(h.S.-oif. <^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^ Presented b7V^T-^5\C\(2/r\-V"V(7vV\ BX 9178 .M32 S47 1888 McCarrell, Joseph, 1795- 1864. Sermons or^ t^yOO (^c cx^^^-^^^^ SERMONS / BY tHE REV. JOSEPH McCARRELL, D.D. NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1888, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY. All rights reserved. PREFACE. THIS brief and imperfect sketch is a compilation, from such published records as could be ob- tained, with the kind assistance of a friend in preparing the papers for the press. Many of these sermons were preached and published " by request " a number of years ago, and, as a friend of my late father writes, "At that time they had a wide circulation, with high- est appreciation, from those who could best judge of their value." Frequent requests have recently been made for copies of some of these sermons, but most of them had been published so early in his ministry that they had passed out of print and could not be ob- tained. It has been a pleasant task to try to place in a more permanent form so much at least of the works of my father. Only a small part of his writings are given in this volume. He had prepared for the press. Expositions of the Epistles to the Hebrews and the Ephesians, and of The Revelation, and some of the Prophets. Looking over the mass of neatly prepared manuscript, it has been a matter of amaze- ment how all this work could have been accom- plished by one who was not only Pastor of a large IV PREFACE. congregation, but also Professor of Greek and Hebrew in a theological seminary, and at this time the only one to teach the students anything to fit them for the office of the ministry. How well this was done, the band of noble men who are scattered all over this land and also in foreign lands can testify. All was work for " the Master " he so loved to serve, and not for worldly gain, as his salary from the seminary was merely nominal, a pittance of $300 a year. It is easy to understand why the family rardy saw my father, except in the evenings, which he always cheerfully devoted to them. Or why, at sixty-eight years of age, he should be taken away, with no disease, as his physician said. The truth is correctly given in a sentence from a sketch which appeared in 1876, in a work called '' Men of Mark of Cumberland Valley, Penn.,'* by Rev. Alfred Nevin, D.D. He says, *' Dr. McCarrell's last years were made sad by various causes, which could not operate upon such a nature as his without reaching and affecting the fountain of physical life. "The changes in the denomination* to which he was so warmly attached, causing separation from * The Associate Reformed Church, or, as it is sometimes called, the Scotch Presbyterian, was for many years a strong body of Calvinists in New York and Pennsyh^ania. (See life of Dr. John M. Mason.) And there is yet in the South, I am told, a large and influential body of Associate Reformed Presbyterians. PREFA CE. brethren with v/hom he had so long been closely connected in ecclesiastical fellowship, and the death of his eldest daughter all made a deep and visible impression upon him. That * his strength was weakened in the way ' was obvious to all. With only a few days illness he ' fell on sleep,' March, 1864, and is buried in the 'Old Graveyard* in the center of the city of Newburgh, N. Y., surrounded by his elders, who also are ' waiting for the adoption.' *' Dr. McCarrell was married to a Miss Jane B. Leiper, of Shippensburgh, Penn., a lady of superior excellence as a minister's wife. His family con- sisted of eight children, four of whom are living, and also one grandson." On a hill which commands a fine view of the city of Newburgh and the Hudson stands the "Theological Seminary," a large stone building. It is now used as a boarding-school for boys; the school is successfully conducted, and is still under Presbyterian influence. The ''old church" is the same unpretending edifice, with alterations in the interior. The truth is still taught by an able minister of the "Word," and the old sweet bell yet softly tolls the hour of service, — but many of that once large congrega- tion no longer gather there to worship : many are scattered far and wide, and very many are singing the "new song" of the redeemed in the "upper Sanctuary." R. McC. May, 1888. INTRODUCTORY, " '"PHE Rev. Joseph McCarrell, D.D., was a native 1 of Shippensburgh, Pa., and was born on the 9th of July, 1795. His parents were warmly at- tached members of the *' Associate Reformed Pres- byterian Church " of that place, and the region was one whose history was connected with the earliest annals of the denomination, in the communion of which Dr. McCarrell lived and died, and for which he had an unchangeable affection. His mind was early turned towards the ministry of the gospel ; and he entered upon studies prepar- atory thereto, availing himself of such helps as were within his reach, though in the main he had to de- pend upon his own efforts, and was in fact (to a great extent) a self-made man. While preparing for college in 18 14, the country was electrified by the news of the capture of Wash- ington, the burning of the Capitol and other public buildings, and the threatened attack on Baltimore. The militia of the adjacent counties of Pennsyl- vania marched as quickly as possible to the scene * This sketch was published in the Newburgh yi^wrwa/ at the time of Dr. McCarrell's death, April, 1864. INTRODUCTORY. of danger. Among them was Joseph McCarrell. For three days and nights the young student- soldier was in the trenches awaiting the onset of the enemy. I have often heard him describe the magnificent scene which he witnessed — the bom- bardment of Fort McHenry, and the anxiety with which they watched at the dawn of each day to see whether our flag was still in place. (As is well known, it was this scene which inspired Mr. Francis M. Key to write that lyric which the American people will never willingly let die, — " The Star Spangled Banner.") Soon after his return home, he entered Wash- ington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa., and graduated with high honors in the class of 1815. In 1818, he entered the Theological Seminary of the Associate Reformed Church, then in New York, un- der the care of the distinguished Dr. John M. Mason. He brought to the Seminary an amount of attainment in certain branches of learning which very few possess when leaving it, for he had made himself a thorough Hebrew scholar, and had read the whole of the Old Testament in that language. Having finished the prescribed course of studj'-, he was licensed by the Presbytery of Big Spring, Pa., on the 2ist of June, 1821. For several months he supplied the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, in Murray Street, New York (vacant by the resignation of Dr. Mason), with so much acceptance, that not a few of its members wished to call him as INTRODUCTORY, their pastor. But he was destined to spend his life in another sphere. Declining a call to a church in Hagerstown, Maryland, at the same time, he was soon after invited to assume the pastoral care of the Associate Reformed Church, Newburgh, N. Y. This invitation he accepted, and was ordained to the gospel ministry and installed pastor, March 14, 1823. His pastorate of this church covered a period of 41 years, and was nearly as long as the united pastorates of his four predecessors. The society, though one of the oldest in New- burgh, was by no means large when he became its pastor, but from that time it steadily advanced in numbers, and has become the mother of two other congregations. In 1829, the Seminary, which had been suspended in New York city for some years, was revived, es- tablished at Newburgh, and Dr. McCarrell was chosen Professor of Theology by the Associate Reformed Synod of New York. He held the office until a few years before his death, and during that period he had some seventy j^oung men under his care, all of whom ever felt for him the warmest affec- tion because of his rare goodness in every sense of that word, and the highest respect for his intellectual abilities. As a preacher, he had not a particle of sensation- alism about him. In the pulpit he was wholly free from all mannerism, and usually calm, yet occasionally he would rise to a high strain of pa- INTRODUCTORY. thetic eloquence, showing what a latent power there was in the man. He had a profound rever- ence for sacred things. The creed he professed was the creed he held with his whole heart, and from which he never varied. And he had the courage of his convictions, as he showed by preaching his ser- mons on '* Bible Temperance" (which subjected him to not a little adverse criticism). For the Bible he ever felt and manifested the deepest reverence. It was to him emphatically the very voice of the living God, the supreme standard of faith and manners. He recognized no other au- thority that could be compared with this, deeming, it one to which enlightened reason and true science would implicitly bow. For many years he preached its precious truths with an ever-growing delight in them, and in the work of making them known to others. Dr. McCarrell died at his home in Newburgh, March 28, 1864. He had been able to preach in his own pulpit, until within three weeks of his de- cease. He was mercifully spared the endurance of acute physical pain during his last illness. His men- tal strength was unabated, and at last he peacefully fell, asleep in the Lord, in the 68th year of his age. The funeral took place, on Friday, April ist. The services at the house were conducted by the Rev. Dr. Brown, of St. George's Episcopal Church, (the neighbor and friend of the deceased for many years), and the Rev. Dr. Krebs, of New York. The INTRODUCTORY. services in the church were conducted by the Rev. Joseph Kimball of Fishkill, Rev. Alexander Jace of Newburgh, Rev. H. Mandeville of the Reformed Dutch Church of Newburgh, Rev. Dr. Snodgrass (a classmate in college), and Rev. Dr. Forsyth of Newburgh. It ought also to be mentioned as a fact worthy of note that, among those who followed the body of Dr. McCarrell to the grave, was Father Reilly, the Roman Catholic priest, a young man of rare intelligence. He asked for himself the privilege of walking in procession with the other clergy of the town. He wished to show this mark of respect for one with whom in life he had held pleasant intercourse, and with whom he had often engaged in argument concerning the great problems of life. The following tribute to the memory of the late Dr. McCarrell was written by Rev. Alexander B. Jace, who spent one year in the Theological Semi- nary at Newburgh (having received his previous education in Scotland) : Another great and good man, abiit ad plureSy has gone over to the majority and joined the na- tions of the dead. Now that the funeral is over, perhaps you will suffer me to bring one stone and lay it by his grave, leaving other hands to polish it and put it in its rightful place. INTRODUCTORY. When I first knew the doctor it was when the fruit of all that he had learned, and fashioned, and felt, was ripening in the light of immortality, and God's own hand was opening to receive it. At that time I was waiting on his instructions at the Sem- nary, and I speak not only for myself, but for my fellow-students, when I thankfully acknowledge how m.uch our spiritual life was deepened by our inter- course with him. For the present, in order to con- dense my remarks, I shall speak of him as a preacher, a professor, and a Christian. For several years previous to my acquaintance v/ith him, his style of preaching had somewhat altered. He had left the more recondite themes to which his researches, as a professor, had conducted him, and confined himself more particularly to the exposition of those grand spiritual truths which were his strength and joy, and just in proportion as he drew less from the material of his studies, and more from the spirit of faith by which he was sus- tained, he spoke with greater unction and directness. As I recall the hallowed impression of these Sab- bath services (the memory of which yet lingers with me), I would briefly state some of the causes of that solemn effect which his discourses would produce. First of all, there was a wonderful individuality about his style of preaching, — so much so, that when his sermons were given to the world, you could always tell the author without looking at the title- page. INTRODUCTORY. This was not in consequence of any oft-used illustrations, any sudden sweep of sentences, any of that epigrammatic verbiage, or misplacement of words, or tricks or feats of language, for which some preachers are distinguished. What chiefly struck the hearer was his extraordinary command of Scripture, and the affluence of similitude which he gathered from this source. Sentence after sentence closely interlaced with scriptural phraseology would fall from his lips, clear as crystal, revealing his thoughts with distinctness, and riveting the atten- tion of his hearers by their purity and energy. You can readily imagine that this was peculiarly at- tractive to those whose hearts were imbued with religious feeling, and whose study of the Bible had begun in the simplicity of childhood, when it was felt to be indeed divine. And when it was con- sidered that the work was done so easily, so freely, and so naturally, it left a profound impression of his power. In the pulpit the doctor's manner was singularly quiet. One finger of his right hand occasionally extended, and moving with the rise and fall of suc- cessive sentences, was almost the only action in which he indulged. Neither did his voice rise and swell in deep passionate excitement. Not that his preaching was void of feeling, but his feeling sel- dom, if ever, grew to the vehemence of passion. Still, although his manner was so quiet, his power over his audience was great. The tones of his 8 IN TROD UCTOR V. voice, the changing expressions of his face, the bal- lad-like simplicity of his language, all showed the intense reality of his feelings, and hence, very readily communicated them to others. If he wanted the stern and stormy temper of the " deinotes,'' which is supposed to be essential to the orator, there was a spell in the quietness of his manner which affected the soul like the dews of the morning, or the tem- pered light of day. Those who have listened to his remarks in the " Union Prayer Meetings " will remember the pure and seraphic expression of his countenance when it was lit with the ecstacy of holy feeling, and which awed by its unearthly beauty, as well as the marked solemnity of his manner when he repeated such words as these, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." In the discharge of his duties as a professor, the doctor was chiefly remarkable for completeness and conscientious thoroughness in all he undertook. However much the members of the class might fail, the doctor could always be depended on, and when the clock struck the hour for recitation, they could look for him with a confidence which I never re- member to have seen disappointed. In all that he did he seemed to be impressed with the profoundest sense of his responsibility, a feeling which grew deeper and deeper as he advanced in life. Of no INTRODUCTORY, man could it ever be more truly said, that whatever his hand found to do he did it with his might, did it heartily, as unto the Lord. In his intercourse with the students there was always an utter want of dis- play, a noble incapacity of guile, compelling him to seem what he was. Honesty and integrity were the habits of his soul, and one might say of his body too. To see and hear him in the class-room, to see his look, and hear his voice, expounding a point of faith, made you feel that he was one that could not but show what was in him, and speak out what was on his mind. There might be too much of this at times for strangers. To them he might frequently appear firm to obstinacy, but no one could doubt his truth- fulness ; or distrust, I say not his word, but his very aspect and gesture, and the glance of his eye. The doctor was pre-eminently true, unmistakably, un- variably, fearlessly true, and he could well afford to be so, for his nature was as gentle as it was gen- uine. It would be a pleasing task in this connection to present a " cateiia " of his noble sentiments, a har- vest of his genial touches, a list of his rememberahle sayings, and no less pleasing to descant on his won- derful kindness and generosity to the students. How willing he was to give to them the stores of information, stores not shut up in note-books, but lodged in his brain ! Let it suffice that no one who knew him as a professor could choose but love him, INTRODUCTORY. while his reciprocity of the affection that they bore him was like the sunshine and the showers of Heaven. Take him all in all, I never knew a man so thoroughly delightful. Others may have more of this, or more of that, but there was a symmetry, a compactness, a sweetness, a true delightfulness about him, I remember in no one else. His private character I can hardly venture to por- tray. If I were to do so, I might be charged with presenting an ideal, not a real character. So, at any rate, I would have judged the Doctor's character had I merely met with it in a description, and not enjoyed the felicity of knowing it. In all his familiar intercourse he was as simple as a child, and when engaged in conversation there was a 7iaive spontaneity and richness in his turns of thought which was exceedingly refreshing. In his speech there was no satire, because in his nature there was no bitterness. Humor, quaint, fantastic, happy humor, like Paul Richter's, only more elegant, over- flowed his table-talk and imparted to it the richest flavor. Yet over all his speech and manner there breathed a sacred tenderness, which flowed not from any earthly source, but was the fragrance of a heavenly spirit. His child-like faith imparted a secret charm to his daily life. His nature, so trust- ful, so affectionate, so given to meditation, seemed to be ground well prepared for the seed of God, and surely in it that seed so grew and fructified as is rarely seen on earth. He always appeared to me IN TROD UC TOR V. II like the " beloved disciple," whose head lay confid- ingly on the breast of Jesus, and to whom were re- vealed the most glorious visions of the church's future. The spiritual insight, the purity of con- science, the ecstatic joy, the womanly gentleness of feeling which are especially attributed to that apostle, were all of them characteristic of this godly man. As he neared the close of life, the delights of re- ligious meditation became more and more sweet. Day by day, he loved to bring the Saviour near him, and to live ever as John (the beloved disciple) would have done with the assurance that his dearest Friend and Brother was never absent from him. The one religious theme which engrossed his meditation, probably, more than any other, was the Brotherhood of Immanuel. To know Him, as possessing the power and wisdom of God, yet as being our elder Brother, was the joy of his life. To grow into His likeness was his single desire. To be with Him, as now he is in his Father's home, was his abiding hope. During the last few years the Doctor lost a daugh- ter, (Mrs. Leiper) for whom his attachment was un- speakable. From that time dated an entire altera- tion in his manner. Not that his abiding religious views and convictions were ever altered. But his social faculty never recovered that great shock. It was blighted, and it seemed as if he was always de- siring to be alone. A stranger who saw him for a 1 2 IN TROD UCTOR F. time full of cordial talk, pleasing and being pleased, was apt to think how delightful he must always be, and so he was ; but then such hours of talk were like angels' visits, few and far between. In him, as Mr. Carlyle would say, the " silences " were most predominant, and I think that every one must have been struck with this habitual stillness. The loss which he sustained had manifestly overwhelmed him. The deep and lasting love he bore his daugh- ter, the grave could not destroy. In the recesses of his heart he carried it about perpetually, walking in the midst of men like one weighed down with sor- row. Every day and hour you could see his might was sinking, and when you looked into his face, you felt as David did of old, when the Lord's anointed fell. The Doctor is now dead, his body safe past pain, his soul safe past sorrow. In a glory he shines past conceiving, in a fruition past prayer. But in this world we shall see his face no more, and how distressing to think of that ! His brethren will miss him in the " vineyard of the Lord." I leave it for others to record of him, in terms suitable to his worth, a sense of the value they set upon him. I leave it for them, that generations hereafter may know how much we value him, who carved his name upon the pillars of his church, and who, as a citizen, did so much to distinguish the town in which he lived. His death reminds us that the ministry of others is nearly run, that the voyage is drawing to IN TROD UCTOR V. 1 3 a close, that we may see the lights and hear the voices that are sounding on the other shore ; and now the gray hairs, the long shadows, the fast thin- ning band of compatriots, and many other things, are voices proclaiming, " Work while it is called to- day, the night cometh, when no man can work." The grave of this great man is but a little hill, yet from that little hill how small do the great affairs of life appear, how great the small. SERMONS ON BAPTISM. 17 I. " For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." — Acts, i., 5. THE truth of God is the grand means of the re- generation and sanctification of men. Thus prays the Saviour — " sanctify them through thy truth ; thy word is truth." This is brought to bear in various ways upon the heart and life. By the works of creation there is made a display of the divine power and Godhead. *' The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. All thy works praise thee." In the book of God is the most full revelation of all that it is necessary for us to know so that we may glorify God and enjoy him forever. The truth of the Word is read and heard that it may be believed and obeyed. It is also confirmed by the oath of God, " for God, willing to show unto the the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by his oath." Still further is the truth illustrated and confirmed by signs in which our senses are made handmaids to faith. The great and distinguishing truths of the everlasting covenant are bodied forth in striking analogies addressed to our senses. These arc called 19 20 SERMONS. sacraments, sensible signs whereby Christ and the benefits of the New Covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers. To this class of ordinances belonged, under the former dispensation of the covenant of grace, the tree of life, animal sacrifices, the rainbow, the circum- cision, and the passover. Under the new dispen- sation of the same covenant, we have Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism is a sign and seal of membership in the visible Church under the new dispensation. It is the personal badge of visible Christianity. " Bap- tism is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our engrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our en- gagement to be the Lord's." Let us consider — first, its form ; secondly, its signification ; thirdly, its subjects ; and fourthly, its uses. Firstly. Under the form may be comprehended the author, the administrator, the element, the actions, and the formula. The author of this institution is the Lord Jesus Christ. It is recorded in the commission given to the first ministers of the gospel, '' Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." — Mark xvi. 15. " Make disciples of all nations, bap- tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the BAPTISM. Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to ob- serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world," — Matt, xxviii., 19, 20. The administrator of Baptism is an ordained min- ister of the gospel, not a woman or any other private person. This is clear from the words of the com- mission itself. The element to be used is water. '* Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we." — Acts X., 47. " I indeed baptize you with water." — Matt, iii., 1 1. The Quakers, or Friends, by rejecting water reject the whole ordinance. Romanists by adding oil and spittle corrupt it. The actions are the administration and reception of the element of water by pouring or sprinkling by the minister officiating, and its reception by the per- son baptized. The question relating to the form of baptism is between us and our Baptist friends. They do not own us as brethren, because they do not tliink we are baptized, and therefore we are not in the visible Church of God at all. The question is whether the element of water is applied to the subject by pouring or sprinkling, or the subject put into or under it. We assert the former, they the latter. For our mode we claim the authority of Christ and his apostles, and the usages of the languages of in- spiration corroborated by the Septuagint, (the Greek 2 2 SERMONS. translation of the Old Testament), by writers in the Apocrypha, by other writers, Christian and pagan, and by the history of the foundation of the Christian Church. The language of the text. Acts i., 5, is itself suffi- cient to settle this question with all who are willing to be taught by the highest authority in the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ. '' For John truly baptized with water J but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." How were they baptized with the Holy Ghost ? By the Holy Ghost " coming upoti theni^ kneX^ovroi rov ayiov IIvsv- jAocro? iq^ vjda?, i. 8. " This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel [ii., 28, 32] ; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all fleshy eux^cS) ano rov Ttvev- jxaroi fxov ini naaav aapna. — Acts ii., 17; and again, *' On my servants and my handmaids will I pour out of my spirit," ii. 18. * Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear — f^fjee tovto^ ii., 33. Jesus then baptized with the Holy Ghost by pouring out, by shedding upon his servants the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost. Baptism is then rightly performed by pouring. The same language is employed by Luke in the loth chapter, 45 th verse of the Acts of the Apostles: ** Upon the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of BAPTISM. 23 the Holy Ghost " ; ^ni roc e^vt] 7 daopsa rod ayiov Ilvsv/xaro? iKuaxvtai. John the Baptist uses the same language in com- paring his baptism with that of his divine Master : " I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance : but he that cometh after me is mighter than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear : he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. — Matt, iii., 11 : and again Mark i., 8, and Luke iii., 16. It was predicted respecting the Messiah, " So shall he sprinkle many nations ; " P."*?! ^""^ ^T- ^5 Isaiah Iii., 15. He sprinkles by the application of his blood for the pardon of sin. His blood is there- fore called '* the blood of sprinkling." " Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling," aifxati pavriGfxov^ which speaketh better things than that of Abel ; Heb. xii., 24. He sprinkles with his spirit. " Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you ; DniiiD D;p D9 x?? ''^PI'P ^"^ y^ shall be clean ; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judg- ments, and do them." — Ezekiel xxxvi., 25, 27. Paul ascribes this to Jesus : " Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, with the washing of regen- 24 SERMONS. eratlon and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed 071 us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." Sia Xovrpoi) TtaXiayeveffia^^ nai ava- xaivc^aeoo? Ilvsv/xaro? ayiov ov s^€xs£y i(f^ 7]fj.a? TrXovaiGD^, did^Irfaov Xpiarov rov (jGorr/po<5 rjjxc^v. — Titus iii., 5, 6. He sprinkles also with the water of baptism when his ministers and ambassadors administer this ordi- nance. They act for him, and their act is ac- counted his. " When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus baptized not, ipanri^evy but his disciples." — John iv., I, 2. He sprinkles many nations meritoriously by his blood that purges away our guilt, efficaciously by his spirit that regenerates and sanctifies the soul, and sacramentally by his ministering servants when they baptize with water in his name and as his rep- resentatives in this respect, as well as in preaching the gospel, with which the ordinance is connected. *' Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you, by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." The apostle Paul also refers to the baptism of the Jewish law, " the doctrine of baptisms," §anri- GfjLwv didaxv^, Heb. vi., 2 ; many of which were by sprinkling. — Num. xix., 13. '* Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and puri- fieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from the Lord, BAPTISM. 