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 COERCION AND CONCILIATIOK. 
 
 A SERMON, 
 
 Preached in Camp, at Centreville, Virginia, hy the 
 
 Eev. r slaughter, 
 
 CHAPLAIN OF 19th REGIMENT VIRGINIA VOLUNTEERS, 
 
 . Condensed, by request, into a Tract for the times. 
 
 KINGS; ch. XVIil : 19, 20, Thus saith the Great King, the King of Assyria, . 
 -what confidence is this wherein thou trustest? 
 
 Thou say est, (but they are but vain words,) I have counsel and strength for 
 the war. Now on whom dost thou trust that thou rebelUst against me ? 
 
 The public mind is Jihsorbed by one thought. That thought ex- 
 presses itself in words which we hear every day as we sit by our fire- 
 sides, as we walk by the way, in meetings of the people, and in the 
 halls of legislation. These words are Sovereignty, Allegiance, Rebel- 
 lion, Coercion, Conciliation, War and Peace. These are no longer the 
 watch-words of Partisans. They suggest questions of vital interest, 
 deeply cortcerning our duties as Christians and as citizens. Civil gov- 
 ernment is a divine institution. " The powers that be are ordained of 
 God." He does not prescribe any particular form of government, as 
 Monarchy, Aristocracy, or Democracy. He simply recognises govern- 
 ment as a necessity for man and enjoins obedience to it, saying, " let 
 every soul be subject to the Higher Powers." But as civil govern- 
 ments are constantly revolving and appearing in new forms, each claim- 
 ing to be sovereign and demanding our allegiance, it is sometimes a 
 difficult question which of the rivals is the "higher power" to which 
 'we owe obedience. In a complex system of government liJte the 
 
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 J^ 
 
 TTnited States, such questions were inevitable. Accordingly, politi- 
 cians have, from its foundation, been divided into parties v^ith different 
 theories of the government. The tendency of these parties being to 
 keep the State and central governments within their several orbits, 
 with only occasional departures from them, the system revolved for 
 many years without serious disturbance ; but all the time the attraction 
 of gravitation was growing weaker, foreshadowing the catastrophe of 
 Disunion. 
 
 It is not surprising that some wise and good men, finding themselves 
 unexpectedly amid the wreck of the fallen fabric, should have per- 
 plexed themselves with the questions of sovereignty and allegiance ; 
 but when the people of each State, in primary meetings and organized 
 conventions, decided that the general government had, by the abuse of 
 its power, abdicated its authority, the question of allegiance was no 
 longer debateable. By that act, the State became the " higher power," 
 even if it had not always been so, according to the true theory of our 
 government. Our duty as Christians is equally clear upon general 
 principles. The Scriptures, rightly interpreted, give no countenance to 
 the doctrine of passive obedience, now revived by the divines of the North. 
 While the Scriptures recognise government as a divine institution, and 
 enjoin obedience lo it as an ordinance of God, they tell us in the same 
 breath that legitimate rulers are the " ministers of God" for good and 
 the revengers of wrath upon them that do evil, flence, when governments 
 become a " terror to the good," and " a praise to the evil," they cease to 
 be legitimate by being destructive of the ends of their creation, and it 
 becomes the right of the people to abolish them, and to institute in 
 their place such new governments as shall seem most likely to effect 
 their safety and happiness. 
 
 For, acting upon these principles, consecrated by the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, and sealed with the blood of our fathers, the tyrant at Washing- 
 ton, who has usurped all the powers of government, has denounced us 
 as Rebels, and has invaded our soil with a grand army, to coerce us into 
 submission. Judgment has been pronounced, and he is proceeding to 
 execute the sentence by burning our houses, desolating our fields, con- 
 fiscating our property, imprisoning and murdering our people. He 
 has made an idol of the Union, and constituted himself its High Priest, 
 inspiring its oracular responses. While the people of the North fall down 
 and worship this idol, we of the South are lo be trampled under the 
 iect or crushed in the embraces of the political Juggernaut. 
 
