more than knowledge. We want force of thought, feel- 
 ing and purpose. What profits it to arm the pupil with 
 weapons of heavenly temper, unless his hands be nerved 
 to wield them with vigor and success ? The word of God 
 is indeed ' quick and powerful, and sharper than any 
 two edged sword ; ' but when Committed to him who 
 has no kindred energy, it does not and cannot penetrate 
 the mind. Power is the attribute, which crowns all a 
 minister's accomplishments. It is the centre and grand 
 result, in which all his studies, meditations and prayers 
 should meet, and without which his office becomes a 
 form pnd a show. And yet how seldom is it distinctly 
 and earnestly proposed as the chief qualification for the 
 sacred office ? How seldom do we meet it ? How 
 often does preaching remind us of a child's arrows shot 
 against a fortress of adamant. How often does it seem 
 a mock fight. We do not see the earnestness of real 
 warfare; of men bent on the accomplishment of a great 
 good. We want powerful ministers, not graceful de- 
 claimers, not elegant essayists, but men fitted to act on 
 men, to make themselves felt in society. 
 
 I have said that the communication of power is the 
 great end of a theological institution. Let not this 
 word give alarm. I mean by it, as you must have seen, 
 a very different power from that which ministers once 
 possessed, and which some s.till covet. There have been 
 time$, when the clergy were rivals in dominidn with 
 kings ; when the mitre even towered above the diadem ; 
 when the priest, shutting" God's word on the people, and 
 converting its threatenings and promises into instruments 
 41* 
 
486 
 
 of usurpation, v/as able to persuade men, that the soul's 
 everlasting^oom hung on his ministry, and even .suo 
 ceeded in establishing a sway over fiery and ferocious 
 spirits, vi'hich revolted against all other control. This 
 power, suited to barbarous times, and, as some imagine, 
 a salutary elenjent of society in rude, lawless ages, has 
 .been shaken almost everywhere by the progress of in- 
 tellect; and in Protestant countries, it is openly repro- 
 bated and renounced. It is not to reestablish this, that 
 these walls have been reared. We trust, that they are 
 to be bulwarks against its enqroachments, and that they 
 are to send forth influences more and more hostile to 
 every form of spiritual usurpation. 
 
 Am I told thpit this kind of power is now so fallen and 
 so contemned, that to disclaim or to oppose it seems a 
 waste of words ? I should rejoice to yield myself to this 
 belief. But unhappily the same enslaving and degrading 
 power may grow up under Ei'otestants as under Catholic 
 institutions. In all ages and all churches, terror confers 
 a tremendous influence on him who can sprea^ it ; and 
 through this instrument, the Protestant minister, whilst 
 disclaiming Papal pretensions, is able, if so minded, to 
 build up a spiritual despotism. That this means of sub- 
 jugating the mind should be too freely used and dreadful- 
 ly pel-verted, we cannot wonder, when we consider that 
 no talent is required to spread a panic, and that coarse 
 minds and hard hearts are signally gifted for this work 
 of tortyre. The progress of intelligence is undoubted- 
 ly narrowing the power, which the minister gains by 
 excessive appeals to men's fears, but has by no means 
 destroyed it ; for as yet the intellect, even in Protestant 
 countries, has exerted itself comparatively little on reli- 
 gion ; and, ignorance bege^ing a passive, servile state of 
 mind, the preacher, if so disposed, finds little difficulty 
 
487 
 
 in breaking some, if- not many spirits, by terror. The 
 effects of this ill-gotten power are mournful on the 
 teacher and the taught. The panic-smitten hearer, in- 
 structed that safety is to be found in bowing to an un- 
 intelligible creed, and too agitated for deliberate and 
 vigorous thought, resigns himself a passive subject to 
 his spiritual guides, and receives a faith by which he is 
 debased. Nor does the teacher escape unhurt ; for all 
 usurpation on men's understandings begets, in him who 
 exercises it, a dread and resistance of the truth which 
 threatens its subversion. Hence ministers have so 
 often fallen behind their age, and been the chief foes 
 of the master spirits who have improved the yvorld. 
 They have felt their power totter at the tread of an 
 independent thinker. By a kind of instinct, they have 
 fought against the light, before which the shades of 
 superstition vvere vanishing, and have received their 
 punishmertt in thfe darkness and degradation of their 
 owrl minds. To such power as we have described, we 
 do not dedicate these walls. We woiil^ not train here, 
 if we could, agents of terror, to shake weak nerves, 
 to disease the imagination, to lay a spell on men's 
 faculties, to guard a creed by fires, more consuming 
 than those which burnt on Sinaii. Believing that this 
 method of dominion is among the chief obstructions 
 to an enlightened faith, and abhorring tyranny in the 
 pulpit as truly as on the throne, we would consecrate 
 this edifice to the subversion, not the participation, of 
 this unhallowed power. 
 
 Is it then a^ked, what 1 mean by the power which 
 this institution should aim to communicate ? I mean 
 power to act on intelligent and free beings, by means 
 proportioned to their nature. I mean power to call into 
 healthy exertion the intellect, consciepce, affections, and 
 
488 
 
 moral will of the hearer. I mean force of conception, 
 and earnestness of stjie and elocution. I mean, that 
 ti^uth should be a vital principle in the soul of the teach- 
 er, and should come from him as a reality. I mean, that 
 his whole moral and intellectual faculties s|iould be 
 summoned to his work ; that a tone ©f force and reso- 
 lutioh should pervade his efforts ; that, throwing his 
 soul into his causey he should plead it with urgency, 
 and should concentrate on his hearers all the influences 
 which consist with their moral freedom. 
 
 Every view which we can take of the ministry- will 
 teach uSj that nothing less than the whole amount of 
 power in the individual can satisfy its demands. This we 
 learn, if we consider, first, the weight and grandeur of 
 the subjects which the minister is to iiiusttate and enforce. 
 He is to speak of God, the King and Father Eternal, 
 whose praise no tongue of men or angels can worthily 
 set forth. He is to speak of the soul, that ray of the 
 Divinity, the partaker of God's own immortality, to 
 which the outward universe was made to minister, and 
 which, if true to itfeelf, will one day be clad with a beau- 
 ty and grandeur such as nature's loveliest and sublimest 
 scenery never wears. He is to speak, not of this world 
 only, but of invisible and more advanced states of being ; 
 of a world too spiritual for the ileshly eye to see, but of 
 which a presage and earnest may be fojund in the en- 
 lighteqed and purified mind. He has to speak of virtue, 
 of human perfection, of the love which is due to the Uni- 
 yersal Father and to fellow beings, of the intercourse of 
 the soul with its Crpator, and of all the duties of life as 
 hallowed and elevated by, a teference to God and to 
 the future world.. He has to speak of sin, that essential 
 evil, that only evil, \vhich, by its unutterable fearfulness. 
 
489 
 
 makes all other calamities unworthy of the name. He 
 is to treat, not of ordinary life, nor of the most distin- 
 guished agents in ordinary history, but of God's super- 
 natural interpositions ; of his most sensible and immedi- 
 ate providence; of men inspired and empowered to 
 work the most important revoliitions m society ; and es- 
 pecially of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the theme of 
 prophecy, the revealer of grace and truth, the saviour 
 from sin, the conqueror of death, who hath left us an 
 example of imniaculate virtue, whose love passeth know- 
 ledge,: and whose history, combining the strange and 
 touching contrasts df the cross, the resurrection, and a 
 hieavenly throne, surpasses all other records in interest 
 arid grandeur.. He has td speak, not of transitory con- 
 cerns, but of happiness and misery transcending in dura- 
 tion and degree the most joyful and suffering condition 
 of the present state. He has to speak of the faintly 
 shadowed, but solemn consummation of this world's 
 eventful history ; of the coming of the Son of Man, the 
 reisurrection, the judgment, the retributions of the last 
 day. Here are subjects of intense interest. They claim 
 aod should call forth themind'siwhole power, and are 
 infinitely wronged when uttered with cold lips and from 
 an unmoved heart. 
 
 If \ve next consider the effects, which, through these 
 truths, the minister is to produce^ we shall see that his 
 function demand;:) and should be characterised by power. 
 The first purposei of a minister's function, which is lo 
 enlighten the iinders'tanding onthei subject of religion, 
 iSf^no easy task.; for all ■celigioiis- truth ts not ubvions, 
 plain, shining) with an i irresistible, evidence, so chat a 
 glawe of thought will give the hearbr ipossessidhi of the 
 te!acher?a mind. We sometimes talkjinddedj^ixfitfadiram^ 
 plicity of religioti,: as if it were as eiasy as adiild's beoW, 
 
490 
 
 as if it might be < taught with as little labor as the al- 
 phabet. But all analogy forbids us to believe, thatitte 
 -sublimest truths can be- imparted or gained with little 
 -thought or effort, and the prevalent ignorance confirms 
 I this presumption. Obstacles neither few nor small to a 
 clear apprehension of religion, are found in the ihvisible- 
 iiess of its objects; in the dispropbrtion between the 
 Infinite Creator and thefinite mind 5 is the proneness 
 of human beings to judge of superior natures by their 
 own, and 4a transfer to the spiritual world the properties 
 of matteiiiand the affections of 'sense; in/the perpetudl 
 pressure of outward things upon the attention ; in' the 
 darkness which sin spreads over the intellect ; in thfe 
 ignorance which yet prevails in regard to the human 
 mind ; and, though last not least, in the errors and super-, 
 stitions wjiieh have come down to us fromi past ages, 
 and which exert an unsuspected -power on our whole 
 modes of religious thinking. These obstacles are 
 strengthened by the general indisposition to investigate 
 religion freely and thoroughly. The tone of authority 
 with which it has been taught, the terror and obscure 
 phraseology in; which it has been shrouded, and the un- 
 lovely aspect which it has been made to wear, have con- 
 curred to repel from it deliberate and earnest attention, 
 and to reconcile men to a superficial mode of thinking 
 which they would scorn on every other subject. Add to 
 this, that the early inculcation and frequent repetition of 
 religion, by making it familiar, expose it to neglect. The 
 result of all thepe unfavorable influences, is, that religious 
 truth is more indistinctly apprehended, is mOre shadowy 
 and tinreal to the multitude, than any other truth ; and^ 
 tiMiappily, this remark' applies with almost equal trUtbi 
 to all ranks of society and all orders of ihtellect; The 
 loose conceptions of Christianity which prevail among 
 
491 
 
 the high as well as the low, do not deserve thename of 
 knowledge. The loftiest minds amon^ us seldbm put 
 forth their strength on> the very subject, for which 
 intelligence was especially given. A great revolution 
 is needed here. The human intellect is to be brougJit 
 to act on religion with new power. It ought to prose- 
 cute this inquiry with an intenseness, with which no 
 other subject is investigated. And does it require no 
 energy in the teacher, to awaken this power and 
 earnestness of thought in others, to bring religion be- 
 fore the intellect as its worthiest object, to raise men's 
 traditional, lifeless, superficial faith into deliberate pro- 
 found conviction? 
 
 That the ministry should be characterised by power 
 and energy, will be made niore apparent, if we consider 
 that it is instituted to quicken, not only the intellect 
 but the conscience ; to enforce the obligations, as well 
 as illustrate the truth of religion. It is an important 
 branch of the minister's duty, to bring home the general 
 principles of duty to the individual mind ; to turn it 
 upon itself; to rouse it to a resolute, impartial survey of 
 its^ whole responsibilities and ill deserts. And is not 
 (?nergy needed to break through the barriers of pride 
 and self-loVe, and to place the individual before a tribu- 
 nal in his own breast, as solemn and searching as that 
 which awaits him at the last day ? It is not indeed so 
 difficult to rouse, in the timid and susceptible, a morbid 
 susceptibility of conscience, to terrify weak people into 
 the idea, that they are to answer for sins inherited from 
 the first fallen pair, and entailed upon them by a stern 
 necessity. But this feverish action of the conscience is 
 its weakness, not its strength ; and the teacher who 
 would rouse the moral sense to discriminating judg- 
 
492 
 
 ment and healthful feeling, has need of a vastly higher 
 kind of power than, is required to darken and disease' it. 
 Another proof that the ministry should be characteris- 
 ed by power;, is given to us by the consideration, that It 
 is intended to act on the affections ; to exhibit religion 
 in its loveliness and venerableness, as well as in its truth 
 and obligation ; to concentrate upon it all the strength 
 pf moral feeling. The christian teacher has a great 
 work to do in the human heart. His function has, for 
 its highest aim, to call forth towards God the profotind- 
 est awe, attachment, trust, and joy, of which human 
 nature is capable. Religion demands, that He who is 
 supreme in. the universe, should be supreme in the hu- 
 man soul. God, to whom belongs the mysterious and 
 incommunicable attribute of Infinity ; who is the ful- 
 ness and source of life and thought, of beauty and pow- 
 er, of love and happiness ; on whom we dtepend more in- 
 timately than the stream on the fountain, or the plant on 
 the earth in which it is rooted,- — this Great Being ought 
 to call forth peculiar emotions, and to move and sway 
 the soul, as' he pervades creation, with unrivalled en- 
 ergy. It is his distinction, that he unites in his nature 
 infinite -majesty and infinite benignity, the most awful 
 with the most endearing attributes, the tenderest rela^ 
 tidns to the individual with the grandeur of the universal 
 sovereign; and, through this nature, he is fitted to act 
 on the mind as no other being can,— to awaken a love 
 more intense, a veneration more profound, a sensibility 
 of which the soul knows not its capacity until it is pene- 
 trated and touched by God. To bring the created 
 mind into living union with the Infinite Mind, so that it 
 shall respond to him through its whole being, is the 
 noblest function, which this harmonious and beneficent 
 
493 
 
 universe performs. For this, revelation was given. For 
 this, the ministry was instituted. The cliristian teach- 
 er is to make more audible, and to interpret the voice, in 
 which the beauty and aw(ulness of nature, the heav- 
 ens, the earth, fruitful seasons, storms and thunders, 
 recall men to their Creator. Still more, he is to turn 
 them to the clearer, milder, more attractive splendors, 
 in which the Divinity is revealed by Jesus Christ. His 
 great -purpose, I repeat it, is, to give vitality to the 
 thought of God in the liuman mind ; to make his pre- 
 sence felt ; to make him a reality, and the most powerful 
 reality to the soul. And is not this a work requiring 
 erlergy of thought and utterance ? Is it easy, in a world 
 of matter and sense, amidst crowds of impressions rush- 
 ing in from abroad, amidst the constant and visible agen- 
 cy of second causes, amidst the anxieties, toils, pleasures, 
 dissipations, and competitions of life, in the stir and 
 bustle of society, and in an age when luxury wars with 
 spirituality, and the develbpement of nature's resources is 
 turning men's trust from the Creator, — is it easy, amidst 
 these gross interests and distracting influences, to raise 
 men's minds to the invisible Dil^inity, to fix impressions 
 of God deeper and more enduring than those which are 
 received from all other beings, to make him the supreme 
 object, spring, and motive of the soul ? 
 
 We have seen how deep and strong are the affections 
 which the minister is to awaken towards God. But 
 strength of religious impression is not his whole work. 
 From the imperfections of our nature, this very strength 
 has its dangers. Religion, in becoming fervent, often 
 becomes morbid. It is the minister's duty to inculcate 
 a piety characterised by wisdom as much as by warmth ; 
 to mediate, if I may so speak, between the reason and 
 the affections, so that, with joint energy and in blessed 
 42 
 
494 
 
 harmony, they may rise together and offer up the undi- 
 vided soul to God. Whoever understands the strength 
 of ernotion in man's nature, and how hardly the balance 
 of the soul is preserved, need not be told of the ardu- 
 ousness of this work. Devout people, through love of 
 excitement, and through wrong views of the love of God, 
 are apt to cherish the devotional feelings, at the expense, 
 if not to the exclusion, of other parts of our nature. 
 They seem to imagine that piety, like the Upas tree, 
 makes a desert where it grows ; that the mind, if not 
 the body, needs a cloister. The natural movements of 
 the soul are repressed ;' the social affections damped ; the 
 grace, and ornament, and innocent exhilarations of life 
 frowned upon ; and a gloomy, repulsive religion is culti- 
 vated, which, by way of compensation for its privations, 
 claims a monopoly of God's favor, abandoning all to his 
 wrath who will not assume its own sad livery and echo 
 its own sepulchral tones. Through such exhibitions, re- 
 ligion has lost its honor; and though the most ennobling 
 of all sentiments, dilating the soul with vast thoughts and 
 an unbounded hope, has been thought to contract and 
 degrade it. The minister is to teach an earnest but en- 
 lightened religion ; a piety, which, far from wasting or 
 eradicating, will protect, nourish, freshen the mind's 
 various affections and powers ; which will add force to 
 reason, as well as ardor to the heart ; which will at once 
 bind us to God, and cement and multiply our ties to our 
 families, ourcountry, and mankind ; which will heighten 
 the relish of life's pleasures, whilst it kindles an un- 
 quenchable thirst for a purer happiness in the life to come. 
 Religion does not mutilate our nature. It does not lay 
 waste our human interests and affections, that it may 
 erect for God a throne amidst cheerless and solitary 
 ruins, but widens the range of thought, feeling, and 
 
495 
 
 enjoyment. Such is religion ; and the christian ministry, 
 having for its end the communication of this healthful, 
 well-proportioned, and all-comprehending piety, demands 
 every energy of thought, feeling, and utterance, which 
 the individual can bring to the work. 
 
 The time would fail me to speak of the other affec- 
 tions and sentiments which the ministry is instituted to 
 excite and cherish, and 1 hasten to another object of the 
 christian teacher, which, to those who know themselves, 
 will peculiarly illustrate the power which his office de- 
 mands. It is his duty to rouse men to self-conflict, to 
 warfare with the evil in their own hearts. This is in truth 
 the supreme evil. The sotest calamities of life, sickness, 
 poverty, scorn, dungeons, and death, form a less amount 
 of desolation and suffering than is included in that orie 
 word, sin — in revolt from God, in disloyalty to conscience, 
 in the tyranny of the passions, in the thraldom of the 
 soul's noblest powers. To redeem men from sin was 
 Christ's great end. To pierce them with a new con- 
 sciousness of sin, so that they shall groan under it, and 
 strive against it, and through prayer and watching master 
 it, is an essential part of the minister's work. Let him 
 not satisfy himself with awakening, by his eloquence,, 
 occasional emotions of gratitude or sympathy. He 
 must rouse the soul to solemn, stern resolve against its 
 own deep and cherished corruptions, or he only makes 
 a show of assault, and leaves the foe intrenched and 
 unbroken within. We see, then, the ardubusness of the 
 minister's work. He is called to war with the might of 
 the human passions, with the whole power of moral evil. 
 He is to enlist men, not for a crusade, nor for extermi- 
 nation of heretics, but to fight a harder battle within, to 
 expel sin in all its forms, and Especially their besetting 
 
496 
 
 sins, from the strong holds of the heart. I know no 
 task so arduous, none which demands equal power. 
 
 I shall take but one more view of the objects for 
 which the christian ministry was instituted, and from 
 which we infer that it should be fraught with energj. 
 Jt is the duty of the christian teacher to call forth in 
 the soul, a conviction of, its immortality, a thirst for a 
 higher existence, and a grandeur, and elevation of senti- 
 ment, becoming a being who is to live, enjoy, and ad- 
 vance, forever. His business is with men, not as in- 
 habitants of this world, but as related to invisible beings, 
 and to purer and happier worlds. The minister should 
 look with reverence on the human soul as having within 
 itself the germ of heaven. He should recognise, in the 
 ignorant and unimproved, vast spiritual faculties given 
 for perpetual enlargement, just as the artist of genius 
 sees in the unhewn marble the capacity of being trans- 
 formed into a majesty and grace, which will command 
 the admiration of ages. In correspondence with these 
 views, let him strive to quicken men to a consciousness 
 df their inward nature and of its affinity with God, and 
 to raise their steadfast aim and hope to its intermina- 
 ble progress and felicity. Such is his function. Per- 
 haps I may be told, that men are incapable of rising, 
 under the best instruction, to this height of thought and 
 feeling. But let us never despair of our race. There 
 is, I am sure, in the human soul, a deep consciousness, 
 which responds to him, who sincerely, and with the lan- 
 guage of reality, speaks to it of the great and everlasting 
 purposes for which it was created. There are sublime 
 instincts in man. There is in human nature, a want 
 which the world cannot supply ; a thirst for objects on 
 which to pour forth more fervent admiration and love, 
 
497 
 
 than visible things awaken; a thirst for the unseen, the in- 
 finite, and the everlasting. Most of you who liear, have 
 probably had moments, when a new light has seemed to 
 dawn, a new life to stir within you ; when you have 
 aspired after an unknown good ; when you have been 
 touched by moral greatness and disinterested love ; when 
 you have longed to break every chain of selfishness and 
 sensuality, and enjoy a purer being. It is on this part of 
 our nature that religion is founded. To this Christianity 
 is addressed. The power to speak to this, is the noblest 
 which God has imparted to man or angel, and should be 
 coveted above all things by the christian teacher. 
 
 The need of power in the ministry has been made 
 apparent, from the greatness of the truths to be dispens- 
 ed and the effects to be wrought by the christian teach- 
 er. The question then comes. How may the student of 
 theology be aided in gaining or cherishing this power? 
 Under what influences should he be placed ? What 
 are the springs or foundations of the energy which he 
 needs ? How may he be quickened and trained to act 
 most efficiently on the minds of men ? In answering 
 these questions, we of course determine the character 
 which belongs to a theological institution, the spirit 
 which it should cherish, the discipline, the mode of teach- 
 ing, the excitements, which it should employ. From this 
 wide range, I shall select a few topics which are recom- 
 mended at once by their own importance and by the 
 circumstances in which we are now placed. 
 
 1. To train the student to power of thought and ut- 
 terance, let him be left, and still more, encouraged, to 
 free investigation. Without this, a theological institu- 
 tion becomes a prison to the intellect and a nuisance 
 to the church. The mind grows by free action. Con- 
 42* 
 
498 
 
 fine it to beaten paths, prescribe to it the results in 
 which all study must end, and jou rob it of elasticity 
 and life. It will never spread to its full dimensions. 
 Teach the young man, that the instructions of others are 
 designed to quicken, not supersede his own activity; that 
 he has a divine intellect for which he is to answer to 
 God ; and that to surrender it to another is to cast the 
 crown from his head and to yield up his noblest 
 birthright. Encourage him, in all great questions, to 
 hear both sides, and to meet fairly the point of every 
 hostile argument. Guard him against tampering with 
 his own mind, against silencing its whispers and objec- 
 tions, that he may enjoy a favorite opinion undisturbed. 
 Do not give him the shadow for the substance of free- 
 dom, by telling him to inquire, but prescribing to him the 
 convictions at which he must stop. Better show him 
 honestly his chains, than mock the slave with the show 
 of liberty. 
 
 I know the objection to this course. It puts to haz- 
 ard, we are told, the religious principles of the young. 
 The objection is not without foundation. The danger 
 is not unreal. But I know no method of forming a 
 manly intellect, or a manly character, without danger. 
 Peril is the element in which power is developed. Re- 
 move the youth from every hazard, keep him in lead- 
 ing strings lest he should stray into forbidden paths, 
 surround him with down lest he should be injured by 
 a fall, shield him from wind and storms, and you doom 
 him to perpetual infancy. All liberty is perilous, as 
 the despot truly affirms ; but who would therefore seek 
 shelter under a despot's throne? Freedom of will is 
 almost a tremendous gift ; but still, a free agent, with all 
 his capacity of crime, is infinitely more interesting and 
 noble than the most harmonious and beautiful machine. 
 
499 
 
 Freedom is the nurse of intellectual and moral vigor. 
 Better expose the mind to error, than rob it of hardihood 
 and indiyidualitj. Keep notthe destined teacher of man- 
 kind froa> the perilous field, where the battle between 
 Truth and Falsehood is fought. Let him grapple with dif- 
 ficulty, sophistry, and error. Truth is a conquest, and no 
 man holds her so, fast aS* he who has won her by conflict. 
 
 That cases of itifidelity may occur in institutions 
 conducted on free principles, is very possible, though 
 our own experience gives no ground for fear. But the 
 student, who^, with. alL the aids to christian belief which 
 are furnished in a theological seminary, still falls a prey to 
 skepticism, is not the man to be trusted with the cause 
 of Christ. He is radically deficient. He wants that 
 congeniality with spiritual and lofty truths, without 
 which the evidences of. religion work no deep conviction, 
 and without which the faith, that might be instilled by 
 a slavish institution, would be of little avail. An upright 
 mind may indeed be disturbed and shaken- for a time by 
 the arguments of skepticism ; but these will be ulti- 
 mately repelled, and, like conquered foes, will strengthen 
 the principle .by which they have been subdued. 
 
 Nothing,! am: sure, can give power like a free action 
 of the mind.; Accumulate teachers and books, for these 
 are indispensable. , But the best teacher is he, who 
 awakens in his pupils the power of thought, and aids 
 them to go alone. It is possible to weaken and en- 
 cumber the mind by too much help. The very splen- 
 dor of a teacher's talents may injure the pupil ; and a 
 superior man, who is more anxious to spread his own 
 creed and- his own praise, than to nourish a strong intel- 
 lect in others, will only waste his life in multiplying 
 poor copies, and in sending forth- into the churches, tame 
 mjmics of himself. 
 
500 
 
 To free inquiry, then, we dedicate these walls. We 
 invite into them the ingenuous young man, who prizes 
 liberty , of mind more than aught within the g.ft of 
 sects or of the world. Let Heaven's free air circulate, 
 and Heaven's unobstructed light shine here, and let those 
 who shall be sent hence, go forth, not to echo with ser- 
 vility a creed imposed on their weakness, but to utter, 
 in their own manly tones, what their own free investiga- 
 tion and deep convi<;tion urge thetti to preach as the 
 truth of God. 
 
 2. In the second place, to give power to the teacher, 
 he should be imbued, by all possibJe inculcation and ex- 
 citement, with a supreme and invincible love of truth. 
 This is at once the best defence against the perils of free 
 inquiry, and the inspirer of energy both in thought and 
 utterance. The first duty of a rational being is to his 
 own intellect ; for it is through soundness and honesty 
 of intellect that he is to learn all other duties. I know 
 no virtue more important and appropriate to a teacher, 
 and especially a religious teacher, than fairness and rec- 
 titude of understanding, than a love of truth stronger 
 than the love of gain, honor, life ; and yet, so far from 
 being cherished, this virtue has been warred against, 
 hunted down, driven to exile, or doomed to the stake, 
 in almost every christian country, by ministers, church- 
 es, religious seminaries, or a maddened populace. In 
 the glorious company of heroes and martyrs, a high 
 rank belongs to him, who, superior to the frowns or the 
 sneers, the pity or the wrath, which change of views 
 would bring upon him, and in opposition to the warping 
 influences of patronage, of private friendship, or ambi- 
 tion, keeps his mind chaste, inviolate, a sacred temple 
 for jtruth, ever open to new light from Heaven ; and who, 
 faithful to his deliberate convictions, speaks simply, and 
 
501 
 
 firmly, what his uncorrupted mind believes. This love 
 of" truth gives povk^er, for it secures a growing knowledge 
 of truth ; and truth is the mighty weapon by which the 
 victories of religion are to be wrought out. This en- 
 dures whilst error carries with it the seeds of decay. 
 Truth is an emanation from God, a Jaeam of his wisdom, 
 and immutable as its source ; and although its first influ- 
 ences may seem to be exceeded by those of error, it grows 
 stronger, and strikes deeper root, amidst the fluctuations 
 and ruins of false opinions. Besides, this loyalty to truth 
 not only leads to its acquisition, but, still more, begets a 
 vital acquaintance with it, a peculiar conviction, which 
 gives directness, energy, and authority, to teaching. A 
 minister, who has been religiously just to his own un- 
 derstanding, speaks with a tone of reality, of calm confi- 
 dence, of conscious uprightness, which cannot be caught 
 by the servile repeater of other men's notions, or by the 
 passionate champion of an unexamined creed. A look, 
 an accent, a word, from a single-hearted inquirer after 
 truth, expressing his deliberate convictions, has a peculiar 
 power in fortifying the convictions of others. To the 
 love of truth, then, be these walls consecrated, and here 
 may every influence be combined to build it up in the 
 youthful heart. 
 