25 because the water of «ieparation was not spi'inkled upon him," vS;; pit 5^S The son of Sirach, refer- ring to this sprinkling, calls it baptism. — Ecclesias- ticus, xxxiv., 30. fiaTtri^ofxsvoi ano venpov nai TtaXiv aTtTopisvo? avrov ri oocpiXriaev rep Xovrpcp avrov. " He that washeth himself after touching a dead body, if he touch it again what availeth his washing." The Xovrp(p is the same word used by- Paul (Titus iii., 5), '' the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost," the washing, the baptism, in relation both to the body and the soul, was by sprinkling. This is still further evident from a direct com- parison of those things by the same apostle (Heb. ix., 13, 14. — " For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, pavriB,ovaa rov? KejioivGDjLievov?^ sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." fSanrGD, from which panri^oo is derived, is used by inspired writers for '' sprinkle " (Isaiah Ixiii., 3). — "■ I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me, and I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my gar- ments, and I will stain all my raiment." ''^33 hv DnV3 ri The very same image is employed in the Book of Revelation to describe the triumphant 26 SERMONS. progress of the conquering Messiah (Rev. xix., 13). — " And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood," l3e/3a^^eyov ai^xari, where the word ren- dered dipped evidently means sprinkled from the bodies of his vanquished foes, over whom he passes in triumph. The Septuagint uses this word when sprinkling is evidently the meaning: "His body was wet, ifiaqyri, from the dew of heaven." — Dan. iv., 32. The blood of the paschal \di.mhwdiS sprinkled upon the lintels and door-posts of the children of Israel, and Christ oicr passover was sacrificed for us. Ex- ternal usage also corroborates the views which have been given respecting the meaning of the words fianroD and paTtri^GD. Judith is said to have washed herself near a fountain of water in the camp : eftaTtri^sro iv rPj Ttape/x/SoXrj ini rrj^ 7tr]yrfi rov vdaro?. — Judith xii., 7. A modest woman would not attempt to bathe her whole body in the camp, being only at or near, not in the fountain, and who ever is so reckless as to bathe in a fountain ? Origen, the most learned of the ancient fathers, commenting on the baptism of John, quotes I. Kings, xviii., 33, and uses the word jSaTtri^co four times, two in describing \,h.Q pouring out of the wa- ter upon the sacrifice and twice in application to the baptism of John. Homer, in his poem describing the battle of the frogs and mice, represents the lake as ijSanreTOD, BAPTISM. 27 Sprinkled with the blood of frogs, certainly not immersed. The practice of the apostles still further confirms the views already presented in the usage of the language by writers inspired and uninspired. Wherever they went and their message was re- ceived in faith, they baptized in houses, by the road- side, in jail, or wherever they might be ; Lydia and the jailer are baptized forthwith, and three thousand in one day after the sermon of Peter on the day of Pentecost. Paul himself, rising up, was baptized, avaarai iftaTttiG^r}. — Acts ix., 18; xxii., 16, avaffta? fiaTtrWai. The nature of the ordinance being a symbolical action requires the practice of pouring or sprinkling. As in the Lord's Supper, a square inch of bread and a spoonful of wine are sufificient to answer the purpose of the institution, and better than a full meal, so a little water in baptism illustrates the inward purifying better than covering the whole person in water. This principle our Lord has explained in washing the disciples' feet : '' Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him. If I wash thee not thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him. Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him. He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean, every whit." — John xiii., 8, 10. 28 SERMONS. Let us examine the position taken on the other side of this question. The name by which they claim to be known, the Baptists, is yielded to them by courtesy, not be- cause it is admitted by other denominations that they themselves are not baptized, any more than it is admitted in calling those who deny the trinity Unitarians, that they themselves do not believe in the unity of God, or calling the Church of Rome Catholics, that they themselves do not belong to the Church universal. They are properly called Anabaptists, as they were at first in the days of Luther, and Anti-Paidobaptists because they baptize agai72 those who had been baptized by other de- nominations, and because they deny the propriety of infant baptism. The question with them is made of vital importance, for they teach that none are in the Church of God who are not immersed by them. It is proper then that those who do not think with them should give a reason for the hope that is in them, and as the appeal has been taken to the orig- inals by our opponents on the subject, it is is neces- sary that they be met on that ground. They claim that total immersion is the only proper baptism, and all who are not immersed are therefore among the uncircumcised and the un- clean. Not being in the kingdom of God they must therefore belong to the kingdom of Satan, for there is no neutral ground. They occupy the place of the Judaizing teachers BAPTISM. 29 in the days of the apostles, who insisted that unless men were circumcised, and kept the law of Moses, they could not be saved. And what are the arguments by which our im- mersed friends sustain their position ? They say that the word fianri^oD means, to im- merse, and nothing else; and fz? means, into, and, under; and fV, from under. They quote writers on our side who admit that the word for baptism some- times means to immerse, and hence claim that the question is given up. But the same men thought otherwise, and contended for the propriety of bap- tism by sprinkling and pouring. These authorities then are against them. — As are also the translators of the Bible into our language, for instead of render- ing PanriB,0D always by, immerse, they never render it so at all. Indeed, the word immerse, expressing a doctrine without which many say there can be no visible church, is not found in the English Bible. At least, I have not been able to find it. Moreover Schleusner, the great lexicographer of the Greek Testament, declares that it is never read' in that sense in the New Testament : " In hac ant em significatione minquam in N. T..., legittir.'' He adds,, indeed, that it is used in that sense frequently in Greek writers : " sed eo freqnentius in scriptt.gr, legi- tur^ And the only example which he gives will not help our Baptist friends much, for there it means to be drowned. " Diod. Sic. i. c. 36 ; De Nilo exun- dante rc^v ;^6p(rar/oj' ^rjpic^v ra noWd vno tov 30 SERMONS, TtorajLiou TtepiXrjcp^kvTa Siacp^eiperat ^aTtri^o- jx€va. Multa terrestrium anhnaliuni a Jltimine deprehensa siibmersione periuiit.'' — (Many land ani- mals, overtaken by the river and submerged in it, perished.) The word never expresses their prac- tice oi immersion and emersion at the same time. If the word means, as they insist, total immersion, and nothing else, then when they have put their can- didates under the water, they have nothing further to do — they should leave them there — what warrant have they to undo the work of immersion ? No one is ever represented as immersed in the ■Holy Ghost, or in the blood of Christ. If the sign then must illustrate and confirm the thing signified, •the element must be applied by sprinkling or pour- ing, as has been shown, and not by immersion. So far are even the external writers from teaching that the word for baptism means immersion, and nothing else, that when they mean immersion they use other words in distinction from f3a7tri^0D. Dr. Wall instances a case from Mr. Sydenham, as delivered by the oracle {dffKO? /SaTtri^Godwai deroi ovBsfiii sari) in which instance if Svvai signifies to plunge wholly under water, as it certainly does, then panri^oo must mean something less than total immersion. " Baptize him as a bottle, but it is not lawful to plunge him wholly under water." The same distinction is made in another instance from Shrivellii's and Robinson's lexicons, but then Panrw is used instead of ^anri^oo. Mark vii., 1-5, BAPTISM. 31 shows that men were baptized when only their hands were washed, and this was often done by pouring water on them, and tables or couches could not be immersed when they were baptized. The word for submerging is ^voo dwoo, and xaradvoi)* In these senses these texts are used by the Sep- tuagint. — Ex. xv., 5 : ^^ TTovrcj EKocXvipev avrovS. Karidvaav si? /SvBov gj^€i XiBo?.'^ — He covereth them with the sea, they went down into the deep as a stone; — and also xv. 10: '^ enaXvipev avrovS BaXaaaa. edvffav c^^ei fxoXifto? iv vdari acpodpcp.^^ — The sea covered them, they sank like lead in the mighty waters. The immersion scheme represents the Saviour making a promise which he did not fulfill. It makes him say — " ye shall be immersed in the Holy Ghost not many days hence," whereas the Holy Ghost came on them, was poured out on them^ and abode tip07i them. I do not say that our good brethren mean to blaspheme the Son of God, but their argument, if true, would go to prove him a false prophet. But let God be true, but every man a liar. They rely on the particles tzV, fV, into and in, and iiiy from or out of, which they say must mean going under the water. Now fz? often means simply to a place : — " Jesus cometh to the sepulchre, ezV ro f-ivrffXEiov, it was a cave, and a stone was laid upon it." — John xi., 38. Jesus did not enter the cave. Also John XX., 3, 4, 5 : They came to the sepul- 32 SERMONS. chre, fzV ro /j-vrj/ieiov^ " but did not enter." The pro- per phrase for entering into is eiffspxojLiai si? (Matt. XV., 1 1) : " Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man." €K often means simply from, not out of (John vi., 23): *' then came vessels from Tiberias." " Jesus came up from the water ; ajto rov v6ar6?: the particle does not mean, from out of, or from under. " Depart from me "; an^ ejaov : Matt, vii., 23 ; XXV., 41. iv often signifies at or to a place ; Rom. viii., 34 : " Who is at the right hand of God " ; er de^ia rov Oeov, The people of Jerusalem and Judea, and all the country round about Jordan, were baptized of John "; €v rep ^lopSavtj. This cannot mean standing in or being immersed in the waters of Jordan, for another evangelist, John, says : " These things were done in Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing." He could not baptize indifferently at either place. John was baptising in Enon, ev Aivor, near to Salem, because there was much water there ; vdara TtoWa, many waters. — John iii., 23. The name means springs or fountains, because well supplied with fountains of water. It is not said that John baptized in these waters^ but in the town. If it had been the intention to aid the Baptist scheme, he would have told us the people were immersed in these fountains, but he does no such thing. The BAPTISM. 33 multitudes that attended John's ministry required a plentiful supply of sweet and fresh water from the springs, and therefore John selected that place for the exercise of his ministry. Those denominations that have camp-meetings are careful to select places where the multitude can have plenty of water for drinking, and culinary and other necessary pur- poses. The case of Philip and the eunuch (Acts viii., 38, 39) is relied upon to prove immersion. The whole force of the argument is derived from the meaning attached to the expressions going down into^ and com- ing up out of the water. Those expressions either prove immersion, or they do not. If they do not, the witness may be dismissed ; if they do, then as these expressions are applied in common to Philip and the eunuch, both were immersed. The minis- ter then must go under the water himself every time that he immerses another. On the day of Pentecost, Peter begins his sermon at nine o'clock in the morning. After the services and conversation with the hearers, three thousand are baptized that same day. The narrative is in- consistent with the supposition that three thousand were immersed that day. Here are miracles sup- posed about which the inspired historian is strangely silent. Suitable baptistries or places for immersing this great multitude are suddenly provided of which there is no record nor trace ; — a sufficient supply of suitable raiment for their covering is promptly fur- 34 SERMONS. nished, of which no one takes any notice whether it comes from the hands of men or angels, and then, in the fragment of the day that remains, each of the twelve, if they are all engaged, must converse with and immerse two hundred and fifty persons — less than two minutes for each person, without leaving the apostles or the converts a moment for refresh- ment or rest until the going down of the sun. The jailer and his family were baptized in the prison at midnight, and Lydia and her family in her house, and not a word said about the indispensable ceremony of putting them under the water. All these things must be believed by those who require an explicit warrant for every thing in a positive in- stitution. Rom. vi., and Col. ii., are relied upon to sustain the scheme of immersion. These passages relate to the meaning of baptism, not its form. They describe the union with Christ and communion with him in his graces, sufferings, obedi- ence, and death, resurrection and glory, to which be- lievers in him are entitled in the covenant of grace, of which baptism is to them the sign and the seal. If the form of baptism is here referred to, what is it ? Our Baptist friends say it is immersion^ because we are immersed into Christ, and immersed into his death, and buried with him. What is meant by being immersed into his death? If buried with Christ is in allusion to his burial, there is nothing in immersion like Christ being BAPTISM. 35 buried in a sepulcher hewn out of a rock, and not put into a grave and covered with earth ; and Christ, dying on the cross, is not illustrated by im- mersion. Papists and Puseyites have the advantage of Baptists in this respect, for they use the sign of the cross at baptism. What is said of this bap- tism is true only of those who have the baptism of the spirit, that they are risen with him by the faith of the operation of God, who raiseth him from the dead (Col. ii., 12) ; made alive with him, forgiven all their trespasses (v. 13) ; and who will say of every person who is immersed in water that they are alive with Christ, and forgiven all their trespasses ? But allowing all for which immersionists contend, that ^aTtri^oj means immersion and nothing else, and going down, fz? vdoopy means going under the water, and coming up, sKy from under the water, what is the scene exhibited in the baptism of John ? The Baptist goes down under the water, and all Jerusalem and Judea, and the country round about Jordon, go down with him, and in some lower deep in the bottom of the river, he immerses them. If John, officiating under the water, has some diving apparatus by which he can breathe, are all Jerusa- lem and Judea, and the country round about Jordan, equally accommodated ? How these multitudes are furnished with proper garments for this immer- sion, or whether it was performed with their ordinary raiment, or without any raiment at all, those who 36 SERxMONS. insist upon having everything in a positive institu- tion explicitly defined do not inform us. The formula, " in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," more literally ei?, into the name, etc., is a general explanation of the design of the ordinance to signify and seal the introduction of the person baptized into a covenant relation with the Triune God as his Father, Redeemer and Sanc- tifier, and his covenant obligations to be devoted to his service and glory. Secondly. The signification of this ordinance. The water illustrates that purifying influence upon the soul which is wrought by the blood of Christ, the blood of sprinkling, in removing its guilt, its obligation to punishment, and the grace of the Holy Spirit in renewing and sanctifying the soul. " How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." — Heb. ix., 14. " I, indeed," says John, " baptize you with water unto repent- ance : but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear : he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire'' — Matt, iii., 1 1. *' Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on ?^^ abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour." — Titus iii., 5, 6. BAPTISM. 37 " Can any forbid zvater, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we." — Acts x., 47. As the water is the proper element for cleansing the body from its pollutions, so the Spirit cleanses the soul from its moral defilement. The prophecies respecting the pouring out of the Spirit are fulfilled in the baptism of the Holy Ghost. As the persons of men are purged from their moral defilement by the influence of the Holy Ghost, so their relations are purged by the blood of atone- ment, the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh bet- ter things than the blood of Abel, which cries to God not for punishment, but for pardon and life. " Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." — Acts ii., 38, 39. Baptism is the sign and seal both of remission of sins in the name of Jesus Christ, and of the influ- ence of the Holy Ghost in sanctifying the soul. " So shall he sprinkle many nations." — Is. lii., 15. The act of sprinkling indicates the personal appli- cation of the blood of atonement for the removal of the guilt of sin and the influence of the Holy Ghost for restoring the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness ; — " Washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 3 8 SERMONS. The formula, "into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," indicates that by- baptism is signified and sealed our union in the covenant of his grace with the Mediator of the covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently our communion with him in all the blessings which he hath procured by his mediation on our behalf. We have fellowship, a common interest with him in his graces, sufferings, obedience, death, resurrection, and glory. We thus receive by union with him regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, " assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and persever- ance therein to the end. At death, our souls, made perfect in holiness, immediately pass into glory. Our bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection, when being raised up in glory we shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made per- fectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity." And being engrafted into Christ, we are through him, the Mediator, united to the Father and the Holy Spirit, consecrated to the service and glory of the Triune God as living sacrifices, to be forever employed in showing forth his glory, and the Triune God is united to us, and signifies and seals the gift of himself to us — the Father as our Father, the Son as our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier, Comforter, and Guide. *'Thou hast made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in BAPTISM. 39 all things and sure ; this is all my salvation and it is all my desire." "My beloved is mine, and I am his." — Song ii., i6. The subjects of this ordinance are believers and their children. " Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to Him ; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized." The necessity of faith and repentance as prere- quisites to baptism, in the case of adults, is a part of our system. '' If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest," says Philip to the eunuch. '' Repent and be baptized," says Peter. " He that believes and is baptized," says our Divine Master. II. " Then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. " For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." —Acts ii., 38, 39. HAVING considered the form and signification of Baptism, let us inquire who are its proper subjects, and what are the uses to which it may be applied. Adults must first profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him. On this part of the subject we have no controversy with immersionists. And when they have proved the necessity of faith and repentance in order to the baptism of an adult, they have proved nothing against us, for this is our doctrine. If a materialist proves ever so clearly that man as to his body is material, he has proved nothing against the immateriality of the soul. If a Unitarian proves that Jesus the Messiah was a man, he proves nothing against those who believe that " He is both God and Man in two distinct natures and one person forever." The grand ques- tion remains — Are the infant seed of believing mem- 40 BAPTISM. bers of the visible church proper subjects of baptism ? We take the affirmative — anti-paedobaptists the negative side of this question. The propriety of infant baptism appears: 1. From the renewal of the promise to believers and their seed on the introduction of the new cov- enant dispensation. The promise is to you and to your children ; baptism is the seal of the promise ; therefore baptism belongs to you and your children. This is according to the uniform teaching of the Word of God. From the beginning of the world the family shares in the relations of its head. When God made a covenant with Adam he made a cove- nant with his family. And when, after the fall, God receives back his apostate children to himself through the promised seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head, he takes back to his family the believer and his seed. When he makes a covenant with Noah, and seals it with a rainbow, he makes a covenant with his seed, the human family, that he will not again send a flood to drovv^n the world. 2. When he takes Abraham Into a covenant with himself, he takes also his infant offspring. He seals the promise — "I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee," by requiring the seed to be circum- cised at eight days old. — Gen. xvii., 7, 10, 12. This circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith. The principle of the church membership 42 SERMONS. of the infants of God's people, and the right and duty of confirming it by a seal upon their persons, was thus distinctly recognized in the constitution of the Church of God. This principle, until the intro- duction of the New Dispensation, for a period of eighteen hundred years, was never called in ques- tion. Any objections, then, against the reasonable- ness or propriety of administering to infants ordi- nances which they can not understand, and laying on them obligations to which they can not consent, is an implied charge against God, who beyond all controversy did require these very things. 3. The Church of God is one under both dispen- sations. " For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and wert grafted con- trary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree." — Rom. xi. 24. The tree is the church, and it is the same while the Jews were the church, since they were cut off for their unbelief, and the Gentiles were grafted in, and will be still the same when the Jews shall be restored to their own olive tree. This is further proved by the language of Peter: " For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, of your brethren, like unto me ; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you," and who- soever "will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people." — Acts iii., 22, 23. The BAPTISM. 43 people in this place is the visible church of God, from which the body of the Jewish nation were cut off for their unbelief. It can not mean the church invisible, for its members are never lost ; nor the nation of the Jews, for they are the persons cut off. A constitutional privilege, then, which had ex- isted in the church from the days of Abraham, and even of Adam, must continue in the one church until it is taken away by Jehovah himself. There is not a shadow of evidence that the membership of the infants of God's children has been revoked and its seal forbidden. These privileges therefore remain. 4. The silence of the Scriptures in relation to any such withdrawing of the privileges of the children of God's people, is itself demonstration against any such withdrawal. It is inconceivable that not a word of complaint should be uttered, not a word of consolation given, under so sore a bereave- ment. Instead of the increase of privileges which they are authorized by the prophets to expect in the last and most perfect dispensation of the cove- nant of grace on earth, without a moment's warn- ing, without a word of alleviation to the sore trou- ble, believers find their children, dear to them as their own soul, cast out among the uncircumcised and the unclean, and not a tear of sorrow is seen, not a sigh or moan is heard. Are these Christians stocks or stones, or the inspired historians incom- petent or faithless, that they pass unnoticed the 44 SERMO.VS. most affecting and important events in the history of that Church of the Redeemer which he pur- chased with his own blood ? When the old form of the seal, circumcision, is superseded, and another, better adapted to the church of all nations, and countries, and climes, is substituted, so great is the reluctance to give it up that a council of apostles and elders must convene at Jerusalem to settle the question — and yet we are asked to believe that the entire seal, in every form, and the relations, and privileges, and obligations which it illustrates and confirms, are withdrawn, and silence like that of the grave rests upon the whole subject. 5. The silence of Holy Scripture in relation to the repeal of one of the Church's dearest privileges can only be accounted for by the simple fact that no such repeal was ever made, nor ever came it into the heart of Him who took up the little children in his arms and blessed them for the reason that of such is the kingdom of God. "And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them ; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not : for of such is the kingdom of God. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." — Mark X., 13, 14, 16; Luke xvlii., 16. If they belong to the kingdom they are in his BAPTISM. 45 church, and not in the kingdom of Satan. Would he declare them blessed who belong to the kingdom of the god of this world ? If the kingdom of God here means the church invisible, or the church triumphant, then, as the greater comprehends the less, if to them belong the blessings to them belongs the sign. If they do not belong to the church at all, then they are subjects of the kingdom of Satan, and the models to wdiich the children of the kingdom of God are to be conformed. 