The dishonoring word, rebellion, has been used to brand some of the 
 lioliest causes and to stain some of the purest names that ever illustrated 
 the pa^^es of history. 01' this, my text furnishes the earliest example. A 
 proud Kin^i- of Assyria had invaded the territories of a pious King of 
 Israel with a "grand army." His advent was heralded by commis- 
 sioners who were instru^'ted to say to Hezekiah — "Thus saith the great 
 King, the King of Assyria, what confidence is this wherein thou trust- 
 est ? Thou suyest, (but they are but vain words,) I have counsel and 
 strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou reheUest 
 against me ?" Hearken not to Hezekiah when he persuadeth you, 
 Saying, <' the Lord will deliver us." When Hezekiah heard this mes- 
 sage, he rent his clothes, and spread it before the Lord, saying, '' Oh, 
 Lord (j od of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubim, thorn art the Crod 
 of all the kingdoms of the earth. Open, Lord, thine eyes and see ; bow 
 down thine ear and hear the words of Sennacherib, which reproach 
 the living God. Now, thcreibre, oh Lord our God, w(! beseech thee 
 save us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know 
 that thou art God, even thou only." God answered this prayer by the 
 mouth of the prophet Isaiah, saying, " Be not afraid of the words which 
 thou hast heard ; I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a ru- 
 mor and return to his ov»n land, and I will cause him to fall by the 
 sword in his own land. And it came to pass that night, that the angel 
 of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of Assyria one hundred 
 and eighty-five thousand men." So the King of Assyria returned to 
 Nineveh, and as he was worshipping in the house of his idol, his sons 
 smote him with the sword. Such was the fate of the first tyrant who 
 ever branded a holy cause with the dishonoring name of rthellioit. 
 
 The American Revolution furnishes another example of the same 
 truth. Our fathers were denounced as rebels, and yet, like Hezekiah, 
 putting their trust in God, they accomplished a revolution which had 
 no parallel in history, and laid the foundations of governments which 
 had no model on the face of the globe. They fired a train which has 
 been exploding ever since, overturning many a hoary despotism, and 
 which is destined to illuminate, more or less, every kingdom and peo- 
 ple ', but the people of the North having repudiated these principles, 
 and being about to put out /he light which our ancestors kindled upon 
 this continent, we of the South are summoned by Providence to make 
 a great struggle to keep alive upon our altars those fires which, if now ex- 
 tinguished, may never be re-illumed on earth. If this be rebellion, it is 
 
rebellion like that which breathed in the prayers of the pious Hezekiah, 
 like that which flowed in streams of living flame from the lips of Pat-** 
 rick Henry, and which encircled with an undying wreath the brow of 
 Washington, "who had the all-cloudless glory to free his country." 
 
 And if we, like the pious King of Israel, and our Washington and 
 Henry's, humble ourselves before God, and implore his alliance, we 
 shall be successful in establishing our independence. Our boasting 
 enemies rely upon their overshadowing numbers and the long range of 
 their artillery. They taunt us with the saying of Napoleon, that the 
 " Lord is always on the side of the strongest battalions." We reply, in 
 the language of Holy Scripture, that " the race is n-ot always to the 
 swift, n-or the battle to the strong." If need be, we will raze every 
 house, burn every blade of grass, fortify every rock, retire to our 
 mountains and eaves, and the last intrenchment of independence shall 
 be our grave. 
 
 I said in the beginning that the public mind was absorbed by these 
 thoughts. I now say that there is danger lest we be so absorbed by 
 them as to forget our allegiance to the " King of Kings, and Lord of 
 Lords." Whilst we may differ in opinion upon questions of political 
 sovei'eignti/ and allegiance^ and about measures of coercion and concilia- 
 tion, there can be no doubt about our allegiance to that Great Sover- 
 eign of whose throne in Heaven this earth is but the foo-tstool. It is 
 he that hath made us. In him we live, and move, and have our 
 being. Upon him we depend for every breath that we draw, and for 
 every pulse that beats. He feeds, clothes, and crowns us every day 
 with loving kindness and tender mercies. And yet, instead of acknow- 
 ledging him in all our ways, and loving him with all our hearts, our in- 
 gratitude wrings from him the touching exclamation — " Wonder, oh 
 Heavens, and be astonished earth : I have nourished and brought up 
 children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his 
 owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth not know — my 
 people will not consider." 
 