 3. To train powerful ministers, let an institution 
 avail itself of the means of forming a devotional spirit, 
 and imbuing the knowledge of the student with religious 
 sensibility. Every man knows, that a cultivated mind, 
 under strong and generous emotion, acquires new com- 
 mand of its resources, new energy and fulness of thought 
 and expression ; whilst, in individuals of native vigor of 
 intellect, iPeelin>g almost supplies the place of culture, in- 
 spiring the unlettered teacher with a fervid, resistless elo- 
 quence', which' ixo apparatus of books, teach^r^, criticism,' 
 
502 
 
 ancient languages, and general literature, can impart. 
 This power of sensibility to fertilize and vivify the intel- 
 lect, is not difficult of explanation. A strong and pure 
 afifeotion concentrates the attention on its objects, fastens 
 on them the whole soul, and thus gives vividness of con- 
 ception. It associates, intimately, all the ideas which are 
 congenial with itself, and- thus causes a rush of thought 
 into the mind in moments of excitement. Indeed, a 
 strong emotion seems to stir up the soul from its founda- 
 tions, and'to attract to itself, and to impregnate with its 
 own fire, whatever elements, conceptions, illustrations, 
 can be pressed into its own service. Hence it is, that 
 even ordinary men, strongly moved, abound in arguments, 
 analogies, and fervent appeals, which nothing but sen- 
 sibility could have taught. Every minister cati proba- 
 bly recollect periods, when devotional feeling has seemed 
 to open a new fountain of thought in the soul. Re- 
 ligious affection instinctively seeks and seizes the reli- 
 gious aspects of things. It discerns the marks of God, 
 and proofs and illustrations; of divine truth, in all nature 
 and providence ; and seems to surround the mind with 
 an atmosphere which spreads its own warm hues on 
 every object which enters it. This attraction, or affini- 
 ty, if 1 may so say, which an emotion establishes among 
 the thoughts which accord with itself, is one of the very 
 important laws of the miiid, and is chiefly manifested 
 in poetry, eloquence, and all the higher efforts of intel- 
 lect by which man sways his fellow beings. Religiousi 
 feeling, then, is indispensable to a powerful minister. 
 Without it, learning and fancy may please, but cannot 
 move men profoundly and permanently. It is this, 
 which not only suggests ideas, but gives felicity and 
 enfergy of expression. It prpmpts ' the words that burn ;' 
 those mysteriiius combinations of speech, whieh send 
 
503 
 
 the speaker's soul like lightning through his hearers, 
 which breathe new life into old and faded truths, and 
 cause an, iogtantaneous gush of thought and. feeling in 
 susceptible minds. 
 
 We dedicate this institution, then, to religious feeling. 
 Here let the heart muse, till the fire burns. Here let 
 prayer, joined, with meditation on nature and scripture, 
 and on the fervid writings of devout men, awaken the 
 whole strength of the aflfections. But on no point is 
 caution more needed than on this. Let it never be 
 forgotten, that we want genuine feeling; not its 
 tones, looks, and gestures, not a forced ardor and facti- 
 tious zeal. Wo to that institution, where the young 
 man is expected to repeat the language of emotion, 
 whether he feel it or not; where perpetual pains are 
 taken, to chafe the mind to a warmth which it cannot 
 sustain. The affections are delicate and must not be 
 tampered with. They cannot be compelled. Hardly 
 anything is more blighting to genuine sensibility, than 
 to assume its tones and badge where it does not exist. 
 Exhort the student to cherish devout feeling, by in- 
 tercourse with God, and with those whom God has 
 touched. But exhort him as strenuously, to abstain from 
 every sign of emotion which the heart does not prompt. 
 Teach him that nothing grieves more the Holy Spirit, 
 or sooner closes the mind against heavenly influences, 
 than insincerity. Teach him to be simple, ingenuous, 
 true to his own soul. Better be cold, than affect to feel. 
 In truth, nothing is so cold as an assumed,, noisy enthusi- 
 asm. Its best emblem is the northern blast of winter, 
 which freezes as it roars. Be this spot sacred to 
 Christian ingenuousness and sincerity. Let it never be 
 polluted by pretence, by affected fervor, by cant and 
 theatric show. 
 
504 
 
 4. Another source of power in the ministry, is Faith ; 
 by which we mean, not a general belief in the truths 
 of Christianity, but a confidence in the great results, 
 which this religion and the ministry are intended to pro- 
 mote. It has often been observed, that a strong faith 
 tends to realize its objects ; that all things become pos- 
 sible to him who thinks them so. Trust and hope 
 breathe animation and force. He, who despairs of great 
 effects, never accomplishes them. All great works have 
 been the results of a strong confidence, inspiring and 
 sustaining strong exertion. The young man, who can- 
 not conceive of higher effects of the ministry than he now 
 beholds, who thinks, that Christianity has spent all its 
 energies in producing the mediocrity of virtue which 
 characterises Christendom, and to whom the human soul 
 seems to have put forth its whole power and to have 
 reached its full growth in religion, has no call to the 
 tninistry. , Let not such a man put forth his nerveless 
 hands in defence of the christian cause. A voice of 
 confidence has been known to rally a retreating army, 
 and to lead it back to victory ; and this spirit-stirring 
 tone belongs to the leaders of the christian host. The 
 minister, indeed, ought to see and feel, more painfully 
 than other men, the extent and power of moral evil in 
 individuals, in the church, and in the world. Let him 
 weep over the ravages of sin. But let him feel, too, 
 that the mightiest power of the universe, is on the side 
 of truth and virtue ; and with sorrow and fear let him 
 join an unfaltering trust .in the cause of human nature. 
 Let him look on men, as on mysterious beings, endued 
 with a spiritual life, with a deep central principle of 
 holy and disinterested love, with an intellectual and 
 moral nature which was made to be receptive of God. 
 To nourish this hopeful spirit, this strengthening con- 
 
505 
 
 fidence, it is important that the minister should under- 
 stand and feel, that he is not acting alone in his efforts 
 for religion, but in union with God, and Christ, and 
 good beings on earth and in heaven. Let him regard 
 the spiritual renovation of mankind, as God's chief pur- 
 pose, for which nature and providence are leagued in 
 holy cooperation. Let him feel himself joined in counsel 
 and labor, with that great body of which Christ is the 
 head, with the noble brotherhood of apostles and mar- 
 tyrs, of the just made perfect, and, I will add, of angels; 
 and speaking with a faith becoming this sublime asso- 
 ciation, he will not speak in vain. To this faith, to 
 prophetic hope, to a devout trust in the glorious issues 
 of Christianity, we dedicate these walls ; and may God 
 here train up teachers, worthy to mingle and bear a part, 
 with the holy of both worlds, in the cause of man's re- 
 demption. 
 
 5. Again, that the ministry may be imbued with new 
 power, it needs a spirit of enterprise and reform. They 
 who enter it, should feel that it may be improved. We 
 live in a stirring, advancing age ; and shall not the noblest 
 function on earth partake of the general progress ? 
 Why is the future ministry to be a servile continuation 
 of the past ? Have all the methods of operating on 
 human beings been tried and exhausted ? Are there 
 no unessayed passages to the human heart ? If we 
 live in a new era, must not religion be exhibited under 
 new aspects, or in new relations ? Is not skepticism 
 taking a new form ? Has not Christianity new foes to 
 contend with ? And are there no new weapons and 
 modes of warfare, by which its triumphs are to be in- 
 sured ? If human nature is manifesting itself in new 
 lights, and passing through a new and most interesting 
 stage of its progress, shall it still be described by the 
 43 
 
6Qb 
 
 commonplaces, and appealed to exclusively by the mo- 
 tives, which belonged to earlier periods of society ? May 
 not the mind have become susceptible of nobler in- 
 citements, than those which suited ruder times? Shall 
 the minister linger behind his age, and be dragged 
 along, as he often has been, in the last ranks of im- 
 provement ? Let those who are to assume the minis- 
 try be taught, that they have something more to do than 
 handle old topics in old ways, and to walk in beaten 
 and long worn paths. Let them inquire, if new powers 
 and agents may not be brought to bear on the human 
 character. Is it incredible, that the progress of in- 
 tellect and knowledge should develope new resources 
 for the teacher of religion, as well as for the statesman, 
 the artist, the philosopher ? Are there no new combi- 
 nations and new uses of the elements of thought, as well 
 as of the elements of nature ? Is it impossible that in 
 the vast compass of scripture, of nature, of providence, 
 and of the soul, there should be qndisclosed or dimly 
 defined truths, which may give a new impulse to the 
 human mind ?^ We dedicate this place, not only to 
 the continuance, but to the improvement of the minis- 
 try ; and let this improvement begin, at once, in those 
 particulars, where the public, if not the clergy, feel it to 
 be Avanted. Let those, who are to be educated here, 
 be admonished against the frigid eloquence, the school- 
 boy tone, the inanimate diction, too common in the 
 pulpit, and which would be endured nowhere else. Let 
 them speak in tones of truth and nature, and adopt the 
 style and elocution of men, who have an urgent work 
 in hand, and who are thirsting for the regeneration of 
 individuals and society. 
 
 6. Another source of power, too obvious to need eluci- 
 dation, yet too important to be omitted, is, an indepen- 
 
, 507 
 
 dent spirit. By which I mean, not an unfeeling defiance 
 of the opinions and usages of society, but that moral 
 courage, which, through good report and evil report, 
 reverently hears, and fearlessly obeys, the voice of con- 
 science and God. He who would instruct men must 
 not fear them. He who is to reform societv, must not 
 be anxious to keep its level. Dread of opinion eifemi- 
 nates preaching, and takes from truth its pungency. 
 The minister so subdued, may flourish his weapons in 
 the air, to the admiration, of spectators, but will never 
 pierce the conscience. The minister, like the good 
 knight, should be without fear. Let him cultivate that 
 boldness of speech for which Paul prayed. Let him not 
 flatter great or small. Let him not wrap up reproof in 
 a decorated verbiage. Let him make no compromise 
 with evil because j"ollowed by a multitude, but, for this 
 very cause, lift up against it a more earnest voice. Let 
 him beware of the shackles Vi^hich society insensibly 
 fastens on the mind and the tongue. Moral courage is 
 not the virtue of our times. The love of popularity is the 
 all-tainting vice of a republic. Besides, the increasing 
 connexion between a minister and the community, 
 whilst it liberalizes the mind, and counteracts profes- 
 sional prejudices, has a tendency to enslave him to 
 opinion, to wear away the energy of virtuous resolu- 
 tion, and to change liim from an intrepid guardian of 
 virtue and foe of sin, into a merely elegant and amiable 
 companion. Against this dishonorable cowardice, which 
 smooths the thoughts and style of the teacher, until 
 they glide through the ear and the mind without giving 
 a shock to the most delicate nerves, let the young man 
 be guarded. We dedicate this institution to christian 
 independence. May it send forth brave spirits to the 
 vindication of truth and religion. 
 
608 
 
 7. I shall now close, with naming the chief source of 
 power to the minister ; one, indeed, which has been in a 
 measure anticipated, and all along implied, but which 
 ought not to be dismissed without a more distinct annun- 
 ciation. I refer to that spirit, or frame, or sentiment, in 
 which the love of God, the love of men, the love of duty, 
 meet as their highest result, and in which they are per- 
 fected and most gloriously displayed ; I mean the spirit 
 of self-sacrifice — the spirit of Martyrdom. This was 
 the perfection of Christ, and it is the noblest inspiration 
 which his followers derive from him. — Say not that this 
 is a height to which the generality of ministers must not 
 be expected to rise. This spirit is of more universal 
 obligation than many imagine. It enters into all the vir- 
 tues which deeply interest us. In truth, there is no 
 thorough virtue without it. Who is the upright man ? 
 He, who would rather die than defraud. Who the good 
 parent ? He, to whom his children are dearer than life. 
 Who the good patriot ? He, who counts not life dear in 
 his country's cause. Who the philanthropist ? He, who 
 forgets himself in an absorbing zeal for the mitigation 
 of human suffering, for the freedom, virtue, and illumi- 
 nation of men. It is not Christianity alone which has 
 taught self-sacrifice. Conscience and the Divinity with- 
 in us have in all ages borne testimony to its loveliness 
 and grandeur, and history borrows from it her chief 
 splendors. But Christ on his cross has taught it with a 
 perfection unknown before, and his glory consists 
 in the power with which he breathes it. Into this 
 spirit Christ's meanest disciple is expected to drink. 
 How much more the teachers and guides of his church. 
 He who is not moved with this sublime feature of our 
 religion, who cannot rise above himself, who cannot, by 
 his own consciousness, comprehend the kindling energy 
 
509 
 
 and solemn joy, which pain oi' peril in a noble cause has 
 often inspired — he, to whom this language is a mystery, 
 wants one great mark of his vocation to the sacred of- 
 fice. Let him enlist under any Standard rather than 
 the cross. To preach with power, a man must feel 
 Christianity to be worthy of the blood which it has cost ; 
 and, espousing it as the chief hope of the human race, 
 must contemn life's ordinary interests, compared with 
 the glory and happiness of advancing it. This spirit 
 of self-exposure and self-surrender, throws into preachers 
 an energy which no other principle can give. In truth, 
 such power resides in disinterestedness, that no man can 
 understand his full capacity of thought and feeling, his 
 strength to do and suffer, until he gives himself, with a 
 single heart, to a great and holy cause. New faculties 
 seem to be created, and more than human might some- 
 times imparted, by a pure, fervent love. Most of us are 
 probably strangers to the resources of power in our own 
 breasts, through the weight and pressure of the chains 
 of selfishness. We consecrate this institutioji, then, to 
 that spirit of martyrdom, of disinterested attachment 
 to the christian cause, through which it first triumphed, 
 and for want of which its triumphs are now slow. In an 
 age of luxury and self-indulgence, we would devote these 
 walls to the training of warm, manly, generous spirits. 
 May they never shelter the self-seeking slaves of ease 
 and comfort, pupils of Epicurus rather than of Christ. 
 God send from this place devoted and efficient friends 
 of Christianity and the human race. 
 
 My friends, I have insisted on the need, and illustra- 
 ted the sources, of power in the ministry. To this end, 
 may the institution, in whose behalf we are now met 
 together, be steadily and sacredly devoted. I would say 
 
 43* 
 
510 
 
 to its guardians and teachers, Let this be your chief aim. 
 I would saj to the students, Keep this in sight in all your 
 studies. Never forgpt your great vocation ; that you are 
 to prepare yourselves for a strong, deep, and beneficent 
 agency on the minds of your fellow beings. Everywhere 
 I see a demand for the power on which I have now in- 
 sisted. The cry comes to me from society and from the 
 church. The condition of society needs a more efficient 
 administration of Christianity. Great and radical changes 
 are needed in the community to make it christian. There 
 are those indeed, who, mistaking the courtesies and re- 
 finements of civilized life for virtue, see no necessity of 
 a great revolution in the world. But civilisation, in 
 hiding the grossness, does not break the power of evil 
 propensities. Let us not deceive ourselves. Multitudes 
 are living with few thoughts of God, and of the true 
 purpose and glory of their being. Among the nominal 
 believers in a Deity and in a judgment to come, sen- 
 suality, and ambition and the love of the world, sit 
 on their thrones, and laugh to scorn the impotence of 
 preaching. Christianity has yet a hard war to wage, 
 and many battles to win ; and it needs intrepid, powerful 
 ministers, who will find courage and excitement, not 
 dismay, in the strength and number of their foes. 
 
 Christians, you have seen in this discourse, the pur 
 poses and claims of this theological institution. Offer 
 your fervent prayers for its prosperity. Besiege the 
 throne of mercy in its behalf. Cherish it as the dear 
 est hope of our churches. Enlarge its means of useful- 
 ness, and let your voice penetrate its walls, calling aloud 
 and importunately for enlightened and powerful teach- 
 ers. Thus joining in effort with the directors and in- 
 structers of this seminary, doubt not that God will here 
 train up ministers worthy to bear his truth to present 
 
611 
 
 and future generations. If on the contrary you and 
 they slumber, you will have erected these walls, not to 
 nourish energy, but to be its tomb, not to bear witness 
 to your zeal, but to be a roelancholy monument of 
 fainting effort and betrayed truth. 
 
 But let me not cast a cloud over the prospects of this 
 day. In hope I began — with hope I will end. This 
 institution has noble distinctions, and has afforded anima- ■ 
 ting pledges. It is eminently a free institution, an asy- 
 lum from the spiritual despotism, which, in one shape or 
 another, overspreads the greatest part of Christendom. 
 It has already given to the churches a body of teachers, 
 who, in theological acquisitions and ministerial gifts, 
 need not shrink from comparison with their predecessors 
 or cotemporaries. I see in it means and provisions, no- 
 where surpassed, for training up enlightened, free, mag- 
 nanimous, self-sacrificing friends of truth. In this hope, 
 let us then proceed to the work, which has brought us to- 
 gether. With trust in God, with love to mankind, with 
 unaffected attachment to christian truth, with earnest 
 wishes for its propagation through all lands and its 
 transmission to remotest ages, let us now, with one 
 heart and one voice, dedicate this edifice to the One 
 living and true God, to Christ and his Church, to the 
 instruction and regeneration of the human soul. 
 
MISCELLANIES. 
 
 DAILY PRAYER. ^ 
 
 The scriptures of the old apd new Testaments agree 
 in enjoining prayer. Let no nlan call himself a Chris- 
 tian, who lives without giving a part of life to this duty. 
 We are not taught how often we must pray ; but our 
 Lord in teaching us to say, ' Give us this day our daily 
 bread,' implies that we should pray daily. He has even 
 said to us, ' pray always ;' an injunction to be explained 
 indeed with that latitude which many of his precepts 
 require, but which is not to be satisfied, we think, with- 
 out regular and habitual devotion. As to the particular 
 hours to be given to this .duty, every Christian may 
 choose them for himself. Our religion is too liberal and 
 spiritual to bind us to any place or any hour of prayer. 
 But there are parts of the day particularly favorable to 
 this duty, and which, if possible, should be redeemed for 
 it. On these we shall offer a fewredections. 
 
 The first of these periods is the morning, which even 
 nature seems to have pointed out to men of different 
 religipns, as a fit time for offerings to the Divinity. In 
 
514 
 
 the morning our minds are not so much shaken by worldly 
 cares and pleasures, as in other parts of the day. Re- 
 tirement and sleep have helped to allay the violence of 
 our feelings, to calm the feverish excitement so often 
 produced by intercourse with men. The hour is a still 
 one. The hurry and tumults of life are not begun, and 
 we naturally share in the tranquillity around us. Hav- 
 ing for so many hours lost our hold on the world, we 
 can banish it more easily from the mind, and worship 
 with less divided attention. This then is a favorable 
 time for approaching the invisible Author of our being, 
 for strengthening the intimacy of our minds with him, 
 for thinking upon a future life, and for seeking those 
 spiritual aids which we need in the labors and tempta- 
 tions of every day. 
 
 In the morning there is much to feed the spirit of 
 devotion. It offers an abundance of thoughts, friendly 
 to pious feeling. When we look on creation, what a 
 happy and touching change do we witness. A few 
 hours past, the earth was wrapped in gloom and silence. 
 There seemed 'a pause in nature.' But now, a new 
 flood of light has broken forth, and creation rises before 
 us in fresher and brighter hues, and seems to rejoice as 
 if it h^d just received birth from its Author. The sun 
 never sheds more cheerful beams, and never proclaims 
 more loudly God's glory and goodness, than when he 
 returns after the coldness and dampness of night, and 
 awakens man and inferior animals to the various pur- 
 poses of their being. A spirit of joy seems breathed over 
 the earth and through the sky. It requires little effort 
 of imagination to read delight in the kindled clouds, or 
 in the fields bright with dew. This is the time, when 
 we can best feel and bless the Power which said, ' let 
 there be light ;' which ' set a tabernacle for the sun in 
 
516 
 
 the heavens,' and made him the dispenser of fruitfuhiess 
 and enjoyment through all regions. 
 
 If we next look at ourselves, what materials does the 
 morning furnish for devout thought. At the close of 
 the past day, we were exhausted by our labors, and 
 unable to move without wearisome effort. Our minds 
 were sluggish, and could not be held to the most inter- 
 esting objects.- From this state of exhaustion, we sunk 
 gradually into entire insensibility. Our limbs became 
 motionless ; our senses were shut as in death. Our 
 thoughts were suspended, or only wandered confusedly 
 and \yithout aim. Our friends, and the universe, and 
 God himself were forgotten. And what a change does 
 the morning bring with it ! On waking we find, that 
 sleep, the image of death, has silently infused into us a 
 new life. The weary limbs are braced again. The 
 dim eye has become bright and piercing. The mind is 
 returned from the region of forgetfulness to its old pos- 
 sessions. Friends are met again with a new interest. 
 We are again capable of devout sentiment, virtuous 
 effort, and christian hope. With what subjects of 
 gratitude then does the morning furnish us ? We can 
 hardly recall the state of insensibility from which we have 
 just emerged, without a consciousness of our depen- 
 dence, or think of the renovation of our powers and 
 intellectual being, without feeling our obligation to God. 
 There is something very touching in the consideration, 
 if we will fix our minds upon it, that God thought of us 
 when we could not think; that he watched over us, when 
 we had no power to avert peril from ourselves ; that he 
 continued our vital motions, and in due time broke the 
 chains of sleep, and set our imprisoned faculties free. 
 How fit is it at this hour to raise to God the eyes which 
 he has opened, and the arm which he has strengthened; 
 
516 
 
 to acknowledge his providence ; and to consecrate to 
 Lim the powers which he has renewed ? How fit that 
 he should be the first object of the thoughts and affec- 
 tions which he has restored ! How fit to employ in his 
 praise the tongue which he has loosed, and the breath 
 which he has spared ! 
 
 But the morning is a fit time for devotion, not only 
 from its relation to the past night, but considered as the 
 introduction of a new day. To a thinking mind, how 
 natural at this hour are such reflections as the following : 
 — I am now to enter on a new period of my life, to start 
 afresh in my course. I am to return to that world, 
 where I have often gone astray ; to receive impres- 
 sions which may never be effaced ; to perform actions 
 which will never be forgotten ; to strengthen a charac- 
 ter, which will fit me for heaven or hell. I am this day 
 to meet temptations which have often subdued me ; I 
 am to be entrusted again with opportunities of useful- 
 ness, which I have often neglected. I am to influ- 
 ence the minds of others, to help in moulding their 
 characters, and in deciding the happiness of their present 
 and future life. How uncertain is this day ! What 
 unseen dangers are before me ! What unexpected 
 changes may await me ! It may be my last day ! It 
 will certainly bring me nearer to death and judgment ! 
 — Now, when entering on a period of life so important 
 yet so uncertain, how fit and natural is it, before we 
 take the first step, to seek the favor of that Being on 
 whom the lot of every day depends, to commit all our 
 interests to his almighty and wise providence, to seek 
 his blessing on our labors and his succor in temptation, 
 and to consecrate to his service the day which he raises 
 upon us. This morning devotion, not only agrees with 
 the sentiments of the heart, but tends to make the day 
 
517 
 
 happy, useful, and virtuous. Having cast ourselves on 
 the mercy and protection of the Almighty, we shall go 
 forth with new confidence to the labors and duties 
 which he imposes. Our early prayer will help to shed 
 ah odor of piety through the whole life. God, having 
 first occupied, will more easily recur to our mind. Our 
 first step will be in the right path, and we may hope a 
 happy issue. 
 
 So fit and useful is jmorning devotion, it ought not to 
 be omitted without necessity. If our circumstances will 
 allow the privilege, it is a bad sign, when no part of the 
 morning is spent in prayer. If God find no place in our 
 minds at that early and peaceful hour, he will hardly 
 recur to us in the tumults of life. If the benefits of the 
 morning do not soften us, we can hardly expect the 
 heart to melt with gratitude through the day. If the 
 world then rush in, and take possession of us, when we 
 are at some distance and have had a respite from its 
 cares, how can we hope to shake it off, when we shall 
 be in the midst of it, pressed and agitated by it on every 
 side. Let a part of the morning, if possible, be set 
 apart to devotion ; and to this end we should fix the 
 hour of rising, so that we may have an early hour at 
 our "own disposal. Our piety is suspicious, if we can 
 renounce, as too many do, the pleasures and benefits of 
 early prayer, rather than forego the senseless indulgence 
 of unnecessary sleep. What ! we can rise early enough 
 for business. We can even anticipate the dawn, if a 
 favorite pleasure or an uncommon gain requires the ef-^ 
 fort. But we cannot rise, that we may bless our great 
 Benefactor, that we may arm ourselves for the severe 
 conflicts to which our principles are to be exposed. 
 We are willing to rush into the world, without thanks 
 
 44 
 
620 
 
 The hours of activity having passed,- w^e are soon to sink 
 into insensibility and sleep. How^ fit that we , resign 
 ourselves to the care of that Being who never sleeps, 
 to whom the darkness is as the light, and whose provi- 
 dence is our only safety ! How fit to entreat him, that 
 he would keep us to another day ; or, if our bed should 
 prove our grave, that he would give us a part in the 
 resurrection of the just, and awake us to a purer and 
 immortal life. The most important periods of prayer 
 have now been pointed out. Let our prayers, likq the 
 ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening.- Let 
 our days begin and end with God. 
 
521 
 
 MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANIT V. 
 
 We live at a time, when the obligation of extending 
 Christianity is more felt than in many past ages. There 
 is much stir, motion, and zeal around us in this good 
 cause. Even those, who seem not to be burdened by 
 an excess of piety themselves, are in earnest to give it 
 to others. The activity of multitudes is taking strong- 
 ly this direction ; and as men are naturally restless, and 
 want room for action, and will do mischief rather than 
 do nothing, a philanthropist will rejoice that this new 
 channel is opened for carrying off the superabundant en- 
 ergies of multitudes, even if no other good should result 
 from it. 
 
 We hope however much other good. We trust, that, 
 vvhilst many inferior motives and many fanatical impulses 
 are giving birth and action to large associations in Chris- 
 tendom ; whilst the love of sway in some, and the love of 
 congregating in others, and the passion for doing some- 
 thing great and at a distance in all, are rearing mighty 
 institutions among us — still many sincere Christians 
 are governed in these concerns by a supreme desire of 
 spreading Christianity. They have found the gospel an 
 infinite good, and would communicate it to their fellow 
 beings. They have drunk from the fountain of life, 
 and would send forth the stream to gladden every wil- 
 derness and solitary place, and to assuage the thirst of 
 every anxious and afflicted mind. They turn with con- 
 tinual pleasure to the prophetic passages of scripture, 
 and, interpreting them by their wishes, hope a speedy 
 change in the moral state of the world, and are impa- 
 44* 
 
522 
 
 tient to bear a part hi this stupendous renovation. That 
 they are doing good we doubt not, though perhaps not 
 in the way which they imagine or would prefer. The 
 immediate and general success of their attempts would 
 perhaps be ultimately injurious to Christianity. They 
 are sending out, together with God's word, corrupt in- 
 terpretations of some parts of it, which considerably 
 neutralize its saving power, and occasionally make it a 
 positive injury. They are perhaps to do good, not by 
 success, so much as by failure. Almost all great en- 
 terprises are accomplished gradually, and by methods 
 which have been learned from many unsuccessful trials, 
 from a slow accumulation of experience. The first la- 
 borers often do little more than teach those who come 
 after them what to avoid, and how to labor more effect- 
 ually than themselves. But be the issue what it may, 
 sincere Christians, who embark in this good work, not 
 fropi party spirit and self-conceit, as if they and their 
 sect were depositaries of all truth and virtue, but from 
 unaffected philanthropy and attachment to Jesus Christ, 
 will have their reward. Even a degree of extravagance 
 in such a cause may be forgiven. Men are willing, that 
 the imagination should be kindled on other subjects ; 
 that the judgment should sometimes slumber, and leave 
 the affections to feed on hopes brighter than reality ; 
 that patriotism, and philanthropy, and the domestic af- 
 fections should sometimes break out in chivalrous enter- 
 prises, and should seek their ends by means on which 
 the reason may look coldly. Why then shall we frown 
 on every deviation from the strictest judiciousness in a 
 concern, which appeals so strongly to the heart as the 
 extension of Christianity ? Men nbay be too rational as 
 well as too fervent ; and the man, whose pious wish of 
 the speedy conversion of the world rises into a strong 
 
523 
 
 anticipation of the event, and who, taking his measure 
 of duty from the primitive disciples, covets sacrilices in 
 so good a cause, is an incomparably nobler spirit than 
 he, who, believing that the moral condition of the world 
 is as invariable as the laws of material nature, and 
 seeking pretexts for sloth in a heart-chilling philosophy, ' 
 has no concern for the multitudes who are sitting in 
 darkness, and does nothing to spread the religion which 
 he believes to have come from Heaven. 
 