6. The apostles, in laying the foundations of the new dispensation of the covenant, act upon the assumption that this great constitutional principle has not been disturbed. The whole history takes for granted the principle with which the Jews were familiar from the days of Abraham, that the child- ren of believers were to be recognized as in cove- nant with God, and receive the seal of the cove- nant. The apostles baptize whole households on the faith of the heads of the families respectively. Lydia's family were all baptized, and no mention is made of the faith of any of her household but her own. — Acts xvi., 14, 15. The case of the jailer at Philippi attests the truth : *' And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus- Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house ;. and they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his straightway. And when he 46 SERMONS. kad brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, beHeving in God with all his house." In the original it is : " he rejoiced with all his house, TteTtKjrevnc^^ rc5 Qecp, he believiiig in God." This is just as it would be if the principle for which we contend were universally admitted and acted on, but unaccountable on the contrary supposition. These instances being merely a sample of the pro- ceedings of the apostles, what occurred in these families occurred in all other families under similar circumstances. 7. The apostle Paul expressly decides that the privilege of the seal of the covenant, derived through Abraham, is continued to both Gentile and Jew: " And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised : that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also ; And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. — Rom. iv., 11,12. Abraham is called the father of circumcision, because this ordinance, as a seal of the covenant, began v/ith him, and by him was transmitted to all his believing seed, Jew and Gentile. Circumcision, the first name of the seal, is still used to express that seal. When circumcision has passed away, BAPTISM. 47 baptism occupies its place. The apostle uses cir- cumcision and baptism as expressing the same truth — Col. ii., ii, 12: "In whom also ye are cir- cumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him in baptism." Many things retain their first names when the particular circumstances that gave the name are changed. A candlestick, drawing its name from the stick of which it was made, is a candlestick still when made of gold. So the personal seal of the covenant is called circumcision still, though now it is in the pleasant form of baptism. The seal then continues to the uncircumcised, and the uncircumcised have no other seal than baptism, which is the same seal, though under a new form, given to Abraham and his seed, and therefore it is to be applied, as in its old form, to believers and to their seed. 8. The Apostle of the Gentiles decides a case which shows that the principle of infant member- ship in the church was known and unquestioned, and that it is to be liberally applied. " For the un- believing husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband : else were your cliildren unclean ; but now are they holy." — I. Cor. vii., 14. Holy and unholy mean conse- crated to God and not consecrated to him. Holy describes membership in the church, unholy the v/ant of such membership. It is declared by the 48 SERMONS. apostle that if both parents are unbelievers, their children are not in the church ; but if both are believers, it is assumed they are in the church. But the question is, if one parent is a believer, and the other an unbeliever, what is the relation of the children — are they in the church, the kingdom of God, with the believing parent, or out of the church, and in the kingdom of Satan, with the unbelieving? The apostle decides that the parental relation is sanctified by the one believing parent, and therefore the privileges of the children are not withdrawn by the unbelief of the other. The evasion of the force of this testimony is by contradicting the whole usage of the language in rendering the words rendered holy and unholy by legitimate and illegitimate. The verse, according to these translators, would read thus : For the un- believing husband is made legitimate by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is made legitimate by the husband : else were your children illegitimate ; but now are they legitimate. These words are never so used in the Bible. This rendering makes the apostle say what neither he nor any one else, not even these learned critics themselves believe, that the marriage of unbelievers is no better than concubinage, and their children are bastards. Although nothing is to be believed but what is taught us in the Word of God by direct declaration, or fair and necessary inference, yet a position fairly established by that only infallible rule of faith and BAPTISM. 49 of practice may be corroborated by the testimony of history. The historical argument is in favor of infant baptism. Justin Martyr, who wrote about forty years after the apostolic age, says : '' We have not received the carnal but spiritual circumcision by baptism, and it is enjoined on all persons to receive it in the same way." He evidently considers baptism as being in the place of circumcision, and consequently, like that ancient rite, designed for infants as well as for adults. In one of his apologies for the Christians, he observes '* several persons among us of sixty or seventy years old, who were made disciples to Christ from their childhood." If infant children were made disciples, they were undoubt- edly baptized. Irenaeus, who wrote sixty-seven years after the apostles, and was then an aged man, says concern- ing Christ : *' He came to save all persons who by him are regenerated unto God ; — infants, little ones, youths, and elderly persons. He speaks of infants and little ones as being regenerated. It is evident, from his own words, that he had reference to their baptism, for he tells us : " When Christ gave his apostles the command of regenerating unto God, he said, go, and teach all nations, baptizing them.'' Justin Martyr says they are "• regenerated in the same way of regeneration in which we have been regenerated, for they are washed with water in the so SERMONS. name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." Tertullian flourished one hundred years after the apostles. He witnessed to the fact of the common practice of infant baptism ? He asks : *' Why that innocent age made such haste to baptism." He admits its propriety in some cases of necessity, of sickness, and danger of death. He does not declare it unlawful in any case, but advises to defer it not only until adult age, but until after marriage. He is the only man in all antiquity whose writings have come down to us, who has said any thing at all against the practice of baptizing infants. Origen, who flourished in the beginning of the third century, and was for some time contemporary with Tertullian, says : '* Infants are baptized for the remission of sins." " The church had a tradition or command from the apostles to give baptism to infants." Origen and the ancient fathers do not speak of infant baptism as though it was denied or opposed by any one ; they mention it as a practice generally known and approved, and for the purpose of illustrating and confirming other points that were disputed. Cyprian, and the rest of the Council of Carthage, A.D. 253, on a question whether an infant might be baptized before the eighth day, decided : " That an infant might be baptized on the second or third day, or at any time after its birth." Ambrose, who wrote about 274 years after the BAPTISM. 51 apostles, declares expressly — " that infant baptism was practiced in his time, and in the time of the apostles." Chrysostom observes — " that persons may be baptized either in infancy, in middle age, or in old age." Jerome ^ays : " If infants be not baptized, the sin of omitting their baptism is laid to the parent's charge." Augustine, who wrote at the same time, about 280 years after the apostles, speaks "■ of infant baptism as one of those practices which was not instituted by any council, but had always been in use." The whole church of Christ, he informs us, had constantly held that infants were baptized for the forgiveness of sins ; that he had never heard or read of any Christian, Catholic or sectary, who held otherwise ; that no Christians of any sect ever denied it to be useful or necessary. Pelagius owns " that baptism ought to be adminis- tered to infants, and affirms that he never heard of any, not even the most impious heretic, that would say such a thing of infants ; he had said that men slander him as if he denied the sacrament of baptism to infants." Dr. Wall, who enjoyed the best advantages for being acquainted with infant baptism, and who made this the principal subject of his studies and inqui- ries, briefly sums up the evidence on both sides in the following words : " For the first four hundred 52 SERMONS. years there appears only one man, TertuUian, who advised the delay of infant baptism in some cases, and one Gregory, who did perhaps practice such de- lay in the case of his own children, but no society of men, so thinking, so practicing, or any one man, saying it was unlawful to baptize infants. So in the next seven hundred years there is not so much as one man to be found who either spoke for or prac- ticed any such delay, but all the contrary. And when about the year 1130 one sect among the Wal- denses or Albigenses declared against the baptizing of infants as being incapable of salvation, the main body of that people rejected their opinion, and they of them who held that opinion quickly dwin- dled away and disappeared, there being no more per- sons heard of holding that tenet until the rising of the German Anti-Psedobaptists, in the year 1522." [Reed's Apology in Ridgely.] The objections to infant baptism are mainly the following : I. "It is useless and improper to administer an ordinance to an infant that can not understand it, nor consent to the duties which it binds upon its subjects." The case is the same in these respects with circumcision, and therefore not to be reasoned against, but rebuked as constructive blasphemy against the only true God. " O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? " Does the moral law wait for man's consent before it binds him to obe- dience? BAPTISM. 53 2. Faith and repentance are required in order to baptism. " He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." — Mark xvi., i6; Acts ii., 38. This and kindred passages either respect the case of infants or they do not. If they do not, they are to be regarded as out of consideration on this point. If they do, then they teach the doctrine of infant perdition, for faith is a prerequisite to salvation, and they are incapable of faith. " He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." The sect among the Waldenses who rejected infant baptism were the only consistent Baptists, for they rejected the baptism of infants because tJiey were incapable of salvation. Nobody believes that now, not even the Baptists themselves. They are not as bad as their scheme, nor as cruel as their argument. 3. They contend that a positive institution re- quires an explicit warrant, by express command or approved example. They will admit nothing which depends on reasoning from the Scriptures. In this they condemn the Saviour and the apostles, who prove their doctrines by reasoning out of the Scrip- tures. They are inconsistent with themselves, for they admit females to the Lord's Supper without an explicit warrant. They appeal to the word av^pojTto^, which they say means both man and woman. (Let a man examine himself.) This is their inference, and not the explicit warrant which they require. This word is used nineteen times in Scripture to distinguish man from woman : " There- 54 SERMONS. fore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife." They have no explicit warrant for baptistries in their churches or immersion of their converts, and it has been proved that they have no warrant for them at all. A great social principle is at stake, and in its most important exercise, that children follow the condi- tion of their parents. The Baptist scheme would expunge that principle from the moral and religious code, and denounce the wisdom of God as folly. If the question were, shall the children of American citizens, born in the country, be accounted citizens or aliens, entitled by their birth to the privileges and bound by the obligations of citizens, or neither en- titled to the former nor bound by the latter, there would rise from the great heart of the nation a re- sponse so loud and universal, and overwhelming, in favor of the citizenship, the privileges, and the duties of the native-born children of our loyal citi- zens, as would never allow the question to be mooted again. And is a birthright in the kingdom of God, his church on earth, less valuable than American citizenship, or less influential to enforce, on obedient and grateful hearts, devotion to its interests and obedience to its laws ? Fourthly. The uses of this ordinance. I. It condenses to a bright and burning focus the great truths of the everlasting covenant, the Trinity, man's apostacy from God, his condemnation and pol- lution, the mediation of Jesus, regeneration by the BAPTISM. 55 Holy Spirit, union with Christ the Mediator by the indwelling of the Spirit, justification through the blood and righteousness of the surety Emanuel, adoption into the family of God, perfect holiness and eternal blessedness in the vision and fruition of the Triune God, and everlasting devotion to his ser- vice and glory. 2. The solemn relations and mutual engagements between God and his ransomed, which it signifies and seals, should stir up the people of God to greater faith, to more devout affections, and more cordial and entire consecration in heart and life to their covenant God. Every time they witness its admin- istration, they should remember and repent of their departures from the holy covenant, and lay hold on it afresh, as all their salvation and all their desire. They should remember that as all that God is he has made over to them for their safety and comfort in time and in eternity, so all that they are and have, they have devoted to him, to be employed in his ser- vice and for his glory. "■ Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price ; wherefore glorify God with your bodies and with your spirits, which are his." Holiness to the Lord is written upon your whole persons, relations, and powers, and it were sacrilege to employ them for any other purpose than that to which they are set apart by Him whose they are by a double right — creation at the first, and then, when sin had wrought their ruin, by redemption from eter- nal death. 56 SERMONS. Parents who have devoted your children to God in baptism, remember that they are holy, that they belong unto the Lord, and that he has entrusted them to you to bring them up for him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. '* Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Instruct them in the way of salva- tion, and their own duty in relation to it, their sinful and miserable condition by nature, the way of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, and their own solemn covenant obligations to live a life of faith upon the Son of God. '* These words which I command thee this day shalt be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up," Pray for them in the closet and in your family. Lay hold by faith upon the covenant, and plead in prayer the promise, *' I will be a God to you and to your seed after you," — plead it for yourselves that you may be saved, and plead the promise for them, that they may be saved. And as you must prove your faith in the promise respecting yourself to be sincere by corresponding exertions to make your calling and election sure, so prove your faith in the promise that respects the salvation of your children by using all diligence that they may be brought savingly within the bonds of the covenant. Plead with him that other promise, " I will pour water BAPTISM. 57 upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall grow up among the grass as willows by the water- courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel." Wrestle with God for your families as Jacob wrestled with the angel of the covenant and pre- vailed. Imitate the Syro-Phoenician woman and take no denial, and at length he will say unto you even as unto her, *' Be it unto you even as ye will ; go in peace, your children are saved." Exercise over your children a vigilant and firm, yet kind and patient government and control. See the necessity for this in the contrasted histories of Abraham and Eli. Of the one there is recorded this goodly report : '' I know Abraham that he will com- mand his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment ; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." — Gen. xviii., 19. Consider also the fearful consequences of neglect in this matter as illustrated in the family of Eli : *' I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle, .... because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." — I. Sam. iii., 11, 13. To instruction, prayer, and authority, add a holy 5 8 SERMONS. example, so that you may say to them without shame, Be followers of us as we are of Christ. Not only point the road to heaven, but lead the way. Show in your own lives what true godliness is, and and then try to induce them to follow your exam- ple. If you would not that the blood of the souls of your own offspring should be found in your skirts in the great day, if you would not see them on the left hand of the Judge among the accursed, and charging the guilt of their blood upon you, be up and doing while it is called to-day, before the night come wherein no man can work, that they may not go to the place of torment. If you would desire to see your children adorning the doctrine of God the Saviour, and standing with you at the right hand of the Judge at the last day, and spending with you a blissful eternity in his presence, where is fullness of joy, and at his right hand, where are pleasures forevermore, cease not continually to train them up in the nurture and ad- monition of the Lord, laboring in birth for them that Christ may be formed in their hearts, the hope of glory, and surrounded at last with your glorified family, you may say to your covenant God, " Here are we and the children thou hast given us." Baptized Children and Youth — The vows of God are upon you. You are consecrated to the service and glory of God. To appropriate to your own use the church plate, or any other thing devoted to God, were a venial offense compared with employing BAPTISM. 59 in the service of Satan, the world, and the flesh, those faculties of soul and body which by the divine law have been consecrated to the service of God in Christ forevermore. From the solemn covenant which has been sealed to you at your baptism, you cannot go back but at the cost of most aggravated sin and misery. You must break through all the restraints which the God of grace has thrown around you to prevent you from being your own destroyers. You may kick at the bowels of the most distinguishing mercies, you may sell your birthright, like profane Esau, for a mess of pottage — but for your apostacy receive the wages of eternal death. And when you see your minister, your parents, your Christian friends, who have prayed for you, and who have labored with you, that you might be saved, standing at the right hand of the everlasting throne, and you your- selves among the lost, how will all your privileges and opportunities neglected and despised harrow up your souls. And when, in the endless ages which succeed, you reflect upon times like this when God did beseech you by us to be reconciled to him ; when we prayed you in Christ's stead to be recon- ciled to God and yc would not — how will a guilty conscience, the worm that never dies, gnaw your souls with the anguish of eternal remorse. Be up and doing while it is called to-day, before the night come wherein no man can work. Cry mightily to God for that grace of the Spirit of which he has 6o SERMONS. given you the seal, that you may cordially embrace his covenant mercy. By all that regard for the glory of his name and the welfare of your immortal nature, in soul and body, by which God urges you to give yourself to him in an everlasting covenant, do you urge him to give to you that grace of the Spirit whereby alone you can yield yourself to God a free-will offering, a living sacrifice for time and for eternity. He has said : " I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing on thine offspring." " Hath he said it and will he not do it ; hath he spoken it and will he not bring it to pass." Listen to his gracious expostulations. " Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when ye shall sa}^ We have no pleasure in them." " Wilt thou not at this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth." " Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the way of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes ; — but know that for all these things God will bring thee into judg- ment." " Let all, whether baptized or not, accept of God's covenant as all their salvation and all their desire." " Incline your ear and come unto me, hear and your souls shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." " Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of BAPTISM. 6 1 the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." And let all personally unite in the prayer of the Psalmist : " Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto thy children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands upon us. Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." SERMONS ON TEMPERANCE. I. " The fruit of the Spirit is. . . temperance." — Gal. v., 22, 23. WHEN, from any exciting causes, a subject of importance has been discussed with such vari- ety of opinions that it has well-nigh become " puz- zled out of all intelligibility," it appears necessary to bring it to the test of the first principles of truth. This I apprehend to be the case with the subject of temperance. As one "set for the defence of the gospel," whose official duty it is to " contend earn- estly for the faith once delivered for the saints," I in- tend, with His permission, and in dependence on His aid, to give what I believe to be the mind of the Spirit on the point in question. In a pro- fessedly Christian community the appeal is " to the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not accord- ing to this word, it is because there is no light in them." It cannot be conceded for one moment that any question of moral obligation may be decided independently of ** the only infallible rule of faith and of practice, the Bible, from which nothing is to be taken, and to which nothing is to be added, at any time or under any pretense, whether of new revelations of the Spirit,or traditions of men." The 65 66 SERMONS. Word of God is the only system of morals which answers the purpose of a rule of life, for it alone comes to us having the sanction of supreme author- ity — brings the realities of the eternal world to bear upon the regulation of our conduct in this, and is attended with that almighty influence which it is competent only to its Author to exert, and by which the nature and life of man may be molded into conformity to the Divine will — " We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." It is one of the prolific causes, and one of the most conclusive symptoms of heresy, to form opin- ions on duty independently of the holy oracles ; and then, instead of allowing these opinions to be molded or set aside by the sure testimony of God, to use every effort to force that testimony into a seeming consistency with these previous decisions. But '' we have a more sure word of prophecy, to which ye do well that ye take heed, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." I shall first direct your attention to what the holy Scriptures teach on the subject of temperance, and enforce the duty ; and secondly, examine the claim of the novel doctrine of total abstinence to be the Christian grace and duty of temperance. First, in considering what the Spirit saith unto the churches on this subject, I ask your attention TEMPERANCE, 67 to the import of the duty of temperance, and to the divinely appointed means of its promotion. In inquiring into the meaning of a record, we must ascertain the usage of its terms. The word rendered *' temperance " occurs four times, the adjective ** tem- perate " once, and the corresponding verb rendered once, " contain," and another time, "be temperate," twice. The term temperance occurs, Acts xxiv., 25 : "And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled." The word here signifies continence or chastity. Felix had com- mitted adultery with Drusilla by marrying her before the death of her former husband, and it is not im- probable that he was also guilty of drunkenness, for he is charged in general with all sorts of crimes. Again, it is found in the text, where it closes the list of the fruits of the Spirit, and is opposed to drunkenness and other excesses in the previous con- text. And again, it is used twice in 2 Pet. i., 5, 6. " Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance^ and to temperance patience." Here also it forms one of the distinctive graces of Christian character. The adjective temperate is used in the same sense, Titus i., 7, 8 : " For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God ; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre ; but a lover to hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just holy, temperate'^ Here it is op- 68 SERMONS. posed not only to being given to wine, but to wil- fulness, passionateness, quarrelsomeness and avarice. The corresponding verb is rendered, i Cor. vii., 9, "contain," in reference to sin against the seventh commandment : " But if they cannot contain, let them marry." And again, ix., 25, it is rendered, " be temperate ": ** And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things," compared with verse 27, " I keep under my body and bring it into subjection." Schleusner's definition of the original term for temperance is : " Temperance, abstinence, conti- nence, which is discerned not only in the power with which any one restrains himself from too much, food a7td drink y but in the firm and moderate government of reason over lust and other improper propensities of the mind." As a fruit of the Spirit, and as a Christian duty it implies that special divine influence of the Holy Spirit, by which the new man in Christ Jesus is en- abled to govern himself d^ccording to the divine word in respect to all the propensities of his nature in the inward and outward man. It comprehends much more than mere freedom from drunkenness, which may be found when other sinful propensities are in- dulged to the greatest excess. It is opposed to the unlawful and excessive indulgence of any propensity, and it is associated with its only true and efficient cause, the Holy Spirit, in the regenerated heart " as a well of water, springing up unto eternal life." TEMPERANCE. 69 None, therefore, are truly temperate but true Christians ; for while some may be free from excess in one direction and some in another, some in the lusts that have their seat in the animal part of man, as gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, lasciviousness ; others in one or more of the lusts which have their seat in the mind or spiritual part of the man, such as envy, hatred, malice, idolatry, covetousness, none but the true children of God, by regeneration and adoption, and the indwelling of the Spirit of power and might, and of a sound mind, are preserved from ruinous excess in one or more of these ways. From this review of the words expressing temperance, in all the places wherein they occur in holy Scripture, it is manifest that their views are extremely limited and imperfect who confine this grace and duty to the mere freedom from drunkenness. Men may be im- temperate to delirium ; they may be rabid from envy, and pride, and anger, and malice; they may be " mad upon their idols," while they suppose them- selves the exclusive friends of temperance, because they oppose drunkenness in a way of human inven- tion, they may be guilty of intemperance them- selves in ways more offensive to God, and more in- jurious to themselves and their neighbors, than drunkenness itself. If the poor inebriate has claims upon the compassion of his fellow-men, much more have they : or if rebuke befits them better, let them hear the voice that speaks to them from heaven : " Thou hypocrite, first pluck the beam out of thine 7° SERMON'S. own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pluck the mote out of thy brother's eye." And yet drunkenness is a sin against the law of temperance often specifically and severely con- demned in holy writ, and which entails upon those who commit it many and grievous calamities. It was one of the sins of that abandoned son publicly stoned to death by the congregation, being con- demned on the testimony of his own parents : " This our son is stubborn and rebellious ; he will not obey our voice : he is a glutton and a drunkard^ — Deut. xxi., 20. It forms part of the catalogue of sins which would bring down the judgments of God upon a guilty people : — " And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to 2idd drunken7iess to thirst: the Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven." — Deut. xxix., 19, 20. Its ruinous consequences in this world are declared by the wise man : *' Be not among wine- bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh, for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty." — Prov. xxiii., 20-21. Isaiah denounces a " wo to them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength TEMPERANCE. 