 However we may resent the imputation of being rebels against the 
 Federal Government, we are unquestionably guilty of rebellion against 
 God; and never was rebellion so unprovoked, and which so richly 
 merited the sternest measures of coercion. He might have invaded the 
 earth with legions of angels; He might have blasted it with lightnings, 
 shaken it to pieces with earthquakes, depopulated it with famine and 
 pestilence, or burned it with fire. But instead of measures of coercion, 
 
he devised a method of conciliation which was the astonishment of 
 men and angels. The Sovereign put off his crown and came down 
 from his throne in the form of his rebellious servants upon an embassy 
 of peace. His advent was heralded by a star and announced by an 
 angel in the words, "Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy; 
 unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, who is 
 Christ the Lord. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude 
 of the Heavenly Host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the 
 Highest; on earth, peace, (jood will, towards men. His life among 
 men was a series of miracles of mercy. He opened the eyes of the 
 blind to the beauties, and the ears of the deaf to the minstrelsy of Na- 
 ture. He unlocked the mouth of the dumb, and let his caged thoughts 
 fly out on the wings of song ; and to the lame he gave the luxury of 
 leaping like the hart. In the fountain of his heart there never bubbled 
 up one impure thought ; in his single eye there was not one single mote ; 
 from his sweet* lips there never flowed one unkind word. At one mo- 
 ment he " commanded the elements like a God ;" at the next, he 
 melted in tears of human sympathy like a woman. Although the 
 world was made by him, he had not where to lay his head. As he 
 went about doing good, he was insulted and mocked. In the midst of 
 his sinless and sublime career of benevolence, he was arrested by the 
 thankless objects of his charity. With twelve legions of angels at his 
 command, he permitted himself to be mocked, smitten, scourged, spit 
 upon, and led like a " lamb to the slaughter." He was nailed to the 
 cross. He suffered agony so extreme that his blood vessels burst, and 
 his whole frame was covered with drops of blood. With the burden of 
 the sins of a rebellious world upon him, he hung there a voluntary 
 martyr, the blood flowing drop by drop, until he expired. By this 
 wonderful expedient, all the ends which would have been answered by 
 the incarceration of all the rebellious race of man in the cells of perdi- 
 tion, have been effected. If the Sovereign of the universe had per- 
 mitted our rebellion against his Divine Majesty to go unpunished, it 
 would have betrayed a pitiful weakness, or a criminal indifference to 
 principle, which would have been followed by universal anarchy and 
 the demoralization and ruin of all his subjects. If he had vindicated 
 his authority by th(? eternal destruction of the rebels, it would have 
 been an awful exhibition of his abhorrence of sin, and his determina- 
 tion to punish it. But when, rejecting both those methodS; he adopted 
 the plan of manifesting himself in the flesh, and bearing our sins in 
 
6 
 
 his own body on the cross, he gave a more impressive proof of his re- 
 spect for ]-dW, and of his purpose to vindicate its violated majesty, 
 than if he had shut up the whole race of rebels in hell. But this was 
 not the only effect of his scheme. It laid open to the eyes of the un- 
 grateful rebel the heart of his Sovereign. Coercion hardens the heart. 
 Conciliation softens it. And when the rebellious sinner sees all the 
 forms of terror and the ministers of justice that had been haunting his 
 guilty conscience meet and melt into " a form of love dying for his res- 
 cue/' his heart of stone relents ; he is subdued, not by power, but by 
 love. In his Sovereign he recognizes his father, and throwing down 
 the weapons of his rebellion, he cries, " Father, I have sinned against 
 Heaven and before Thee, and am not worthy to be called Thy son.'' 
 Thus at the cross do *' meroy and truth meet together — righteousness 
 and peace kiss each other." 
 