 There is one danger, however, at a period like the 
 present, when we are aiming to send Christianity to a 
 distance, which demands attention. It is the dangef 
 of neglecting the best methods of propagating Christiani- 
 ty, of overlooking much plainer obligations than that of 
 converting Heathens, of forgetting the claims of our 
 religion at home and by our firesides. It happens, that 
 on this, as on almost every subject, our most important 
 duties are (Juiet, retired, noiseless, attracting little notice, 
 and administering little powerful excitement to the im- 
 agination. The surest efforts for extending Christianity 
 are those which few observe, which are recorded in no 
 magazine, blazoned at no anniversaries, immortalized 
 by no eloquence. Such efforts, being enjoined only by 
 conscience and God, and requiring steady, patient, un- 
 wearied toil, we are apt to overlook, and perhaps never 
 more so than when the times furnish a popular substi- 
 tute'-for them, and when we can discharge our consci- 
 ences by labors, which, demanding little self-deliial, are 
 yet talked of as the highest exploits of christian charity. 
 Hence it is, that when most is said of labors to propa- 
 gate Christianity, the least may be really and effectually 
 done. We hear a torrent roaring, and imagine that 
 the fields are plentifully watered, when the torrent 
 owes its violence to a ruinous concentration of strfeams, 
 
524 
 
 which before moved quietly in a thousand little chan- 
 nels, moistening the hidden roots, and publishing their 
 course, not to the ear, but to the eye, by the refreshing 
 verdure which grew up around them. It is proper then, 
 when new methods are struck out for sending Christi-' 
 anity abroad, to remind men often of the old-fashioned 
 methods of promoting it, to insist on the superiority of 
 the means, which are in almost every man's reach, 
 which require no extensive associations, and which do 
 not subject us to the temptations of exaggerated praise. 
 We do not mean that any exertion, which promises to 
 extend our religion in any tolerable state of purity, is to 
 be declined. But the first rank is to be given to the 
 efforts which God has made the plain duties of men in 
 all ranks and conditions of life. Two of these methods 
 will be briefly mentioned. 
 
 First, every individual should feel, that whilst his 
 influence over other men's hearts and character, is very 
 bounded, his power over his own heart is great and con- 
 stant, and that his zeal for extending Christianity is to 
 appear chiefly in extending it through his own mind and 
 life. Let him remember that he as truly enlarges God's 
 kingdom by invigorating his own moral and religious 
 principles, as by communicating them to others. Our 
 first concern is at home, our chief work is in our own 
 breasts. It is idle to talk of 6ur anxiety for other men's 
 souls, if we neglect our own. Without personal virtue 
 and religion, we cannot, even if we would, do much for 
 the cause of Christ. It is only by purifying pur own 
 conceptions of God and duty, that we can give clear and 
 useful views to others. We must fiirst feel the power 
 of religion, or we cannot recommend it with an unaf- 
 fected and prevalent zeal. Would we then promote 
 pure Christianity ? Let us see that it be planted and 
 
62;3 
 
 take root in our own minds, aiid that no busy concern for 
 others tak^ us from tlie labor of self-inspection, and the 
 retired and silent offices of piety. 
 
 The second method is intimately connected with the 
 first. It is example. This is a means within the reach 
 of all. Be our station in life what it may, it has duties, 
 in performing which faithfully, we give important aid to 
 the cause of morality and piety. The efficacy of this 
 means of advancing Christianity cannot be easily calcu- 
 lated.' Example has an insinuating power, transform- 
 ing the observer without noise, attracting him without 
 the appearance of effort. A truly christian life is better 
 than large contributions of wealth for the propagation of 
 
 ' Christianity. The most prominent instruction of Jesus 
 on this point, is, that we must let men ' seg our good 
 works,' if we would lead them to ' glorify our Father in 
 heaven.' Let men see in us, that religion is something 
 real, something more than high sounding and empty 
 words, a restraint from sin, a bulwark against tempta- 
 tion, a spring of upright and useful action ; let them see 
 it, not an idle form, nor a transient feeling, but our 
 companion through life, infusing its purity into our com- 
 mon pursuits, following us to our homes, setting a guard 
 round our integrity in the resorts of business, sweeten- 
 ing our tempers in seasons of provocation, disposing us 
 habitually to sympathy with others, to patience and 
 cheerfulness under oUr own afflictions,' to candid judg- 
 ment, jand to sacrifices for others good ; and we may hope 
 that bur light will not shine uselesslyj that some slum- 
 
 ! bering conscience will be roilsed by this testimony to 
 the excellence and practicableness of religiori, that some 
 worldly professorof Christianity will learn his obligations 
 and bliish for his criminal inconsistency, and that some, 
 in wHbm the common argtirnents for our religiori may 
 
526 
 
 have failed to work a full belief, will be brought to the 
 knowledge of the t^ruth, by this plain practical proof of 
 the heavenly nature of Christianity. Every man is sur- 
 rounded with beings, who are moulded more or less by 
 the principles of sympathy and imitation; and this social 
 part of our nature he is bound to press into the service 
 of Christianity. 
 
 It will not be supposed from these remarks on the 
 duty of aiding Christianity by our examplfi, that religion 
 is to be worn ostentatiously, and that the Christian is 
 studiously to exhibit himself and his good works for 
 imitation. That same book which enjoins* us to be pat- 
 terns, tells us to avoid parade, and even to prefer entire 
 secrecy in our charities and our prayers. Nothing de- 
 stroys the weight of example so much as labor to rrtake 
 it striking and observed. Goodness, to be mteresting, 
 must be humble,* modest, unassuming, not fond of show, 
 not waiting for great and corispicuous occasions, but dis- 
 closing itself without labor and without design, in pious 
 and benevolent offices, so simple, so minute, so steady, so 
 habitual, that they will carry a conviction of the single- 
 ness and purity of the heart from Vvhieh they proceed. 
 Such goodness is never lost. It glorifies itself by the 
 very humility which encircles it, just as the lights of 
 heaven often break with peculiar splendor through the 
 cloud which threatened to obscure them. 
 
 A pure example, which is found to be more consis- 
 tent in proportion as it is mol'e known, is the best 
 method of preaching and extending Christianity. With- 
 out it, zeal for converting men brings reproach 'on the 
 cause. A bad man, or a man of only ordinary goodness, 
 who puts himself forward in this work, throws a suspi' 
 ciousness over the efforts of better men, and thus the 
 world come to set down all labor for spreading Christi- 
 
527 
 
 anity as mere pretence. Let not him who will not sub- 
 mit to the toil of making himself better, become, a re- 
 former at home or abroad. Let not him who is known 
 to be mean, or dishonest, or intriguing, or censorious, or 
 unkind in his neighbourhood, talk of his concern for 
 other men's souls. His life is an injury to religion, 
 which his contributions of zeal, or even of wealth, cannot 
 repair, and its injuriousness is aggraViated- by these very 
 attempts to expiate its guilt, to reconcilehim to himself. 
 It is well known, that the greatest obstruction to 
 Christianity in heathen countries, is the palpable and 
 undeniable depravity of christian nations. They abhor 
 our religion, because we are such unhappy specimens 
 of it. They are unable to read our books, but they can 
 read our lives ; and what wonder, if they reject with 
 scorn a system under which the vices seem to have 
 flourished so luxuriantly. The Indian of both hemis- 
 pheres has reason to set down the Christian as little bet- 
 ter than himself. He associates with the name, perfidy, 
 fraud, rapacity, and slaughter. Can we wonder that he 
 is unwilling to receive a religion from the hand which 
 has chained or robbed him ? Thus bad example is the 
 great obstruction to Christianity, abroad as well as at 
 home ; and perhaps little good is to be done abroad, un- 
 til we become better at home, until real Christians un- 
 derstand and practise their religion more thoroughly, and 
 by their example and influence spread it among their 
 neighboyrs and through their country, so that the aspect 
 of christian nations shall be less shocking and repulsive to 
 the Jew, Mahometan, and Pagan. Our first labor should 
 be upon ourselves ; and indeed if our religion be incapa- 
 ble of bearing more fruit among ourselves, it hardly seems 
 to deserve a very burning zeal for its propagation. The 
 question is an important one ; Would much be gained to 
 
528 
 
 heathen countries, were we to make them precisely what 
 nations called christian now are ? That the change 
 would be beneficial, we grant ; but how many dark stains 
 would remain on their characters. They would continue 
 to fight and shed blood as they now do, to resent injuries 
 hotly, to worship present gain and distinction, and to 
 pursue the common business of life on the principles of 
 undisguised selfishness ; and they would learn one lesson 
 of iniquity which they have not yet acquired, and that 
 is, to' condemn and revile their brethren, who should 
 happen to view the most perplexed points of theology 
 differently from themselves. The truth is, christian 
 nations want a genuine reformation, one worthy of the 
 name. They need to have their zeal directed, not so 
 much to the spreading of the gospel abroad, as to the 
 application of its plain precepts to their daily business, 
 to the education of their children, to the treatment of 
 their domestics and dependants, and to their social and 
 religious intercourse. They need to understand, that a 
 man's piety is to be estimated, not so much by his pro- 
 fessions or direct religious exercises, as by a conscien- 
 tious surrender of his will, passions, worldly interests, 
 and prejudices, todhe acknowledged" duties of Christiani- 
 ty, and especially by a philanthropy resembling in its 
 great features of mildness, activity, and endurance, that 
 of Jesus Christ. They need to give up their severe m- 
 quisition into their .neighbours' opinions, and to begin 
 in earnest to seek for themselves, and to communicate 
 to others a nobler standard of temper and practice, than 
 they have yet derived from the scriptures. In a word, 
 they need to learn the real value and design of Christi- 
 anity by the only thorough and effectual process ; that 
 is, by drinking deeply ir.to its spirit of love to God and 
 man. If, in this age of societies, we should" think it 
 
629 
 
 wise to recommend another institution for the propaga- 
 tion of Christianity, it would be one, the members of 
 which should be pledged to assist and animate one 
 another in living according to the Sermon on the Mount. 
 How far such a measure would be effectual, we ven- 
 ture not to predict ; but of one thing we arc sure, that 
 should it prosper, it would do more for spreading the 
 gospel, than all other associations which are now receiv- 
 ing the patronage of the christian world. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO SOCIETY. 
 
 Few men suspect, perhaps no man comprehends, the 
 extent of the support given by religion to the virtues of 
 ordinary life. No man perhaps is aware, how much our 
 moral andsocial sentiments are fed from this fountain; 
 how powerless conscience would become without the 
 belief of a God ; how palsied would be human benevo- 
 lence, were there not the sense of a higher benevolence 
 to quicken and sustain it; how suddenly the whole 
 social fabric would quake, and with what a fearful crash 
 it would sink into hopeless ruins, were the ideas of a 
 Supreme Being, ofaccountableness, and of a future life, 
 to be utterly erased from every mind. Once let men 
 thoroughly believe that they are the work and sport of 
 chance ; that no superior intelligence concerns itself with 
 human affairs ; that all their improvements perish for- 
 ever at death ; that the weak have no guardian, and the 
 injured no avenger ; that there is no recompense for sa- 
 45 
 
530 
 
 crifices to uprightness and the public good 5 that an oatb 
 is unheard in heaven ; that secret crimes have no wit- 
 ness but the perpetrator ; that hum^n existence has, no 
 purpose, and human virtue no unfailing friend ; that this 
 brief life is everything to us, and death is total, ever- 
 lasting extinction ; once let men thoroughly abandon 
 religion, and who can conceive or describe the extent 
 of the desolation which would follow ? We hope per- 
 haps that human laws and natural sympathy would liold 
 society together. As reasonably might we believe, that 
 were the sun quenched in the heavens, our torches 
 could illuminate, and our fires quicken and fertilize the 
 earth. What is there in human nature to awaken respect 
 and tenderness, if man is the unprotected insect of a 
 day ? and what is he more, if atheism be true ? Erase 
 all thought and fear of God from a community, and 
 selfishness and sensuality vvould absorb the whole man. 
 Appetite, knowing no restraint, and poverty and suffer- 
 ing, having no solace or hope, would trample in scorn on 
 the restraints of human laws. Virtue, duty, principle, 
 would be mocked and spurned as unmeaning sounds. 
 A sordid self-interest would supplant every other feel- 
 ing, and man would become in fact, what the theory of 
 atheism declares him to be, a companion for brutes. 
 
 It particularly deserves attention in this discussion, 
 that the christian religion is singularly important to free 
 communities. In truth we may doubt whether civil 
 freedom can subsist without it. This at least we know, 
 that equal rights and an impartial administration of jus- 
 tice, have never been enjoyed where this religion has 
 not been understood. It favors free institutions, first, 
 because its spirit is the very spirit of liberty ; that is, a 
 spirit of respect for the interests and rights of others. 
 Christianity recognises the essential equality of man- 
 
631 
 
 kind; beats' down with its whole might those aspiring 
 and rapacious principles of our nature, which have sub- 
 jected the many to the few ; and, by its refining influ- 
 ence, as well as by direct precept, turns to God, and to 
 Him only, that supreme homage which has been so im- 
 piously lavished on crowned and titled fellow creatures. 
 Thus its whole tendency is free. It lays deeply the only 
 foundations of liberty, which are the principles of be- 
 nevolence, justice, and respect for human nature. The 
 spirit of liberty is,, not merely, as multitudes imagine, a 
 jealousy of our own particular rights, an unwillingness 
 to be oppressed ourselves, but a respect for the rights 
 of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether 
 high or low, should be wronged, and trampled under 
 foot. Now this is the spirit of Christianity ; and liberty 
 has no security, any farther than this uprightness and 
 benevolence of sentiment actuates a community. 
 
 In another method religion befriends liberty. It 
 diminishes the necessity of public restraints, and super- 
 sedes in a great degree the use of force in administer- 
 ing the laws ; and this it does, by making men a law to 
 themselves, and by repressing the disposition to disturb 
 and injure society. Take away the purifying and re- 
 straining influence of religion, and selfishness, rapacity, 
 and injustice will break out in new excesses; and amidst 
 the increasing perils of society, government must be 
 strengthened to defend it, must accumulate means of re- 
 pressing disorder and crime ; and this strength and these 
 means may be, and often have been, turned against 
 the freedom of the state which they were meant to se- 
 cure. Diminish principle, and you increase the need of 
 force in a community. In this country, government 
 needs not the array of power which you meet in other 
 
532 
 
 nations, — ^no guards of soldiers, no hosts of spies,, no 
 vexatious regulations of police ; but accomplishes its 
 beneficent purposes by a few unarmed judges and civil 
 officers, and operates so silently around us, and comes so. 
 seldom in contact with us, that many of us enjoy its 
 blessings with hardly a thought of its existence. This- 
 is the perfection of freedom ; and to what do we owe this' 
 condition ? I answer, to the power of those laws which 
 Religion writes on^our hearts, which unite and concen- 
 trate public opinion against injustice and oppression, 
 which spread a spirit of equity and good will through the 
 community. Thus religion is the soul of freedom, and 
 no nation under heaven has such an interest in it as 
 ourselves. 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN GALLISON, ESQ. 
 
 First published in 1821. 
 
 Our last number contained a brief notice of Mr. 
 Gallison ; but his rare excellence, and the singular affec- 
 tion, esteem, and confidence which he enjoyed, have 
 been thought to demand a more particular delineation 
 of his character. And the office is too grateful to be 
 declined. In the present iniperfect condition of human 
 nature, when strange and mournful inconsistences so 
 often mix vyith and shade the virtues of good men ; wben 
 Truth, that stern monitor, almost continually forbids us 
 to give free scope to admiration, and compels us to dis- 
 pense our praise with a measured and timid liberality ; it 
 is delightful to meet an example of high endowments, 
 undebased by the mixture of unworthy habits and feel- 
 
533 
 
 ings ; to meet a character whose blamelessness spares us 
 the pain of making deductions from its virtues. And 
 our satisfaction is greatly increased, when Providence 
 has seen fit to unfold this character in the open light of 
 a conspicuous station, so that many around us have had 
 opportunity to observe it as well as ourselves, and we 
 can give utterance to our affection and respect, with the 
 confidence of finding sympathy and a full response in 
 the hearts of our readers. * 
 
 But we have a ^gher motive, than the relief and grat- 
 ification of personal feelings, for paying this tribute to 
 Mr. Gallison. We consider his character as singularly 
 instructive, particularly to that important class of the 
 community, young men. His life, whilst it bore strong 
 testimony to those great principles of morality and reli- 
 gion, in which all ranks and ages have an interest, and on 
 which society rests, seems to us peculiarly valuable, as 
 a commentary on the capacities and right application of 
 youth ; as demonstrating what a young man may become, 
 what honor, love, and influence he may gather round 
 him, and how attractive are the christian virtues at that 
 age which is generally considered as least amenable to 
 the laws of religion. For young men we chiefly make 
 this record ; and we do it with a deep conviction, that 
 society cannot be served more effectually than by spread- 
 ing through this class a purer morality, and a deeper 
 sense of responsibility than are now enforced by public 
 opinion ; for our young men are soon to be the fathers, 
 guides, and defenders of the community ; and however 
 examples may now and then occur of early profligacy 
 changed by time into purity and virtue, yet too often 
 the harvest answers to the seed, the building to the 
 foundation ; and perhaps it will appear on' that great day 
 which is to unfold the consequences of actions, that even 
 45* 
 
634 
 
 -forsaken vice leaves wounds in the mind, which are 
 slowly healed, arid which injure the moral powers, and 
 predispose to moral disease, through the whole life. 
 
 In this connexion it may be proper to observe, that 
 there is no country, in which society has such an inter* 
 est in bringing strong moral and religious, influences to 
 bear on young men, as in this ; for our country has been 
 distinguished by the premature growth of those to whom 
 it gives birth. Various circumstances here develope the 
 mind and active powers^ earlier than in Europe. Our 
 young men come forward sooner into life ; mix sooner 
 in the stir and conflicts of business and politics; and 
 form sooner the most important domestic* relations. It 
 has often been suggested, that the mind suffers under 
 this forcing system, that it is exhausted by excess of 
 action, that a slower growth would give it greater 
 Strength and expansion. But be this true or not (and 
 we trust that the suggestion is founded on remote anal- 
 ogies rather than on observation), one thing is plain, 
 that in proportion as the young advance rapidly in intel- 
 lect and activity, there should be a powerful application 
 of moral and religious truths and sanctions to- their con- 
 sciences and hearts. Their whole nature should grow 
 at once. The moral sense, the sense of God, should not 
 slumber, whilst the intellect and the passions are awake 
 and enlarging themselves with a fearful energy. A con- 
 viction of .their responsibility to God and society should 
 be deeply wrought into the opening reason, so as to recur 
 through life with the force of instinct. Mr. Gallison 
 was a striking example of the early and harmojiious un- 
 folding of the moral and intellectual nature, and in this 
 view his character is particularly fitted to the wants and 
 dangers of oui' state of society. 
 
535 
 
 When we know or hear of uncommon excellence, it 
 is natural to inquire, by what propitious circumstances 
 it was formed ; and hence the curiosity which has sifted 
 so diligently the early history of eminent men. But 
 such investigations, we believe, generally teach us, that 
 character is more independent on outward circumstan- 
 ces than is usually thought, that the chief causes which 
 form a superior mind are within itself. Whilst the Su- 
 preme Being encourages liberally the labors of education 
 by connecting with them many good and almost sure 
 results, still, as if to magnify his own power and to 
 teach men humility and dependence, he often produces, 
 with few or no means, a strength of intellect and prin- 
 ciple, a grace and dignity of character, which the most 
 anxious human culture cannot confer. In the early years 
 of Mr. Gallison, we find no striking circumstances or 
 incidents which determined the peculiarities of his future 
 character. The processes, by which he became what 
 he was, were inward ; and the only voice, which could 
 disclose them, is now silent in death. 
 
 He was born in Marblehead, October, 1788. His 
 mother, a sister of the late Chief Justice Sewall, sur- 
 vived his birth but a few hours ; and his life began with 
 one of the heaviest of life's afiflictions, the loss of a 
 mother's love. He was so happy however as to be 
 the object of singular and never failing kindness to his 
 surviving parent, whom he requited with no common 
 filial attachment ; and he may be cited as a proof of the 
 good effects of that more unrestrained and tender inter- 
 course between parents and children, which distinguish- 
 es the present from the past age. He was early placed 
 under the tuition of the Rev. Dr. Harris, now President 
 of Columbia College" New York, then preceptor of an 
 
636 
 
 academy, and rector of an Episcopal church, in Marble- 
 head. He is said to have endeared himself to his re- 
 vered instructer by his docility, industry, modesty, love 
 of truth, and steady improvement. He held a high but 
 unenvied rank at school ; and it may be mentioned as 
 an evidence of early judgment and a constant mind, 
 that some of the friendships of that early period went 
 with him to the grave, and were among the best enjoy- 
 ments of his life. 
 
 He entered the University at Cambridge, A. D. 1803, 
 in the fifteenth year of his age ; and whilst his unremitting 
 application gave him the full benefit of its various pro- 
 visions for literary improvement, his consistent character 
 and social virtues won for him universal confidence and 
 esteem. On leaving the University he commenced the 
 study of the law under the Hon. John Quincy Adams, 
 and having completed his preparation under the Hon. 
 Joseph Story, began the practice of his profession at 
 Marblehead, A. D. 1810. By the advice of his friends 
 he soon removed to this metropolis, a more proper, be- 
 cause wider sphere of action. Here he experienced, 
 for a time, those anxieties and depressions, which form 
 the common trial of young men, who enter a crowded 
 profession. But his prospects were brightened by a 
 connexion in business, which he formed with the Hon. 
 William Prescott, and which, as it was unsolicited and 
 attended by other flattering circumstances, gave him a 
 gratifying assurance of the confidence which he had in- 
 spired. The progress of his reputation as a lawyer was 
 soon a matter of common remark. ; and those, who were 
 most capable of understanding the depth and extent of 
 his legal attainments, were confident, that should his 
 life be spared, he would attain the highest honors of his 
 profession. 
 
637 
 
 He died December, 1820, at the age of 32. The 
 shock given to the community by this event was unu- 
 sual, and the calamity was heightened by its unexpect- 
 edness. His general health, cheerfulness, and activity 
 had given the promise of a long life, and his frieiids 
 were not alarmed for him until a week before his death. 
 His disease was an inflammation of the brain, which first 
 discovered itself in slight aberrations of mind, and ter- 
 minated in delirium. This awful eclipse of reason con- 
 tinued to the last, so that his friends were denied the 
 satisfaction of receiving from his dying lips assurances 
 of his christian hope. Some of them however recollect 
 with pleasure, that at the beginning of his disease, when 
 his intellect was rather exalted than deranged, his 
 expressions of religious feeling and joy were unusually 
 strong ; and he has left them higher consolation than 
 a dying testimony, even the memory of a blameless and 
 well spent life. 
 
 Having given this brief" record of a life too peaceful 
 and prosperous to furnish matter for biography, we pro- 
 ceed to give our views of the character of Mr. Gallison. 
 — His chief distinction was not talent, although he had 
 fine powers of intellect, and a capacity of attention, 
 which, in usefulness if not in splendor, generally sur- 
 passes genius. His primary characteristic, and that 
 which gave him his peculiar weight in the community,, 
 was the force of moral and religious principle ; a force, 
 which operated with the steadiness of a law of nature, 
 a paramount energy which suffered no portion of life or 
 iatelleet to be wasted, which, concentrated all his facul- 
 ties and feelings on worthy objects. His powers did 
 not astonish, but none of them were lost to himself or 
 society. His great distinction was the singleness of 
 his mind, the sway which duty had gained over him, 
 
538 
 
 his habit of submitting to this as to an inviolable ordi- 
 nance of the universe. Conscience was consulted reve- 
 rently as an oracle of God. The moral power seemed 
 always at work in his breast, and its control reached to 
 his whole life. 
 
 We sometimes witness a strong regard to duty, which 
 confers little grace or interest on the character, because 
 partial and exclusive views are taken of duty, and God 
 is thought to require a narrow service, which chains and 
 contracts instead of unfolding the mind. In Mr. Galli- 
 son, the sense of duty was as enlightened and enlarged, 
 as it was strong. To livq religiously, he did not think 
 himself called to give up the proper pursuits and gratifi- 
 cations of human nature. He believed, that religion 
 was in harmony with intellectual improvement, with the 
 pleasures of imagination and society, and especially with 
 the kind affections. His views of the true excellence 
 of a human being were large and generous ; and hence, 
 instead of that contracted and^repulsive character, which 
 has often been identified with piety, his virtue, though 
 of adamantine firmness, was attractive, cheerful, lovely. 
 
 This union of strength and light, in his sense- of duty, 
 gave a singular harmony to his character. All his fac- 
 ulties and sensibilities seemed to unfold together, just 
 as the whole body grows at once ; and all were preserv- 
 ed, by a wise presiding moral sentiment, in their just 
 proportions. He was remarkably free from excess, 
 even in the virtues and pursuits to which he was most 
 prone. His well balanced mind was the admiration of 
 his friends. He had strong feeling, yet a calm judg- 
 ment ; and unwearied activity without restlessness or 
 precipitancy. He had vigor and freedom of thought, 
 but not the slightest propensity to rash and wild specu- 
 lation. He had professional ardor, but did not sacrifice 
 
539 
 
 to his profession the general improvement of his intel- 
 lect and heart. He loved study, and equally loved 
 society. He had religious sensibility, but a sensibility 
 which never rested, until it had found its true perfection 
 and manifestation in practice. His mind was singular- 
 ly harmonious, a well adjusted whole ; and this was the 
 secret of the signal confidence which he inspired ; for 
 confidfence, or the repoSe of our minds on another, de- 
 pends on nothing so much as on the proportion which 
 we observe in his character. Even a good feeling, 
 when carried to excess, though viewed with indulgence 
 and affection, always shakes in a measure our trust. 
 
 From this general survey, we pass to some particulars 
 of 'the character of Mr. Gallison. His religion was a 
 trait which claims our first consideration. He believed 
 in God, and in the revelation of his will by Jesus Christ ; 
 and he was not a man in whom such a belief could lie 
 dead . That great and almost overwhelming doctrine of a 
 God, the Maker of all things, in whom he lived, and from 
 whom all his blessings came, wrought in him powerful- 
 ly. He was not satisfied with a superficial religion, but 
 was particularly interested in those instructions from the 
 pulpit which enjoined a deep, living, all-pervading sense 
 of God's, presence and authority, and an intimate union 
 of the mind with its Creator. A friend, who knew him 
 intimately, observes ; — ' In our frequent walks, his con- 
 versation so naturally and cheerfully turned on the at- 
 tributes and dispensations of God, as convinced me that 
 his religion was no less the delight of his heart, than 
 the guide of his life. Though habitually temperate in 
 his feelings, I have sometimes known him kindle into 
 rapture while conversing on these holy themes.' 
 