71 to drink strong drink." — Is. v., 22. And again, " Wo to the crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim. . . . The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under foot." — Isaiah xxviii., 1,3. Joel exclaims, "Awake ye drunkards, and weep and howl all ye drinkers of wine, for it is cut off from your mouth." — Joel i., 5. Paul places it among the works of the flesh, which indicate the unsubdued dominion of sin, and the impending wrath of God : " Drunkenness^ revelings, and such like ; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in times past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Gal. iv., 21. ** Nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." — I Cor. v., 10. He utters the divine pro- hibition, *' Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit." — Eph.iv., 18. And interdicts friendly intercourse with a brother guilty of this sin : " But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner ; with such a one no not to eat." — i Cor. v., 11. From these passages it appears that drunkenness is a very great sin, that it has prevailed in every age, bringing down the most solemn denunciations and the most awful judgments upon individuals and com- munities ; that it contemns the authority and defies the vengeance of God, throws man out of the pro- 72 SERMONS. tection of Omnipotence, and into the hands of Satan, and every ruinous lust ; that it destroys property, reputation, self-respect, health, domestic peace, and life itself ; that it proves unbridled .corruption and depravity of heart ; that it excludes from the privileges of the visible church ; and that its fearful consequences run on through an eternity of unutterable anguish and despair, under the wrath and curse of a sin-avenging God. And have the wisdom and benevolence of God ■devised no remedies for this enormous evil ? If they had not, vain, utterly vain, had been every help of man. Secondly. For this evil the great Physician of soul and body has appointed remedies both general and particular; those intended to promote the general health of the moral man, and those intended to act immediately upon this form of his disease. The means which promote the grace and duty of temper- .ance in its most extended and scriptural significa- tion, eradicate drunkenness, one of its opposites. I. The general remedy for this, as well as every other moral malady, is the gospel and its ordinances, accompanied by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. ** As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder- ness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." — John iii. 14, 15. " For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew TEMPERANCE. 73 not of God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." — I Cor. i., 21-25. The wise men of the world treated the gospel as foolishness and weakness, as they do now. Be it so, says the inspired man, '* the foolish- ness of God is wiser than men, the weakness of God is stronger than men." On another occasion, he says, " My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstra- tion of the Spirit and of power." — i Cor. ii., 4. And again, *' For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." — i Thess. i., 5. To these causes the inspired apostle ascribes the thorough and radical reformation of drunkards as well as every other class of sinful men. " Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? Be not deceived ; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortion- ers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you : but ye are washed ; but ye are 74 SERMONS. sanctified ; but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." — i Cor. vi., 9-1 1. The name, the influence of the Lord Jesus as the mediator of the new covenant, the ordinance of God for human salvation, the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, the Lord our righteousness made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemp- tion, procures by covenant stipulation every bless- ing that the sinner needs, that he may be righteous, holy, and happy forever. And these blessings pur- chased by the Lord Jesus are effectually applied by the Holy Spirit, when the gospel comes not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. The same truth is taught by the same apostle in his epistle to the Galatians : " Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these : adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, strife, wrath, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness^ revelings, and such like ; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." — Gal. v., 19-24. The abandonment of these hideous and disgusting TEMPERANCE. 75 vices, and becoming arrayed in the opposite and divinely beautiful graces, is the fruit of the Spirit, writing the truth of God upon the tables of the heart. This is the divine panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. And in every age, according to the degree in which it has been received, it has wrought its moral miracles, transforming brutes in character and conduct into men, and fiends to saints, making the wilderness like Eden, the desert like the garden of the Lord. Besides this general remedy, there are particular applications to this form of the disease. These are found in the solemn rebukes, admonitions, and warnings with which the Scriptures abound, as well as in the exercise of the authority and discipline which Christ hath established in his church, for edi- fication and not for destruction. In these the sense of duty, and fear and love of God, the grateful sense of the infinite love of Christ, and a due and solemn regard for the man's own interests, for the life that now is, and for that which is to come, unite in withholding him from the commission of this great evil and sin against God. Particular direc- tions are also given to particular persons, putting them on their especial guard against dangers in this direction. The priests were forbidden to drink at all when ministering in holy things. "And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine or strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation^ lest 76 . SERMONS, ye die: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations; and that ye may put difference be- tween holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean : and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses." — Lev. x., 8-ii. The same prohibition is repeated by Ezekiel in describ- ing the future temple and its services : ^* Neither shall any priest drink wine when they enter into the inner court." — Ezek. xliv., 21. An especial caution is given also to kings on this subject : " It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink; lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted." Proverbs xxxi., 4. A general warning is given against tampering with temptation. "Who hath wo? who hath sor- row ? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause ? who hath redness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright : at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." — Prov. xxiii., 29-32. And a fearful wo is denounced against him who acts the part of a tempter to this sin : " Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their naked- ness." — Hab. ii., 15. TEMPERANCE. 77 Our Lord solemnly warns his disciples and the men of that day : "' Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your heart be overcharged with surfeit- ing, and drtuikeimesSy and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." — Luke xxi., 34. And the apostle Paul exhorts the Christians at Rome : " Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drtinkejiness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." — Rom. xiii., 13, 14. And he directs to withdraw from friendly intercourse with a professor guilty of this sin : " But now I have written unto you, not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reveller, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one no not to eat." — i Cor. v., 11. And the awful decla- ration sounds continually in his ears : " Drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God." The prohibition of drunkenness to one who has become so enslaved to that vice that he is incapa- ble of making any distinction between the use and abuse of alcoholic drinks, includes total abstinence, for as to drink at all with him is to be drunk, the prohibition of the latter includes the prohibition of the former. He has rendered himself incapable of using the privilege, and therefore it is a privilege to him no longer, while the prohibition against drunk- enness remains against him in all its force. Total 78 SERMONS. abstinence also from distilled spirits as a beverage, according to the first pledge of the temperance so- -ciety, appears allowable on the ground that the testi- mony of those most competent to judge in the case has decided that distilled liquors are always injurious to persons in health. If this statement be correct, the sixth commandment requires men to abstain : " Thou shalt not kill." Thus far almost all friends of temperance arc agreed. For these reasons, and in this -way, should drunkenness be opposed and counteracted, as utterly ruinous to all the interests of man, and to the law and honor of God. By the faithful preaching of the gospel of Christ, accom- panied by the fervent, importunate, and believing prayers of the ministry and of the church for a Divine blessing upon it, by instruction on the sinful- ness as well as the ruinous consequences of this vile lust, by warning, by counsel, and faithful and friendly admonition, by watching against tempta- tions to sin in ourselves and others, and by the faithful administration of the discipline of God's house on members who dishonor their profession by this sin, all true Christians should unitedly seek the removal of drunkenness from the earth. Are there any here who have fallen under the power of this vile lust ? Let me entreat you, my friends, let me Avarn you, to turn from your evil ways, or your iniquity will be your ruin. Flee to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. Exchange the pleasures of the brute for those of the saints. '' Be TEMPERANCE. 79 not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit." Consider the fearful evils which follow in the train of this sin, and the irrevo- cable decision of the Judge and King eternal, ** Drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God." " Be not deceived, God is not mocked ; for what- soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap ; for he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap cor- ruption, while he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Let us all cultivate ac- quaintance with divine truth, rely on the grace of the Holy Spirit, and in dependence on his aid, labor con- tinually and in all things to observe the rule of the divine word in discharging our duties — to ourselves, in living soberly — to our neighbors, in doing justly and loving mercy — and to God, by living Godly in Christ Jesus, and walking humbly with our God. The truth as it is in Jesus, is the life of all good works, and the only teaching which the Spirit of holiness will attend. Let us rely upon the aid of the Holy Spirit, whereby we may mortify the flesh with the affections and lusts, that he may work in us all appropriate fruits, love, joy, peace, long- suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. No power but his can effectually pre- vent man from seeking his sordid gratifications in the things of earth, and even in the maddening bowl, because none but he can impart those nobler and purer delights in the favor, and fellowship, and image of a reconciled God, where we may buy wine 8o SERMONS. and milk, without money and without price, and draw water with joy out of the wells of salvation. He is the Spirit of faith, the Author of that spiritual sight by which the invisible, eternal world is made to pass before us in its transcendent beauty and value, before which earthly glories fade, and earthly joys are insipid, and sin appears exceeding sinful. " This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Instead of boasting of the wisdom of our schemes and the omnipotence of our resolves, let us look to the Spirit of wisdom and of power, and of a sound mind, that we may be instructed aright, and lean upon his almighty arm, and yield ourselves to his transforming influence, and feel upon us the hand of his omnipotence, and recog- nize his presence as the seal and earnest of perfect holiness, and perfect, eternal joy in his presence, where is fullness of joy, and at his right hand, where are pleasures for evermore. With the Bible for our guide, and the Spirit for our strength, let us wait upon God, in the name of Jesus, the surety and advocate of all that come unto God by him, in the use of all his ordinances of grace, that we may, by beholding in this mirror his glory, be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, accounting all his commandments concern- ing all things to be right, and hating every false way. " For the grace of God, that bringeth salva- tion, hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should TEMPERANCE. 8i live soberly, and righteously, and godly, in this pres- ent world, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Sav- iour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify us unto himself, a peculiar people, zealous of good works." But ye beloved, building up yourselves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." " And of some have compassion, making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." "■ Now unto Him that is able to keep you from fall- ing, and to present you faultless before the pres- ence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, domin- ion and power, both now and ever." Amen. IL " The fruit of the Spirit is . . . temperance." — Gal. v., 22, 23. HAVING on the last Sabbath evening considered the duty of temperance, and the means of its promotion, I proceed to direct your attention to the claim of the novel doctrine of total abstinence to be regarded as the duty of temperance enjoined in the Holy Scriptures. In the outset of this dis- cussion, I would remind you of the solemn charge, under which, as a minister of the gospel, I am called to act. *' Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel, therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me." — Ezek. iii., 17. " If the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take any per- son from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watch- man's hand." — Ezek. xxxiii., 6. When heresies which threaten the very founda- tions of the Christian religion invade the church, it is the duty of the ministry to sound the alarm. Such I apprehend to be the case in relation to the question of total abstinence, and hence the part which I have acted from the first time that it showed TEMPERANCE. 83 its face among us. After various ineffectual at- tempts, it has rallied its forces, and succored by- some extraordinary auxiliaries, it has evinced a deep determination to take this citadel of truth by storm. *^ But when the enemy cometh in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him." Who then is this unclrcumcised Philistine, that defies the armies of the living God ? He assumes the name of temperance, and under the sanction of that venerable name, demands the implicit subjec- tion of every soul, on peril of ceaseless denunciation and the bitter and envenomed persecution of evil tongues and evil pens ; and nothing but his impo- tence prevents him from wielding, to the extermina- tion of all opposers, the censures of the church, and the power of the civil magistrate. In default of these, he has established a government of his own, appointed his officers, marshaled his forces, and en- tered upon the work of subjecting the world to his sway. He is described, by his last grand council, called the ** Third National Temperance Conven- tion," which met at Saratoga Springs on the 28th, 29th, and 30th days of July, 1841, as to his nature and his claims, in the section on " Moral Obligation." " Resolved, That the tendency of all intoxicating drinks to derange the bodily functions, to lead to drunkenness, to harden the heart, sear the con- science, destroy domestic peace, excite to the com- mission of crime, waste human life, and destroy 84 * SERMONS. souls, and the rebukes and warnings of God in his word in relation to them, in connection with every law of self-preservation and of love, impose upon all men a solemn moral obligatio7i to cease forever from their manufacture, sale, and use, as a beverage, and do unitedly call upon us, as men and as Chris- tians, not to pause in our work until such manufac- ture, sale, and use shall be universally abandoned." Here, then, by the highest authority known to the cause, it is declared to be the solemn moral obligation of all men to cease, forever^ from the manufacture, sale, and use of all intoxicating drinks as a beverage. It is well that the question is thus placed in a form so clear and tangible. This is substantially the ground of all those who urge entire abstinence as a duty, in order to the cure of intemperance. And those who take the ground of expediency arrive at the same result after taking one step farther round. If the thing be a duty, on the ground of expediency, it is a sin not to perform that duty, and consequently all who do not practice this abstinence, including the Saviour himself, are sinners. The Executive Committee of the Newburgh Total Abstinence Society, in an official document pre- sented to the public, have said : "Total abstinence from all that can intoxicate, is the stand taken by the association, and which is believed, as past experience has amply proven, to be the only safe ground and efl"ectual, under God, 7'EMPERANCE. 85 that can be taken for the promotion of temperance." New. Tel., July 22, 1 84 1. Consequently, those who do not adopt this stand reject the only safe and efficient means of promoting temperance, and are, therefore, aiding and abetting intemperance. As very much depends, in regard to the settle- ment of any question, on having it clearly stated, I would state, and briefly illustrate, what I conceive to be the point in dispute. The ground assumed by total abstinence societies is unscriptural and im- moral, not simply because they abstain, but because they abstain under the plea of a moral obligation .growing out of a moral laiv, which binds me7i nni- versally and ahvays. A man may lawfully abstain, either because his system is in such a state, through former habits of intoxication, that he can not use these things without abusing them, or because he can not conveniently obtain them, or because he has no inclination for them. But, if he abstain because he regards the use of them, either per se or per accidens, either in themselves or in their accompani- ments, involving immorality, he brings a charge against the wisdom and benevolence of God, who has ordained and approved their use, and therefore contemns God. This may be illustrated by a parallel case. God gave to our race, in Noah, the use of animal food. " Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all 86 SERMONS. things." — Gen. ix., 3. Now, persons in a fever ought not to eat it ; and millions of our race can not obtain it ; but those who shall say that it is universally- improper to use it, with the Grahamites and the Encratites, or suppose there is peculiar holiness in not using it, with the Brahmins, nullify, as far as in them lies, a divine institution, and set themselves up as wiser and more benevolent than God. An- other illustration may be drawn from the institution of marriage. There have been individuals who, from various causes, were not under any obligation to marry ; but whoever should refrain on the ground that either in itself or in its tendencies it involved immorality, would thereby set himself against the Most High, *' all whose works are truth and his ways judgment, and those that walk in pride he is able to abase." The question, then, is, as expressed by the Na- tional Temperance Convention, and more or less clearly by total abstinence societies and individu- als, ^^ Are all men everyzvhere under solemn moral obligation to cease forever from the manufacture, sale, and use, as a beverage, of all intoxicating drinks f They assert, and I deny. I am opposed to this doctrine, for the following reasons : 1st. Because, so far from being the Christian grace of temperance, or any part of it, or of any other grace or duty of the followers of Jesus, it is a profane and presumptuous attempt to set aside an institution of God, the fruit of his wisdom and TEMPERANCE, 87 love. The same act cannot be at the same time a duty and a sin ; the one excludes the other. If it be a moral obligation to abstain, it is a sin to use. But the Most High God has furnished these very drinks /^r the use of man, 2.w6. as an expression of his far-seeing wisdom, his paternal love. The in- spired psalmist refers to these very things, in cele- brating, in his loftiest strains, the glory of the Di- vine wisdom and benevolence : " He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the ser- vice of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth, and wine that niaketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart." — Psalm civ., 14, 15. Nothing is here said about diseases, or medicines, or religious rites. The whole theme is the common bounties of divine Providence, and the wine that maketh glad the heart is placed between the grass and the herb, and the oil and the bread. Nothing, therefore, can be plainer to any candid and unso- phisticated mind, than that the mind of the Na- tional Temperance Convention is at perfect antipo- des with the mind of the Spirit. He never could have celebrated, as a fruit of his glorious wisdom and love, what it were sin for his creatures to use, for the very purpose for which it was given. The obvious meaning of this passage is but the common voice of sacred Scripture : *' Thou hast put gladness into my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased " (Psalm iv., 7) ; where SERMONS, wine and corn, the representatives of earthly bless- ings, are less valued than the light of God's counte- nance. Again, the prophet Habakkuk, in declaring that when the streams of created enjoyment are dried up, God is alone a sufficient portion, reckons the fruit of the vine among the ordinary blessings of life. ''Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall be fruit in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." — Hab. iii., 17, 18. Jotham, in his apologue, introduces the vine as saying, *' Shall I leave my wine which cheereth God and man?" — Judges ix., 13. It pleaseth man in its ordinary use, and God is pleased with it when offered in thanksgiving sacrifices unto him, as ex- pressing the gratitude of his people for his gifts. The Levite says, *' There is bread and wine for me and for thine handmaid and for the young man that is with thy servants." — Judges xix., 19. It was one of the common products of the land of promise, and formed part of the living of the people. " The floor and the press shall not feed them." — Hosea ix., 2. " Even all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and sum- mer fruits very much. — Jer. xl., 12. The Lord says of Israel by the prophet : *' For she did not know TEMPERANCE. 89 that I gave her corn and wine and oil." — Hosea ii., 8. The good Samaritan used for the wounds of the man that had fallen among thieves, the oil and wine which formed part of the provision for his own jour- ney. And Paul declares, in relation to this very- subject : " Every creature of God is good, and noth- ing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiv- ing ; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." — I Tim. iv., 4, 5. The word of God then having declared the use of these things to be good and right, it is profane and presumptuous in any body of men to declare them evil and wrong. " What God hath cleansed, that call not thou com- mon." — Acts X., 15. 2d. Because, while the American Temperance Convention represents all intoxicating drinks, and wine amongst the rest, as so great evils that it is the solemn duty of all men forever to abstain from their use as a beverage, the spirit of prophecy, in describ- ing the future history of the chosen people, repre- sents the bestowing of wine in abundance as a sign of the Divine favor, and a prosperous state, but the withholding of it, of his displeasure, and a calami- tous state of national affairs. When the Patriarch Jacob in the spirit blessed his sons, he spake of Judah thus : " Binding his foal unto the vine, and his asses* colt unto the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk." — 90 SERMONS. Gen. xlix., ii, 12. " For she did not know that I gave her corn and wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal ; there- fore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and I will recover my wool and my flax, given her to cover her nakedness." — Hosea ii., 8, 9. Again, in predicting times of temporal and spiritual prosper- ity : " Therefore behold, 1 will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her : and I will give her her vineyards from thence." — Hosea ii., 14, 15. "And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel." — ii., 22. Then follow these threatenings : " The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her. They shall not offer wine offerings unto the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing unto him." — ix., 2, 4. " Lament like a viigin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn. The field is wasted ; the land mourneth ; for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried np, the oil languisheth." — Joel i., 8, 9, 10. How different is his description of times of prosperity: " And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop dow?i new zuine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth out of the house of the Lord, and shall TEMPERA NCR. 9 1 water the valley of Shittim." — iii., i8. Amos sings in similar strains the prosperity of the latter days : '' Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed, and the mountains shall drop down sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people- Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them, and \.\\q.y ^\d\\ plant vineyards dsvdi drink the wine thereof ; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land which I have given them, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." — Amos ix., 13, 15. Is it not a strange way of describing the great prosperity of a land by representing it as abound- ing in the production of that whose tendencies are every way evil to all the interests of man, and which it is the solemn moral duty of every man neither to make nor to use, in the principal way in which it must be used, if used at all, as a beverage ? It evinces a fearful hardihood in men professing to respect the Bible, thus openly to contradict the Holy Ghost. 