 Fellow soldiers, the enemies of our country are not our only ene- 
 mies; they can only kill the body. But our bodies, upon whose nur- 
 ture and adorning wc spend so much dme and so much money, are not 
 all of us. There is a mysterious principle within us, of which the body 
 is but the tabernacle. This principle is the soul, and the soul has its 
 enemies. These enemies are not flesh and blood, but spiritual princi- 
 palities, powers, and rulers of the darkness of the world. Of these ene- 
 mies the Devil is commander-in-chief, who goes about sometimes as a 
 '^ roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour," and sometimes in the se- 
 ducing garb of " an angel of light." His aids and allies are the 
 world and the flesh. The earth is the theatre of a grand 
 contest between these opposing forces, and every human heart is a 
 battle-field, on which victories are sometimes won more glorious than 
 any that are painted on the pages of the historian. In the 7th chap- 
 ter of the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul has drawn a graphic picture 
 of the battles of which the human heart is often the scene, which drew 
 from one of the combatants the affecting cry, " Wretched man that I 
 am, who shall deliver me from this body of death ?" followed by the 
 exultant shoyt, " Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." In this warfare, "carnal" weapons are of no 
 avail. But the Divine Grovernment has not left us defenceless. Its 
 supplies never fail. It provides a complete suit of perfect armor for 
 all its soldiers. The armor of God consists of sandals for the feet, 
 " girdles of truth for the loins," swords of the spirit and shields of faith 
 for the hands, breastplates of righteousness, and helmets of hope for the 
 
head. Clothed in this armor, you will bo able to stand against '4he 
 wiles of the Devil," and to "quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." 
 
 Fellow soldiers, as a recruiting officer of the great Captain of our 
 salvation, I come to enlist soldiers for this war. To this end I unroll 
 before your eyes the. "banner of the cross," the one-starred flag — the 
 flag of Bethlehem — and call for volunteers. God never drafts; he 
 will accept none but volunteers. Will you, who responded so promptly 
 to the call of your country, and prefer death to subjugation by a civil 
 tyrant, refuse to rally round the banner of the cross, and battle for free- 
 dom from the bondage of Satan. " Thinkest thou there is no tyranny 
 but that of blood and tears ?" The despotism of sin, the weakness and 
 the wickedness of vice, produce ten thousand tyrants whose delegated 
 cruelty surpasses the worst act of any civil tyrant. 
 
 Oh, why is it that an enterprise of patriotism presents itself to your 
 imaginations, beaming with so much beauty and so touches your hearts, 
 when a mission of mercy, like that of Christ to tliis rebellious earth, 
 awakens no emotion ? 
 
 Soldiers of Christ arise, 
 
 And put your armor on ; 
 Stronjj; in the streniijth which -God supplier, 
 
 Thro' His eternal Son. 
 Strong in the Lord of Hosts, 
 
 And in Ilis mighty power. 
 Who in the strength of Jesus trusts, 
 
 Is more than conqueror. 
 
 Stand, then, in Ilis great might, 
 
 With all His strength endued, 
 And take to arm you for the iight 
 
 The panoply of God. 
 That having all things done, 
 
 And all your conflicts past, 
 You may behold your victory won, 
 
 And stand complete at last. 
 
My times are in thy harid, Psalm xxxi. 15. 
 
 1 Sovereign Ruler of the skies ! 
 Ever gracious, every wise I 
 
 All my times are in thy hands — 
 All events at thy command. 
 
 2 Times of sickness, times of health ; 
 Times of penury and wealth; 
 Times of trial and of grief; 
 Times of triumph and relief; 
 
 3 Times the tempter's power to prove, 
 Times to taste a Saviour's love ; 
 All must come, and last, and end, 
 As shall please my heavenly Friend. 
 
 4 Plagues and deaths around me fly; 
 Till he bids I cannot die ; 
 
 Not a single shaft can hit, 
 Till the God of love sees fit. 
 
 5 thou gracious, wise and just, 
 In thy hands my life I trust; 
 Have I somewhat dearer still ? 
 I resign it to thy will. 
 
 6 Thee, at all times, will I bless; 
 Having thee I all posses; 
 
 1 can ne'er be;eaved be, 
 Since I cannot part with thee. 
 
 MACFARLANE & FERGUSSON, PRINTERS. 
 
HoUinger Corp. 
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