 But his religion, though strong and earnest, was in 
 unison with his whole character, calm, inquisitive, ra- 
 
640 
 
 tional. Uninfected by bigotry or fanaticisrh, and unse- 
 duced by the fair promises of the spirit of innovation, 
 he formed his views of the christian system with cau- 
 tion, and held them without asperity. In regard to that 
 important doctrine which has lately agitated the com- 
 munity, he was a Unitarian, believing in the pre-existence 
 of the Saviour, and as firmly believihg that he was a 
 distinct being from the Supreme God, derived from and 
 dependent on him ; and he considered the Gospel of 
 John, which is often esteemed as the strong hold of op- 
 posite sentiments, as giving peculiar support to these 
 views. We mention this, not because the conclusions 
 of so wise and good a man were necessarily true, but 
 because reproach is often thrown on the opinions which 
 he adopted, as wanting power to purify and save. He 
 may have erred, for he was a man ; but who that knew 
 him can doubt that, whatever were his errors, he held 
 the most important and efficacious doctrines of Christi- 
 anity ? His religious friends, and they were not a few, 
 can testify to the seriousness and reverence with which 
 he approached the scriptures, and to the fidelity with 
 which he availed himself of the means of a right inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 His religion was not ostentatiously thrust on notice ; 
 but he thought as little of hiding it, as of concealing his 
 social feelings, or his love of knowledge. It was the 
 light by which he walked, and his daily path showed 
 whence the light came. Of his decision in asserting 
 the principles of that religion which he received as 
 from God, he gave a striking proof in his address to the 
 Peace Society of this Commonwealth, which breathes 
 the very morality of Christ, and is throughout a mild 
 but firm remonstrance against great practical errors, 
 which have corrupted the church almost as deeply as 
 
641 
 
 the world. It was so natural to him to act on the con- 
 victions of his mind, that he seemed on this occasion 
 utterly unconscious, that there was a degree of heroism 
 in a young man of a secular calling, and who mixed oc- 
 casionally in fashionable life, enlisting so earnestly in 
 the service of the most neglected, yet most distinguish- 
 ing virtues of Christianity. 
 
 That a man, to whom Christianity was so author- 
 itative, should be characterised by its chief grace, be- 
 nevolence, we cannot wonder. Nature formed him for 
 the kind affections, and religious principle added ten- 
 derness, steadiness, dignity, to the impulses of nature. 
 That great maxim of Christianity, ' No man liveth to 
 himself,' was engraven on his mind. Without profes- 
 sion, or show, or any striking discoveries of emotion, he 
 felt the claim of everything human on his sympathy and 
 service. His youth and professional engagements did 
 not absolve him to his own conscience from laboring; 
 in the cause of mankind ; and his steady zeal redeemed 
 from business sufficient time for doing extensive good. 
 In the institutions for useful objects, with which he con- 
 nected himself, he gave more than his property ; he 
 contributed his mind, his judgment, his well directed 
 zeal ; and the object which he was found to favor, de- 
 rived advantage from his sanction, no less than from his 
 labors. 
 
 He felt strongly, what a just view of human nature 
 always teaches, that society is served- by nothing so es- 
 sentially, as by the infusion of a moral and religious 
 spirit into all its classes ; and this principle, like every 
 other when once recognised, became to him a law. 
 We cannot but mention with great pleasure the earn- 
 estness with which he entered into a plan for collecting 
 the poor children, in the neighbourhood of the church 
 46 
 
542 
 
 where he worshipped, into a school for religious instruc- 
 tion on the Lord's-day. He visited many poor families 
 on this errand of charity, offering at once christian in- 
 struction, and the pecuniary means by which the children 
 might be clothed decently to receive it ; and he gave a 
 part of every Sunday to this office. The friend, whom 
 we formerly quoted, observes, ' I was much delighted 
 to see him one Sunday, leading one of his little flock, 
 (who being a stranger had not become familiarized to 
 his home) through our dirtiest lanes, and inquiring at 
 the humblest sheds for his dwelling;' To a man, crowd- 
 ed with business, and accustomed to the most refined 
 society, this lowly and unostentatious mode of charity 
 could only have been recommended by a supreme sense 
 of religious and social obligation. He was one of the 
 few among us, who saw that the initiation of the poor 
 into moral and religious truth, was an office worthy of 
 the most cultivated understanding, and that to leave it, 
 as it is sometimes left, to those whose zeal outstrips 
 their knowledge, was to expose to hazard and reproach 
 one of the most powerful means of benefiting society. 
 
 Another cause to which he devoted himself was the 
 Peace Society of this Commonwealth, and to this insti- 
 tution his mind was drawn and bound by perceiving its 
 accordance with the spirit of Christianity. Accustomed 
 as he was to believe that every principle which a man 
 adopts is to be carried into life, he was shocked with the 
 repugnance betv^een the christian code and the practice 
 of its professed followers on the subject of war ,«^ and he 
 believed that Christianity, seconded as it is by the pro- 
 gress of society, was a power adequate to the production 
 of a great revolution of opinion on this point, if its plain 
 principles and the plain interests of men were earnestly 
 unfolded. There was one part of this extensive topic, 
 
543 
 
 to which his mind particularly turned. He believed 
 that society had made sufficient advances, to warrant the 
 attempt to expunge from the usages of war the right 
 of capturing private property at sea. He believed that 
 the evils of war would be greatly abridged, and its re- 
 currence checked, were the ocean to be made a safe, 
 privileged, unmolested pathway for all nations, wheth- 
 er in war or peace ; and that the minds of men had be- 
 come prepared for this change, by the respect now paid 
 by belligerents to private property on shore, a mitigation 
 of war to be wholly ascribed to the progress of the prin- 
 ciples and spirit of Christianity. His interest in this sub- 
 ject led him to study the history of maritime warfare, 
 and probably no man among us had acquired a more ex- 
 tensive acquaintance with it. Some of the results he 
 gave in an article in the North American Review, on 
 Privateering, and in a Memorial to Congress against this 
 remnant of barbarism. To this field of labor he certainly 
 was not drawn by the hope of popularity ; and though 
 he outstripped the feelings of the community, his efforts 
 will not be vain. He was a pioneer in a path, in which 
 society, if it continue to advance, will certainly follow 
 him, and will at length do justice to the wisdom as well 
 as purity of his design. 
 
 Other institutions shared his zeal and countenance ; 
 but we pass from these to observe, that his benevolence 
 was not husbanded for public works or great occasions. 
 It entered into the very frame and structure of his mind, 
 so that, wherever he acted, he left its evidences and 
 fruits. Even in those employments, where a man is ex- 
 pected to propose distinctly his own interest, he looked 
 beyond himself; and those who paid him for his services, 
 felt that another debt was due, and personal attachment 
 often sprung from the intercourse of business. In his 
 
544^ 
 
 social and domestic connexions, how he felt and lived, 
 and what spirit he breathed, we learn from the counte- 
 nances and tones of his friends, when they speak of his 
 loss. The kind of praise which a man receives after 
 death corresponds generally with precision to his char- 
 acter. We can often see on the decease of a distin- 
 guished individua:l, that whilst all praise, few feel ; that 
 the heart has no burden, no oppression. In the case of 
 Mr. Gallison, there was a general, spontaneous convic- 
 tion that society had been bereaved ; and at the same 
 time, a feeling of personal bereavement, as if a void 
 which no other could fill, were made in every circle in 
 which he familiarly moved ; and this can only be ex- 
 plained by the genuine benevolence, the sympathy with 
 every hunian interest, which formed his character. His 
 benevolence indeed was singularly imalloyed. Those 
 feelings of unkindness which sometimes obscure, for a 
 moment, the goodness of excellent men, seldom or never 
 passed over him. Those who best knew him, cannot, by 
 an effort of imagination, put an acrimonious speech into 
 his lips, any more than they can think of him under an 
 entirely different countenance. The voice ceases to be 
 his, its tones do not belong to him, when they would 
 make it the vehicle of unkindness. We have under- 
 stood, what we should not doubt, that in his profession, 
 amidst the collision of rivals, his ambition, which un- 
 doubtedly degenerated sometimes into excess, was still 
 so controlled by his generosity and uprightness, that he 
 was never known to sully with an envious breath, the 
 honest fame of another, or to withhold a ready testimo- 
 ny to another's worth. So great was the kindliness of 
 his heart, that his many pressing employments did not 
 exclude those little attentions to his kindred, for which 
 multiplied cares are generally admitted as an excuse. 
 
545 
 
 He made leisure for minute as well as important servi- 
 ces, and thus it is that a feeling of tenderness as well 
 as of respect, is spread through the whole circle of his 
 relatives. 
 
 In regard to his intellectual powers, they derived their 
 superiority not only from the liberality of nature, but 
 from the conscientiousness with which they were im- 
 proved. He early felt the importance of a generous and 
 extensive culture of the mind, and systematically con- 
 nected with professional studies the pursuit of general 
 literature. He was a striking example of the influence 
 of an operative and enlightened moral sense over the 
 intellect. His views were distinguished not so much 
 by boldness and . excursiveness as by clearness, steadi- 
 ness, judiciousness, and truth ; and these characteristic 
 properties of his understanding derived their strength, 
 if not existence, from that fairness, rectitude, simplici- 
 ty, and that love of the true and useful, which entered 
 so largely into his moral constitutior , The ol^jects on 
 which he thought and wrote did not offer themselves to 
 him in the bright hues of inspired imagination, but in 
 the forms, dimensions, and colors of reality ; and yet 
 there was no tameness in his conception, for the moral 
 relations of things, the most sublime of all relations, he 
 traced with eagerness and delighted to unfold. Accor- 
 dingly in all his writings we perceive the marks of an 
 understanding surrounded by a clear and warm moral 
 atmosphere. His intellect, we repeat it, was excited 
 and developed very much by moral and religious princi- 
 ple. It was not naturally creative, restless, stirred by 
 a bright and burning imagination.. The strong power 
 within was conscience, enlightened and exalted by 
 religion ; and this sent life through the intellect, and 
 
 46* 
 
546 
 
 conferred or heightened the qualities bj which it was 
 distinguished. 
 
 Of his professional character we know nothing by 
 personal observation ; but w^e do know, that in a metrop- 
 olis where the standard of professional talent and purity 
 is high, he was eminent. We have understood, that he 
 was at once a scientific and practical lawyer, uniting 
 comprehensive views of jurisprudence, and laborious re- 
 search into general principles, with a singular accuracy, 
 and most conscientious fidelity, in investigating the de- 
 tails of the causes in which he was engaged. The spon- 
 taneous,* tribute of the members of the Suffolk Bar to so 
 young a brother, is perhaps without precedent. It de- 
 serves to be mentioned among his claims to esteem, that 
 he was not usurped by a profession to which he was so 
 devoted ; that his thirst for legal knbwledge and distinc- 
 tion, though so ardent, left him free for such a variety 
 of exertions and acquisitions. 
 
 Of his industry, we have had occasion frequently to 
 speak, and it was not the least striking trait in his char- 
 acter. We need no other proof of this, than his early 
 eminence in a profession, which ofiers no prizes to ge- 
 nius unaccompanied by application, and whose treasures 
 are locked up in books, which hold out no lures to imag- 
 ination or taste, and which can only interest a mind dis- 
 posed to patient and intense exertion. We recur, how- 
 ever, to his industry, not so much because it distin- 
 guished him, as from the desire of removing what seems 
 to us a false impression, that he fell a victim to exces- 
 sive application. That he was occasionally guilty of 
 intemperate study (a crime in the eye of a refined mor- 
 ality, because it sacrifices future and extensive useful- 
 ness to immediate acquisition), is probably true ; but less 
 
547 
 
 guiltj, we apprehend, than many who are not charged 
 with excess, , His social nature, his love of general, lit- 
 erature, and, his regular use of exercise, gave as great 
 smi frequent relaxation to his mind, as studious men 
 generally think, necessary ; Jior ought his example to lose 
 its powder, by. the apprehension, that to follow his steps 
 will, be tp descend, with. him to an eaily grave. 
 
 This excellent man it has pleased God to take from 
 us; and to take without warning, when our, hope, was 
 firmest, 5uid., his prospects of usefuluess and prosperity 
 were tOj h^uman eyes, unclouded. That such a course 
 should be ^f' short, is ihe general sorrow. But ought 
 we to think it short ? In the best sense his. life was 
 long. To be the centre of so many influences ; to 
 awaken through so large a circle sentiments of affection 
 and esteem-; to bear effectual testimony to the reality 
 of religion ;; tO: exalt the standard of youthful character 
 to adorn a profession, to which the administration of 
 public justice, and, the care of our civil institutions are 
 peculiarly confided ; to uphold and strengthen useful as- 
 sociations-; to be the friend of the poor and ignorant, 
 and a modql for the rich and improved; to live in the 
 hearts of friends, and to die amidst general, deep, unaf- 
 fected lamentation ; these suvely are not evidences of a 
 brief existence- ' Honorable age is not that, which 
 standeth in length of time, nor which is measured by 
 number of years ; but wisdom is the gray hair unto men, 
 and an unspotted life is old age.' 
 
 Still the question may be asked, 'Why was he taken 
 from so much usefulness.?' Were that state laid open 
 to us, into which he is removed, we should have an 
 answer. We should see, that this world is not the 
 only one where intellect is unfolded, and the heart and 
 active powers find objects. We might see, that ^ch a 
 
548 
 
 spirit as his, was needed now in another and nobler 
 province of the creation ; and that all God's providence 
 towards him had been training and fitting him to be 
 born, if we may so speak, at this very time, into the 
 future world, there to perform offices and receive bles- 
 sings which only a mind so framed and gifted could sus- ; 
 tain and enjoy. He is not lost. Jesus, whom he fol- 
 lowed, ' hath abolished death.' Thought, affection, 
 piety, usefulness, do not die. ' If they did, we should da 
 well to hang his tomb with sackcloth, or rather to ob- 
 literate every trace and recollection of his tomb and his 
 name, for then a light, more precious than the sun's, is 
 quenched forever. But he is not lost, nor is he exiled 
 from his true happiness. An enlightened, just and good 
 mind, is a citizen of the univeirse, and has faculties 
 and affections which correspond to all God's works. 
 Why would vve limit it to earth, perhaps the lowest 
 -world in this immense creation ? Why shall not the 
 spirit, which has given proof of its divine origin and 
 heavenly tendency, be suffered to rise to its proper 
 abode, to a holier community, to a vision of God,- under 
 which earthly and mortal natures would sink and be 
 dissolved ? 
 
 One benefit of the early removal of such a man as 
 Mr. Gallison, is obvious. We learn from it, how early 
 'in life the great work of life may begin, and how suc- 
 cessfully be prosecuted. Had he lived to advanced 
 years, the acquisitions of his youth would have been 
 forgotten and lost in those of riper years. His charac- 
 ter would have been an invaluable legacy, but chiefly 
 to the mature and aged. And surely if his early death 
 shall exalt the aims and purposes of the young ; if piety, 
 now pbstponed to later years, to a winter which bears 
 no snch fruit, shall be esteemed the ornament and de- 
 
a9 
 
 fence of that interesting and tempted age ; if our young 
 men shall learn from him that they belong to God and 
 society ; then his early death may prove as useful as a 
 protracted life. 
 
 We shall add but one more remark. The general 
 sorrow which followed Mr. Gallison to the tomb, was 
 not only honorable to him, but to the community. For 
 he had no dazzling qualities. His manners were not 
 imposing, nor was he aided by uncommon patronage. 
 His worth was unobtrusive, mild, retiring, and left to 
 win its own way to notice and honor. Yet how few 
 young men have reared such a monument in the memories 
 and hearts of the community ? Amidst charges of de- 
 generacy, and with real grounds of humiliation, we 
 should deem it a privilege to live in a state of society, 
 in which such a character as Mr. Gallison's is so gener- 
 ally understood, and is recompensed with such heartfelt 
 and generous praise. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 [I HATE thrown into an Appendix parts of certain Tracts and Discourses, which were 
 called forth by passing events in the political and religious world. I have aimed, in 
 making the selections, to take passages, which contain general Tiewe, retaining only such 
 references to personal, local, and temporary topics, as seem necessary to. a full understand- 
 ing of the extracts.] 
 
 KXTRACTS FROM OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROPOSITION FOR INCEEASING THE 
 MEANS OP THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY IN CAM- 
 BRIDGE. 1816. 
 
 As a proposition is now before the public for increasing the 
 means of theological education at Harvard University, it is thought 
 that a few observations on the subject may be acceptable to those 
 who have not been able to give to it much attention, and whose 
 aid and patronage may be solicited. 
 
 It may perhaps be asked by some, though I hope the question 
 will be confined to a few, Why ought we to be so solicitous for the 
 education of ministers ? The answer is obvious. The object of 
 the ministry is peculiarly important. To the christian minister are 
 intrusted in a measure the dearest and most valuable interests of 
 the human race. He is called to watch over the morals of society, 
 and to awaken and cultivate the principles of piety and virtue in 
 the hearts of individuals. He is set apart to dispense that religion, 
 which, as we believe, came from God, which was given to reform, 
 exalt, and console us, and on the reception of which the happiness 
 of the future life depends. Ought we not to be solicitous for the 
 wise and effectual training of those, by whom this religion is to be 
 unfolded and enforced, and to whose influence our own minds and 
 those of our children are to be so often exposed ? 
 
 Our interest in a minister is very peculiar. He is to us what no 
 other professional man can be. We want him, not to transact our 
 
562 APPENDIX. 
 
 business and to receive a compensation, but to be our friend, our 
 guide, an inmate in our families ; to enter our houses in affliction ', 
 and to be able to give us light, admonition, and consolation in suf- 
 fering, sickness, and the last hours of life. 
 
 Our connexion with men of other professions is transient, acci- 
 dental, rare. With a minister it is habitual. Once in the week, at 
 least, we are to meet him and sit under his instructions. We are to 
 give up our minds in a measure to his influence, and to receive from 
 him impressions on a subject, which more than all others concerns 
 us, and with which our improvement and tranquillity through life 
 and our future peace are intimately connected. 
 
 We want the minister of religion to address our understandings 
 with clearness ; to extend and brighten our moral and religious 
 conceptions ; to throw light over the obscurities of the sacred vol- 
 ume ; to assist us in repelling those doubts which sometimes shake 
 our convictions of christian truth ; and to establish us in a firm and 
 rational belief 
 
 We want him, not only to address the understanding with clearness, 
 but still more to speak to the conscience and heart with power; to 
 force, as it were, our thoughts from the world; to rouse us from the 
 slumbers of an unreflecting life; to ex;hibit religion in an interesting 
 form, and to engage our affections on the side of duty. Such are 
 the offices and aids which we need from the christian minister. 
 Who does not see in a moment, that much preparation of the intel- 
 lect and heart is required to render him successful in these high 
 and generous labors .'' 
 
 These reasons for being interested in the education of ministers 
 grow out of the nature and importance of religion. Another im- 
 portant remark is, that the state of our country demands that 
 greater care than ever should be given to this object. It will not 
 be denied, I presume, that this country is on the whole advancing 
 in intelligence. The means of improvement are more hberally and 
 more generally afforded to the young than in former times. A 
 closer connexion subsists with the cultivated minds in other coun- 
 tries. A variety of institutions are awakening our powers, and 
 communicating a degree of general knowledge, which was not for- 
 merly diffused among us. Taste is more extensively cultivated, 
 and the finest productions of polite literature find their way into 
 many of our families. Now in this state of things, in this increas- 
 ing activity of intellect, there is peculiar need of an enlightened 
 ministry. Religion should not be left to feeble and ignorant advo- 
 cates, to men of narrow and unfurnished minds. Its ministers should 
 
APPENDIX. 553 
 
 be practical proofs, that it may be connected with the noblest im- 
 provements of the understanding ; and they should be able to con- 
 vert into weapons for its defence, the discoveries of philosophy, and 
 the speculations of genius. Religion must, be adapted in its mode 
 of exhibition to the state of society. The forpi in which we pre- 
 sent it to the infant will not satisfy and interest the advanced un- 
 derstanding. In the same manner, if in a cultivated age religious 
 instruction does not partake the general elevation, it will be slighted 
 by the very minds whose influence it is most desirable to engage on 
 the si(}e of virtue and piety. 
 
 I have observed, that an enlightened age requires an enlightened 
 ministry. On the other hand it m.ay be observed, that an enlight- 
 ened ministry is a powerful agent in continuing and accelerating 
 the progress of light, of refinement, and of all social improvements. 
 The limits of this essay will not admit the full developement of this 
 sentiment. I will only observe, that perhaps the most reflecting 
 men are not aware how far a society is indebted for activity of in- 
 tellect, delicacy of manners, and the strength of all its institutions, 
 to the silent, subtile influence of the thoughts and feelings which 
 are kept alive in the breasts of multitudes by religious instruction. 
 
 There is another most important consideration for promoting an 
 enlightened ministry. Religious teachers there certainly will be, 
 of one description or another ; and if men of well furnished minds 
 cannot be found for this office, we shall be overwhelmed by the ig- 
 norant and fanatical. The human heart is disposed, by its very 
 nature, to religious impressions, and it wants guidance, w;ants direc- 
 tion, wants the light and fervor of other minds, in this most inter- 
 esting concern. Conscious of. weakness, and delighting in excite- 
 ment, it will follow the blindest guide, who speaks with confidence 
 of his communications with God, rather than advance alone in the 
 religious life. An enlightened ministry is the only barrier against 
 fanaticism. Remove this, and popular enthusiasts would sweep 
 away the multitude as with a torrent, would operate with an unre- 
 sisted power on the ardent imagination of youth, and on the devo- 
 tional susceptibility of woman, and would even prostrate cultivated 
 minds in which feeling is the most prominent trait. Few of us 
 consider the proneness of the human heart to extravagance and 
 fanaticism, or how much we are all indebted for our safety to the 
 good sense and intellectual and religious improvement of ministers 
 of religion. 
 
 Ignorant ministers are driven almost by necessity to fanaticism. 
 Unable to interest their hearers by appeals to the understanding, 
 
 47 
 
554 APPEi>rDix. 
 
 and by clear, judicious, and affecting delineations of religion, they 
 can only acquire and maintain the ascendency which is so dear 
 to them, by inflaming the passions, by exciting a distempered and 
 ungoverned sensibility, and by perpetuating ignorance and error. 
 Every man of observation must have seen melancholy illustrations 
 of this truth, and what an argument does it afford in favor of an 
 enlightened ministry ! 
 
 Nothing more is needed to show the great interest which the 
 community ought to feel in the education of young men for the 
 ministry. But it will be asked. Are not our present means suffi- 
 cient ? Are not our pulpits filled with well furnished and enlight- 
 ened teachers ? Why seek to obtain additional aids for this 
 important end ? I answer, first, that a sufficient number of en- 
 lightened ministers is not trained for our pulpits. There is a 
 demand beyond the supply, even if we look no further than this 
 Commonwealth; and if we look through the whole country, we shall 
 see an immense tract of the spiritual vineyard uncultivated, and 
 uncultivated for want of laborers. — I answer, in the second place, 
 that whilst in our pulpits we have ministers whose gifts and endow- 
 ments entitle them to respect, we yet need and ought to possess a 
 more enlightened ministry. Many of our religious teachers will 
 lament to us the deficiencies of their education, will lament that 
 the narrowness of their circumstances compelled them to too early 
 an entrance on their work, will lament that they were deprived, by 
 the imperfection of our institutions, of many aids which the pre- 
 paration for the ministry requires. We have indeed many good 
 ministers. But we ought to have better. We may have better. 
 But unless we will sow more liberally, we cannot expect a richer 
 harvest. The education of ministers decides very much their fu- 
 ture character, and where this is incomplete, we must not expect 
 to be blessed with powerful and impressive instruction. The sum 
 is, we need an increase of the means of theological education. 
 
 But it will be asked. Why shall we advance funds for the educa- 
 tion of ministers, rather than of physicians or lawyers ? Why are 
 such peculiar aids and encouragements needed for this profession .' 
 Will not the demand for ministers obtain a supply, just as the demand 
 for every other species of talent ? This reasoning is founded on a 
 principle generally true, that demand creates a supply; but every 
 general rule has its exceptions, and it is one of the highest offices 
 of practical wisdom to discern the cases where the rule fails in its 
 application. 
 
APPENDIX. 555 
 
 All reasoning should give place to fact. Now it is an undenia- 
 ble fact, that whilst the other learned professions in our country are 
 crowded and overstocked, whilst the supply vastly surpasses the 
 demand, the profession of the ministry is comparatively deserted, 
 and candidates of respectable standing, instead of obtruding them- 
 selves in crowds, are often to be sought with a degree of ca;re and 
 difficulty. 
 
 The reason of this is to be found in the difference between the 
 ministry and other professions. Other professions hold out the 
 strong lures of profit and distinction. They appeal to the ambi- 
 tion, the love of gain, the desire of rising in the world, which are 
 so operative on youthful minds.. These lures are not, and ought 
 not to be, exhibited by the ministry. This profession makes its 
 chief appeal to the moral and religious feelings of the young, 
 add we all know how much fainter these are than those which I 
 have previously mentioned. Can we wonder then that the ministry 
 is less crowded ? 
 
 I proceed to another remark. The professions of law and medi- 
 cine do not imperiously demand any high moral qualifications in 
 those who embrace them. A young man, whose habits are not al- 
 together pure, or whose character is marked by levity, may enter 
 on the study of these professions, without incurring the reproach 
 of impropriety or inconsistency of conduct. The ministry, on the 
 other hand, demands not merely unexceptionable morals, but a se- 
 riousness of mind, and a propensity to contemplative and devout 
 habits, which are not the ordinary characteristics of that age, when 
 a choice must be made of the business of life. On this account 
 the number of the young, who are inclined by their own feelings 
 and advised by others to enter the ministry, is comparatively small. 
 
 I am now led to another reflection, growing out of the last. The 
 profession of the ministry has an aspect not inviting to the young. 
 Youth is the period of animation and gaiety. But to the hasty ob- 
 servation of youth, there is a gloominess, a solemnity, a painful 
 self-restraint belonging to the life of a minister. Even young 
 men of pure moral? and of devotional susceptibility shrink from an 
 employment, which they think will separate them from the World, 
 and impose a rigorous discipline and painful circumspection. That 
 path, which they would probably find most tranquil and most flowery, 
 seems to them beset with thorns. Do we not see many obstructions 
 to a sufficient supply of students of theology .' 
 
 I now proceed to another most important consideration. We 
 have seen, that a large number of young men, qualified by their 
 
556 APPENDIX. 
 
 habits and feelings for the ministry, is not to be expected. It is 
 also a fact, aad a very decisive fact, that young men, thus qualified, 
 generally belong to families, whose circumstances are confined^ and 
 vi'hose means of educating their children are exceedingly narrow. 
 From this class of society, the ministerial profession, as is well 
 known, receives its largest supplies. Do we not at once discover 
 from this statement, that this profession demands from the commu- 
 nity peculiar encouragement .'' — Let me briefly repeat 'what I have 
 said. From the nature of the ministry, but a small proportion of the 
 young are disposed or fitted to enter it, and of this number a con- 
 siderable part are unable, to defray the expanses of their education ; 
 and yet the community has the highest possible interest in giving 
 th6m the best education which the improvements of the age and the 
 opulence of the country will admit. Is it not clear, that there ought 
 to be provided liberal funds for this most valuable object ? 
 
 Will it here be asked. Why the candidate for the ministry cannot 
 borrow money to defray the charges of his education ? I answer, 
 it is not always easy for him to borrow. Besides, a debt is a most 
 distressing incumbrance to a man, who has a prospect of a salary so 
 small, that, without exertions foreign to his profession, it will hardly 
 support him. Can we wonder that the profession is declined in 
 preference to such a burden ? 
 