3. Because it represents one of the elements and materials in which God and his worshiping people have fellowship, and which he has commanded to be used to his honor, in the courts of his holiness, as^full of all evil tendencies for soul and body, for 92 SERMONS. time and eternity. Wine was a part of the offerings to God as an acknowledgment of his goodness in giving the fruits of the ground for the good of man. ''And the fourth part of a hin of witie for a drink offering shalt thou prepare with the burnt-offering or sacrifice for one lamb." — Num. xv., 5. *' And for a drink-offering thou shalt offer the third part of a hin of wine for a sweet savor unto the Lord." — 7. Being devoted to God, it was a part of the perqui- sites of the priests. '' All the best of the oil and all the best of the zviue and of the wheat, the first fruits of them, which they shall offer unto the Lord : them have I given thee." — Num. xviii., 12. '' The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies, and the sons of the strangers shall not drink thy wine for the which thou hast labored ; but they that have gathered it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness." — Isaiah Ixii., 8, 9. Our Lord Jesus has continued its use under the New Testament to the end of time. " And he gave thanks and gave it to them, saying. Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for the remission of sins. But I say unto you that I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until I drink it new with you in my Father's king- dom." — Matt, xxvi., 27, 29. Now I say it is worse than absurd, to assert that an element so full of TEMPERANCE. 93 deadly evil should have been appointed by that Saviour whose every institution and every action did but body forth the great principle of love, to be the emblem of his blood, by which our souls live unto God forever. How monstrous the incon- gruity ! While the bread which nourishes the body by a beautiful analogy illustrates the benefits we receive from the broken body of Him who is the bread of eternal life, the other element represented by this dogma as the very concentration of all evil has more analogy to everything in the universe than to that precious blood of Christ, by which our souls are ransomed from eternal woes. The inevitable consequence of this doctrine, if gener- ally adopted, will be to nullify the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, by removing one of the divinely ap- pointed signs — the cup — the wine. This tendency is seen already, and some congregations have actu- ally banished the wine from this memorial of the Saviour's death. The history of this heresy will show that one of these errors involves the other, and that those who begin by denouncing wine as a beverage, finish their work by banishing it from the table of the Lord. 4. Because this dogma is the identical heresy of Ebeon Marcion, the Encratites and Aquarians of the second, third, and fifth centuries. It is a her- esy which, after rotting in its grave for fourteen hundred years, it is now attempted to raise from the dead and palm upon the Christian church as the 94 SERMONS. grace of temperance. If this be temperance, the church of God has never known what temperance is. In the days of inspiration it was not so much as mentioned, save in describing by the spirit of prophecy the apostacy of the latter days ; and when offered in after-times to the church, with one voice it was rejected by all but heretics, who were never regarded as any part of the true Christian church. And to this day not a denomination on earth has adopted it. A few congregations have, but they are no more the church than a noisy political cabal of discontented and disorderly men is the state. By the united voice, then, of the whole church of God in the days of inspiration, and ever since, this doctrine of the self-styled American Temperance Convention is a vile and pernicious heresy. Its origin is base and its company is evil. In Bingham's "Antiquities of the Christian Church," book 15, chap. 2, sect. 7, its origin is given : " The other part of the sacrament zvas always ivine, and that taken also out of the oblations of the people. Some of the ancient heretics, under pretence of abstinence and temperance, changed this element into water, and consecrated in water only. These were some of them disciples of Ebeon, and some of them the fol- lowers of Tatian commonly called Hydroperastatse and Aquarii, from the use of water, and sometimes Encratitae, from their abstaining wholly from flesh and wine. And this seems to have been the ground of their errors, that they thought it universally un- l^EMPERANCE. 95 lawful to eat flesh or to drink wi?te. Under this character they are frequently condemned by Epipha- nius, who terms them Encratites [Epiph. Haer. 46, Encratit. Haer. 30, Ebeonite, n. 16] and by St. Augustine, under the name of Aquarians [Aug. de Haeres, cap. 64], and by Theodoret, who says they sprang from Tatian, and were called Hydro- perastatae, because they offered water instead of wine, and Encratitae, because they wholly ab- stained from wine and living creatures. [Theod. de Fabulis Haeret. lib. i, cap 20.] St. Chry- sostom calls it the pernicious heresy of those that used only water in their mysteries, whereas our Lord instituted them in wine, and drank wine at his common table after the resurrection, to pre- vent the budding of this wicked heresy [p. 165, 166.] Eusebius, quoting Irenaeus, says : ** Those that sprung from Saturninus and Marcion, called the Encratites, proclaimed abstinence from marriage, setting aside the original design of God and tacitly censuring him that made male and female for the propagation of the human race." They also intro- duced the abstinence from things called ^^ animate^ with them, displaying ingratitude to God who made all things." Buck, in his Theological Dictionary, vol. I, p. 142, describes the Encratites as " a sect in the second century, who abstained from marriage, wine, and animals." Marcionites, vol 2. p. 38 : ** Marcionites, or Marcionists, Marcionistae, a very ancient and popular sect of heretics, who, in the 96 SERMONS. time of Epiphanius, were spread over Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Arabia, Persia and other countries. They were thus denominated from their author Marcion. He laid down twc3 principles, the one good, the other evil ; between these, he imagined an inter- mediate kind of Deity, of a mixed nature, who was the creator of this inferior world, and the God and legislator of the Jewish nation. The other nations, who worshiped a variety of gods, were supposed to be under the empire of the evil principle. These two conflicting powers exercise oppressions upon rational and immortal souls ; and therefore the Supreme God, to deliver them from bondage, sent to the Jews a being more like unto himself, even his Son, Jesus Christ, clothed with a certain shadowy resemblance of a body ; this celestial messenger was attacked by the prince of darkness, and by the God of the Jews, but without effect. Those who follow the directions of this celestial conductor mortify the body by fastings and austerities, and renounce the precepts of the God of the Jews, and of the prince of darkness ; and after death ascend to the man- sions of felicity and perfection." The rule of manners which Marcion prescribed to his followers was excessively austere, containing an express prohibition of wedlock^ wine, fleshy and all the external comforts of life, " Marcion denied the real birth, incarnation, and passion of Jesus Christ, and held them to be apparent TEMPERANCE. 97 only. He denied the resurrection of the body, and allowed none to be baptized but those who preserved their continence ; but these he granted to be bap- tized three times. In many things he followed the sentiments of the heretic Cerdon, and rejected the law and the prophets. He pretended the gos- pel had been corrupted by false prophets, and allowed none of the evangelists but St. Luke, whom also he altered in many places, as well as the epistles of St Paul, a great many things in which he threw out. In his own copy of St. Luke, he threw out the first two chapters entire." — Buck's Theological Dictionary. Tatian, one of their founders, according to Milnor, Ch. Hist., vol. i, p. 213, '* deserved the name of heretic. He dealt largely in the merits of con- tinence and charity ; and these virtues, pushed into extravagant excesses, under the notion of superior purity, became great engines of self-righteousness and superstition, obscured men's views of the faith of Christ, and darkened the whole face of Christian- ity. Under the fostering hand of Ammonius and his followers, this fictitious holiness, disguised under the appearance of eminent sanctity, was formed into a system, and it soon began to generate the worst of evils." The verdict of the whole church of God during and since the days of inspiration is, that this doc- trine of the immorality of using wine as a beverage IS a heresy, the daughter of supersti'tion and self- 98 SERMONS. righteousness, the twin sister of total abstinence from marriage and animal food, and the parent of total abstinence from wine at Lord's Supper,* and of soul-destroying darkness and delusion, which obscitred the whole face ^/Christianity, and *' gener- ated the worst of evils." 5. Because the doctrine of the convention is one of the distinguishing tenets of the false prophet of * The following advertisement from the New York Observer is an alarming proof of the tendency of this doctrine. It ex- hibits some of its most distinguished advocates openly engaged with all the influence which their connection with this question can give them, in corrupting one of the most solemn ordinances of our holy religion in removing the wme from the Supper of the Lord and substituting a matter of human invention in its place : " Unfermented Wine. — D. Pomeroy, Jr., No. 47 Water St., offers for sale a superior article of Unfermented Juice of the Grape. It is in the form of a syrup, and so concentrated as to avoid fermentation. It retains much, if not all, the flavor of the grape, and is decidedly better than any article which has hitherto been offered. Directions for diluting it accompany each bottle. For the convenience of those churches and indi- viduals who may wish to order it by letter, and enclose the money, it will be put up in different sized bottles, and packed in cases, which may be had at five, ten, and twenty dollars each ; and can be safely transported to any part of the country. All such orders, post paid, will be promptly attended to. New York, July 21, 1841. " The following testimonials have been furnished by the Rev. Mr. Marsh and Edward C. Delavan, Esq : " I have paid some attention to the unfermented juice of the TEMPERANCE. 99 Mecca, one of the points of difference between the Koran and the Bible, between Mahomet and Christ Jesus the Lord. We have seen how utterly irrecon- cilable the dogma of the convention is with the doctrine of the Bible of the Christian. There is no such discrepancy between it and the teaching of the Alcoran, the Bible of the Mussulman. Hearken to its voice. Thus it speaks: '* They will ask thee con- cerning wine and lots. Answer, in both there is grape, which Mr. Pomeroy offers to the churches for commun- ion wine. It certainly is a beautiful and delicious article, and evidently free from that maddening quality which, in fermented wines, is so destructive to the souls and bodies of men. If it can be generally introduced into the churches, so that the peo- ple of God shall no longer in this holy ordinance contribute to the support of alcoholic manufacturers, a great and important ad- vance will be made in the cause of temperance ; an advance now loudly called for by the reform of more than ten thousand drunkards, many of whom we hope to see at the table of Christ, and none of whom can with safety take into their lips the in- toxicating principle. "'John Marsh, Sec. Am. Temp. Union.' "'Ballston Centre, July 29, 1841. " ' I most cheerfully add my testimony to that of Mr. Marsh. The sample of the ' Fruit of the Vine,' free from the poison of alcohol, which you have been so kind as to send me, is not only beautiful but delicious. And I pray God that the Christians of our land, and of other lands, may, with a united voice, demand the ' Fruit of the Vine,' free from fermentation, in place of the alcohol and drugged poisons, which have so long held their station on the table of the Lord. EDWARD C. Delavan. "'New York, July 21, 1841.' " 100 SERMONS. great sin, and also some things of use unto men, but their sinfulness is greater than their use." — Sale's Koran, chap. 2, p. 39. Hear it again, as the pre- tended inspiration becomes more distinct and decided: "■ O true believers, surely wijze, and lots, and ima- ges, and divining arrows are an abomination, and of the work of Satan, therefore avoid them that ye may prosper ; Satan seeketh to sow dissension and hatred among you by means of wine and lots, and to divert you from remembering God, and from prayer. Will you not, therefore, abstain from them ? " — chap. 5, p. 149. From what follows, it ap- pears that this prohibition had not been binding even in the view of Mahomet, until now that it is made — '* In those that believe and do good works, it is no sin that they have tasted wine or gaming before they were forbidden^ — Ibid. Sale, the learned translator of the Koran, says : ** The drinking of wine, under which name all sorts of strong and ine- briating liquors are comprehended, is forbidden in the Koran in more places than one. Some indeed have imagined that excess therein is only forbidden, and that the moderate use of wine is allowed by two passages in the same book. But the more received opinion is, that to drink any strong liquors, either in a lesser quantity or in a greater, is absolutely un- lawful ; and though libertines indulge themselves in the contrary practices, the more conscientious are so strong, especially if they have performed the pil- grimage to Mecca, that they hold it unlawful not TEMPERANCE. loi only to taste wine, but to press grapes for the making of it, to buy or to sell it, or even to maintain them- selves with the money arising by the sale of that liquor." Here, -then we have the doctrine of total abstinence contained in a book claiming to be a reve- lation from heaven, and enforced by a spiritual and political despotism second to none on the earth, and that doctrine resting upon the same kind of reasons of those given by the American Temperance Convention at Saratoga. How little such legislation can do to promote morality is seen on a large scale in the history of the Turks, the greatest sensualists on earth, and stupid and dazed with the intoxicating fumes of opium, and even of wine and brandy. The author just mentioned goes on to state what proves that it is an acknowledged point of difTerence be- tween Mahometanism and Christianity, and that it has utterly failed of producing the effects which it promises. " The Persians, however, as well as the Turks, are very fond of wine : and if one asks them how it comes to pass that they venture to drink it, when it is so directly forbidden by their religion, they answer that it is with them as with Christians, whose religion prohibits drunkenness and whore- dom as great sins, and who glory notwithstanding, some in debauching girls and married women, and others in drinking to excess." — Sale's Koran, vol. i., p. 163. Here, then, is a point of difference between the Koran and the Bible ; the Convention declares in the SERMONS. face of the world that the Koran is, in this respect, better than the Bible. And has it come to this, that in this professedly Christian community it is necessary to argue the question, which you should prefer — the Koran or the Bible, — the Arabian impostor, or the Lord Jesus Christ ? Oh, my Lord Jesus ! what wilt thou do for thy great name when thy rival is preferred before thee, when his institutions are applauded for their be- nevolence, and wisdom, and efficiency, and thine are charged with all manner of evil ? Who is on the Lord's side? Who? 6. I am opposed to that position which is taken by the Convention, because it brings a criminal charge against all men who use now, or ever have used, wine as a beverage. If its tendencies are so evil as to involve a moral obligation entirely to abstain from its manufacture, sale, or use, as a bev- erage ; then, as these tendencies have always existed, the moral obligation has existed also, and those who have not complied with this obligation have sinned. Who are these sinners? Melchisedek, the most illustrious type of the Great High Priest of our profession, and Abraham the fa- ther of the faithful. "And Melchisedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine ; and he was the priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth." Gen. xiv., i8, 19. As no mention is made of sacrifices, the TEMPERANCE. 103 wine was used in the manner common to that coun- try, together with the bread, for the refreshment of Abraham and his men after their toilsome march. What a disgraceful scene is here enacted by the royal priest and the illustrious patriarch, the only time they are ever said to have met on earth, if total abstinence be law. But one syllable of rebuke for their sin, the Bible nowhere contains. The tribe of Judah and the wine with which their portion was blessed. David receives a present of wine among other provisions from Abigail ; and when he brought the Ark to the place which he had pre- pared for it, he dealt among all the people, " even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine." 2 Sam. vi., 19. Daniel used wine ; for, in stating how he mourned three full weeks, he says, '* I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth ; neither did I anoint myself at all ; till three whole weeks were fulfilled." Daniel, x., 2,3. If he had not used wine at all, it had been improper to state hi? abstinence from it for three weeks, as a sign of his mourning. The doctrine of total abstinence would charge upon three eminent and holy men, that they were friends to intemperance, whereas the uniform language of holy Scripture, as has been shown, proves that they acted, in this respect, in perfect consistency with all their obligations to God and I04 SERMONS. to man. But to charge sin, where it is not, is cal- umny. 7. This wonderful discovery, which is thought by its advocates to throw into the shade, nay, to reduce to very nothingness all that had been known or done before, is described by the pen of inspiration as part of the portraiture of the grand apostacy. *' Now, the spirit speaketh expressly that, in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to se- ducing spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared as with a hot iron, forbidding to marry^ a?id commanding to abstain from meats zuhicJi God hath created to be re- ceived ivith thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth, for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer." — I Tim. iv., i, 5. To say that it is the duty of every one to abstain is, to the extent of their authority, to command to abstain. Now, total abstinence societies, with the Convention at their head, do this, and enforce the mandate by every influence which they can bring to bear upon the subject. And every one who refuses implicit subjection, may lay his account with every possible annoyance and vexation, with being held up to public odium in public addresses, and by newspaper writers as destitute of common honesty, and an enemy to the morals and welfare of the community. And, if they had the power, their whole history shows that not Rome herself would rule with greater rigor. Wine, one of the proscribed drinks, is reck- TEMPERA NCE. 1 05 oned in Sacred Writ among meats as part of the sustenance of the people. " The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them." — Hosea ix., 2. This temperance movement, as it is improperly called, identifies, in itself, one of the features of the grand apostacy. If it be a sin for popery to forbid mar- riage to the priests, and meat on Friday, it is a sin in total abstinence societies to forbid wine, as a bever- age, totally and forever. It is an impious invasion of the prerogative of Zion's King, to whom alone it belongs to give laws to the human conscience, to presume to forbid what he allows. The spirit of prophecy has impressed upon it the indelible brand of his reprobation as apostacy from God. Every departure from the faith is apostacy from the truth and ways of God. All who submit their consciences to the dictation of self-constituted moral governors depart both from the truth and from the authorized teaching of the church of God. If this doctrine be not a novelty, I ask, when was it ever acknowledged as a law in the Christian church ? Never ! And they who do not stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free, by a vow either of per- petual celibacy or of entire abstinence from drinks that if taken to excess would intoxicate, do throw off the authority of Christ, and bow their necks to the yoke of another. They renounce in this respect the authority which Christ has given to the church, and submit to the usurped authority of rebellious man. lo6 SERMONS. Either total abstinence men, or those who refuse the vow, have departed from the faith on the point, /say they who vow have departed, and the time can easily be told, for a very few years ago the thing was utterly unknown. But if they say we have departed, I ask when did we depart ? It has been shown that we occupy the very ground v/hich the whole church has occupied, in her whole history, from the beginning to this hour. We have not, then, departed ; we stand where we always did, and where all the prophets and apostles stood, and where also stood, in the days of his flesh, the Lord God of the Holy Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. The Convention, therefore, and those who act with them, have, in this respect, identified them- selves with the grand apostacy of the latter days, the anti-Christ who shall think to change times and laws. — Dan. vii., 25. They have entangled themselves in the web of their own sophistries, they have entered upon the down-hill course of departure from the truth, the ordinances, and the authority of the church, and no creature can tell where they will stop. But in my Master's name I warn them not to be partakers of the sins of the Grand Apostate, lest they share with her in her plagues. 8. I am opposed to the doctrine of the Conven- tion, because it turns the most delightful invitations of the glorious gospel into a derision of human woes. "And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts TEMPERANCE. 1 07 make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees ; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." — Isa. xxv., 6. '• Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy wine and milk without money and without price." — Isaiah, Iv., I. " I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice, I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey ; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." — Song of Solomon, v., I. But what is this wine? The figure, the illus- tration by analogy of what is offered to saints and sinners. If we believe the Convention, it is a sub- stance whose tendencies, physical and moral, are so extremely pernicious as to make it the solemn duty of every man forever to abstain from its use as a drink. They offer, then, to men in want of every good, and enduring all evil, as a remedy, that which itself is the source of almost every evil, for time and for eternity. When men ask for bread, they give them a stone: when they ask for fish, they give them a serpent. If any of those who adopt these views should preach from these texts, they must tell their hearers that they are under a solemn moral obh'gation not to taste the remedy they offer, or if they do it will but add fuel to the fire. How large a part of the Bible must be banished from its pages to make it accord with the splendid discoveries of the nineteenth century ! loS SERMONS. 9. I am opposed to the doctrine of the American Temperance Convention, because it is a deceiver and impostor. It claims to be the Christian grace of temperance ; whereas, it has been proved to be a heresy — a Mahometan and Popish delusion. The temperance of the Bible is a Christian grace wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit; whereas, this pre- tender numbers among his converts thousands, who have no experience of the spiritual, regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit ; and many of them, as all the Unitarians, deny that, as a Divine Person in the Godhead, there is any Holy Spirit. According to the Bible, our Lord Jesus w^as a per- fectly temperate man in the spirit and tendencies of his actions, as well as in their form. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners ; but according to this doctrine he was not fully temper- ate, for he drank wine, and furnished it for the use of others. Total abstinence is not synonymous with the duty of temperance, either according to the Bible or any other book of established authority. And as the man, who in civil society assumes the name of another for the purpose of appropriating to himself the advantages coimecLed with that name, is justly abhorred as an impostor and deceiver, so that doctrine which, being something entirely differ- ent, and even a distinctive tenet of both the eastern and western Antichrist, claims to be a Christian grace, deserves to be treated as a deceiver and im- postor, and the more decidedly and firmly as the TEMPERANCE. 109 interests endangered are nothing less than the whole religion of Christ. 