 Where this burden, however, is chosen, the effect is unhappy, and 
 the cause of religion is often a sufferer. The candidate, unwilling 
 to contract a larger debt than is indispensable to his object, hurries 
 through his studies, and enters unfurnished and unprepared on the 
 ministry. His first care is, as it should be, to free himself from 
 his pecuniary obligations ; and, for this end he endeavours to unite 
 some secular employment with his sacred calling. In this way the 
 spirit of study and of his profession is damped. He forms negli- 
 gent habits in his preparation for the pulpit, which he soon- thinks 
 are justified by the wants of a growing family. His imperfect ed- 
 ucation therefore is never completed. His mind remains stationa- 
 ry. A meagre library, which he is unable to enlarge, furnishes the 
 weekly food for his flock, who are forced to subsist on an uninter- 
 esting repetition of the same dull thoughts. 
 
 This is the melancholy history of too many who enter the ministry. 
 Few young men among us are in fact sufficiently prepared, and the 
 consequence is, that religious instruction is not what it should be. 
 The community at large cannot perhaps understand how extensive 
 a preparation the ministry requires. There is one Idea, however, 
 which should teach them, that it ought to be more extensive than 
 
APPENDIX. 557 
 
 that which is demanded for any other profession. A lawyer and 
 physician begin their employment with a small number of clients or 
 patients, and their practice is confined to the least important cases 
 within their respective departments. They have therefore much 
 leisure for preparation after entering on their pursuits, and gradu- 
 ally rise into public notice. Not so the minister. He enters at 
 once on the stage. All the duties of a parish immediately devolve 
 upon him. His connexion at the first moment extends to as large 
 a number as he will ever be called to serve. His station is at first 
 conspicuous. He is literally burdened and pressed with duties. 
 The mere labor of composing as many sermons as are demanded 
 of him, is enough to exhaust his time and strength. If then his ed- 
 ucation has been deficient, how is it to be repaired ? Amidst these 
 disadvantages, can we wonder that the mind loses its spring, and 
 soon becomes satisfied with very humble productions ? How impor- 
 tant is it, that a good foundation should be laid, that the theological 
 student should have time to accumulate some intellectual treasures, 
 and that he should be trained under circumstances most suited to 
 give him an unconquerable love of his profession, of study, and of 
 the cause to which he is devoted ! 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION AND DENUNCIATION IN RELIGION 
 CONSIDERED. 1815. 
 
 Nothing is plainer, than that the teaders of the party called ' Or- 
 thodox,' have adopted and mean to enforce a system of exclusion, 
 in regard to Liberal Christians. They spare no pains to infect the 
 minds of their too easy followers with the persuasion, that they ought 
 to refuse communion with their Unitarian brethren, and to deny them 
 the name, character, and privileges of Christians. On this system, 
 I shall now offer several observations. 
 
 I begin with an important suggestion. I beg that it may be dis- 
 tinctly understood, that the zeal of Liberal Christians on this point 
 nas no other object, than the peace and prosperity of the church of 
 Christ. We are pleading, not our own cause, but the cause of our 
 Master. The denial of our christian character by fallible and im- 
 perfect men gives us no anxiety. Our relation to Jesus Christ is 
 not to be dissolved by the breath of man. Our christian rights 
 do not depend on human passions. We have precisely the same 
 
 47* 
 
668 APPENDIX. 
 
 power over our brethren, which they have oveir us, and are equally 
 authorised to sever them from the body of Christ. Still more ; if the 
 possession of truth give superior weight to denunciation, we are 
 persuaded that our opposers will be the severest sufferers, should we 
 think fit to hurl back the sentence of exclusion and condemnation. 
 But we, have no disposition to usurp power over our brethren. We 
 believe, that the spirit which is so studiously excited against our- 
 selves, has done incalculable injury to the cause of Chrigt ; and we 
 pray God to deliver us from its power. 
 
 Why are the name, character, and rights of Christians to be de- 
 nied to Unitarians ? Do they deny that Jesus is the Christ ? do they 
 reject his word as the rule of their faith and practice .'do their lives 
 discover indifference to his authority and example .' No^ these are 
 not their offences. They are deficient in none of the qualifications 
 of disciples, which were required in the primitive age. Their of- 
 fence is, that they read the scriptures for themselves, and derive 
 from them different opinions on certain points, from those which oth- 
 ers have adopted. Mistake of judgment is their pretended crime, 
 and this crime is laid to their charge by men, who are as liable to 
 mistake as themselves, and who seem to them to have fallen into 
 some of the grossest errors. A condemning sentence from such 
 judges carries with it no terror. Sorrow for its uncharitableness, 
 and strong disapprobation of its arrogance, are the principal feel- 
 ings which ii inspires. 
 
 It is truly astonishing, that Christians are not more impressed 
 with the unbecoming spirit, the arrogant style, of those, who deny ^ 
 the christian character to professed and exemplary followers of 
 Jesus Christ, because they differ in opinion on some of the most 
 subtile and difficult subjects of theology. A stranger, at hearing 
 the language of these denouncers, would conclude, without a doubt, 
 that they were clothed with infallibility, and were appointed to sit in 
 judgment on their brethren. But for myself, I know not a shadow 
 of pretence for the language of superiority assuined by our adver- 
 saries. Are they exempted from the common frailty of our nature ? 
 Has God given them superior intelligence ? Were they educated 
 under circumstances more favorable to improvement than those 
 whom they condemn ? Have they brought to the scriptures more 
 ierious, anxious, and unwearied attention ? Or do their lives ex- 
 press a deeper reverence for God and for his Son ? No. I'hey 
 are fallible, imperfect' men, possessing no higher means, and no 
 stronger motives for studying the word of God, than their Unitarian 
 brethren. And yet their language to them is virtually this ; — ' We 
 
APPENDIX. 559 
 
 pronounce you to be in error, and in most dangerous error. We 
 know that we are right, and that you are wrong, in regard to the 
 fundamental doctrines of the gospel. You are unworthy the chris- 
 tian name, and unfit to sit with us at the table of Christ. We offer 
 you the truth, and you reject it at the peril of your souls.' Such 
 is the language of humble Christians to men, who in capacity and 
 apparent piety are not inferior to themselves. This language has 
 spread from the leaders through a considerable part of the commu- 
 nity. Men in those walks of life which leave them without leisure* 
 or opportunities for improvement, are heard to decide on the most 
 intricate points, and to pass sentence on men, whose lives have 
 been devoted to the study of the scriptures. The female, forget- 
 ting the tenderness of her sex, and the limited advantages which 
 her;!pducation affords for a critical study of the scriptures, inveighs 
 with bitterness against the damnable errors of such men as JVew- 
 ton, Locke, Clarke and Price ! The young, too, forget the mod- 
 esty which belongs to their age, and hurl condemnation on the head 
 which has grown gray in the service of God and mankind. Need 
 I ask, whether this spirit of denunciation for supposed error be- 
 comes the humble- and fallible disciples of Jesus Christ? 
 
 In vindication of this system of exclusion and denunciation, it is 
 oflen urged, that the ' honor of religion,' the ' purity of the church,' 
 and the ' cause of truth,' forbid those who hold the true gospel, to 
 maintain fellowship with those who support corrupt and injurious 
 opinions. Without stopping to notice the modesty of those who 
 claim an exclusive knowledge of the true gospel, I would answer, 
 that the ' honor of religion ' can never suffer by admitting to chris- 
 tian fellowship men of irreproachable lives, whilst it has suffered 
 most severely from tliat narrow and uncharitable spirit, which has 
 excluded such men for imagined errors. I answer again, that 'the 
 cause of truth' can never suffer by admitting to christian fellowship 
 men, who honestly profess to make the scriptures their rule of 
 faith and practice, whilst it has suffered most severely by substitu- 
 ting for this standard conformity to human creeds and formularies. 
 It is truly wonderful, if excommunication for supposed error be the 
 method of purifying the church, that the church has, been so long 
 and so wofully corrupted. Whatever may have been the deficien- 
 cies of Christians in other respects, they have certainly discovered 
 no criminal reluctance in applying this instrument of purification. 
 Could the thunders and lightnings of excommunication have cor- 
 rected the atmosphere of the church, not one pestilential vapor 
 would have loaded it for ages. The air of Paradise would not have 
 
560 ArPENDix. 
 
 been more pure, more refreshing. But what, does history tell us ? 
 It tells us, that the spirit of exclusion and denunciation has con- 
 tributed more than all other causes to the corruption of the church, 
 to the diffusion of error ; and has rendered the records of the chris- 
 tian community as black, as bloody, as revolting to humanity, as 
 the records of empires founded on conquest and guilt. 
 
 But it is said. Did not the apostle denounce the erroneous, and 
 pronounce a curse on the ' abettors of another gospel ? ' This is 
 the strong hold of the friends of denunciation. But let us never 
 forget, that the apostles were inspired men, capable of marking.out 
 with unerring certainty, ihose who substituted ' another gospel ' for 
 the true. Show us their successors, and we will cheerfully obey 
 them. 
 
 It is also important to recollect the character of those men, 
 against whom the apostolic anathema was directed. They were 
 men, who knew distinctly what the apostles taught, and yet opposed 
 it ; and who endeavoured to sow division, and to gain followers, in 
 the churches which the apostles had planted. These men, resist- 
 ing the known instructions of the authorised and inspired teachers 
 of the gospel, and discovering a factious, selfish, mercenary spirit, 
 were justly excluded as unworthy the christian name. But what 
 in common with these men, have the Christians whom it is the cus- 
 tom of the ' Orthodox ' to denounce ? Do these oppose what they 
 know to be the doctrine of Christ and his apostles ? Do they not 
 revere Jesus and his inspired messengers ? Do they not dissent 
 from their brethren, simply because they believe that their brethren 
 dissent from their Lord ? — Let us not forget, that the contest at 
 the present day, is not between the apostles themselves and men 
 who oppose their known instructions, but between uninspired 
 Christians, who equally receive the apostles as authorised teachers 
 of the gospel, and who only differ in judgment as to the interpreta- 
 tion of their writings. How unjust, then, is it for any class of Chris- 
 tians, to confound their opponents with the factious and unprinci- 
 pled sectarians of the primitive age. Mistake in judgment is the 
 heaviest charge which one denomination has now a right to urge 
 against another ; and do we find that the apostles ever denounced 
 mistake as ' awful and fatal hostility ' to the gospel, that they pro- 
 nounced anathemas on men who wished to obey, but who misap- 
 prehended their doctrines ? The apostles well remembered, that 
 none ever mistook more widely than themselves. They remember- 
 ed, too, the lenity of their Lord towards their errors,' and this lenity 
 they cherished and labored to diffuse. 
 
APPENDIX. 561 
 
 But it is asked, Have not Christians a right to bear ' solemn 
 testimony ' against opinions which are ' utterly subversive of the 
 gospel, and most dangerous to men's eternal interests ? ' To this I 
 answer, that the opinions of men, who discover equal intelligence 
 and piety with ourselves, are entitled to respectful consideration. 
 If after inquiry they seem erroneous and injurious, we are author- 
 ised and bound, according to our ability, to expose, by fair and 
 serious argument, their nature and tendency. But I maintain, that 
 we have no right as individuals, or in an associated capacity, to 
 bear our ' solemn testimony ' against these opinions, by menacing 
 with ruin the Christian who listens to them, or by branding them 
 with the most terrifying epithets, for the purpose of preventing 
 candid inquiry into their truth. This is the fashionable mode of 
 ' bearing testimony,' and it is a weapon which will always be most 
 successful in the hands of the proud, the positive, and overbearing, 
 who are most impatient of contradiction, and have least regard to 
 the rights of their brethren. 
 
 But whatever may be the right of Christians, as to bearing tes- 
 timony against opinions which they deem injurious, I deny that 
 they have any right to pass a condemning sentence, on account 
 of these opinions, on the characters of men whose general deport- 
 ment is conformed to the gospel of Christ. Both scripture and 
 reason unite in teaching, that the best and only standard of char- 
 acter is the life ; and he who overlooks the testimony of a christian 
 life, and grounds a sentence of condemnation on opinions, about 
 which he as well as his brother may err, violates most flagrantly 
 the duty of just and candid judgment, and opposes the peaceful and 
 charitable spirit of the gospel. Jesus Christ says, ' By their fruits 
 shall ye know them.' 'Not every one, that saith unto me. Lord, 
 Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who doeth 
 the will of my Father which is in heaven.' 'Ye are my friends, 
 if ye do whatsoever I command you.' ' He that heareth and doeth 
 these my sayings,' i. e. the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, 
 'I will liken him to a man who built his house upon a rock.' It 
 would be easy to multiply simijar passages. The whole scriptures 
 teach us, that he and he only is a Christian, whose life is governed 
 by the precepts of the gospel, and that by this standard alone, the 
 profession of this religion should be tried. We do not deny, that 
 our brethrefa have a right to form a judgmentas to our christian 
 character. But we insist that we have a right to be judged by the 
 fairest, the most approved, and the most settled rules, by whixjh 
 character can be tried : and when these are overlooked, and the 
 
562 APPENDIX. 
 
 mest uncertain standard is applied, we are injured ; and an assault 
 on character, which rests on this ground, deserves no better name 
 than defamation and persecution. 
 
 I know that this suggestion of persecution will be indignantly re- 
 pelled by those, who deal most largely in denunciation. But perse- 
 cution is a wrong or injury inflicted for opinions; and surely assaults 
 on character fall under this definition. Some persons seem to think, 
 that persecution consists in pursuing error with fire and sword ; 
 and that therefore it has ceased to exist, except in distempered im- 
 aginations, because no class of Christians among us is armed with 
 these terrible weapons. But no. The form is changed, but th6 
 spirit lives. Persecution has given up its halter and fagot, but it 
 breathes venom from its lips, and secretly blasts what it cannot 
 openly destroy. For example, a Liberal minister, however circum- 
 spect in his walk, however irreproachable in alL hisrelations, no 
 sooner avows his honest convi6tions on some of the most difficult 
 subjects, than his name begins to be a by-word. A thousand sus- 
 picions are infused into his hearers ; and it is insinuated, that he is 
 a minister' of Satan, in 'the guise of an angel of light.' At a little 
 distance from his home, calumny assumes a bolder tone. ^ He is pro- 
 nounced an infidel, and it is gravely asked, whether he believes in 
 a God. At a greater distance, his morals are assailed. He is a 
 man of the world, ' leading souls to hell,' to gratify the most selfish 
 passions. But notwithstanding all this, he must not say a word 
 about persecution, for reports like these rack no limbs ; they do not 
 even injure a hair of his head ; and how then is he persecuted ? — 
 Now for myself, I am as willing that my adversary should take my 
 purse or my life, as that he should rob me of my reputation, rob me 
 of the affection of my friends, and of my means of doing good. 
 ' He frho takes from me my good name,' takes the best posses- 
 sion of which human power can deprive me. It is true, that a 
 Christian's reputation is comparatively a light object; and so is his 
 property, so is his life; all are light things to him, whose hope is 
 full of immortality. But, of all worldly blessings, an honest reputa- 
 tion is to many of us the most precious; and he who robs us of it, is 
 the most injurious of mankind, and among the worst of persecutors. 
 Let not the friends of denunciation attempt to escape this charge, 
 by, pleading their sense of duty, and their sincere desire to promote 
 the cause of truth. St. Dominic was equally sincere, when he 
 buih the Inquisition ; and I doubt not that many torturers of Chris- 
 tians have fortified, their reluctant minds, at the moment of apply- 
 ing the rack and the burning iron, by the sincere conviction, that 
 
APPENDIX. 563 
 
 the cause of truth required the sacriftce of its foes I beg that 
 these remarks may not be applied indiscriminately to the party 
 called ' Orthodox,' among whom are multitudes, whose humility 
 and 'charity would revolt from making themselves the standards of 
 christian piety, and from assailing the christian character of their 
 brethren. 
 
 Many other considerations may be added to those which have 
 been already urged, against the system of excluding from christian 
 fellowship men of upright lives, on account of their opinions. It 
 necessarily generates perpetual disc'ord in the church. Men dif- 
 fer in opinions as much as in features. No two minds are per- 
 fectly accordant. The shades of belief are infinitely diversified. 
 Amidst this immense variety of sentiment, every man is right in 
 his own eyes. Every man discovers errors in the creed of his 
 brother. Every man is prone to magnify the importance of his 
 own peculiarities, and to discover danger in the peculiarities of 
 others. This is human nature. Every man is partial to his own 
 opinions, because they are his own, and his seltwill and pride .are 
 wounded by contradiction. Now what must we expect, when be- 
 ings so erring, so divided in sentiment, and so apt to be unjust to 
 the views of others, assert the right of excluding one another from 
 the christian church on account of imagined error ? As the scrip- 
 T;ures confine this right to no individual and to no body of Chris- 
 tians, it belongs alike to all; and what must we expect, when Chris- 
 tians of all capacities and dispositions, the ignorant, prejudiced, 
 and self-conceited, imagine it their duty to prescribe opinions to 
 Christendom, and to open or to shut the door of the church accor- 
 ding to the decision which their neighbours may form on some of 
 the most perplexing points of theology .' This question, unhappily, 
 has received answer upon answer in ecclesiastical history. We 
 there see Christians denouncing and excommunicating one another 
 for supposed error, until every denomination has been pronounced 
 accursed by some portion of the christian world; so that were the 
 curses of men to prevail, not one human -being would enter heaven. 
 To me it appears, that to plead for the right of excluding men of 
 - blameless lives, on account of their opinions, is to sound the peal 
 of perpetual and universal war. Arm men with this power, and 
 we shall have 'nothing but thunder.' Some persons are suffi- 
 ciently simple to imagine, that if this ' horrid Unitarianism ' were 
 once hunted down, and put quietly into its grave, the church would 
 be at peace. But no : our present contests have their origin, not 
 in the ' enormities ' of Unitarianism, but very much in the prin- 
 
564 APPENDIX. 
 
 ciples of human nature, in the love of power, in impatience of 
 contradiction, in men's passion for imposing their own views upon 
 others, in the same causes which render them anxious to make 
 proselytes to all their opinions. Were Unitarianism quietly in- 
 terred,, another and another hideous form of error would start up 
 before the zealous guardians of the ' purity of the church.' The 
 Arminian, from whom the pursuit has been diverted for a time by 
 his more offending Unitarian brother, would soon be awakened 
 from his dream of security, by the clamor of denunciation ; and 
 should the Arminian fall a prey, the Calvinists would then find time 
 to look into the controversies among themselves, aiid almost every 
 class would discover, with the eagle eye of their brethren at New- 
 York, that those who differ from them hold ' another gospel,' 
 and ought to be 'resisted and denounced.' Thus the wars of 
 Christians will be perpetual. Never will there be peace, until 
 CJiristians agree to differ, and agree to look for the evidences of 
 christian- character in the temper and the life. 
 
 Another argument against this practice of denouncing' the 
 supposed errors of sincere professors of Christianity, is this. It 
 exalts to supremacy in the church, men who have the least claim 
 to influence. Humble, meek, and affectionate Christians are least 
 disposed to make creeds for their brethren, and to denounce those 
 who differ from them. On the contrary, the impetuous, proud, 
 and enthusiastic, men who cannot 6r will not weigh the arguments 
 of opponents, are always most positive, and most unsparing in 
 denunciation. These take the lead in a system of exclusion. 
 They have no false modesty, no false charity, to shackle their zeal 
 in framing fundamentals for thieir brethren, and in punishing the 
 obstinate in error. The consequence is, that creeds are formed, 
 which exclude from Christ's church some of his truest followers, 
 which outrage reason as well as revelation, and which subsequent 
 ages are obliged to mutilate and explain away, lest the whole re- 
 ligion be rejected by men of reflection. Such has been the history 
 of the church. It is strange that v/e do not learn wisdom from the 
 past. What man, who feels his own fallibility, who sees the errors 
 into which the positive and ' orthodox ' of former times have been 
 betrayed, and who considers his own utter inability to decide on 
 the degree of truth, which every mind, of every capacity, must re- 
 ceive in order to salvation, will not tremble at the responsibility of 
 prescribing to his brethren, in his own words, the views they must 
 maintain on the most perplexing subjects of religion ? Humility 
 will always leave this work to others. 
 
APPENDIX. 565 
 
 Another important consideration is, that this system of excluding 
 men of apparent sincerity, for their opinions, entirely subverts free 
 inquiry into the' scriptures. When once a particular system is 
 swrrounded by "this bulwark; when once its defenders have brought 
 the majority to believe, that the rejection of it is a mark of deprav- 
 ity and perdition, what but the name of liberty is left to Christians? 
 The obstacles to inquiry are as real, and may be as powerful, as 
 in the neighbourhood of the Inquisition. The multitude dare not 
 think, and the thinking dare not speak. The right of private 
 judgment may thus, in a Protestant country, be reduced to a nullity. 
 It is true, that men are sent to the scriptures; but they are told 
 before they go, that they will be driven from the church on earth 
 and in heaven, unless they find in the scriptures the doctrines which 
 are embodied in the popular creed. They are told, indeed, to in- 
 quire for themselves; but they are also told, at what points inquiry 
 must arrive; and the sentence of exclusion hangs over them, if 
 they happen to stray, with some of the best and wisest men, into 
 forbidden paths. Now this ' Protestant liberty ' is, in one respect, 
 more irritating than Papal bondage. It ftiocks as well as enslaves 
 us. It talks to us courteously as friends and brethren, whilst 
 it rivets our chains. It invites and even charges us to look with 
 our own eyes, but with the same breath warns us against seeing 
 anything which Orthodox eyes have not seen before us. Is this a 
 state of things favorable to serious inquiry into the truths of the 
 gospel ; yet, how long has the church been groaning under this 
 cruel yoke ? 
 
 Another objection to this system of excluding professed disciples 
 of Christ, on account of their opinions, is, that it is inconsistent 
 with the great principles of Congregationalism. In churches, 
 where the poWer is lodged in a few individuals, who are supposed 
 to be the most learned men in the community, the work of marking 
 out and excluding the erroneous may seem less difficult. But 
 among Congregationalists, the tribunal before which the offender 
 is to be brought is the whole church, consisting partly of men in 
 bumble circumstances', and of unimproved minds; partly of men 
 engaged in active and pressing business; and partly of men of 
 education, whose studies have been directed to law and medicine. 
 Now is this a tribunal, before which the most intricate points of 
 theology are to be discussed, and serious inquirers are to answer for 
 opinions, which they have perhaps examined more laboriously and 
 faithfully than all their judges .'' Would a church of humble men, 
 conscious of their limited opportunities, consent to try, for these 
 48 
 
566 APPENDIX. 
 
 pretended crimes, professing Christians, as intelligent, as honest, 
 and as exemplary as themselves ? It is evident, that in the busi- 
 ness of excluding men for opinions, a church can be little more 
 than the tool of the minister, or a few influential members; and our 
 churches are, in general, too independent and too upright to take 
 this part in so solemn a transaction. To correct their deficiencies^ 
 and to quicken their zeal on this point, we are now threatened with 
 new tribunals, or (jonsociations, whose office it will be to try minis- 
 ters for their errors, to inspect the churches, and to advise and assist 
 them in the extirpation of ' heresy.' Whilst the laity are slumber- 
 hig, the ancient and free constitution of our churches is silently 
 undermined, and is crumbling away. Since argument is insuffi- 
 cient to produce uniformity of opinion, recourse must be had to 
 more powerful instruments of conviction; I mean, to ecclesiastical 
 COURTS. And are this people indeed prepared to submit to this 
 most degrading form of vassalage; a vassalage, which reaches and 
 palsies the mind, and imposes on it the dreams and fictions of men, 
 for the everlasting truth of God I 
 
 These remarks lead me to the last consideration which I shall 
 urge against the proposed system of exclusion and separation. 
 This system wMl shake to the foundation our religious institutions, 
 and destroy many habits and connesions which have had the hap- 
 piest influence on the religious character of this people. In the first 
 place, if christian communion and all acknowledgements' of chris- 
 tian character are to be denied on the ground of difference of 
 opinion, the annual ' Convention of Congregational Ministers, of 
 Massachusetts,' that ancient bond of union, must be dissolved; 
 and .n its dissolution we shall lose the edifying, honorable, and rare 
 example of ministers regularly assembling, not to exercise power 
 and to fetter the conscience, but to reciprocate kind affection, and 
 to unite in sending relief to the families of their deceased brethren. 
 This event may gladden the heart of the sectarian; it will carry 
 no joy to the widow and orphan. — In the next place, the ' Associa- 
 tions of Ministers,' in our different counties, must in many cases be 
 broken up, to make room for new associations, founded on similar- 
 ity of opinion. Thus, that intercourse, which now subsists be- 
 tween ministers of different persuasions, and which tends to enlarge 
 the mind, and to give a liberality to the feelings, Will be diminished, 
 if not destroyed; and ministers, becoming more contracted and 
 exclusive, will communicate more of this unhappy spirit to their 
 societies. — In the next place, neighbouring churches, which, from 
 their very foundation, have cultivated christian communion, and 
 
APPENDIX. 567 
 
 cdunselled and comforted each other, wiH be mutually estranged, 
 and catching the temper of their religious guides, will exchange 
 fellowship for denunciation ; and instead of delighting in each 
 other's prosperity, will seek each other's destruction. — Again; in 
 the same church, where Christians of different views have long 
 acknowledged each other as disciples of our Master, and have par- 
 taken the same feast of charity^ angry divisions will break forth, 
 parties will be marshalled under different leaders, the sentence of 
 excommunication will be hurled by the majority on their guiltless 
 brethren (if the majority should be ' orthodox'), and thus anger, 
 heart-burnihgsj and bitter recriminations will spread through many 
 of our towns and churches. — Again ; many of our religious socie- 
 ties will be rent asunder, their ministers dismissed, and religious 
 institutions cease. It is well known, that many of our country 
 parishes are able to support but a single minister. At the saine 
 time, they are divided in sentiment ; and nothing but a spirit of 
 charity and forbearance has produced that union, by which public 
 worship has been maintained. Once let the proposed war be pro- 
 claimed, let the standard of party be raised, and a minister must 
 Joplf for support to that party only to which he is attached. An 
 ' Orthodox ' minister should blush to ask it from men, whom he de- 
 nounces for honest opinions, and to whom he denies all the ordi- 
 nances of the gospel. It surely cannot be expected that Liberal 
 Christians will contribute, by their property, to uphold a system of 
 exclusion arjd intolerance directed against themselves. What then 
 will be the fate of many of our societies .' Their ministers, even 
 now, can with difficulty maintain the conflict with other denomina- 
 tions. Must they not sink, when deserted by their most efficient 
 frierids ? Many societies will be lefl, as sheep without a shepherd, 
 a prey to those whom we call sectarians, but who will no longer 
 have an exclusive right to the namq, if the system of division, which 
 has been proposed, be adopted, Many ministers will be compelled 
 to leave the field of their labors and their prospects pf usefulness; 
 and I fear the ministry will lose its hold on the affection and vene- 
 ration of men, when it shall have engendered so much division and 
 contention. — But this is not all. The system of denying the chris- 
 tian name to those who differ from us in interpreting the scriptures, 
 will carry discord hot only into churches, but families. In how 
 many instances are heads of families" divided in opinion on the 
 present subjects of controversy. Hitherto they have loved each 
 other as partakers of the same gloriPus hopes, and have repaired 
 in their domestic joys and sorrows to the same God, (as they imag- 
 
568 APPENDfX. 
 
 ined,) through the same Mediator. But now they are taught, that 
 they have differerit Gods and different gospels, and are taught that 
 the friends of truth are not to hold communion with its rejecters. 
 Let this doctrine be received, and one of the tenderest ties by 
 which many wedded hearts are knit together will be dissolved 
 The family altar must fall. Religion will be known in many a 
 domestic retreat, not as a bond of union, but a subject of debate, 
 a source of discord or depression. 
 
 Now I ask. For what boon are all these sacrifices to be made ? 
 The great end is, that certain opinions, which have been embraced 
 by many serious and inquiring Christians as the truth of God, may 
 be driven from the church, and be dreaded, by the people as among 
 the worst of crimes. Uniformity of opinion, that airy good, which 
 emperors, popes, councils, synods, bishops, and ministers have been 
 seeking for ages, by edicts, creeds, threatenings, excommunications, 
 inquisitions, and flames, — this ia the great object of the system 
 of exclusion, separation, and denunciation which is now to be in- 
 troduced. To this we are to sacrifice our established habits and 
 bonds of union, and this is to be pursued by means, which, as many 
 reflecting men believe, threaten our dearest rights and liberties. 
 
 It is sincerely hoped, that reflecting laymen will no longer shut 
 their eyes on this subject. It is a melancholy fact, that our long 
 established Congregational form of church government is menaced, 
 and tribunals unknown to our churches, and unknown, as we be- 
 lieve, to the scriptures, are to b^ introduced; and introduced for the 
 very purpose, that the supposed errors and mistakes of ministers 
 and private Christians may be tried and punished as heresies; that 
 is, as crimes. In these tribunals, as in all ecclesiastical] bodies, the 
 clergy, who make theology their profession, will of necessity have 
 a preponderating influence, so that the question now before the 
 public is in fact only a new form of the old controversy, which has 
 agitated all ages; viz. whether the clergy shall think for the laity, 
 or prescribe to them their religion. Were this question fairly 
 proposed to the public, there would be but one answer; but it is 
 wrapped up in a dark phraseology about the purity and order of 
 the church, a phraseology, which, I believe, imposes on multitudes 
 of ministers as well as laymen, and induces acquiescence in meas- 
 ures, the real tendency of which they would abhor. It is, I hope, 
 from no feeling of party, but from a sincere regard to the religion 
 of Christ, that I would rouse the slumbering minds of this commu- 
 nity to the dangers which hang over their religious institutions. 
 No power is so rapidly accumulated, or so dreadfully abused, as 
 
APPENDIX. 569 
 
 ecclesiastical power. It assails men with menaces of eternal wo, 
 unless they submit, and gradually awes the most stubborn and 
 strongest minds into subjection. I mean not to ascribe the inten- 
 tion of introducing ecclesiastical tyranny to any class of Christians 
 among us ; but I believe, that many, in the fervor of a zeal which 
 may be essentially virtuous, are about to touch with unhallowed 
 hands the ark of God, to support Christianity by measures which 
 its mild and charitable spirit abhors. I believe, that many, over- 
 looking the principles of human nature, and the history of the 
 church, are about to set in motion a spring of which they know 
 not the force, and cannot calculate the effects. I believe, that the 
 seed of spiritual tyranny is sown, and although to a careless spec- 
 tator it may seem the ' smallest of all seeds,' it has yet, within it- 
 self, a fatal principle of increase, and may yet darken this region 
 of our country with its deadly branches. 
 
 The time is come, when the friends of christian liberty and 
 christian charity are called to awake, and to remember their duties 
 to themselves, to posterity, and to the church of Christ. The 
 time is come, when the rights of conscience and the freedom of 
 our churches must be defended with zeal. The time is come, 
 when liienace arid denunciation must be met with a spirit, which 
 will show that we dread not the frowns, and lean not on the favor 
 of man. The time is come, when every expression of superiority 
 on the part of our brethren should be repelled as criminal usurpa- 
 tion. But in doing this, let the friends of liberal and genuine 
 Christianity remember the spirit of their religion. Let no passion 
 or bitterness dishonor their sacred cause. In contending for the 
 gospel, let them not lose its virtues or forfeit its promises. — We are 
 indeed called to pass through one of the severest trials of human 
 virtue, the trial of controversy. We should carry with us a sense 
 of its danger. Religion, when made a subject of debate, seems 
 often to lose its empire over the heart and life. The mild and 
 affectionate spirit "of Christianity gives place to angry recrimina- 
 tions and cruel surmises. Fair dealing, uprightness, and truth, 
 are exchanged for the arts of sophistry. The devotional feelings, 
 too, decline in warmth and tenderness. Let us then watch and 
 pray. Let us take heed that the weapons of our warfare be not 
 carnal. Whilst we repel usurpation, let us be just to the gene- 
 ral rectitude of many by whom our christian rights are invaded. 
 Whilst we repel the uncharitable censures of men, let us not for- 
 get that deep humility and sense of unworthiness with which we 
 should ever appear before God. In our zeal to maintain the 
 
 48* 
 
470 
 
 especially tends to crush human energy and hope. To 
 a frail dependent creature, an omnipotent Creator easily 
 becomes a terror, and his worship easily degenerates 
 into servility, flattery, self-contempt, and selfish calcu- 
 lation. Religion only ennobles us, in as far as it re- 
 veals to us the tender and intimate connexion of God 
 with his creatures, and teaches us to see in the very 
 greatness which might give alarm, the source of great 
 and glorious communications to the human soul. You 
 cannot, my hearers, think too highly of the majesty of 
 God. But let not this majesty sever him from you. 
 Remember, that his greatness is the infinity of attributes 
 which yourselves possess. Adore his infinite wisdom ; 
 but remember that this wisdom rejoices to diffuse itself, 
 and let an exhilarating hope spring up, at the thought of 
 the immeasurable intelligence which such a Father must 
 communicate to his children. In like manner adore his 
 power. Let the boundless creation fill you with awe 
 and admiration of the energy which sustains it. But 
 remember that God has a nobler work than the outward 
 creation, even the spirit within yourselves ; and that it 
 is his purpose to replenish this with his own energy, 
 and to crown it with growing power and triumphs over 
 the material universe. Above all, adore his unutterable 
 goodness. But remember, that this attribute is particu- 
 larly proposed to you as your model ; that God calls 
 you, both by nature and revelation, to a fellowship in 
 his philanthropy ; that he has placed you in social rela- 
 tions for the very end of rendering you ministers and 
 representatives of his benevolence ; that he even sum- 
 mons you to espouse and to advance the sublimest pur- 
 pose of his goodness, the redemption of the human 
 race, by extending the knowledge and power of chris- 
 tian truth. It is through such views, that religion 
 
471 
 
 raises up the soul, and binds man by ennobling bonds 
 to his Maker. 
 
 To complete my views of this topic, I beg to add an 
 important caution. I have said that the great work of 
 religion is to conform ourselves to God, or to unfold the 
 divine likeness within us. Let none infer from this 
 language, that I place religion in unnatui-al effort, in 
 straining after excitements which do not belong to the 
 present state, or in anything separate from the clear and 
 simple duties of life. I exhort you to no extravagance. 
 I reverence human nature too much to do it violence. 
 I see too much divinity in its ordinary operations, to 
 urge on it a forced and vehement virtue. To grow in 
 the likeness of God, we need not cease to be men. 
 This likeness does not consist in extraordinary or mi- 
 raculous gifts, in supernatural additions to the soul, or 
 in anything foreign to our original constitution ; but in 
 our essential faculties, unfolded by vigorous and con- 
 scientious exertion in the ordinary circumstances assign- 
 ed by God. To resemble our Creator, we need not 
 fly from society, and entrance ourselves in lonely con- 
 templation and prayer. Such processes might give a 
 feverish strength to one clas& of emotions, but would 
 result in disproportion, distortion, and sickliness of mind. 
 Our proper work is to approach God by the free and 
 natural unfolding of our highest powers, of understand- 
 ing, conscience, love, and the mpral will. 
 
 Shall r be told that by such language, I ascribe to 
 nature the effects which can only be wrought in the 
 soul by the Holy Spirit ? I anticipate this objection^ 
 and wish to meet it by a simple exposition of my views. 
 I would on no account disparage the gracious aids and 
 influences which God imparts to the human soul. The 
 pfbtoise of the Holy Spirit is atnong the most precious 
 
572 APPENDIX. 
 
 life, we see an unsullied image of God's purity and love. We be- 
 lieve, then, in the Divinity of Christ, as this term is often and prop- 
 erly used. — How, then, it may be asked, do we differ from other 
 Christians ? We differ in this important respect. Whilst we honor 
 Christ as the son, representative, and image of the Supreme God, 
 we do not believe him to be the Supreme God himself. We main- 
 tain, that Christ and God are distinct beings, two beings, not one 
 and the same being. On this point a little repetition may be par- 
 doned, for many good Christians, after the controversies of ages, 
 misunderstand the precise difference between us and themselves. 
 Trinitarianism teaches, that Jesus Christ is the Supreme and Infinite 
 God, and that he and his Father are not only one in affection, 
 counsel, and will, but are strictly and literally one and the same 
 being. Now to us this doctrine is most unscriptural and irrational. 
 We say that the Son cannot be the same being with his own Fa- 
 ther; that he, who was sent into the world to save it, cannot be the 
 living God who sent him. The language of Jesus is explicit and 
 unqualified. ' I came not to do min^own will.' — ' I came not from 
 myself — ' I came from God.' Now we affirm, and this is our chief 
 heresy, that Jesus was not and could not be the God from whom 
 he came, but was another being; and it amazes us that any can 
 resist this simple truth. The' doctrine, that Jesus, who was born 
 at Bethlehem; who eat and drank and slept; who suffered and was 
 crucified; who came from God; who prayed to God; who did God's 
 will; and who said, on leaving the world, 'I ascend to my Father 
 and your Father, to my God and your God;' the doctrine that this 
 Jesus was the Supreme God himself, and the same being with his 
 Father, this seems to us a contradiction to reason and scripture so 
 flagrant, that the simple statement of it is a sufficient refutation. 
 We are often charged with degrading Christ; but if this reproach 
 belong to any Christians, it falls, we fear, on those who accuse him 
 of teaching a doctrine so contradictory, and so subversive of the 
 supremacy of our Heavenly Father. Certainly our humble and 
 devout Master has given no ground for this accusation. He always 
 expressed towards God the reverence of a son. He habitually 
 distinguished himself from God. He referred to God all his pow- 
 ers. He said without limitation or reserve, ' The Father is greater 
 than I.' — 'Of myself I can do nothing.' If to represent Christ 
 as a being distinct from God, and as inferior to him, be to degrade 
 him, then let our opponents lay the guilt where H belongs, not on 
 us, but on our Master, whose language we borrow, in whose very 
 words we express our sentiments, whose words we dare not trifle 
 
APPENDIX. 573 
 
 with and force from their plain sense. Our limits will not allow us 
 to say more; but we ask common Christians, who ha:ve taken their 
 opinions from the bible rather than from human systems, to look 
 honestly into their own minds, and to answer frankly, whether they 
 have not understood and believed Christ's divinity, in the sense 
 maintained by us, rather than in that for which the Trinitarians 
 contend. 
 
 2. I proceed to another objection, and one which probably weighs 
 more with multitudes than any other. It is this, that our doctrine 
 respecting Christ takes from the sinner the only ground of hope. 
 It is said by our opponents, ' We and all men are sinners by our 
 very nature, and infinitely guilty before God. The sword of di- 
 vine justice lh«ngs over us, and bell opens beneath us; and where 
 shall we find a refuge but in an infinite Saviour ? We want an 
 Infinite Atonement; and in depriving us of this, you rob us of our 
 hope, y©u tear from the sociptures the only doctrine which meets 
 our wants. We may burn our bibles, if your interpretation be 
 true, for our case is desperate; we are lost forever.' In such warm 
 aod wild languaige, altogether unwarranted by scripture, yet ex- 
 ceedingly fitted to work on common and terror-stricken tninds, our 
 doctrine is 'Oonstamtly assailed. 
 
 IVow to this declamation, for such we esteem it, we oppose one 
 plain (request. Show us, we say, a single passage in the bible in 
 which we are told, that the sin of man is infinite, and needs an 
 infinite atonement. We find not one. Not even a whisper of 
 this doctrine comes to us from the sacred writers. Let us stop a 
 moment and weigh this doctrine. It teaches us that man, although 
 created by God a fi-ail, erriiig, and imperfect being, and even 
 created with am irresistible propensity to sin, is yet regarded by» 
 his Creator as an infinite offender, meriting infinite punishment 
 for his earliest transgressions; and that he is doomed to endless 
 torment, unless an infinite Saviour appear for his rescue ! How 
 can any one, we ask, charge on our benevolent and righteous Pa- 
 rent such a government of his creatures.-^We maintain, that man 
 is not created in a condition which mak'es an ifiiifinite atonement 
 necessary; nor do we believe that any creature can fall into a 
 condition, from which God may not deliver him without this rigid 
 expedientr Surely, if an infinite satisfacttoti to justice were indis- 
 pensable to our salvation, if God took on him humsin natul^ for the 
 very purpose ©f offering it, and if this fftct constitute thfe'peculiat 
 glory, the life and essence, and the saving efficacy of the gospelj 
 we muat find it expressed clearly, definitely^ in at least one passage 
 
.574 APPENDIX. 
 
 in the bible. But not one,, we repeat it, can be found there. — We 
 maintain, farther, that this doctrine of God becoming a victim and 
 sacrifice for his own rebellious subjects, is as irrational as it is 
 unscriptural. We have always supposed that atonement, if ne- 
 cessary, was. to be. made to, not by, the sovereign who has been 
 offended; and we cannot conceive a more unlikely method of vin- 
 dicating his authority, than that he himself should bear the punish- 
 ment which is diie to transgressors of his laws. — We have another 
 objection. If an- infinite atonement be necessary, and if, con- 
 sequently, none but God can make- it, we see not but that God 
 must become a sufferer, must take upon himself our pain and 
 wo; a thought from which a pious mind shrinks with horror. To 
 escape this difficulty, we are told, that Christ suffe.red as man^ not 
 as God; but if man only suffered, if only a human and finite mind 
 suffered, if Christ, as Godj was perfectly happy on the cross, and 
 bore only a short arid limited pain in his human nature, where, we 
 ask, was the infinite atonement? Where is the boasted hope, 
 which this doctrine is said to give to the sinner .'' 
 
 The objection, that there is no hope for the sinner, unless Christ 
 be the Infinite God, amazes us. Surely if we have a Father in 
 heaven, of infinite goodness and power, we need no other infinite 
 person to save us. The comftion doctrine disparages and dishon- 
 ors the only true God, our Father, as if, without the help of a 
 second and a third divinity, equal to himself, he could not restore 
 his frail creature, man. We have not the courage of our brethren. 
 With the scriptures in our hands, with the solemn attestations 
 which they contain to the divinti Unity, and to Christ's dependence, 
 we dare not give to the God and Father of Jesus an equal or rival 
 in the glory of originating our redemption, or of accomplishing it 
 by underived and. infinite power .^ — Are we asked, as we sometimes 
 are, what is our hope, if Christ be not the supreme God ? We 
 answer j it is the boundless and almighty goodness of his Father 
 and our Father; a goodness, which cannot require an infinite 
 atonement for the sins bf a frail and limited creature. God''s es- 
 sential and unchangeable mercy, not Christ's infinity, is the scrip- 
 tural foundation of a sinner's hope. In the scriptures, our heav- 
 enly Father is always represented as the sole original, spring, and 
 first cause of our salvation; and let no one presume to divide His 
 glory with another. That Jesus came to save us, we owe entirely 
 to the Father's benevolent appointment. That Jesus is perfectly 
 adequate to the work of our salvation, is to be believed, not be- 
 cause he is himself the supreme God, but because the supreme 
 
APPENDIX. 575 
 
 and unerring God, selected, commissioned, and empowered him for 
 this office. — That his death is an important means of our salvation, 
 we gratefully acknowledge ; but ascribe its efficacy to the merciful 
 disposition of God towards the human race. To build the hope of 
 pardon on the independent and infinite sufficiency of Jesus Christ, 
 is to build on an unscriptural and false foundation; for Jesus 
 teaches us, that of himself he can do nothing; that all power is 
 given to him by his Father; and that he is a proper object of trust, 
 because he came not of himself, or to do his own will, but because 
 the Father sent him. We indeed lean on Christ, but it is because 
 he is 'a corner-stone, chosen by God and laid by God in Zion.' 
 God's forgiving love, declared to mankind by Jesus Christ, and 
 exercised through him, is the foundation of hope to the penitent, 
 on which we primarily rest, and a firmer the universe cannot fur- 
 nish us. , 
 
 3. We now proceed to another objection. We are charged with 
 expecting to be saved by Works, and not by Grace. This charge 
 may be easily despatched, and a more groundless one cannot easily 
 be imagined. We indeed attach great importance to christian 
 works, or christian obedience, believing that a practice or life, con- 
 formed to the precepts and example of Jesus, is the great end for 
 which faith in him is required, and is the great condition on which 
 everlasting life is bestowed. We are accustomed to speak highly 
 of the virtues and improvements of a true Christian, rejecting with 
 abhorrence the idea, that they are no better than the outward Jew- 
 ish righteousness, which the prophet called ' filthy rags; ' and main- 
 taining with the apostle, that they are ^ in the sight of God, of 
 great price.' We believe that holiness or virtue is the very image 
 of God in the human soul, a ray of his brightness, the best gift 
 which he communicates to his creatures, the highest benefit which 
 Christ came to confer, the only important and lasting distinction 
 between man and man. Still we always and earnestly maintain, 
 that no human virtue, no human obedience, can give a legal claim, 
 a right by merit, to the life and immortality brought to Hght by 
 Christ. We see and mourn over the deficiencies, broken resolu- 
 tions, and mixed motives of the best men. We always affirm, that 
 God's grace, benignity, free kindness, is needed by the most ad- 
 vanced Christians, and that to this alone we owe the promise in 
 the gospel, of full remission and everlasting happiness to the peni- 
 tent. None speak of mercy more constantly than we. One of 
 our distinctions is, that we magnify this lovely attribute of tha 
 Deity. So accustomed are we to insist on the infinity of God's 
 
576 APPENDIX. 
 
 grace and mercy, that our adversaries often charge us with forget- 
 ting his justice; and yet it is objected to us, that, renouncing grace, 
 we appeal to justice, and build our hope on the abundance of our 
 merit ! 
 
 4. We now proceed to another objection often urged against our 
 views, or rather against those who preach them; and it is this, that 
 we preach Morality. To meet this objection we beg to know what 
 is intended by morality. Are we to understand by it, what it prop- 
 erly signifies, our whole duty, however made known to us, whether 
 by nature or revelation ? Does it mean the whole extent of those 
 obligations which belong to us as moral beings ? Does it mean 
 that ' sober, righteous, godly life,' which our moral Governor has 
 prescribed to us by his Son, as the great preparation for heaven ? 
 If this be morality, we cheerfully plead guilty to the charge of 
 preaching it, and of laboring chiefly and constantly to enforce it; 
 and believing, as we do, that all the doctrines, precepts, threaten- 
 ings, and promises of the gospel, are revealed for no other end 
 than to make men moral, in this true and generous sense, we hope 
 to continue to merit this reproach. 
 
 We fear, however, that this is not the meaning of the morality, 
 which is said to be the burden of our preaching. Some, at least, 
 who thus reproach us, mean, that we are accustomed to enjoin only 
 a worldly and social* morality, consisting in common honesty, com- 
 mon kindnfiss, and freedom from gross vices; neglecting to incul- 
 cate inward purity, devotion, heavenly-mindedness, and love to 
 Jesus Christ. We hope that the persons who thus accuse us speak 
 from rumor, and have never heard our instructions for themselves; 
 for the charge is false; and no one who ever sat under our minis- 
 try can urge it, without branding himself a slanderer. The first 
 and great commandment, which is to love God supremely, is recog- 
 nised and enforced habitually in our preaching; and our obligations 
 to Jesus Christ, the friend who died for us, are urged, we hope, 
 not wholly without tenderness and effect. 
 
 It is but justice, however, to observe of many, that when they 
 reproach us with moral preaching, they do not mean that we teach 
 only outward decencies, but that we do not inculcate certain ftivor- 
 ite doctrines, which- are to them the very Aiarrow and richness of 
 the gospel. When such persons hear a sermon, be the subject 
 what it may, which is not seasoned with recognitions of the trinity, 
 total depravity, and similar articles of faith, they call it moral. 
 According to this strange and unwarrantable use of the term, we 
 rejoice to say that we are ' moral preachers ; ' and it' comforts us 
 
APPENDIX. 577 
 
 that we have for our pattern, ' him who spake as never man spake,' 
 and who, in his longest discourse, has dropped not a word about a 
 trinity, or inborn corruption, or special and electing grace; and 
 still more, we seriously doubt whether our preaching could v.ith 
 propriety be called moral, did we urge these doctrines, especially 
 the two last; for however warmly they may be defended by honest 
 men, they seem to us to border on immorality; that is, to dishonor 
 God, to weaken the sense of responsibility, to break the spirit, and 
 to loosen the restraints on guilty passion. 
 
 6. Another objection urged against us, is, that our system does 
 not produce as much zeal, seriousness, and piety as other views of 
 religion. This objection it is difficult to repel, except by language 
 which will seem to be a boasting of ourselves. When expressed 
 in plain language, it amounts to this; — ' We Trinitarians and Cal- 
 vinists are better and more pious than you Unitarians, and conse- 
 quently our system is more scriptural than yours.' Now assertions 
 of this kind do not strike us as very modest and humble, and we 
 believe that truth does not require us to defend it by setting up our 
 piety above that of our neighbours. — This, however, we would say, 
 that if our zeal and devotion are faint, the fault is our own, not 
 that of our doctrine. We are sure that our views of the Supreme 
 Being are incomparably more affecting and attractive, than those 
 which we oppose. It is the great excellence of our system, that 
 it exalts God, vindicates his paternal attributes, and appeals pow- 
 erfully to the ingenuous principles of love, gratitude, and venera- 
 tion; and when we compare it with the doctrines which are spread 
 around us, we feel that of all men we are most inexcusable, if a 
 filial piety do not spring up and grow strong in our hearts. 
 
 Perhaps it may not be difficult to suggest some causes for the 
 charge, that our views do not favor seriousness and zeal. One 
 reason probably is, that we interpret with much rigor those precepts 
 of Christ, which forbid ostentation, and enjoin modesty and retire- 
 ment in devotion. We dread a showy religion. We are disgusted 
 with pretensions to superior sanctity, that stale and vulgar way of 
 building up a sect. We believe that true religion speaks in actions 
 more than in words, and manifests itself chiefly in the common tem- 
 per and life ; in giving up the passions to God's authority, in inflexible 
 uprightness and truth, in active and modest charity, in candid judg- 
 ment, and in patience under trials and injuries. We think it no 
 part of piety to publish its fervors, but prefer a delicacy in regard 
 to these secrets of the soul; and hence, to those persons, who think 
 religion is to be worn conspicuously and spoken of passionately, wa 
 
578 APPENDIX. 
 
 may seem cold and dead, when perhaps, were the heart uncovered, 
 it might be seen to be ' aUve to God,' as truly as their own. 
 
 Again, it is one of our jft-inciples, flowing necessarily from our 
 views of God, that religion is cheerful; that where its natural ten- 
 dency is not obstructed by false theology, or a melancholy tempera- 
 ment, it opens the heart to every pure and innocent pleasure. We 
 do not think that piety disfigures its face, or wraps itself in a fune- 
 ral pall as its appropriate garb. Now too many conceive of reli- 
 gion as something gloomy, and never to be named but with an 
 altered tone and countenance; and where they miss these imagined 
 signs of piety, they can hardly believe that a sense of God dwells 
 in the heart. 
 
 Another cause of the error in question we believe to be this. 
 Our religious system excludes, or at least does not favor, those 
 overwhelming terrors and transports, which many think essential 
 to piety. We do not believe in shaking and disordering men's un- 
 derstandings by excessive fear, as a preparation for supernatural 
 grace and immediate conversion. This we pegard as a dreadful 
 corruption and degradation of religion. Religion, we believe, is a 
 gradual and rational work, beginning sometimes in sudden impres- 
 sions, but confirmed by reflection, growing by the regular use of 
 christian means, and advancing silently to perfection. Now, be- 
 cause we specify no time when we were overpowered and created 
 anew by irresistible impulse; because we relate no agonies of 
 despair succeeded by miraculous light and joy, we are thought by 
 some to be strangers to piety; — how reasonably let the judicious 
 determine. 
 
 Once more; we are thought to want zeal, because our principles 
 forbid us to use many methods for spreading them, which are com- 
 mon with other Christians. Whilst we value highly our peculiar 
 views, and look to them for the best fruits of piety, we still con- 
 sider ourselves as bound to think charitably of those who doubt 
 or deny them; and with this conviction, we cannot enforce them 
 with that vehemence, positiveness, and style of menace, which 
 constitute much of the zeal of certain denominations; — and we 
 freely confess that we would on no account exchange our charity 
 for their zeal; and we trust that the time is near, when he who holds 
 what he deems truth with lenity and forbearance, will be accounted 
 more pious than he who compasseth sea and land to make proselytes 
 to his sect, and ' shuts the gates of mercy' on all who will not bow 
 their understandings to his creed.— We fear, that in these remarks 
 we may have been unconsciously betrayed into a self-exalting 
 
APPENDIX. 579 
 
 spirit. Nothing could have drawn them from us, but the fact that 
 a very common method of opposing our sentiments is to decry the 
 piety of those who adopt them. After all, we mean not to deny 
 oiir great deficiencies. We have nothing to boast before God, al- 
 though the cause of truth forbids us to submit to the censorious- 
 ness of our brethren. 
 
 6. Another objection to our views, is, that they lead to a rejec- 
 tion of revelation. , Unitarianism has been called ' a half-way 
 house to infidelity.' — Now to this objection we need not oppose 
 general reasonings. We will state a plain fact. It is this. — A 
 large proportion of the most able and illustrious defenders of the 
 truth of Christianity have been Unitarians; and our religion has 
 received from them, to say the least, as important service in its 
 conflicts with infidelity, as from any class of Christians whatever. 
 From the long catalogue of advocates of Christianity among Uni- 
 tarians, we can select now but a few; but these few are a host. 
 The name of John Locke' is familiar to every scholar. He ren- 
 dered distinguished service to the philosophy of the human mind; 
 nor is this his highest praise. His writings on government and 
 toleration contributed more than those of any other individual, to 
 the diffusion of free and generous sentiments through Europe and 
 America; and perhaps Bishop Watson was not guilty of great ex- 
 aggeration, when he said, ' This great man has done more for the 
 establishment of pure Christianity than any author I am acquainted 
 with.' He was a laborious and successful student of the scrip- 
 tures. His works on the ' Epistles of Paul,' and on the ' Reason- 
 ableness of Christianity,' formed an era in sacred literature; and 
 he has the honor of having shed a new and bright light on the 
 darkest parts of the New Testament, and in general on the Chris- 
 tian system. Now Locke, be jt remembered, was a Unitarian. — 
 We pass to another intellectual prodigy — to Newton, a name which 
 every man of learning pronounces with reverence; for it reminds 
 him of faculties so exalted above those of ordinary men, that they 
 seem designed to help our conceptions of superior orders of being. 
 This great man, who gained by intuition what others reap from la- 
 borious research, after exploring the laws of the universe, turned 
 for light and hope to the bible; and although his theological worka 
 cannot be compared with Locke's, yet in his illustrations of the 
 prophecies, and of scripture chronology, and in his criticisms on 
 two doubtful passages,* which are among the chief supports of the 
 doctrine of the trinity, he is considered as having rendered valua- 
 
 * 1 John V. 7.— 1 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
580 APPENDIX. 
 
 ble service to the christian cause. Newton, too, was a Unitarian. 
 — We are not accustomed to boast of men, or to prop our faith by 
 great names; for Christ, and He only, is our Master; — but it is 
 with pleasure, that we find in our ranks the most gifted, sagacious, 
 and exalted minds; and we cannot but smile, when we sometimes 
 hear from men and women of very limited culture, and with no 
 advantages for enlarged inquiry, reproachful and cbntemptuous 
 remarks on a doctrine which the vast intelligence of Locke and 
 Newton, after much study of the scriptures, and in opposition to a 
 prejudiced and intolerant age, received as the truth of God. It is 
 proper to state that doubts have lately been raised as to the relig- 
 ious opinions of Locke and Newton, and for a very obvious reason. 
 In these times of growing light, their names have been found too 
 useful to the [Jnitarian cause. But the long and general belief 
 of the Unitarianisin of these illustrious men, can hardly be account- 
 ed for, but by admitting the fact; and we know of no serious at- 
 tempts to set aside the proofs on which this belief is founded. 
 