10. The last objection I have to this doctrine, though not the least, is that it is implicit blasphemy against the Son of God. If, as the Convention assert, the tendency of all intoxicating drinks, of which wine is one, is so ex- ceedingly bad as to involve a solemn moral obliga- tion in all men to abstain entirely and forever from their use as a beverage, then those who do not com- ply with this obligation commit sin. But to charge sin upon a divine person is blasphemy. Now our Lord Jesus Christ did use wine himself as a bever- age, and furnished it as a beverage for the use of others. " For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking ivine^ and ye say he hath a devil. The Son of Man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." — Luke vii., 33. From the antithesis between John and his Master, it evident that what John did not, Jesus did, eat and drink ; but John did not eat bread nor drink wine, therefore Jesus did eat bread and drink wine. Again : at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, the Lord Jesus made wine for the use of others, and to be used neither as a medicine, nor for sacramental purposes, but as a beverage. " Jesus saith unto them, fill the water-pots with water, and they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the no SERMONS. feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which drew the water knew), the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now." — John ii., 7-10. Here Jesus makes wine at a marriage, and directs it when made to be drawn out for use, — and wine which was accounted of the very best kind. ** No man having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new, for he saith the old is better." — Luke v., 39. There is no demonstration in Euclid more certain than the conclusion from these passages, that the Lord Jesus did drink wine, and made it for others to drink at a marriage, as a beverage ; nor any corollary in it, than this — that if the Word be God, they who make it a sin to drink wine, and to furnish it to others to drink, blaspheme the Son of God. We have seen, then, that this doctrine of total abstinence, as a moral obligation resulting from the tendencies of wine, is in total opposition to the rep- resentations of the Spirit of Truth, as given in inspired song, in history, in prophetic oracles, in solemn and significant religious ordinances, sacri- fices, and the Lord's Supper ; that it is identical with a long since exploded and pernicious heresy ; that in point of distinction between the religion of TEMPERA NCE. 1 1 1 the Lord Jesus Christ and that of Mahomet, it gives its strong and decided preference for the false prophet of Mecca ; that it calumniates the holiest men that have ever lived, as Melchisedek, and Abraham, and David, and Daniel, and the church of God in general in the days of inspiration, and since ; that it is a limb of Antichrist — a feature of the pre- dicted apostacy of the latter days; that it turns into a working of human woe the most delightful invi- tations and promises of the glorious gospel ; that coming under the assumed name of Temperance, it is a deceiver ; and that by obvious and necessary implication it blasphemes the Son of God. It is, therefore, no part of the grace of temperance, or of any other grace, but a deceiver and an Antichrist. Any one of these positions, which have been es- tablished by abundant evidence, if there be any proper reverence for the authority of Holy Writ, would be perfectly sufficient for the exploding of so manifest and gross a heresy ; but all of them taken together afford such a body of evidence, that if they are not sufficient to prove the schism of total absti- nence as a matter of moral obligation to be unscrip- tural and anti-Christian, I defy any man to prove any- thing out of the Word of God. And I charge every person in this assembly, on the authority of the God of the Bible, to look at this subject as the Scriptures speak of it — to believe, and feel, and act, according to their teachings, and not according to the tradi- tions of men who are turned from the truth, and are SERMONS. turned aside unto fables. " O, send out thy light and thy truth ; let them lead me ; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles ; then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my ex- ceeding joy." III. "The fruit of the Spirit is . . . temperance." — Gal. v., 22, 23. THE conclusion to which we are brought by the preceding argument is rather confirmed than impaired by the attempts that are made to escape from it. If words are to be understood in the sense which uniform scriptural usage has affixed to them ; if a question, once settled by numerous decisions of infallible authority, upon the very point, is not to be disturbed by general expressions in immediate con- nection with other points ; and if the word of God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the perfect as well as infallible rule of faith and of practice, — then the position taken by the American Temperance Convention can not be defended in any consistency with due respect for the oracles of God. " Let God be true but every man a liar ; as it is written, that thou mightest be justi- fied in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged." The first attempt to escape from this conclusion is to invent a distinction between wine that would intoxicate, and that which would not. This key is thought by some to unlock every difficulty. When wine was mentioned in connection with intoxication, and as its cause, then intoxicating 113 114 SERMONS. fermented, or alcoholic wine was meant ; but when its use was mentioned with approbation, then un- fermented wine was meant. As to the former class, there can be no dispute. *' And Noah began to be a husbandman and he planted a vineyard ; and he drank of the wine and was drunken." — Gen. ix., 20, 21. " Therefore, Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken ? put away thy wine from thee." If there be anything in this distinction, words expressing such essential difference must not be used indiscrimi- nately. The word which expresses the wine which intoxicates must not be used to denote that which may be used with Divine approbation. Let us see. In Ps. civ., 15, the *' wine which maketh glad his (man's) heart," is celebrated as an expression of the Divine beneficence. So, also, Isaiah Iv., i : *' Buy wine and milk without money, and without price." What is the difference in the terms ? there is none in the translation. Is there any in the original? None at all. The very same word, P"*, is used in all these cases. If names, then, are the representatives of things, the very same thing which is intoxicating is used as a beverage with Divine approbation. This distinction, therefore, which the distressed advocates of the heresy of the Encratians have invented, is contradicted by the Divine testimony. No such dis- tinction exists in the Bible. The translators of the Bible were sciolists, and they have used the common term, wine, for all the various terms used in the origi- TEMPERANCE. Ii5 nal, sometimes prefixing the terms new, sweet, and mixed, etc. Every one of these terms expresses that which is intoxicating, and which is yet used with Di- vine approbation. "■ And I will feed them that op- press thee with their own flesh ; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine," D ^ D y. — Isaiah xlix., 26. And this wine is spoken of with rapture by the prophet, when predicting its abun- dance in the promised land : ** The mountains shall drop down sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt." — Amos ix., 13. Again : " Awake, ye drunkards, and weep ; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine ; for it is cut off from your mouth." — Joel i., 5. And the abundance of this same wine is predicted as a great national blessing. " And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk." — iii., 18. They translate the same term in Hebrew sweet wine and new wine indifferently, and while they describe it, as the original Scriptures do, as intoxicating, they also describe it as a blessing, when bestowed upon the people in abundance. The same term, t^^iTi, they render wine and new wine ; and it is at one time represented as a blessing of Di- vine Providence, when given in abundance. There- fore prays the patriarch Isaac in behalf of his favorite son : " God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine." — Gen. xxvii., 28. " With corn and wine have I sustained him." — ver. 37. " So shall thy barns ii6 SERMONS. be filled with plenty, and thy presses burst out with new wine." — Prov. iii., lo. At another time it de- scribes a liquor which will intoxicate. " Wine and new wine take away the heart." — Hosea iv., 1 1. M£^vv}xa — Sept.; ebrietas — Vulg. ''The new wine mourneth, the vine languished; all the merry-hearted do sigh." — Isaiah xxiv., 7. "And shalt tread sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine," P^ — Micah, vi., 15. *'The fountain of Jacob shall be upon aland of corn and wine." — Deut. xxxiii., 28. '* In the holy place shalt thou cause the strong wine, l^SJ', to be poured out." — Numbers xxviii., 7. In ver. xiv., thep^ is used for the same sacred purpose. And that it is intoxicating is evident, since it is said of it, " Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging." — Prov., xx., I, 31-36. — " Do not drink wine, P% nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation," Mixed wine ^DQ is used as an illustration of the blessings of the everlasting Gospel. " Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pil- lars: she hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine ; she hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens : she crieth upon the highest places of the city. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him. Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mhigled. Forsake the foolish and live : and go in the way of understanding." — Prov. ix., 1-6. It is of the same signification with TEMPERA NCE. 1 1 7 np"in V^ spiced wine. " I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate "; (Song of Sol. viii., 2) " and mixed liquor," vii., 3. This wine mixed with spices is also intoxicating. ** Wo unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink."-^Isaiah v., 22. *' Who hath wo ? etc., they that go to seek mixed wine" ")DOD. — Prov. xxiii., 30. " Thy silver is be- come dross, thy wine 3KnD mixed with water." Isa. i., 22. Here it is used in a good sense. Ac- cording to the Hebrew parallelism the same general calamity is expressed by the silver becoming dross and the wine being mixed with water. And yet this invaluable blessing, when used to excess, gives name to the drunkard. ''Be not among zvine-bibbers ; among riotous eaters of flesh : for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty." — Prov. xxiii., 20, 21. The pure blood of the grape is celebrated as one of the bounties of Divine Providence. ** Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of wheat ; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape," ")t}n (so-called from being fermented. Gesenius.) — Deut. xxxii., 14. The same word is used in the Chaldean form, for the wine which intoxicated Belshazzar on the night on which he was slain. " Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand." — Dan. v, i, 2, 4, 23, also in Ezra vi., 9. '' In the hands of the Lord there is Ii8 SERMONS. a cup, and the wine is red ; it is full of mixture, and he poiireth out of the same • but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them." — Ps. Ixxv., 8. The medicated cup given to criminals was mixed with stupefying drugs. "And the principal word indeed in Arabic for wine, kJiama, is derived from the word khamar^ which means to ferment." — Smith's Letters. Having examined all the passages in which wine is referred to or mentioned in the Hebrew and Chaldaic Scriptures, I have found every one of the terms used to express it denotes a blessing of Divine Providence, like corn and oil, and that it will intoxicate, if taken to excess. The distinction, therefore, between fermented and unfermented wines is not only without, but against, all the evi- dence in the case. There is a term, nc^"'K^N, 2 Sam. vi., 19, rendered a flagon of wine, and a phrase, D^my '•EJ^^S^N, flagons of wine, in Hosea iii., I ; Isa. xvi., 7 ; and again in Cant, ii., 4, 5, where it is used in a good sense: *' He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love." " Stay me with flagons." In Hosea iii., i, " the children of Israel who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine," it describes the licentions indulgence in intemperance and other excesses prac- ticed in the worship of idols. If now we go to the New Testament, a similar examination will furnish a similar result. " Neither do men put new wine, oivov veov, into TEMPERANCE. 119 old bottles, else the bottles break and the wine run- neth out, and the bottles perish ; but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." — Matt, ix., 17. The new skin bottles expand with the the increased volume of the fermenting liquor. " Others mocking, said, these men are full of new wine, y\EVKov lawlessness. This is the expediency of thieves and robbers, who, finding the law against their practices, decide it to be ex- pedient to break it. And if the laws of God are more perfect than those of civil society, those who, on the ground of expediency, make those laws void, commit a greater outrage, and deserve severe rebuke. For ignorant, sinful man, who is but of yesterday, and knows nothing, to exalt his wisdom above the wisdom of the Omniscient, and his benevolence above the benovelence of God — who is love ; and his devices above the institutions and appointments TEMPERA NCE. 1 3 5 of the everlasting God, which are holy, and just, and good, is such excessive presumption, that it would be incredible that any human being could be guilty of it, if it were not proved by the history of every day, "Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God ? " " Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty in- struct him ? " " He that reproveth God, let him answer it." But what is the great change of circumstances which is to displace the Word of God from its throne in the human conscience, and set up the idol of expediency in its place? It is said distilled spirits have been invented since the close of the inspired canon. If it be indeed true that they are always injurious to men in health, put them under the ban as a beverage. Whether wine is so or not, I shall not inquire at the bar of human wisdom. I know from much higher authority that such statements are false. For men to declare that to be poison having a tendency to derange the bodily functions as well as produce almost every moral evil, which the Lord of glory furnished mirac- ulously at a marriage, is such open and unblushing impiety as to demand the solemn rebuke of every Christian and every minister of Christ. Again it is said, that drunkenness is a much more prevalent sin now than in the days of inspiration. If this were admitted, what would it prove ? Be- cause a sin which existed in those days has increased, therefore the doctrines of God's Word are to be 136 SERMONS. contradicted, and his institutions give place to the inventions of man. For the same reason, if any other sin has increased, we may set aside other dec- larations and arrangements, and thus dispense at will with the whole Word of God. What is this but to say that God's plans have been tried and failed ; man therefore must invent more safe and efficient means of promoting temperance, and every other grace and virtue — means, not which fall under the declarations and appointments of God, but which contradict and deride them ; not the prudential regulations of civil society or pious individuals — as- sociated efforts which carry out into practical ac- complishments the truth and commandments of God — but doctrines which contradict his testimony and make void his law. The difference, if any, between the drunkenness in the days of inspiration and now is only in degree. Whenever, then, this sin is brought down to the degree in which it obtained in those days, then new doctrines and new measures must give place to those of the Bible ; and thus, as times change, the declarations of God become true or false, his ap- pointments are in authority or disgrace. But while such an increase in the degree of drunkenness is thought sufficient to authorize these new doctrines and laws, no diminution of that degree can ever bring back the old ; for the present enactment is ** a solemn moral obligation, upon every man, to abstain totally, and forever." TEMPERANCE. I37 It is not very easy to measure the degree of drunkenness in different ages of the world. We have no methiunometer by which to test it. But we need not much regret its want, for a very slight glance at the history of drunkenness in the days of inspi- ration, will show that there was abundant occasion for these new enactments ; this new light, as its votaries fondly regard it ; this old darkness, as it has proved to be, if, in the judgment of the Most High, they had been regarded as expedient. Noah, the second father of the race, with whom commences the history of wine, became drunk. — Gen. ix., 21. What ought to have been done on that oc- casion ? Our modern reformers would say, prevent the evil for all time to come by absolute prohibition of the thing that causes it. Is any such law en- acted by Divine authority ? We have seen in innum- erable declarations, that no such thing ever "• came into the mind of Him who knows the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, whose counsel shall stand, and who will do all his pleasure." Drunkenness is pre- dicted as one cause of divine judgments upon Israel. Deut. xxix., 19. Eli's charge against Hannah would not have been made by so amiable a man, if it had not been a frequent offense ! — i Sam. i. David says, he was the song of the drunkards. — Ps. Ixix., 12. The Proverbs abound in reference to that sin. Isaiah rebukes the country of Ephraim as character- ized by drunkenness.— Isaiah xxviii., i. " Wo to the 138 SERMONS. crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are over- come with wine." Joel speaks of them as a numer- ous class of men. *' Awake, ye drunkards, and weep ; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth." — Joel i., 5. In the New Testament, our Lord was reproached with drunkenness, because he used wine. " The son of man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber." — Luke vii., 37. Our Lord, in the parable of the steward, plainly intimates that it was a frequent oc- currence *' to eat, and to be drunken." — Luke xii., 45 ; Matt, xxiv., 49. And he solemnly warns the men of that generation, " Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life," Luke xxi., 34, putting drunkenness in the same category with surfeiting and cares of this world, which have in every age been besetting sins. He charged the Pharisees themselves with being inward- ly full of extortion and excess.'* Matt, xxiii., 25. The apostles were charged with being drunk, be- cause filled with new wine. — Acts ii., 13. And the charge was repelled, not because it was a very un- usual offense, but because it was a very unusual * " Cibus et potus qui intemperantersumitur." — Schleusner, TEMPERANCE. 139 time in the day to commit it. " Seeing it is but the third hour of the day"; verse 15, — about nine o'clock in the morning. How many people would think it credible now, that a minister of the gospel was drunk in the pulpit at nine o'clock in the morning? some total abstinence men would — no- body in their sober senses. Drunkards were found even in churches planted by the apostles. " But now I have written unto you, not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a driinkardy oa a extortioner ; with such a one no not to eat." I Cor. v., II. It is found in every general enumera- tion of prevailing sins. *^ Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." — i Cor. vi., 10. " Envying, murder, drunkenness, revelings, and such like." — Gal. v., 21. The Christians of the church of Ephesus are admonished, *' Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess ; but be ye filled with the Spirit." — Eph. v., 18. And such a scene could not be paralleled in any Christian church in the present day, as that described in the church of Corinth, when observing the sacred ordinance of the Lord's Supper : " For in eating, every one taketh before other his own supper : and one is hungry, and another is drunken." — i Cor. xi., 21. According to a softer interpretation, still it was a very unseemly exhibi- tion — ** one is hungry and thirsty, and another has eaten and drunken abundantly." In his letter to I40 SERMONS. the Thessalonians, he exhorts them not to Imitate the unregenerate in their drunkenness : '' They that be drunken, are drunken in the night ; but let us, who are of the day, be sober." — i Thes. v., 7, 8. And to the church at Rome, in her days of greatest purity, he writes : " Let us walk honestly, as in the day ; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in cham- bering and wantonness, not in strife and envying." — Rom. xiii., 13. According to the new doctrine of expediency, the church of Rome is right in super- seding the truth and laws of God by her own doc- trine and laws, for her circumstances are entirely changed. From being the pure spouse of Christ, she has become *' Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." Rev. xvii., 5. The marriage of Cana affords instruction on this point also. The master of the feast refers to a com- mon custom indicating the state prevalent at that time. " Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have ivelldrnnk, then that which is worse." — John ii., 10. Here it is plainly asserted, as a common practice on such occasions, to continue to drink after men had "drunk abun- dantly." There is no evidence to my mind that there is any such general practice at weddings now. After this review it must be evident to every candid mind, that all the reasoning by which the expedi- ency of the doctrine of total abstinence is urged was as appropriate in the days of inspiration as at TEMPERANCE. 141 this day. Is drunkenness a prevailing sin? so it was then. Does the use of these drinks terminate, in many cases, in their abuse ? so it did then. And if the only safe and efficient means of promoting temperance now be total abstinence, so it was then. But so did not judge the only wise God our Saviour. The plan of correcting the abuses of a thing by abolishing its use, if carried out, would deprive us of every good thing which God has given us, for everything is abused ; and while man remains cur- rupt, will be abused. Liberty is abused in the state. Is the only cure for it absolute despotism ? The liberty of speech and of the press are grossly abused. Is every man under solemn, moral obligation to give up his liberties, because some men abuse them by lying and slandering their neighbors, and propagating all sorts of heresies, and follies, and sins ? Money is abused. It is the grand idol of the world. Is it every man's duty never more to touch so great an evil? If this principle be carried out, the whole world must stand still and utterly perish from inac- tion. Like every other attempt to improve upon the wisdom of God by human presumption and folly, this scheme of total abstinence introduces a thou- sand evils, without removing one. Its utter inefifi- ciency in removing intemperance, is seen on a large scale among the Turks and Persians, the greatest sensualists on earth ; and whatever different results have attended it in this country, are to be ascribed 142 SERMONS. to other influences, and to the truth which has been employed in connection with this error. Its whole history has shown this doctrine to be productive of the most baleful consequences. At its origin, in the early ages of Christianity, it corrupted the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, introduced a scheme of reli- cfion "which darkened the whole face of Chris- tianity, and produced the worst of errors "; and since its resurrection in our own times, it has divided the friends of temperance, produced lying and calumny of private and ministerial character, exalted men, who have hardly yet opened their eyes from the drunken doze of years, to the rank of public teach- ers, to rebuke the Christian ministry, and reform the church — men so obstinately perverse, that con- trary to the instructions of their employers, they spend much of their time in reviling all who oppose them, hurling the thunderbolts of their anathema at the head of every one who presumes to doubt their infallibility, and proving that whether they are reformed from drunkenness or not, they are not reformed from lying and defamation. It has con- tradicted Divine testimonies, made void Divine laws, undermined the authority of the whole Bible, and thus struck at the heart of all true religion and morality. The expediency which produces such results, may be called wisdom with man, but it is foolishness with God. He who adopts this rule, is like a ship at sea without ballast, without chart, and without compass, at the absolute mercy of every TEMPERANCE. I43 wind and wave, and, without a miracle, will inevi- tably be foundered or dashed upon the rocks. The expediency which acts in independence of the direc- tions of the Divine word, and in contradiction to its numerous and explicit declarations, is only another name for infidelity — that infidelity which, fighting side by side with popery, is straining every nerve to annihilate the authority of the Bible, and utterly to destroy all true protestant Christianity. It is this which gives its overwhelming interest to the present controversy. It is a strife for the prize of ruling the conscience and life of immortal man, between the Bible and human reason, between the authority of God, and the authority of man. To all who have adopted this heresy, I say in my own name, and in the name of all the ministers of Christ who have taught you the truth, '^ I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, into another gospel : which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ." — Gal. i., 6, 7. I warn, I adjure you, cling to the Bible as the world's last hope. Let no siren voice, under the specious plea of science, or morality, or sanctity itself, lead you away from the voice, the eternal wisdom, that speaks to you from heaven. " All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is pro- fitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be /^r/><:/, thoroughly furnished unto 2}X good 144 SERMONS. works'' — 2 Tim. iii., i6, 17. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple ; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart : the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes : the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever : the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether." — Ps. xix. 7-9. " Now, there- fore, hearken unto me, O ye children : for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors : for whoso findeth me, findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul : all they that hate me love death." — Prov. viii., 32-36. SERMONS ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 145 " Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." — Hebrews xi., 3. AS the God of the Bible is the only living and true God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, so the Bible itself gives the only true account of the origin of the world, and of all things that are therein. The speculations of philosophy on this subject are full of contradiction and absurdity, and serve only to darken counsel by words without knowledge. Since the truth has been published to the world, incessant attempts have been made to disprove it. In this unholy enterprise cosmogonists and geolo- gists have been distinguished for their zeal, if not for their ability, some in avowed opposition to the sacred Scriptures, and others under plausible pro- fessions of respect for their authority. The last class is most dangerous, inasmuch as their profes- sions lay to sleep the vigilance of Christians, until the poison of infidelity has been infused, and many are brought within its pestilential sphere of influence who would otherwise have been aware of the danger and avoided it. In whatever else these classes 147 148 SERMONS. differ, they agree in the main point — they contra- dict the testimony of holy writ ; and if their posi- tion be estabhshed, it gives to infidelity a fulcrum by which it can overturn the last hope of man. I shall first state the question, next confirm the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the church, and next refute its opposites. I. This is strictly a theological question, and not one of scientific investigation or nomenclature. " By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear." — Heb. xi., 3. But for the testimony of its Author, we could know nothing of the origin of the world or of ourselves. We are not then at liberty to over- look that testimony, nor to put upon a level with it the inferences of erring and ignorant men from the extremely scanty knowledge which they have, or ever can have, of the work itself. Whenever Jeho- vah speaks, his testimony is decisive, and we are not at liberty to withhold our full and implicit faith until we learn from other sources of evidence that it is true. This were, according to his own construc- tion, to treat the Most High as a common liar, whom we will not believe on his own testimony. " He that believeth not God, hath made him a liar." The most conclusive argument with a Christian is, *' Thus saith the Lord." When we have the testi- mony of the author of a work as to the time when he made it, and the materials of which it is com- GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 149 posed, it is worse than useless to go about examin- ing the work, to make out for ourselves the same points ; which, if our informer be true, we know al- ready far better than we could ever learn by any in- vestigation of the work itself. But when the au- thor of the work is God, and he has told us when he made it, and that he had no pre-existing materials out of which it was constructed, it is worse than ab- surd — it is high-handed rebellion — to attempt to make out from the very work, that its author is a liar. The doctrine of the Christian church, in all its denominations, is truly expressed in the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly— the most truly learned and pious assembly that ever convened since the days of the apostles, or the Synod at Jer- usalem. *' The work of creation, is God's making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good." The opposing doctrines, not of true science, which has always been the humble ally and friend of reve- lation, but of philosophy, falsely so called, have varied their forms at different periods. One posi- tion was that the world was older, in its present or- ganization, than the Bible chronology makes it. This position is avowedly infidel, and has been re- futed by Cuvier himself, the highest scientific au- thority on such a point. That is not the question at this time. There are two other positions profess- ing respect for the Scriptures, but agreeing substan- 150 SERMONS. tially with the former in contradicting the Divine testimony, which ought to be exposed in their true colors, so that if any one will maintain them he may be placed where he of right belongs in this respect — in the ranks, and fighting side by side with the deadly and determined enemies of Divine revela- tion. One of these is that the period occupied in mak- ing the world was six thousand years, or periods of time of an indefinite length. On this point a few remarks will be made in their place. But we have to do at present principally with the position of Mr. Buckland, which, in his own words, " suppose the word ' beginning,' as applied by Moses in the first verse of the book of Genesis, to express an unde- fined period of time, which was antecedent to the last great change that affected the surface of the earth, and to the creation of its present animal and vegetable inhabitants, during which period a long series of operations and revolutions may have been going on, which, as they are wholly unconnected with the history of the humaA race, are passed over in silence by the sacred historian, whose only con- cern with them was barely to state that the matter of the universe is not eternal and self-existent, but was originally enacted by the power of the Al- mighty." — (Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i, p. 25.) This position is a contradiction to the received doctrine of the Christian church, which dates the GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE, 151 creation of the world at the first six days of Moses, and denies the existence of its material before that period. Both sides of a contradiction cannot be true. Either the Christian church or Mr. Buckland is grievously in error. The appeal is ** to the word and to the testimony; if they speak not according to these things it is because there is no light in them." And as the Bible is to Christians the only infallible rule of faith, it is to be interpreted accord- ing to the rules by which we would interpret any other document, and chiefly by its own rule — "com- paring spiritual things with spiritual." 