 We pass to another writer, who was one of the brightest orna- 
 ments ofifthe Church of England and of the age in which he lived. 
 Dr. Samuel Clarke. In classical literature and in metaphysical 
 speculation. Dr. Clarke has a reputation which needs no tribute at 
 our hands. His sermons are an invaluable repository of scriptural 
 criticism; and his work on the evidences of natural and revealed 
 religion, has ever been considered as one of the ablest vindications 
 of our common faith. This great man was a [Jnitarian. He be- 
 lieved firmly that Jesus was a distinct being from his Father; and 
 a derived and dependent being; and he desired to bring the liturgy 
 of his church into a correspondence with these doctrines. 
 
 To those who are acquainted with the memorable infidel contro- 
 versy in the early part of the last century, excited by the writings 
 of Bolingbroke, Tindal, Morgan, Collins, and Chubb, it will be un- 
 necessary to speak of the zeal and power with which the christian 
 cause was maintained by learned Unitarians. But we must pass 
 over these to recall a rnan, whose memory is precious to enlight- 
 ened believers; we mean Lardner, th.at most patient and successful 
 advocate of Christianity; who has written, we believe, more largely 
 than any other author on the evidences of the gospel; from whose 
 works later authors have drawn as from a treasurehouse; and 
 whose purity and mildness have disarmed the severity and con- 
 ciliated the respect of men of very different views from his own. 
 Lardner was a Unitarian. — Ne.xt to Lardner, the most laborious 
 advocate of Christianity against the attacks of infidels, in our own 
 
APPENmX. 581 
 
 day, was Priestley; and whatever we may think of some of his 
 opinions, we believe that none of his opposers ever questioned 
 the importance of hjs vindications of our common faith. We cer- 
 tainly do not say too much, when we affirm that Unitarians have 
 not been surpassed by any denomination in zealous, substantial 
 service to the christian cause. Yet we are told that Unitarianism 
 leads to infidelity. We are reproached with defection from that 
 religion, round which we have gathered in the day of its danger, 
 and from which, we trust, persecution and death cannot divorce us. 
 
 It is indeed said, that instances have occurred of persons, who, 
 having given up the Trinitarian doctrine, have not stopped there, 
 but have resigned one part of Christianity after. another, until they 
 have become thorough infidels. To this we answer, that such in- 
 stances we have never known; but that such should occur is not 
 improbable, and is what we should even expect; for it is natural 
 that when the mind has detected one error in its creed, it should 
 distrust every other article, and should exchange its blind and he- 
 reditary assent for a sweeping skepticism. We have examples of 
 this truth at the present moment, both in France and Spain, where 
 multitudes have proceeded from rejecting Popery to absolute Athe 
 ism. Now who of us will argue that the Catholic faith is true, 
 because multitudes who relinquished it, have also cast away every 
 religious, principle and restraint; and if the argument be not sound 
 on the side of Popery, bow can it be> pressed into the service of 
 Trinitarianism? The fact is, that false and absurd doctrines, when 
 exposed, have a natural tendency to beget skepticism in those who 
 received them without reflection. None are so likely to believe- 
 too little as those who have begup with believing too much; and 
 hence we charge upon Trinitarianism whatever tendency may ex- 
 ist in those who forsake it, to sink gradually into infidelity. > 
 
 Unitarianism does not lead to infidelity. On the contrary, its 
 excellence is, that it fortifies faith. Unitarianism is Christianity 
 stripped of those corrupt additions, which shock reason and our 
 moral feelings. It is a rational and amiable system, against which 
 no man's understanding, or conscience, or charity, or piety revolts. 
 Can the same be said of that system, which teaches the doctrines 
 of three equal persons in one God, of natural and total depravity, 
 of infinite atonement, of special and electing grace, and of the ev- 
 erlasting misery of the non-elected part of mankind ? We believe 
 that unless Christianity be purified from these corruptions, it will 
 not be able to bear the unsparing scrutiny to which the progress of 
 society is exposing it. We believe that it must be reformed, or 
 
 49* 
 
582 APPENDIX. 
 
 intelligent men will abandon it. As the friends of Christianity, 
 and the foes of infidelity, we are therefore solicitous to diffuse what 
 seem to us nobler and juster views of this divine system. 
 
 7. It was our pui-pose to consider one more objection to our views; 
 viz. that they give no consolation in sickness and death. But we 
 have only time to express amazement at such a charge. What! a 
 system which insists with a peculiar energy on the pardoning mercy 
 of God, on his universal and parental love, and on the doctrine of a 
 resurrection and immortality — such a system unable to give comfort ? 
 It unlocks infinite springs of consolation and joy, and gives to him 
 who practically receives it, a living, overflowing, and unspeakable 
 hope. Its power to sustain the soul in death has been often tried; 
 and did we believe dying men to be inspired, or that peace and hope 
 in the last hours were God's seal to the truth of doctrines, we should 
 be able to settle at once the controversy about Unitarianism. A 
 striking example of the power of this system in disarming death, was 
 lately given by a young minister in a neighbouring town,* known to 
 many of our readers, and singularly endeared to his friends by emi- 
 nent christian virtue. He was smitten by sickness in the midst of 
 a useful and happy life, and sunk slowly to the grave. Hisreligion, 
 and it was that which has now been defended, gave habitual peace 
 to his mind, and spread a sweet smile over his pale countenance. 
 He retained his faculties to his last hour; and when death came, 
 having left pious counsel to the younger members of his family, and 
 expressions of gratitude to his parents, he breathed out life in the 
 language of Jesus — ' Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' 
 Such was the end of one who held, with an unwavering faith, the 
 great principles which we have here advanced; and yet our doc- 
 trine has no consolation, we are told, for sickness and death ! 
 
 We have thus endeavoured to meet objections commonly urged 
 s^ainst our views of religion ; and we have done this, not to build 
 up a party, but to promote views of Christianity, which seem to us 
 particularly suited to strengthen men's faith in it, and to make it 
 fruitful of good works and holy lives. Christian virtue, christian 
 holiness, love to God and man, these are all which we think worth 
 contending for; and these we believe to be intimately connected 
 with the system now maintained. If in this we err, may God dis 
 cover our error and disappoint our efforts. We ask no success, but 
 what He may approve — no proselytes but such as will be made 
 better, purer, happier by the adoption of our views. 
 
 * Rev. John E. Abbot of Salem. This tiact was first published in 1819, in the Chrii 
 tian Disciple. 
 
APPENDIX. 58S 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM SERMONS PREACHED ON DAYS OF HUMILIATION AND PRAYER 
 APPOINTED IN CONSEaUENCE OF THE DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST 
 GREAT BRITAIN, A. D. 18J2. 
 
 i» 
 
 In all circumstances, at all times, war is to be deprecated. The 
 evil passions which it excites,, its ravages, its bloody conflicts, the 
 distress and terror which it carries into domestic life, the tears 
 which it draws from the widow and the fatherless, all render war a 
 tremendous scourge. 
 
 There are indeed conditions, in which war is justifiable, is neces- 
 sary. It may be the last and only method of repelling lawless ambi- 
 tion, of defending invaded liberty and essential rights. It may be 
 the method which God's providence points out by furnishing the 
 means of success. In these cases we must not shrink from war; 
 though even in these we should deeply lament the necessity of 
 shedding human blood. In such wars our country claims and de- 
 serves our prayers, our cheerful services, the sacrifice of wealth 
 and even of life. In such wars we have one consolation, when 
 our friends fall on the field of battle ; we know that they have fallen 
 in a just cause. Such conflicts, which our hearts and consciences 
 approve, are suited to call forth generous sentiments, to breathe I 
 patriotism and fortitude through a community. Could I view the 
 war in which we are engaged in this light, with what djj^erent 
 feelings, my friends, should laddres^ you ! We might theil look 
 up to God and commit to him our country with a holy confidence. 
 But, in our present state, what can I say to you ? I would, but 
 I cannot address you in the language of encouragement. We 
 are precipitated into a war, which, I think, cannot be justified, and 
 a war, which promises not a benefit, that I can discover, to this 
 country or to the world. 
 
 A solemn question now offers itself. What conduct belongs to 
 a good citizen in our present trying condition? To this subject I * 
 call your serious attention. 
 
 Our condition induces me to begin with urging on you the im- 
 portant duty of cherishing respect for civil government, and a spirit 
 of obedience to the laws. I am sensible, that many whom I ad- 
 dress, consider themselves as called to oppose the measures of our 
 present rulers. Let this opposition breathe nothing of insubordina- 
 tion, impatience of authority, or love of change. It becomes you 
 to remember, that government is a divine institution, essential to 
 
684 APPE^DIX. 
 
 the improvement of our nature, the spring of industry and enter- 
 prise, the shield of property and life, the refuge of the weak and 
 oppressed. It is to the security which laws afford, that we owe 
 the successful application of human powers. Government, though 
 often perverted by ambition and other selfish passions, still holds 
 a distinguished rank among those influences, by which man 
 has been rescued from barbarism, and conducted through the 
 ruder stages Of society, to the habits of order, the diversified 
 employments and dependences, the refined and softened manners, 
 the intellectual, moral and religious improvements of the age in 
 which we live. We are bound to respect government, as the great 
 security for social happiness; and we should carefully cherish that 
 habit of obedience to the laws, without which the ends of govern- 
 ment cannot be accomplished. All wanton opposition to the consti- 
 tuted authorities; all censures of rulers, originating in a factious, 
 aspiring, or envious spirit; all unwillingness to submit to laws, 
 which are directed to the welfare of the community, should be 
 rebuked and repressed by the frown of public indignation. 
 
 It is impossible, that all the regulations of the wisest government 
 should equally benefit every individual; and sometimes the general 
 good will demand arrangemtents, which will interfere with the inter 
 ests of particular members, or classes of the nation. In such 
 circumstances, the individual is bound to regard the inconveniences 
 unde^ which he suffers, as inseparable from a social, connected 
 state, as the result of the condition which God has appointed, and 
 not as the fault of his rulers; and he should cheerfully submit, 
 recollecting how much more he receives from the community, than 
 he is called to resign to it. Disaffection towards a government, 
 which is administered with a view to the general welfare, is a great 
 crime; and such opposition, even to a bad government, as springs 
 from and spreads a restless temper, an unwillingness to yield to 
 wholesome and necessary restraint, deserves no better name. In 
 proportion as a people want a conscientious regard to the laws, and 
 are prepared to evade them by fraud, or to arrest their operation 
 by violence — in that proportion they need and deserve an arbitrary 
 government, strong enough to crush at a blow every symptom 
 of opposition. 
 
 These general remarks on the duty of submission, are by no means 
 designed to teach that rulers are never to be opposed. Because I 
 wish to guard you against that turbulent and discontented spirit, 
 which precipitates free communities into anarchy, and thus prepares 
 them for chains, you will not consider me as asserting, that all opposi- 
 
APPENDIX. 585 
 
 tion to government, whatever be the occasion, or whatever the form, 
 is to be branded as a crime. The citizen has rights as well as duties. 
 Government is instituted for one and a single end, — the benefit of 
 the governed, the protection, peace, and welfare of society; and 
 when it is perverted to other objects, to purposes of avarice, ambi- 
 tion, or party spirit, we are authorised and even bound to make 
 such opposition, as is suited to restore it to its proper end, to render 
 it as pure as the imperfection of our nature and state will admit. 
 
 The scriptures have sometimes been thought to enjoin an un- 
 qualified, unlimited subjection to the ' higher powers; ' but in the 
 passages, which seem so to teach, it is supposed, that these powers 
 are ' ministers of God for good,' are a terror to evil doers, and 
 an encouragement to those that do well. When a government 
 wants this character, when it becomes an engine of oppression, 
 the scriptures enjoin subjection no longer. Expediency may make 
 it our duty to obey, but the government has lost its rights; it can 
 no longer urge its claims as an ordinance of God. 
 
 There have, indeed, been times, when sovereigns have demanded 
 subjection as an unalienable right, and when the superstition of sub 
 jects has surrounded them with a mysterious sanctity, with a majest_ 
 approaching the divine. But these days have past. Under the robt 
 of office, we, my hearers, have learned to see a man like ourselves. 
 There is no such sacredness in rulers, as forbids scrutiny into 
 their motives, or condemnation of their measures. In leaving the 
 common walks of life, they leave none of their imperfections behind 
 them. Power has even a tendency to corrupt, to feed an irregular 
 ambition, to harden the heart against the claims and sufferings of 
 mankind. Rulers are not to be viewed with a malignant jealousy; 
 but they ought to be inspected with a watchful, undazzled eye. 
 Their virtues and services are to be rewarded with generous praise; 
 and their crimes, and arts, and usurpations should be exposed, with 
 a fearless sincerity, to the indignation of an injured people. We 
 are not to be factious, and neither are we to be servile. With a 
 sincere disposition to obey, should be united a firm purpose not 
 to be oppressed. 
 
 So far is an existing government from being clothed with an in- 
 violable sanctity, that the citizen, in, particular circumstances, ac- 
 quires the right, not only of remonstrating, but of employing force 
 for its destruction. This right accrues to him, when a government 
 wantonly disregards the ends of social union; when it threatens 
 the subversion of national liberty and happiness; and when no relief 
 but force remains to the suffering community. This, however, is 
 
586 APPENDIX. 
 
 a right which cannot be exercised with too much deliberation 
 Subjects should very slowly yield to the conviction, that rulers have 
 that settled hostility to their interests, which authorises violence. 
 They must not indulge a spirit of complaint, and suffer their passions 
 to pronounce on their wrongs. They must remember, that the best 
 government will partake the imperfection of all human institutions, 
 and that if the ends of the social compact are in any tolerable 
 degree accomplished, they will be mad indeed to hazard the bless- 
 ings they possess, for the possibility of greater good. , 
 
 Resistance of established power is so great an evil, civil com- 
 motion excites such destructive passions, the result is so tremen- 
 dously uncertain, that every milder method of relief should first 
 be tried, and fairly tried. The last dreadful resort is never justifi- 
 able, until the injured members of the community are brought to 
 despair of other relief, and are so far united in views and purposes 
 as to be authorised in the hope of success. Civil commotion should 
 be viewed as the worst of national evils, with the single exception 
 of slavery. J know that this country has passed through one civil 
 war, without experiencing the calamitous consequences of which I 
 have spoken. But let us not forget, that this was a civil war of a 
 very peculiar character. The government which we shook off was 
 not seated in the midst of us. Our struggle was that of nation 
 with nation, rather than of fellow citizens with one another. Our 
 manners and habits tended to give a considerateness and a stability 
 to the public ipind, which can hardly be expected in a future struggle. 
 And, in addition to these favorable circumstances, we were favored 
 by Heaven with a leader of incorruptible integrity, of unstained 
 purity; a patriot who asked no glory but that of delivering his 
 country, who desired to reign only in the hearts of a free and 
 happy people, whose disinterestedness awed and repressed the 
 selfish and ambitious, who inspired universal confidence, and thus 
 was a centre and bond of union to the minds of men in the most 
 divided and distracted periods of our country. The name of 
 Washington I may pronounce with reverence even in the temple 
 of the Almighty; and it is a name which revives the sinking spirits 
 in this day of our declining glory. From a revolution, conducted 
 by such a man, under such circumstances, let no conclusions be 
 hastily drawn on the subject of civil commotion. 
 
 It becomes us to rejoi'^e, my friends, that we live under a con- 
 stitution, one great design of which is, to prevent the necessity 
 of appoalmg to force, to give the people an opportunity of remov- 
 
APPENDIX. 587 
 
 ing, without violence, those rulers from whom they suffer or 
 apprehend an invasion of rights. This is one of the principal ad- 
 vantages of a republic over an absolute government. In a despot- 
 ism, there is no remedy for oppression but force. , The subject 
 cannot influence public affairs, but by convulsing the state. With 
 us, rulers may be changed, without the horrors of a revolution. 
 A republican government secures to its subjects this immense 
 privilege, by confirming to them two most important rights — the 
 right of suffrage, and the right of discussing with freedom the 
 conduct of rule1-s. The value of these rights in affording a peace- 
 ful method of redressing public grievances, cannot be expressed, 
 and the duty of maintaining them, of never surrendering them, 
 cannot be too strongly urged. Resign either of these, and no way 
 of escape from oppression will be left you, but civil commotion. 
 
 From the important place which these rights hold in a republican 
 government, you should consider yourselves bound to support every 
 citizen in the lawful exercise of them, especially when an attempt 
 is made to wrest them from any by violent means. At the present 
 time, it is particularly your duty to guard, with jealousy, the right 
 of expressing with freedom your honest convictions respecting the 
 measures of your rulers. Without this, the right of election is not 
 worth possessing. If public abuses may not be exposed, their 
 authors will never be driven from power. Freedom of opinion, of 
 ' speech, and of the press, is our most valuable privilege, the very 
 soul of republican institutions, the safeguard of all other rights. 
 We may learn its value if we reflect that there is nothing which 
 tyrants so much dread. They anxiously fetter the press; they 
 scatter spies through society, that the murmurs, anguish, and in- 
 dignation of their oppressed subjects may be smothered in their 
 own breasts; that no generous sentiment may be nourished by 
 sympathy and mutual confidence. Nothing awakens and improves 
 men so much as free communication of thoughts and feelings. 
 Nothing can give to public sentiment that correctness, which is 
 essential to the prosperity of a commonwealth, but the free circula- 
 tion of truth, from the lips and pens of the wise and good. If such 
 men abandon the right of free discussion; if, awed by threats, they 
 suppress their convictions; if rulers succeed in silencing every 
 voice, but that which approves them; if nothing reaches the peo- 
 ple, but what will lend support to men in power — farewell to liberty. 
 The form of a free government may remain, but the life, the soul, 
 the substance is fled. 
 
590 APPENDIX. 
 
 SO often find their way into our public prints. Remember, that in 
 proportion as a people become enslaved to their passions, they fall 
 into the hands, of the aspiring and unprincipled; and that a corrupt 
 government, which has an interest in deceiving the people, can 
 desire nothing more favorable to their purposes, than a frenzied 
 state of the public mind. 
 
 My friends, in this day of discord, let us cherish and breathe 
 around us the benevolent spirit of Christianity. Let us reserve 
 to ourselves this consolation, that we have added no fuel to the 
 flames, no violence to the storms, which threaten to desolate our 
 country. Though dishonored, though endangered, it is still our 
 country. Let us not forsake it in this evil day. Let us hold fast 
 the inheritance of our civil and religious liberties, which we have 
 received from our fathers, sealed and hallowed by their blood. That 
 these blessings may not be lost, let us labor to improve public senti- 
 ment, and to exalt men of wisdom and virtue to power. Let it be 
 our labor to establish in ourselves and in our fellow citizens the 
 empire of true religion. Let us remember that there is no founda- 
 tion of public liberty but public virtue, that there is no method of 
 obtaining God's protection but adherence to his laws. 
 
 Let us not despair of our country. ~ If all that we wish can- 
 not be done for the state, still something may be done. In 
 the good principles, in the love of order and liberty, by which so 
 many of our citizens are distinguished; in the tried virtue, delibe- 
 rate prudence, and unshaken firmness of the chief magistrate, 
 whom God in his great goodness has given to this Commonwealth; 
 in the value of the blessings which are at stake; in the peculiar 
 kindness which God has manifested towards our fathers and our- 
 selves; we have motives, encouragements, and solemn obligations 
 to resolute, persevering exertion in our different spheres, and ac- 
 cording to our different capacities, for the public good. Thus 
 faithful to ourselves and our country, and using vigorously every 
 righteous means for restoring peace and confirming freedom, we 
 may confidently leave the issue to the wise and holy providence of 
 Him who cannot err, and who, we are assured, will accept and 
 reward every conscientious effort for his own glory and the good of 
 mankind. 
 
APPENDIX. 591 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM A SERMON DELIVERED SEPT. 18, 1814, WHEN AN INVASION 
 BV THE BRITISH FORCES WAS APPREHENDED A,T BOSTON. 
 
 At such a moment as the |)resent, when every mind is fixing a 
 fearful attention on the state of the country, it is impossible that a 
 religious instructor, should escape participation in the common feel- 
 ing.. His sacred calling does not require him to separate himself 
 from the community, to forget that he is a citizen, to put off the feel- 
 ings of a man. The religion which he teaches inculcates public 
 spirit, and a strong and tender concern for all by whom he is surround- 
 ed. He would be unworthy his sacred function, were he not to love 
 his country, and to sympathise >vith its prosperous and adverse for- 
 tunes. The religion, which it is his duty to dispense, regards men 
 in all their relations, and affords instructions suited to every condi- 
 tion whether of individuals or communities. You will not then 
 consider me as leaving the province of a religious teacher, if I 
 speak to you of the dangers, and claims of our country, if I address 
 you as citizens, and attempt to point out your duties at the present 
 solemn period. 
 
 The present is indeed a solemn period. The sad reverse which 
 this country exhibits astonishes as well as depresses us. But a few 
 years ago, we stood on the height of prosperity. Amidst the storms 
 which desolated nations, we were at peace, and the very storms seem- 
 ed freighted with blessings for our tranquil shores. — ^And is it true, 
 that from this height we have sunk so low, that our commerce is 
 swept from the ocean, that industry has forsaken our cities, that the 
 husbandman has resigned the ploughshare for the sword, that our 
 confidence is changed into fear, that the tumult of, business has 
 given place to the din of arms, that some of our citizens are perish- 
 ing in foreign prisons, and others shedding their blood on a foreign 
 soil, that hostile fleets scatter terror through our cOasts,- and flames 
 through our cities, that no. man feels secure, that the thought of 
 invasion and slaughter mingles with the labors of the day, and 
 disturbs the slumbers of the night, and that our national govern- 
 ment, emp/overished, and inefficient, can afford us no protection 
 from such imminent danger ? Yes — rthis is true; we need no rea- 
 soning to convince us of its truth. We see it in the anxious 
 countenance, in the departing family, in the care which removes our 
 possessions, in the obstructions and perplexities of business, and 
 in the events which every day brings to ovir ears. At such a mo- 
 
590 APPENDIX. 
 
 so often find their way into our public prints. Remember, that in 
 proportion as a people become enslaved to their passions, they fall 
 into the hands, of the aspiring and unprincipled; and that a corrupt 
 government, which has an interest in deceiving the people, can 
 desire nothing more favorable to their purposes, than a frenzied 
 state of the public mind. 
 
 My friends, in this day of discord, let us cherish and breathe 
 around us the benevolent spirit of Christianity. Let us reserve 
 to ourselves this consolation, that we have added no fuel to the 
 flames, no violence to the storms, which threaten to desolate our 
 country. Though dishonored, though endangered, it is still our 
 country. Let us not forsake it in this evil day. Let us hold fast 
 the inheritance of our civil and religious liberties, which We have 
 received from our fathers, sealed and hallowed by their blood. That 
 these blessings may not be lost, let us labor to improve public senti- 
 ment, and to exalt men of wisdom and virtue to power. Let it be 
 our labor to establish in ourselves and in our fellow citizens the 
 empire of true religion. Let us remember that there is no founda- 
 tion of public liberty but public virtue, that there is no method of 
 obtaining God's protection but adherence to his laws. 
 
 Let us not despair of our country. If all that we wish can- 
 not be done for the state, still something may be done. In 
 the good principles, in the love of order and liberty, by which so 
 many of our citizens are distinguished; in the tried virtue, delibe- 
 rate prudence, and unshaken firmness of the chief magistrate, 
 whom God in his great goodness has given to this Commonwealth; 
 in the value of the blessings which are at stake; in the peculiar 
 kindness which God has manifested towards our fathers and our- 
 selves; we have motives, encouragements, and solemn obligations 
 to resolute, persevering exertion in our different spheres, and ac- 
 cording to our different capacities, for the public good. Thus 
 faithful to ourselves and our country, and using vigorously every 
 righteous means for restoring peace and confirming freedom, we 
 may confidently leave the issue to the wise and holy providence of 
 Him who cannot err, and who, we are assured, will accept and 
 reward every conscientious effort for his own glory and the good of 
 mankind. 
 
APPENDIX. 591 
 
 BXTEACTS PROM A SERMON DELIVERED SEPT. 18, 1814, WHEN AN INVASION 
 BY THE BRITISH FORCES WAS APPREHENDED A,T BOSTON. 
 
 At such a moment as the present, when every mind is fixing a 
 fearful attention on the state of the country, it is impossible that a 
 religious instructer should escape participation in the common feel- 
 ing,. His sacred calling does not require him to separate himself 
 from the community, to forget that he is a citizen, to put off the feel- 
 ings of a man. The religion which he teaches inculcates public 
 spirit, and a strong and tender concern for all by whom he is surround- 
 ed. He would be unworthy his sacred function, were he not to love 
 his country, and to sympathise )vith its prosperous and adverse for- 
 tunes. The religion, which it is his duty to dispense, regards men 
 in all their relations, and affords instructions suited to every condi- 
 tion whether of individuals or communities. You will not then 
 consider me as leaving the province of a religious teacher, if I 
 speak to you of the dangers, and claims of our country, if I address 
 you as citizens, and attempt to point out your duties at the present 
 solemn period. 
 
 The present is indeed a solemn period. The sad reverse which 
 this country exhibits astonishes as well as depresses us. But a few 
 years ago, we stood on the height of prosperity. Amidst the storms 
 which desolated nations, we were at peace, and the very storms seem- 
 ed freighted with blessings for our tranquil shores. — And is it true, 
 that from this height we have sunk so low, that our commerce is 
 swept from the ocean, that industry has forsaken our cities, that the 
 husbandman has resigned the ploughshare for the sword, that our 
 confidence is changed into fear, that the tumult of, business has 
 given place to the din of arras, that some of our citizens are perish- 
 ing in foreign prisons, and others shedding their blood on a foreign 
 soil, that hostile fleets scatter terror through our coasts,- and flames 
 through our cities, that no. man feels secure, that the thought of 
 invasion and slaughter mingles with the labors of the day, and 
 disturbs the slumbers of the night, and that our national govern- 
 ment, emp,overished, and inefficient, can afford us no protection 
 from such imminent danger ? Yes — rthis is true; we need no rea- 
 soning to convince us of its truth. We see it in the anxious 
 countenance, in the departing family, in the care which removes our 
 possessions, in the obstructions and perplexities of business, and 
 in the events which every day brings to our ears. At such a mo- 
 
593 APPENDIX. 
 
 ment, it becomes each man to ask himself what are his duties, what 
 the times demand from him, in what manner he may contribute to 
 the public safety. It is a time for seriousness, for consideration. 
 With prosperity, we should dismiss our levity. The period of 
 duty may to many of us be short. Whilst it continues, let it 
 be improved. 
 
 1. The first remark I shall make is, that it becomes every man at 
 this solemn moment, to reflect on his own character and life, to in- 
 quire, what he has done to bring down judgments on his country, 
 to confess and renounce his sins,.and to resolve on a sincere obedi- 
 ence of God's commands. We ought to remember that we live 
 under a moral government, which regards the character of commu- 
 nities as truly as of individuals. A nation has reason for fear, in 
 proportion to its guilt; and a virtuous nation, sensible of dependence 
 on God, and disposed to respect his laws, is assured of his protection. 
 Every people must indeed be influenced in a measure by the gene- 
 ral state of the world, by the changes and conflicts of other com- 
 munities. When the ocean is in tumult, every shore will feel the 
 agitation. But a people faithful to God will never be forsaken. 
 In addition to the direct and obvious tendency of national piety and 
 virtue to national safety and exaltation, a virtuous community may 
 expect peculiar interpositions pf providence for their defence and 
 prosperity. They are not indeed to anticipate visible miracles. 
 They are not to imagine, that invading hosts will be annihilated 
 like Sennacherib's by the arm of an angel. But God, we must 
 remember, can effect his purposes, and preserve the just, without 
 such stupendous interpositions. The hearts of men are in his 
 hand. The elements of nature obey his word. He has winds 
 to scatter the proudest fleet, diseases to prostrate the strongest 
 army. Consider how many events must conspire, how many 
 secret springs must act in concert, to accomplish the purposes of 
 the statesman, or the plan's of the warrior. How often have the 
 best concerted schemes been thwarted, the most menacing prepara- 
 tions been defeated, the proud boast of anticipated victory'been put 
 to shame, by what we call casuahy, by a slight and accidental want 
 of concert, by the error of a chief, or by neglect in subordinate 
 agents. Let God determine the defeat of an enemy and we need 
 not fear that means will be wanting. He sends terror, or blind- 
 ness, ot mad presumption into the minds of leaders. Heaven 
 earth, and sea are arrayed to oppose their progress. An uncon- 
 querable spirit is breathed into the invaded; and the dreaded foe 
 seeks his safety in dishonorable flight. 
 
APPENDIX. 593 
 
 My friends, if God be for us, no matter who is against us. 
 Mere p6wer ought not to intimidate us; He can crush it in a mo- 
 ment. We live in a period when God's supremacy has been re- 
 markably evinced, when he has signally confounded the powerful, 
 and delivered the oppressed and endangered. At his word, the 
 forged chain has been broken; mighty armies have been dispersed 
 as chaff before the whirlwind; colossal thrones have been shivered 
 like the brittle clay. God is still ' wonderful in counsel and excellent 
 in working; ' and if he wills to deliver us, we cannot be subdued. 
 It is then most important that we seek God's favor. And how is 
 his favor to be obtained ? I repeat it — He is a moral governor, 
 the friend of the righteous, the punisher of the wicked; and in pro- 
 portion as piety, uprightness, temperance, and christian virtue pre- 
 vail among us, in that proportion we are assured of his favor and 
 protection. A virtuous people, fighting in defence of their altars 
 and firesides, may look to God with confidence. An invisible, but 
 almighty arm surrounds them, an impenetrable shield is their 
 shadow and defehce. ' 
 
 It becomes us then to inquire, how far have we sustained the 
 character of a pious and virtuous people? And whose heart does 
 not accuse him of many sins? Who can look round on his country, 
 and not see many proofs of ingratitude to God, and of contempt of 
 his laws? Do I speak to any, vvho, having received success and 
 innumerable blessings from God, have yet forgotten the giver? 
 to any who have converted abundance into the instrument of ex- 
 cess? to any, who, having been instructed by the gospel, have yet 
 refused to employ in well doing the bounty of Heaven? to any, who 
 are living in habits of intemperance, impurity, impiety, fraud, or 
 any known ^in? To such I would say. You are among the enemies 
 of your country, and, should she fall, among the authors of her ruin. 
 Let then this season be something more than an occasion of formal 
 confession. We owe to ourselves and our country deep sorrow 
 for our sins, and those sincere purposes of reformation, which more 
 than all things, bring down blessings from Heaven. 
 
 2. Having recommended penitence in general as suited to the 
 present moment, let me particularly recommend one branch of 
 piety which the times demand of us. Let us each be instant and 
 fervent in prayer. Let us pray to God, that he will not forsake us 
 in this dark and menacing day; that he will remember the mercy 
 shown to our fathers; that he will crown with success our efforts 
 in defence of our possessions, our dwellings, and our temples; that 
 he will breathe an invincible courage into our soldiers; that he 
 
 60* 
 
594 APPENDIX. 
 
 will guard and guide our rulers ; that he will turn the invader 
 from our shores; or, if he shall otherwise appoint, that he will be our 
 shield in battle, and will send us deliverance. For these blessings 
 let us daily besiege the mercy-seat of God, deeply convinced that 
 he controls the destinies of armies and nations, that he gives or 
 withholds success, and that without him all exertion is unavailing. 
 By this it is not intended that we are to do nothing but pray; that 
 we are to leave our shores without defence, or neglect any means 
 of security God gives us powers that we should exert, weapons 
 that we should wield them. We are to employ every resource which 
 he grants us; but, having done this, we must remember that on God, 
 not on ourselves, depends the result of our exertions. The race is 
 not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. God gives 
 victory, and to him let every eye and heart be directed. You who 
 have no other weapons, contend with your prayers for your country. 
 — It will not be imagined from these remarks, that by importunity 
 of prayer God can be bent to favor an unjust cause. But when our 
 cause is just ; when, instead of waging offensive war, we gather 
 round qur city and shores for defence, we may be assured that sin- 
 cere prayer, united with sincere purposes of obedience, will not be 
 lost. Prayer is a proper and appointed acknowledgement of our 
 dependence, an essential means and branch of piety; and they who 
 neglect it have no reason to hope the protection, which they will 
 not implore. Let us then take heed, lest the tumult of military pre- 
 paration make us forgetful of the Author of all good, lest in collect- 
 ing armies and raising walls of defence we forsake the footstool of 
 the Almighty, the only giver of victory. 
 
 3. This is a time when we should all bring clearly and strongly 
 to our minds our duties to our country, and should cherish a strong 
 and ardent attachment to the public good. The claims of coun- 
 try have been felt and obeyed even in the rudest ages of society. 
 The community to which we belong is commended by our very 
 nature to our affection and service. Christianity, in enjoining a dis- 
 interested and benevolent spirit, admits and sanctions this sentiment 
 of nature, this attachment to the land of our fathers, the land of our 
 nativity. It only demands, that our patriotism be purified from every 
 mixture of injustice towards foreign nations. Within this limit we 
 cannot too ardently attach ourselves to the welfare of our country. 
 Especially in its perils, we should fly to its rescue with filial zeal 
 and affection, resolved to partake its sufferings, and prepai-ed to die 
 in its defence. The present moment, my friends, calls on us for 
 this fervent patriotism. The question now is, not whether we 
 
APPENDIX. 595 
 
 will carry invasion, slaughter, and desolation into an unoffending 
 province, not whether we will give our strength and wealth to the 
 prosecution of unprincipled plans of conquest, but whether we will 
 defend our firesides and altars, whether we will repel from our 
 shores an hostile army. On this question our duty is clear. How- 
 ever unjustifiable may have been the measures. by which we have 
 been reduced to this mournful extremity, our right to our soil and 
 our possessions remains unimpaired; the right of defence can never 
 be wrested from us; and never, whilst God gives means of resist- 
 ance, ought we to resign our country to the clemency of a foe. 
 Our duties as patriots and Christians are plain. Whilst we disclaim 
 all share in the guilt of that war which is bursting on our shores, 
 we should resolve, that we will be true to ourselves, to our fathers, 
 and to posterity, that we will maintain the inheritance which we have 
 received, that whilst God gives us power we will not receive law 
 as a conquered people. 
 
 We should animate our patriotism atthis moment of danger, by 
 reflecting that we have a country to contend for which deserves 
 every effort and sacrifice. As members of this Commonwealth, in 
 particular, we have every motive to invigorate our hearts and hands. 
 We have the deeds of our fathers, their piety and virtues, and their 
 solicitude for the rights and happiness of their posterity, to awaken 
 our emulation. How invaluable the inheritance they have left us, 
 earned by their toils and defended by their blood ! Our populous 
 citifis and cultivated fields, our schools, colleges, and churches, our 
 equal laws, our uncorrupted tribunals of justice, our spirit of enter- 
 prise, and our habits of order and peace, all combine to form a com- 
 monwealth as rich in blessings and privileges as the history of the 
 world records. We possess, too, the chief glory of a state, many 
 virtuous and disinterested citizens, a chief magistrate who would 
 adorn any country and any age, enlightened statesmen, and, I trust, 
 a fearless soldiery. Such a community deserves our affection, our 
 honor, our zeal, the vigor of our arms, and the devotion of our 
 lives. If we look back to Sparta, Athens, and Rome, we shall 
 find, that, in the institutions of this Commonwealth, we have sources 
 of incomparably richer blessings, than those republics conferred 
 on their citizens in their proudest days; and yet Sparta, and Rome, 
 and Athens inspired a love stronger than death. In the day of 
 their danger, every citizen offered his breast as a bulwark, every 
 citizen felt himself the prdperty of his country. It is true, a base 
 alloy mingled with the patriotism of ancient times, and God forbid 
 
596 APPENDIX. 
 
 that a sentiment so impure should burn in our breasts. God for- 
 bid, that like the Greek and the Roman, we should carry fire and 
 slaughter into other countries, to build "up a false fleeting glory at 
 home. But whilst we take warning by their excesses, let us catch 
 a portion of their fervor, and learn to live, not for ourselves, but 
 for that country, whose honor and interest God has intrusted to 
 our care. 
 
 4. The times especially demand of us that we cherish a spirit of 
 fortitude, courage, and resolution. The period of danger is the time 
 to arm the mind with all the force and energy of which it is suscepti- 
 ble. In communities, as in individuals, there is a proneness to 
 excessive alarm. Especially when untried, unexperienced dangers 
 approach, imagination is prone to enlarge them; a panic spreads like 
 lightning from breast to breast, and before a blow is struck, a people 
 are subdued by their fears. There is a rational fear, which we 
 ought to cherish, a fear which views in all its dimensions approach- 
 ing peril, and prepares with vigilance every means of defence. 
 At the present moment we ought not to shut our eyes on our dan- 
 ger. Our enemy is formidable. A veteran army, trained to war, 
 accustomed to success, fresh from conquest, and led by experienced 
 commanders, is not to be despised, even if inferior in numbers, 
 and even if it have received a temporary check. But such an 
 army owes much of its formidableness to the fearless spirit which 
 habit has fostered; and the best weapon, under Providence, which 
 we can oppose to it, is the same courage, nurtured by reflection, 
 by sentiments of honor, and by the principles of religion. Courage 
 indeed is not always invincible, and when God destines a nation to 
 bondage the valor of the hero is unavailing. But it is generally true, 
 that a brave people, contending in a just cause, possess in their 
 courage the pledge of success. The instrument by which God 
 rescues nations is their own undaunted resolution. Let us then 
 cherish in ourselves and others, a firm and heroic spirit. Let us 
 fortify our minds, by reflecting on the justice of our cause, that we 
 are standing on our own shores, and defending invaded rights. Let 
 us show that our love of peace has not originated in timidity, and that 
 the spirit of our fathers still lives in their sons. Let us call to the 
 support of our resolution the principles of religion.' Devoting our- 
 selves to God, and engaging in this warfare from a sense of duty, let 
 us feel that we are under His protection, that in the heat of battle he 
 is near us, that life and death await his word, and that death, in a 
 service which he approves, is never untimely and is never to be 
 
APPENDIX. 697 
 
 shunned. Let us consider that life at best is short, and its bless- 
 ings transitory, that its great end is to train us to virtue and to 
 prepare us for heaven, and that we had far better resign it at 
 once than protract it by baseness or unmanly fear. Death awaits 
 us all, and happy he who meets it in the discharge of duty. Most 
 happy and most honored of men is the martyr to religion, who 
 seals with his blood those truths, on which human virtue, consola- 
 tion and hope, depend; and next to him, happy is the martyr to the 
 cause of his country, who, in obedience to God, opposes his breast 
 to the sword of her invaders, and repays with life the protection 
 she has afforded. 
 
 6. I have thus, my friends, set before you your duties to God 
 and your country in this period of danger. Let me close with 
 offering a few remarks on your duties to your enemies. You will 
 remember that we profess a religion, which enjoins benevolence 
 towards all mankind, even towards our personal and national foes. 
 Let not our patriotism be sullied with malignant passions. Whilst 
 we defend our shores with courage, let us not cherish hatred towards 
 our invaders. We should not open our ear to every idle tale of 
 their outrages, nor heap calumnies on their heads because they are 
 enemies. The brave are generous. True courage needs not ma- 
 lignity to feed and inflame it. Especially when our foe is an illus- 
 trious nation, which for ages has defended and nurtured the interests 
 of religion, science, and humanity; a nation to which grateful Europe 
 is now offering acknowledgements for the protection which she has 
 extended over the oppressed, and for the vigor with which she has 
 cooperated in prostrating the bloody and appalling power of the 
 usurper;— when such a nation is our foe, we should feel it unworthy 
 and debasing to encourage a rancorous and vindictive spirit. True, 
 she is sending her armies to our shores; but let us not forget, that 
 our own government first sent slaughter and conflagration into her 
 unoffending provinces. Let not approaching danger disturb our 
 recollections, or unsettle our prmciples. If we are to meet her 
 armies in battle, which God in his merCi^ forbid, let us meet them 
 with that magnanimity, which is candid and just even to its foes. 
 Let us fighi, riot, like beasts of prey, to glut revenge, but- to main- 
 tain our rights, to obtain an honorable peace, and to obtain a victory 
 which shall be signahzed by clemency as well as by valor. God 
 forbid, that our conflicts should add fury to those bad passions and 
 national antipathies, whith have helped to bring this country to its 
 present degraded and endangered condition. 
 
598 APPENDIX. 
 
 I have placed before you your duties, God give you grace 
 to perform them. In this day of danger, we know not what is 
 before us; but this we know, that the, path of piety, of virtue, of 
 patriotism, and manly courage, leads to glory and to immortal- 
 ity. No enemy can finally injure us, if we are true to God, to our 
 country, to mankind. In such a cause as ours, I trust, prosperity 
 and victory will be granted us by the almighty Disposer. But 
 whether success or disaster, await us, we know that the world is 
 passing, away, and that all of us will soon be placed beyond the 
 reach of its changes. Let us not then be elated or depressed; but, 
 with a firm and equal mind, let us acquit ourselves as men and 
 Christians in our several spheres, looking upward to heaven as our 
 rest eind reward. 
 
 NOTICE OF THE REV. S. C. THACHER. 
 
 [The Rev. S. C. Thacher, late Minister of the New South Church in Boston, died 
 at Moulines, in France. Jan. 2, 1818, ^Et^t. 32. He liad long been absent from this 
 country, and had visited the Cape of Good Hope, for the recovery of his health. The 
 following sketch of liis character is taken from a discourse delivered in the church, where 
 he had been accustomeJ to ofticiate, tlie Sunday after tlie accounts of his death were 
 received. ] 
 
 The news of Mr. Thacher's death, although not unexpected, 
 spread an unusual gloom through the large circle in which he 
 moved and was known. When we thought of his youth and vir- 
 tues, of the place which he had filled and of the confidence he 
 had inspired, of his sickness and sufi^erings, of his death in a dis- 
 tant land, and of the hopes which died with him, we could not but 
 speak of his removal as mysterious, dark, untimely. My own 
 mind participated at first in the general depression; but in proportion 
 as I have reflected on the circumstances of this event, I have seen 
 in them a kindness, which I overlooked in the first moments of 
 sorrow ; and though in many respects inscrutable, this dispensation 
 now wears a more consoling aspect. 
 
 I now see in our friend a young man, uncommonly ripe in un- 
 derstanding and virtue, for whom God appointed an early immor- 
 tality. His lot on earth was singularly happy; for I have never 
 known a minister more deeply fixed in the hearts of his people. 
 But this condition had its perils. With a paternal concern for his 
 character God sent adversity, and conducted him to the end of hia 
 
APPENDIX. 599 
 
 being by a rougher but surer way, a way trodden and consecrated 
 by the steps of the best men before him. He was sfnitten by sud- 
 den sickness; but even here the hand of God was gentle upon him. 
 His sickness, whilst it wasted the body, had uo power over the 
 spirit. His understanding retained its vigor; and his heart, as I 
 often observed, gained new sensibility. His sufferings, by calling 
 forth an almost unprecedented kindness in his parishioners, furnished 
 him with new and constant occasions of pious gratitude, and per- 
 haps he was never so thankful to the Author of his being, as during 
 his sickness. 
 
 He was indeed removed at length from the kind offices of his 
 friends. But this event was fitted, and, may I not say, designed, 
 to strengthen his connexion with God, and to prepare him for the 
 approaching dissolution of all earthly ties. I now see him tossed 
 on the ocean; but his heart is fixed on the rock of ages. He is 
 borne to another hemisphere, but everywhere he sees the footsteps 
 and feels the presence of God. New constellations roll over' his 
 head, but they guide his mind to the same Heaven, which was his 
 hope at home. I see him at the extremity of Africa, adoring G6d 
 in the new creation which spreads around him, and thanking him 
 with emotion for the new strength, which that mild attnosphere 
 communicated. I see him too in the trying scene which followed, 
 when he withered and shrunk like a frail plant under the equinoc- 
 tial sun, still building piety on suffering, and growing in submission, 
 as hope declined. He does not indeed look without an pccasional 
 sinking of the heart, without some shudderings of nature, to a for- 
 eign soil as his appointed grave. But he remembers, that from 
 every region there is a path to immortality, and that the spirit, 
 which religion has refined, wherever freed from the body, will find 
 its native country. He does not indeed think without emotion of 
 home, — a thought, how trying to a sick and dying man, in a land 
 of strangers! But God, whom he adores as everywhere present, 
 seems to him a bond of union to distant friends, and he finds relief 
 in committing them to his' care and mercy. — At length I see him 
 expire; but not until suffering has done its work of discipline and 
 purification. His end is tranquil, like his own mild spirit; and I 
 follow him — not to the tomb, for that lifeless body is not he — but 
 to the''SOciety of the just made perfect. His pains are now past* 
 He has found a better home, than this place of his nativity and 
 earthly residence. Without the tossings of another voycge, he has 
 entered a secure haven. The fever no longer burns in his veins; 
 the hollow and deep voice no longer sends forth ominous sounds 
 
600 APPENDIX. 
 
 Disease and death, having accomplished their purpose, have lost 
 their power, and he remembers, with gratitude, the kind severity 
 with which they conducted him to a nobler life, than that which 
 they took away. Such is the aspect which this dispensation now 
 wears; how different from that which it first presented to sense 
 and imagination! 
 
 Let me pay a short tribute to his memory. It is a duty, which 
 I perform with a melancholy pleasure. His character was one, 
 which it is soothing to remember. It comes over the mind, like 
 the tranquillizing breath of spring. It asks no embellishment. It 
 would be injured by a strained and labored eulogy. 
 
 The character of our friend was distinguished by blandness, 
 mildness, equableness and harmony. All the elements were tem- 
 pered in him kindly and happily. He passed through the storms, 
 tumults and collisions of human life, with a benignity akin to that 
 which marked our perfect guide and example. This mild and 
 bland temper spread itself over the whole man. His manners, his 
 understanding, his piety, all received a hue from it, just as a soft 
 atmosphere communicates its own tender and tranquil character to 
 every object and scene viewed through it. 
 
 With this peculiar mildness he united. firmness. ■ His purposes, 
 whilst maintained without violence, were never surrendered but to 
 conviction. His opinions, though defended with singular candor, 
 he would have sealed with his blood. He possessed the only true 
 dignity, that which results from proposing habitually a lofty stand- 
 ard of feeling and action; and accordingly the love, which he call- 
 ed forth, was always tempered with respect. He was one of the 
 last men to be approached with a rude familiarity. 
 
 His piety was a deep sentiment. It had struck through and en- 
 twined itself with his whole soul. In the freedom of conversation 
 I have seen how intimately God was present to him. But his piety 
 partook of the general temperament of his mind. It was warm, 
 but not heated; earnest, but tranquil; a habit, not an impulse; the 
 air which he breathed, not a tempestuous wind, giving occasional 
 violence to his emotions. A constant dew seemed to distil on him 
 from heaven, giving freshness to his devout sensibilities; but it 
 was a gentle influence, seen not in its falling, but in its fruits. 
 His piety appeared chiefly in gratitude and submission, sentiments 
 peculiarly suited to such a mind as his. He felt strongly, that 
 God had crowned his life with peculiar goodness, and yet, when his 
 blessings were withdrawn, his acquiescence was as deep and sin- 
 cere as his thankfulness. His devotional exercises in public were 
 
APPENDIX. 601 
 
 particularly striking. He came to the mercy-seat, as one, who 
 was not a stranger there. He seemed to inherit from his ven- 
 erable father the gift of prayer. His acts of adoration discovered 
 a mind penetrated by the majesty and purity of God; but his sub- 
 lime conceptions of these attributes were always tempered and 
 softened by a sense of the divine benignity. The Paternal character 
 of God was not only his belief, but had become a part of his mind. 
 He never forgot, that he ' worshipped the Father.' His firm con- 
 viction of the strict and proper unity of the divine nature taught 
 him to unite and concentrate in his conception of the Father, all 
 that is lovely and attractive, as well as all -that is solemn and ven- 
 erable ; and the general eifect of his prayers was to diffuse a devout 
 calmness, a filial confidence, over the minds of his pious hearers. 
 
 His understanding was of a high order; active, vigorous and 
 patient; capable of exerting itself with success on every subject; 
 collecting materials and illustrations from every scene ; and stored 
 with a rich and various knowledge, which few have accumulated 
 at so early an age. His understanding, however, was in harmony 
 with his whole character. It was not so much distinguished by 
 boldness, rapidity and ardor, as by composed energy, judiciousness, 
 and expansiveness. His views were often original and often pro- 
 found, but were especially marked by justness, clearness and com- 
 pass of thought. I have never known a man, so young, of riper 
 judgment, of more deliberate investigation, and of more compre- 
 hensive views of all the bearings and connexions of a subject, on 
 which he was called to decide. He was singularly free from the 
 error into which young preachers most readily fall, of overstating 
 arguments, and exaggerating and straining the particular topics 
 which they wish to enforce. But in avoiding extravagance, he did 
 not fall into tameness. There was a force and freshness in his 
 conceptions; and even when he communicated the thoughts of 
 others, he first grafted them on his own mind, so that they had the 
 raciness of a native growth. His opinions were the results of 
 much mental action, of many comparisons, of large and liberal 
 thinking, of looking at a subject on every side; and they were ex- 
 pressed with those limitations, which long experience suggests to 
 others. He read with pleasure the bold and brilliant speculations 
 of more adventurous minds; but he reserved his belief for evidence, 
 for truth ; and if the most valuable gift of the understanding be an 
 enlarged, discriminating judgment, then his was a most highly 
 gifted mind. 
 
 51 
 
6<J2 APPENDIX. 
 
 From a mind so balanced, we could hardly expect that fervid 
 eloquence, which electrifies an assembly, and makes the speaker 
 for a moment an absolute sovereign over the souls of men. His 
 influence, like that of the great powers in the natural worldy' was 
 mild and noiseless, but penetrating and enduring. That oratory, 
 which overwhelms and bears us away like a torrent, almost al- 
 ways partakes of exaggeration and extravagance, and could not 
 easily be reconciled with the distinguishing properties of his 
 mind. — His imagination was fruitful and creative; but, in accord- 
 ance with his whole character, it derived its illustrations more fre- 
 quently from regions of beauty than of grandeur, and it imparted a 
 coloring, at once rich and soft, and a peculiar grace to every sub- 
 ject susceptible of ornament. — His command over language was 
 great. His style was various, vigorous, unborrowed; abounding 
 in felicities of expression, and singiilarly free from that triteness 
 and that monotonous structure, which the habit of rapid composi- 
 tion on familiar subjects almost forces on the preacher, and which 
 so often enervate the most powerful and heart-stirring truths. — His 
 character as a preacher needs no other testimony than the impres- 
 sion left on his constant and most enlightened hearers. To these, 
 who could best judge of his intellectual resources, and of his devo- 
 tion to his workj his public services were more and more interest- 
 ing. They tell us of the affluence of his thoughts, of the beauty 
 of his imagery, of the tenderness and earnestness of his persuasion, 
 of the union of judgment and sensibility in his discourses, and of 
 the wisdom with which he displayed at the same moment the sub- 
 limity and practicableness of christian virtue. They tell us, that 
 the early ripeness of his mind did not check its growth; but that 
 every year enlarged his treasures and powers. Their tears and 
 countenances tell us, more movingly than words, their deep sorrow, 
 now that they shall hear his voice no more. 
 
 Of his social character I need not speak to you. No one, who 
 ever met him in a friendly circle, can easily forget the attraction 
 of his manners and conversation. He carried into society a cheer- 
 fulness, and sunshine of the soul, derived partly from constitution, 
 and partly from his bright, confiding views of religion; a delicacy, 
 which instinctively shrunk from wounding the feelings of the hum- 
 blest human being; a disposition to sympathize with every innocent 
 enjoyment; and the power of communicating with ease and interest 
 the riches of his mind. Without effort, he won the hearts of men 
 to a singular degree. Never was man more universally beloved. 
 
APPENDIX. 603 
 
 Even in sickness. and in foreign lands, he continued to attract 
 friends; and it is our consolation to know, that he drew from stran- 
 gers much of that kindness which blessed him at home. 
 
 In his sickness I was particularly struck with his submission to 
 God, and his affection for his people. His submission seemed en- 
 tire. There was no alloy of impatience or distrust. His sickness 
 was a severe trial; for his heart was bound up in his profession, 
 and if in anything his ambition was excessive, it was in his desire to 
 enricTi his mind by laborious study. He felt deeply his privation, 
 and he looked forward to an early death as a probable event. But 
 he bowed to Providence without a murmur. He spoke only of the 
 divine goodness. ' I am in God's hand, and his will be done,' were 
 familiar sentiments, not uttered with commonplace and mechanical 
 formality, but issuing, as his tones and countenance discovered, 
 from the very depths of his heart. A firmer and calmer submis- 
 sion could hardly have been formed by a long life of suffering. 
 
 His feelings towards the congregation which he served, seemed 
 at times too strong for the self-possession and calmness by which 
 he was characterised. Their kindness overpowered him. The 
 only tears, which I saw start from his eyes, flowed from this source. 
 In my last interview with him, a day or two before his voyage, I 
 said to him, ' I trust that you will return, but I fear you cannot 
 safely continue your pastoral relation. We have, however, another 
 employment for you, in which you may be useful and happy.' He 
 answered, ' If I get strength I shall use it for my people. I am 
 willing to hazard my life for their sakes. I would preach to them, 
 although the effort should shorten my days.' He added — ' Should 
 I forsake them after the kindness I have received, the cause of 
 religion and of the ministry might suffer; and to this cause I ought 
 and am willing to make any sacrifices.' — Such is a brief sketch of 
 our lamented friend. He was one of the most blameless men, of 
 the most devoted ministers, and of the fairest examples of the dis- 
 tinguishing virtues of Christianity. 
 
Note to the Remarks on the Life and Character op Na- 
 poleon Bonaparte. 
 
 I find that certain newspapers have lately circulated in this coun- 
 try a letter from England, in which the writer gives some details of 
 an interview with Mr Coleridge, and which contains the following 
 passage : 
 
 ' I was not a little surprized at h^ (Mr Coleridge's) remarks con- 
 ' cerning Dr. Channing of Boston ; first, that Dr. Channing's short 
 ' Character of Bonaparte had its birth-place and received its shape 
 ' in his (Mr Coleridge's) study.' 
 
 As the present volume is a new edition of the article in question, 
 I may as well say a word about the statement here ascribed to Mr 
 Coleridge. I can only explain it, by supposing the writer of the letter 
 to have misapprehended that gentleman. I have quite a distinct recol- 
 lection of the only interview I had with Mr Coleridge, and I cannot 
 remember that Bonaparte was even once named. I am confident, 
 that no important or striking remarks on his character were then 
 made to me ; for in that case some trace of them must have re- 
 mained on my mind. I am the more confident on this point, be- 
 cause my recollections are confirmed by a friend, who was present.