2. That the church here is not mistaken in the doctrine which she believes and inculcates, will be evident to any one who, without the bias of any favorite theory, will humbly submit his understand- ing to be taught by the Father of lights, as his tes- timony is recorded in the history of Moses, in refer- ences to it by different inspired writers, and by the Son himself, and by the formal decision of the apostle. *' By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were NOT made of things which do appear." — Heb. xi., 3. The first chapter of Genesis contains a formal, particular, and chronological account of the work of creation, when it was made, and what was done in each division of the whole time employed in it. The very first word informs us that the account commences in the beginning of the whole subject, 152 SERMONS. and of which before this period there was nothing. The first act of creating power gave being to the heavens and the earth. The appearance of things at that point is described in the second verse. The second movement of Almighty power produces the light. Then follows a description of the work at this stage of it. And thus, the Creator himself in- forms us, one day has passed. Here we have a description of two acts of Divine power, and a de- scription of the work, following each. The only date of the whole work, thus far, is the first of the six days. The third movement was the production of the atmosphere, called the expanse and heavens. This is described, and two days have passed. The fourth movement was the separation of the water and dry land, and the production of the vegetable kingdom, and the third day is passed. The sun, moon, and stars, are the work of the fourth day. Of the fifth, the inhabitants of the air, and the water. And the land-animals and man, of the sixth. It is the obvious and particular purpose of the his- torian to date every work to the very day, and to give the day, not at the beginning, but at the close of the works of that day, so that all which is related before the mention of that day, and after the pre- ceding day, belongs to it ; all, therefore, which pre- cedes the morning of the first day, as no other time is mentioned, belongs to the work of that day. This interpretation is confirmed not only by the obvious design of the author, but from universal GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 153 usage in such cases. When a historian gives us the annals of a nation, we understand him to say that all the events connected with a particular year oc- curred during that year, unless he explicitly informs us otherwise. And we should consider it as the greatest negligence and unfaithfulness, to record among the events of the first year of the people's history what had occurred a thousand years before. All the character of Moses as a competent and faith- ful historian, and what is more, the authority of the Holy Spirit who taught him, assures us that the date of the production of the chaos was the first of the six days. As an illustration and proof of this, I refer to Josephus, the Jewish historian, who places in the period of 3833 years, from the creation to the death of Isaac, this very account of the production of the chaos. " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. But when the earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick dark- ness, and a wind moved upon its surface, God com- manded that there should be light ; and when that was made he considered the whole mass, and sep- arated the light and the darkness, and the name he gave to the one was night, and the other he called day. And he named the beginning of light, and the time of rest the evening and the morning, and this was indeed the first day." Josephus, Antiquities, vol. i., p. 80. Besides the impropriety of charging upon Moses an anachronism so monstrous as to date on the first 154 SERMONS. day of our present system what occurred millions of years before, it is further manifest that the interpre- tation of the church is the true one, because the light was created in the latter half of the first day, and something must have been done in the part called the evening, or our system begins half a day later than the account of Moses. Creation began with the first act of creating power ; before that act it was not, but it began in the evening, before there was any light, and no act is mentioned before the creation of light, but the creation of the heavens and the earth in the state described ; therefore that act belongs inevitably to the first half of the first day. 2. This view is confirmed by every passage of sacred Scripture in which the creation is referred to. ''Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sancti- fied it : because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the [successive productions or] generations of the heav- ens, and of the earth when they were created, iji the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." — Gen. ii., 1-4. In direct reference to the previous account it is declared to embrace all God's works, created and made, in heaven and earth, in their successive order, and at the one period oc- cupied in the work, the first six days of time. It is GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. ' 155 hard to conceive what would express the doctrine of the church, if this language does not. If to create is more than to make, then all his work created and made was performed in six days. Ex. xx., 11 : *' For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." He made the things containing and the things contained, the places and their inhabitants. The compass of the language seems to be exhausted to express, in every possible form, that God made all things of nothing, in the space of six days. John i., 1-3: "All things were made by him ; and with- out him was not any thing made which was made," compared with Heb. i., 10 : " Thou Lord, in the be- ginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest." From these pas- sages it is proved that the Son of God made all things and without him there was nothing but God ; that the beginning of his creating all things from nothing was when he laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens — the very earth and heavens which now are, and are to be destroyed. " Have ye not read, that he which made them at THE BEGINNING made them male and female ? " — Matt, xix., 4. *' But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female." — Mark x., 6. Thus the Son him- self, whose work creation is, informs us that its be- ginning was the period of six days in which man was made. 156 SERMONS. 3. This series of direct testimonies to the truth and certainty of the common faith may be closed with the express and unequivocal decision by the apostle : '' Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." — Heb. xi., 3. The things that are seen were not made of any pre-existent matter otherwise that the matter must appear. The matter of which our world was made is manifest to our senses in the present state, and forms of it the things that are seen ; these things had therefore no previous exist- ence in any form, or they would now appear in their present form. " The things that are seen," is a philo- sophical definition of the present material things, since matter is known by our bodily senses, and of these material things, it is asserted that they were not made of things that do appear ; that is, of their own, or any matter, under any form. This text, therefore, if the authority of the apostle is worth anything, is a perfect philosophical refuta- tion of the novel doctrine which some geologists would palm upon the church. Their doctrine is, the things that are seen in the present form were made of things that do appear, the material of our world existed before the commencement of the Mosaic history. The doctrine of the apostle is a point-blank contradiction to it ; the things that are seen were not made of things that do appear — that is, our present world was made of nothing. GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 157 We have seen, then, by the unerring light of sacred Scripture, in the obvious and necessary meaning of the first chapter of these records, in frequent refer- ences to it by the inspired writers under both dis- pensations of the covenant, and by the Son of God himself, the Divine Architect, the one steady, uni- form doctrine that *' God made all things of nothing by the word of his power IN THE SPACE OF SIX DAYS and all very good." This was so clear that it was seen and attested by the Jews. Josephus places what is related in the first verse of Genesis, among the events of the first period of 3833 years from the creation, to the death of Isaac. He begins that period with the creation of the chaotic mass, and regards it as part of the work of the first day. The Rabbins, says Dr. A. Clark, understood the first verse to denote that God in the beginning created the substance of the heav- ens, and the substance of the earth ; i.e., the prirna materia, or first elements out of which the heavens and the earth were successively formed. The parti- cle eth, says Aben Ezra, signifies the substance of the thing ; so says Kimchi ; and with the Cabalists is often put mystically for the beginning and end, as Alpha {A) and Omega (H) are in the Apocalypse. The Syrian translator understood the word in this sense, and to express his meaning has used the word yoth, which has this signification, and is very properly translated in Walton's Polyglot esse cceli et esse terra, the being or substance of the heaven, and the being 158 SERMONS. or substance of the earth. Ephralm Syrus, in his comment on this place, uses the same Syrian word, and appears to understand it precisely in the same way. Jews and Christians of all denominations, in every age and every land to which the word of God has come, have declared with a voice like the sound of many waters, that they have seen in the common revelation this same truth. Whence came this uni- versal faith of the Church of God? Not from philo- sophy : the philosophers were, to a man, either ignorant of the truth, or denied it. Not from the light of nature ; for where revelation is not, the true doctrine of creation is unknown. If they are mistaken, the mistake must be charged to the Book of God ; for to no other source can it be traced. But it is no mistake. It is a truth which like the rock against which the waves dash themselves to foam has stood unshaken by all the attempts of its opposers, and will remain when heavens and the earth shall be no more. As one " set for the defense of the gospel," and required to ** contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," I have shown from the holy Scriptures, in their plain and obvious meaning, the truth of the doctrine generally held in the churches on this subject. Christians, cling to your Bible. Stand fast in the faith. Be not moved away from the faith of the gospel which you have heard, in which you have been instructed. ** Be not carried about with every GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 159 wind of doctrine by the sleight of man, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lay in wait to deceive." And when the truth is established by the testimony of God, you ought to adhere to it Avith unshaken confidence, and not for a moment admit the possi- bility of error in that testimony, whatever argument may be brought against it, and however honorable a name it may assume. You may not listen to the tempter, even to suspend your judgment till he show that the truth is false, or does not teach what it docs teach. Every such proposal must be met at the threshold with the indignant repulse, ** Get thee behind me, Satan," or your faith will be shaken by every wind of doctrine which the God of this world knows so well how to raise. Had our first parents repelled the first insinuation of the tempter, they and their race had escaped the ruins of the fearful apostacy, which began in hes- itation and doubt, and ended in presumption and disobedience. Gaze with steady, unaverted eye at the truth of the Divine testimony. Pray to the Author and Finisher of your faith, to increase your faith. Believe his declarations, embrace his promises, fear his threatenings, and yield yourselves up to be moulded by his word into the image of your God ; that '* beholding as in a glass the glory of God, you may be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." II. '" Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not .made of things which do appear." — Hebrews xi., 3. THUS far I have stood upon the defensive, and shown that we teach and believe " none other things than Moses, and the prophets, and apostles, did write." It is proper now that the tables be turned, and it be demanded of our assailants, by what authority they seek to overturn the established faith of the Christian church. Do the Scriptures teach this new doctrine? No. Its advocates themselves do not pretend this. They only claim that they are silent. " They do not impeach the judgment of those who have for- merly interpreted it (the Mosaic narrative) other- wise, and in this respect geology would seem to require some little concession from the literal inter- pretation of Scripture." — (Buckland, p. 20.) Here it is admitted the Mosaic narrative was literally interpreted, and with judgment unimpeached, in establishing the commonly received and popular interpretation, independent of geological facts. This is virtually giving up the scriptural argument. It is admitting that the independent testimony of 160 GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. i6i Scripture, literally interpreted, is against the new doctrine. As that testimony is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, when fairly interpreted, according to its own independent meaning, it de- cides the question against every doctrine contrary to its own. It has been shown that the Scriptures, literally interpreted according to the only known use of language, establish the doctrine which con- tradicts this new theory. But the rule of inter- preting by the aid of language, is indispensable to the attainment of any information from any docu- ment. To ask us to give up that rule, is equivalent to a request that we would give up the Bible as a revelation ; nay, if the new principle of interpreta- tion be true, it is worse than waste-paper — it mis- leads those who trust in it. It says one thing, and means its opposite. In exposing the errors of the theory of geologists, I shall examine their attempt to reconcile it with the Mosaic account ; then show its contrariety to it and the other parts of Scripture on the same sub- ject ; and then make some remarks on the theory, as occupying the ground of open and avowed infi- delity. I. Examine their reasons for saying that their hypothesis is not inconsistent with the Scriptures. They confine their remarks to the Mosaic narrative, and almost exclusively to the first and second verses of the first chapter of Genesis, as if the Scripture were silent upon the subject everywhere else. This 1 62 SERMONS. policy indicates their consciousness of the weakness of their cause, or their culpable negligence in not searching the Scriptures more fully and accurately before they venture to set aside one of their most decisive announcements. {a) The first reason is : " It is nowhere affirmed that God created the heaven and the earth on the first day, but in the beginning " (p. 26). This argu- ment would prove that he had not made anything on any of the days ; for God is not said to create the light on the first day, nor the firmament on the second, nor the sea and land on the third, nor the luminaries on the fourth, nor sea animals and birds on the fifth, nor land animals and man on the sixth. But in the very way in which he refers these respec- tive works to their proper days, in the same way does he refer the creation of the heaven and the earth to the first day. {b) Again, it is said : *' The creation of each day is preceded by the declaration that God said or willed that such things should be, (' And God said ') and, therefore the very form of the narrative seems to imply that the creation of the first day began when these words are first used, i.e., with the crea- tion of light in verse three " (p. 29). But this phrase is used not only at the beginning of the work of the day, but in the middle of it, as in the work of the sixth day, after the creation of the land animals, we read — " And God said, Let us make man '* (ver. 26). If this phrase may be used in the middle of the GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 163 work of the sixth day, it may with equal propriety be used in the middle of the work of the first. The difference in the form of speech may be intended to mark the difference between creating and making. {c) " Many of the fathers supposed the first two verses of Genesis to contain an account of a distinct and prior act of creation. Some, as Augustine, Theodoret, and others, that of the creation of mat- ter ; others, that of the elements ; others again — and they the most numerous — imagine that not these visible heavens, but what they think to be called elsewhere the highest heavens, the heaven of heavens, are here spoken of " (p. 29). These are mere opinions, and far more than coun- terbalanced by the concurrent opinions of every department of the church of God, in every age, un- til this day. Besides, none of their opinions are any support to the doctrine of geologists, that this world was made out of the wreck of a former world. {d) '* In some old editions of the English Bible, where there is no division into verses, you actually find a break at the end of what is now the second verse. And in Luther's Bible, Wittemberg, 1557, you have in addition the figure i placed against the third verse." But this division in translations is of no authority in fixing the meaning of Moses. Be- sides, the paragraphs added to the text of the He- brew Bible were intended to distinguish the different parts of the creation, and not the times in which it was performed. Accordingly, while one of these 1 64 SERMONS. divides the work of the first day into two parts, two of them divide that of the sixth into three. {e) Professor Pusey says (p. 30), " that the words, ^ Let there be light/ by no means necessarily imply any more than the English words by which they are translated, that light had never existed before ; they may speak only of the substitution of light for dark- ness upon the surface of this our planet." And yet this same Dr. Pusey has told us, " that the creation of the first day began with the creation of light in verse 3d " (p. 29) ; that making, when spoken in reference to God, is equivalent to creating. Does he mean by creating the light, an incipient disper- sion of dense vapors? Who ever heard such lan- guage to express such an event ? (/") This case is said to be of the same kind with astronomical phenomena; and as Moses does not teach astronomy, therefore neither does he teach cosmogony. But the cases are entirely unlike : first, because the Scriptures contradict the cosmogony of geolog- ists, while they say nothing about the Newtonian system of astronomy ; secondly, because, in speak- ing of the work of creation, the Scriptures use lan- guage in the sense in which it was understood at the time when they were written ; but geologists give it a meaning which it never had from the foundation of the world until this hour. According to these persons, when God said, " Let there be light " on the first day, and when he made the sun, GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 165 and moon, and stars on the fourth day, he did not make either of them. He only cleared away the dense vapors — the fog — that hid them from view ! If this be the way the Scriptures are to be under- stood, the oracle at Delphi was clear as the sun compared with the darkness that may be felt. If this be their manner of communicating knowledge, neither the outposts nor the citadel are worth a moment's contest. Lastly. " Dr. Chalmers favors the geologists." If he does, he must answer to his Master for deserting his post. But he calls these great geological revela- tions '' pretended discoveries^ Even he, then, is not sure they are true. And while he spurns the idea of conceding to these discoveries the literalities of the text, he refers to the only principle of interpre- tation by which they can be vindicated, with an " IF it may be adopted." And what is that princi- ple? "To suppose that the Mosaic description proceeds, not in the order of creation actually, but in its order optically ; or, in other words, that the sun and moon were not first made, but first made visible on the fourth day." — (Hitchcock, p. 332.) So, then, the work of the fourth day was not to create or make anything, but to do what is done often in an hour — clear away a fog which hides the face of the sun ! But what will he do with the stars? Were they, too, visible as well as the sun? And who saw them before either the animals or man were created ? If Dr. Chalmers will abandon 1 66 SERMONS. an outpost which he once held in common with his brethren, and return to the citadel, and, instead of aiding those who stand against the enemy, will turn his artillery upon them, he acts the part which, in any other tactics but the defense of the Bible, would subject an officer to be cashiered for coward- ice, or broken upon the wheel for treason to his king. 2. Let us next compare this theory with the Scriptures which treat on this subject. The theory of pre-existent worlds is contradicted by the history of creation given by Moses, who states the creation of the matter of the world in immediate connection with its reduction into its present form ; whereas, if this theory were true, he must have informed us of these new facts, that there were other worlds be- fore ours, and that from the wreck of one of them ours was constructed. Such an important fact could no more be omitted than the fact of the deluge. That Moses has given us a particular ac- count of the deluge, demonstrates that he could not possibly have passed unnoticed the overthrow of the world, which God created back in indefinite duration, and out of the ruins of one of which ours, Phoenix-like, has arisen. This theory supposes that he has described the state of the wreck, without telling us it was a wreck, or how it came to be in the condition described. It supposes such a chasm in the history, as there would have been if Moses had omitted the sixth and seventh chapters of Gen- GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 167 esis ; and without intimating that anything remark- able had happened, had passed from the history of Lamech to that of Noah, riding with his family and the nucleus of a new world upon the waters of a universal deluge. It supposes that when the Scriptures speak of the creation of the heavens and the earth, they do not mean that the heavens were either created or made, or that any change passed upon them, in the period to which they refer ; and that the earth instead of being created or made, only underwent some change in its outer crust ; that the creation of which they speak was neither the first production and regular formation of the heavens and the earth, which took place millions of millions of years before, nor the last change which had passed upon them at the deluge, which they do not pretend is ever called the creation. The pres- ent creation, then, is neither, according to ' this theory, the first and proper creation, nor the last formation. What then ? The last formation but one, when man was made, and some of the animals of the former worlds reproduced, and others added to them ! What the Bible calls creation, this theory calls a change upon the surface. What the Bible represents as an original production, this theory represents as only a reproduction. Those who can reconcile all that, have little reason to deride the credulity of the church, which has relied upon the plain and uniform meaning of the holy oracles, in believing, for nearly six thousand years, that in 1 68 SERHIONS. " six days God made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day "; and that " the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which ARE SEEN were NOT made of things which do appear." The Bible says, Gen. ii., 4, that the first chapter contains the account of the successive productions of the heavens and the earth, when they were CREATED, *' IN THE DAY that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens "; that is, the whole of these works were performed in the one period of six days referred to. But this theory says they were performed at many and remote periods com- prising millions of years. The Bible says, Ex. xx., 1 1 : " For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." But this theory says, that in these six days he neither made heaven, nor earth, nor sea, for they all were made long before ; and so far from making all things in them, that there were in them innumera- ble remains of the animals and vegetables of former worlds. The Bible says, Mark x., 6, that man was made, and marriage instituted in that period of six days in which creation began, — "■ FROM THE BEGINNING of the creation God made them male and female." But this theory asserts that the creation began long before in worlds on worlds- unnumbered. It would GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 169 have been as proper to date the birth of John at the beginning of the creation as the institution of naar- riage : they would both be indefinitely remote from the true date. The Bible says, Heb. i%, 10, ii : " Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish." These very heavens, and this very earth, which now are and await their destruction. But this theory asserts it was a different earth, in which no man dwelt, and heavens which no man saw until millions of ages afterwards, when they are said to be made, although, at that time, they were neither created nor made. The Bible says : *' The things which are seen were NOT made of things which do appear "; i.e., the vis- ible creation was made of no pre-existent matter. But this theory asserts that the very things which are now seen WERE made of things that do appear ; that is, the present world is only another world a little modified and altered to suit its present inhab- itants. Between the Bible, then, and this theory, there is obvious, palpable, and irreconcilable contradiction. In the history of Moses, in the law delivered by Jehovah himself from Sinai, and recorded by him- self on tables of stone, in prophecies, and in doc- trinal discussions, the subject of creation is presented in one and the same unvarying aspect. And no principle of interpretation exists, or can be in- lyo SERMOArS. vented, to reconcile the testimony of holy writ with the theory of these geologists, which will not wipe out, as with a sponge, the whole meaning of the oracles of God. Another theory is held by other geologists equally at war with the necessary mean- ing of the word of truth, that the days in which the work of creation was performed need not be under- stood to imply the same length of time which is now ** occupied by a single revolution of the globe, but successive periods, each of great extent." To sustain this meaning of the word day in this connection — the first chapter of Genesis — neither Mr. Buckland, nor Professor Silliman, whom he quotes as favorable to this interpretation, give any reason whatever, drawn from the Scriptures, or the laws of interpretation. All that I have heard or seen as the shadow of an argument is, that the word is used in various senses in different parts of Scrip- tures, as well as in common discourse. But, because a word has different significations, it does not there- fore mean everything or anything you please, which this argument implies. That rule would throw all language into chaos ; so, to help out these splendid discoveries in science, we are modestly asked to give up all the determinate meaning of human language. When a word has dif- ferent meanings, its most common signification is to be preferred, unless something in the context, or other parts of Scripture, require another of its meanings. GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 17 1 In the use of this word in the first chapter of Genesis, the most common meaning, or period of twenty-four hours, is not only unencumbered with any difficulty, but necessarily required by the con- text, and other passages of Scripture which refer to it. The evening and the morning, the darkness and the light describe that period during all generations of men. It is said, after the work of six days : " And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it." — Gen. ii. 2, 3. This was the institution of the weekly Sabbath, from which arose the division of time into weeks, so common, even among nations which had not a written revelation. In the fourth commandment this passage in Genesis is referred to as containing the reason for keeping the Sabbath : ** Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : . . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the sev- enth day : wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." — Ex. xx. 8-11. Here it is expressly asserted that the day which the Lord sanctified and blessed is the seventh day, which fol- lows six days of labor or work. After six days' work God rested the seventh, and commands men 172 SERMONS. to follow his example. Now, what men are re- quired to do in this respect is what God has done; but men are required to do their servile works on the other six days of the week, and rest from them on the seventh. This is almost too obvious for illustration ; and no human being, from the foun- dation of the world, ever understood these days otherwise, until geology was produced, and must be sustained, although at the cost to the church of her Bible, and to mankind of the use of their tongues and their pens, for if words have no de- terminate meaning, it is useless either to speak or to write. The common-sense view of this subject is confirmed by the egregious absurdities which flow from the lately invented meaning. According to the lowest reckoning on this scale of a thousand years for one day, the meaning of these Scriptures is, that God worked six thousand years, two thous- and of which were occupied in clearing away a fog, and then rested a thousand years ; therefore, he commands all men on earth to work six thousand years, and then rest the seventh ! But as no human being ever lived one thousand years, much less six, the command is an intrinsic absurdity. On this supposition no Sabbath has ever been kept on earth, for the six working days are not yet over. Had Adam lived to this hour, he would not have reached his first Sabbath. The birds and fishes made on the fifth day must have lived five hundred years in continual darkness. One side of the globe GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. I73 scorched, and the other frozen, with intolerable heat and cold, how could either vegetables or ani- mals exist at at all ? Thus it has been shown that the doctrine of the church and the doctrine of the Bible, on the subject of the creation — the first article of revealed truth — are identical ; that the attempt to reconcile the theories of geologists with the direct and uniform testimony of God, is an outrage upon all scriptural exposition, an insult to the common sense of the community, and incompatible with the respect due to the word of Him that cannot lie. Many addi- tional considerations might be urged to show the dangerous tendency of these dogmata. I mention a very few of them, just as a sample of the contents of this Pandora's box : 1. By identifying, in the meaning of the word " beginning," the duration of the Son of God with the duration of our world, they have degraded Him from the proper eternity which belongs to Him to a period of indefinite but still finite existence, before which He was not, or else they make the creation itself eternal, which is to confound the attributes of the creature and the Creator. Those who believe this argument from the indefinite period indicated by the word beginning, because it is said, '* In the beginning was the Word," to be consistent, must be either Arians or Atheists. 2. This scheme represents our earth as a scene of carnage and death for millions of millions of years 174 SERMONS. before the creation of man, or any creature upon it capable of sin. But the Bible represents death in our world as a consequence of sin, not only to man the sinner, but to all his dependents ; and the curse rests upon the world, which is his habitation. " Cursed be the ground for thy sake." " For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him that hath subjected the same in hope ; the whole creation groaneth and travaileth until now, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the re- demption of our body." But if geologists be right, the apostacy of man wrought no change, in this respect, upon the world or its inhabitants. Christians, are you ready for this ? Let every presumptuous theorist beware how he touches upon the prerogatives of that Almighty Being, who spake and it was done, who commanded and it stood fast, the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God ; or if they will prefer their empty speculations to the sure word of the Creator and King Eternal, let them prepare to meet his awful challenge: '* Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge ? Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? Declare, if thou hast understanding." " Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty, instruct him ? He that reproveth God, let him answer it." May every such person soon be brought to feel, and GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 1 75 speak, and act as one of old, who had spoken unad- visedly with his lips, — *' I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes ! " III. " Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. — Heb. xi. 3. Here, then, the question might rest, if men would submit their understanding to be taught by Him whc is Light. But as infidels glory in their pretended discover- ies as a complete refutation of the claims of the Bible to be a Divine revelation, and as Christians would desire to know how these infidels are to be met, it is proper to inquire into their boasted dis- coveries. In meeting the infidel philosophers on the common ground of right reason, it is neither wise nor right to abandon the vantage-ground on which the true doctrine now stands, supported by all the evidence of an unbroken chain of historic testimony such as sustains no other documents on earth, the miracles which have been wrought, and the prophecy which has been fulfilled, and is fulfill- ing before our eyes, the unexampled diffusion of a religion which is at war with all men's natural and corrupt inclinations, and in despite of all that threatened to make its success impossible, and the beneficial influence which it exerts upon individu- 176 GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 177 als and communities. All this is not to be over- looked in a question which respects the truth of the history, and laws, and doctrines of the Bible. All this mass of evidence must be fairly set aside before any position can be established which could fasten upon that book the charge of untruth. The argument, then, which is with one fell swoop to banish revelation from the earth, and leave us to grope our way in the midnight darkness of unaided reason, is thus stated by Mr. Buckland. (Buck- land's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i., pp. 22, 23) : "■ The enormous thickness and almost infinite sub- divisions of the stratified rocks, and with the num- erous and regular successions which they contain of the remains of animals and vegetables differing more and more widely from existing species as the strata in which we find them are placed at greater depths — the fact that a large proportion of these remains belong to extinct genera, and almost all of them to extinct species, that lived, multiplied, and died on or near the spots where they are now found, shows that the strata in which they occur were deposited slowly and gradually, during long periods of time and at widely distant intervals. These extinct animals and vegetables could, there- fore, have formed no part of the creation with which we are immediately connected." Here we have the facts and the conclusion ; but how they are con- nected remains a mystery. How long it requires to form these strata no man can tell ; and, therefore, 178 SERMONS. no man knows that the nearly six thousand years of our world's duration, and the creative power of the Almighty, are not sufificient to account for them. The utter inconclusiveness of all such con- jectures — for they are nothing more — is established by a parallel instance recorded in Home's Intro- duction to the Critical Study of the Scriptures, vol. i., pp. 168, 169 : " Decisive as these facts are, it has been attempted to set aside the Mosaic nar- rative by some alleged marks of antiquity which certain Continental philosophers have affirmed to exist in the strata of the lava of Mount Etna. Thus Count Borch has attempted to prove that volcanic mountain to be eight thousand years old, by the different strata of lava which have been dis- covered. And in the vaults and pits which have been sunk to a great depth about Etna, the Canon Recupero afifirmed that seven strata of lava have been found, each with a surface of soil upon them, which (he assumes) would require two thousand years to accumulate upon each stratum ; and rea- soning from analogy, he calculates that the lowest of these strata must have flowed from the mountain fourteen thousand years ago. Nothing can be more fallacious than this argument, if indeed it deserves to be dignified with the name of an argument ; for who knows what causes have operated to produce volcanic eruptions at very unequal periods ? Who has kept a register of the eruptions of any burning mountain for one thousand years, to say nothing of GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 179 three or four thousand ? Who can say that the strata of the earth were formed in equal periods? The time for the formation of the uppermost and last is probably not known, much less the respective periods of the lower strata. They build one hy- pothesis upon another, and to believe their whole argument requires stronger faith than to believe a miracle. Faith in a miracle rests upon testimony, but faith in their scheme must be founded on an extreme desire to prove a falsehood. But the anal- ogy on which it has been attempted to build the hypothesis just mentioned is contradicted by another analogy which is grounded on more cer- tain facts. Etna and Vesuvius resemble each other in the causes that produce their eruptions, in the nature of their lava, and in the time necessary to mellow them into soil fit for vegetation. This be- ing admitted, which no philosopher will deny, the Canon Recupero's analogy will prove just nothing at all. We can produce an instance of seven different lavas, with interjacent strata of vegetable earth, which have flowed from Mount Vesuvius within the space, not of fourteen thousand, but of somewhat less than fourteen hundred years ; for these, according to our analogy, a stratum of lava may cover with vegetable soil in about tzvo himdred and fifty years, instead of requiring two thousand for that purpose. The eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Her- cuianeum and Pompeii is rendered still more cele- brated by the death of the elder Pliny, recorded in l8o SERMONS. his nephew's letter to Tacitus. This event happened A. D. 79 ; but we are informed by unquestionable au- thority that the matter which covers Herculaneum is not the produce of one eruption only, for there are evident marks that the matter of six eruptions has taken its course over that which lies immediately over the town, and which was the cause of its de- struction, and these strata are either of lava or of burnt matter, with veins of good soil between, whence it is evident with what ease a little attention and increase of knowledge many remove a great dififi- culty." The argument against the geologists from this extract is from the less to the greater. If profane civil history has silenced forever the conclusions of geology in the cases of Pompeii and Herculaneum, much more should the better authenticated history of the Old and New Testaments silence all similar calculations which are contradicted by its UNQUES- TIONABLE testimony. Indeed, Mr. Buckland him- self is conscious of the weakness of his argument from the different strata. He says : ** Indeed, the mineral character of the inorganic matter of which the earth's strata are composed presents so similar a succession of beds of sandstone, clay, and limestone, repeated irregularly, not only in different but even in the same formations, that similarity of mineral composition is but an uncertain proof of contempo- raneous origin, while the surest test of identity of time is afforded by the correspondence of organic GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. l8i remains. In fact WITHOUT THESE the proofs of the lapse of such long periods as geology shows to have been occupied in the formation of the strata of the earth, would have been comparatively /^££/ and inde- cisive." — (p. 93.) When an anxious advocate ad- mits that the proofs which are adduced to sustain half his argument are comparatively few, undecisive, and uncertain, we may consider that part of it as abandoned, more especially when he himself fur- nishes conclusive reasons to overthrow its entirety. The argument from the strata is derived from their nature and locations ; and these, it seems, are re- peated irregularly, not only in different but in the same formations. How any regular or settled con- clusion can be drawn from such evidence requires " Optics sharp, I ween, Which see what is not to be seen." The argument upon which he relies is derived from the animal remains. And what is the argument? Why, the greater the depth of these strata, the more remains of unknown animals are found, and these have lived, and multiplied, and died where they are found. Hence, it is concluded that these unknown animals belonged to other worlds than ours. And yet it is admitted that some known animals are found in all the strata. But this is a conclusion drawn from ignorance not from knowledge. If it be asked, Why can not these remains belong to our world ? the answer is : We do not know them. And is it certain that geologists know all the beasts, 102 SERMONS. fishes, birds, reptiles, and vegetables that have ex- isted since the creation of our present world, before and since the deluge in the days of Noah? If they say they do, I demand their proof; for I don't be- lieve one word of the assertion, and I venture to say no human being but themselves does. If they say they do not know, I demand — How they know that these remains are not of precisely these un- known animals and vegetables ? Their whole argu- ment, then, terminates in darkness. It is like noth- ing in the shape of argument but that by which it was undertaken to prove that America was discov- ered by the Swedes, or some other nation than the Spaniards, before Columbus discovered it. Their argument was: ** On a certain time, long before Co- lumbus, a certain vessel left one of their ports, and was never heard of again ; and if it did not go to America, where did it go ? Moreover, the argument is not only entirely baseless, but is entirely contra- dicted by the facts adduced by Mr. Buckland him- self, which are so far from contradicting the received doctrine of the church of God, that, like every other attempt to shake the foundations of the Christian faith, they have only brought out into clearer view how impregnable they are. Those facts are, that human bones and whole skeletons have been found imbedded in solid limestone, and that human re- mains have been found mixed with the remains of unknown animals which geologists suppose to belong to worlds that existed millions of years before man GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 183 had any being; that remains of existing species of animals are found in the same strata and in the same circumstances with many belonging to the ear- liest species of unknown animals, and that these dis- covered species of unknown animals form interme- diate and connecting links between existing species in our present world. The obvious inference from these facts is, that if human bones and remains of unknown animals are found in the same stratum, they belong to the same period, but man and existing species belong to the present world ; therefore, these unknown animals belong to this present world also, and geology is entirely at fault. Again, the unknown animals form intermediate and connecting links between existing species ; therefore they belong to the same system, and it is contrary to all analogy, and contradictory to all we know of the wisdom of the Creator, to form several middle links in his chain of connected being, and throw them away before he formed those which preceded and followed them. The unity of design and connection of the parts, therefore, indicate that the whole work was contemporaneous ; but man confessedly, and the animals of existing species, belong properly to our present system, therefore so also do those discovered remains, and again geology is at fault, and the Bible history confirmed. Having stated the argument, I produce the facts, and out of their own mouths let presump- 1 84 SERMONS. tuous oppugners of the Divine testimony be con- demned. I. Mr. Buckland says (p. 87) : "The most re- markable and only recorded case of skeletons im- bedded in a solid limestone rock, is that on the shore of Guadeloupe." One of these skeletons is preserved in the British Museum. According to Gen. Ernouf, the rock in which the human bones occur at Guadeloupe is composed of consolidated sand, and contains also shells of the species now in- habiting the adjacent sea and land, together with fragments of pottery, arrows, and hatchets of stone. The greater number of bones are dispersed. One entire skeleton was extended in the usual position of burial ; another, which is in a softer sandstone, seemed to have been buried in the sitting position customary among the Caribs. The bodies thus dif- ferently interred may have belonged to two differ- ent tribes. Gen. Ernouf also explains the occur- rence of the scattered bones, by reference to a tra- dition of a battle and massacre on this spot, of a tribe of Gallibees, by the Caribs, about the year 1710. The last account was pu-blished in 1818, so that all that formation was produced in one hun- dred years. What may not have taken place in more than fifty times the period of time since our world began ? The second class of facts is thus stated (pp. 88, 89) : " Several accounts have been published within the last few years, of human remains discovered in GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 185 the caverns of France, and the province of Liege, which are described as being of the same antiquity with the bones of hyenas and other extinct qtiadru- peds that accompany them." The author has seen at Liege a very extensive collection of fossil bones made by M. Schmerling in the caverns of that neigh- borhood, and has visited some of the places where they were found. Many of these bones appear to have been brought together, like those in the cave of Kirkdale, by the agency of hyenas, and have evi- dently been gnawed by those animals. '' Mr. Schmerling expresses his opinion that these bo7ies are coeval with those of the quadrupeds of extinct species found with them." Here, then, not only are the facts admitted which overturn the whole theory, but the highest geological authorities give their opinion that these extinct animals were co- existent with man ; and even Mr. Buckland admits that the bones of extinct species were gnawed by hyenas, which looks very like an admission of co- existence ; if not, then the hyenas existed first ! But hyenas and men belong to this present world, therefore so do these extinct animals. The third class of facts is, that remains have been discovered of extinct animals, accompanied by those of existing species. The remains of sivatherium were accompanied by those of the elephant, masto- don, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, several ruminantia, etc. (Pp. 75, 'jS) : " Even the eggs of aquatic birds have been preserved in the lacustrian formations of l86 SERMONS. Cournon, in Auvergne. In the same eocene forma- tion with these eggs there were also the remains of two species of anoplotherium, a lophidodon, an an- thracotherium, a hippopotamus, a ruminating ani- mal, a dog, a marten, a lagomys, a rat, a cat, one or two tortoises, a crocodile, a serpent or lizard, and three or four species of birds " (p. 74). Now, if be- cause "the most ancient marine animals occur in the same division of the lowest transition strata with the earliest remains of vegetables, the evidence of organic remains, so far as it goes, shows the ori- gin of plants and animals to have been contempo- raneous " (p. 24), then, for the same reason, these extinct species of animals are contemporaneous -with the dog, the marten, the rat, and the lizard. But these belong to the system which now is, therefore so also do those unknown animals. The fourth class of facts which overthrow the geo- logical argument, and confirm the doctrine of the Bible, is as follows : '' It is stated that there is a wider difference between the living genera of the order pachydermata than between those of any other order of mammalia, and that many intervals in the series of these animals have been filled up by extinct genera and species discovered in strata of the tertiary series. The sivatherium forms an impor- tant addition to the extinct genera of this interme- diate and connecting character " (p. "jS). *' The sec- ond, or miocene system of tertiary deposits, con- tains an admixture of extinct genera of limestone GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 187 mammalia of the first or eocene series, with the earliest forms of genera which exist at the present time. This admixture w^as first noticed by M. Des- noyers in the marine formation of the faluns of Lorraine, where the remains of paleotherium, an- thracotherium, and lophidodon, which formed the prevailing genera in the eocene, are found mixed with the bones of the tapir, mastodon, rhinoceros, horse, ox, bear, fox " (p. 78). " The study of these remains presents to the geologist a large amount of extinct species and genera, bearing important rela- tians to existing forms of animals and vegetables, and often supplying links that had hitherto appeared deficient in the great chain whereby all animated beings are held together in a series of near and gradual connections " (pp. 94, 95). The unity of design which these discoveries indicate proves that the whole chain was made at the same period, as it would be absurd to forge intermediate links and then throw them away before those which preceded and followed them were made. On that supposition there never was, and never can be, any connected chain of being. If links are wanting at either end, still there may be a connected chain ; but if they be w^anting in the middle the chain is broken, its unity is gone. But, " since every individual in such a close and connected series is thus shown to be an integral part of one grand original design," it is clear that as the known animals belong to our present system, and the unknown belong to lS8 SERMONS. them, they also belong to the same system with man. Thus we have seen from the admixture of human bones, and those of existing animals in the same strata, with the remains of animals that were sup- posed to belong to other worlds, and from the fact that these unknown animals supply links that we'-e wanting in existing species, it is proved that man and all the other animals, known and unknown, belong to the same connected chain of concreated being. This has been shown to be the opinion of M. Schmerling and other geologists. IV. " Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not viade of things whic?i do appear." — Heb. xi., 3. THIS book of nature, which some men would make out to be so much plainer than revela- tion direct from the true God, does not convey the same information to all who study it. The opinion respecting the long days of the Mosaic creation has been suggested, *' both by learned theologians and by geologists, and on grounds independent of one another " (p. 22). Now, as this scheme dispenses with the world or worlds unnumbered of Mr. Buck- land's theory, these geologists could not have seen what he saw, in their common science. They, therefore, neutralize each other and prove that if we give up the sure testimony of the Divine word, we must be tossed upon the shoreless ocean of skepticism, without chart or compass, at the mercy of every wave. Dr. Chalmers has been triumphantly referred to as a witness for the scheme of Mr. Buckland. But while he says some things very unwisely on the question of interpretation, he would adopt that interpretation only hypothetically, on the supposi- 189 I90 SERMOI^S. tion that the geological discoveries are sufficient to bear their conclusion. In the same place, he speaks on the question of its truth in these words : " We may deny the triith of the geological speculation. Nor is it necessary to be an accomplished geologist that we may be warranted to deny it. We appeal to the speculations of the geologists themselves. They neutralize one another, and leave us in posses- sion of free ground for the interpretion of the Old Testament. Our imaginations have been much regaled by the brilliancy of their speculations, but they are so opposite to each other that we now cease to be impressed by their evidence." — (Christ. Ev., Am. ed., p. 107.) Mr. Buckland's theory, then, is contradicted by geological facts, and the opinions of geologists by his witness Dr. Chalmers, and his friend Dr. Pusey, who says that '' the word asa, to make, and bara, to create, are synonymous ; but that bar a is the stronger." '* Bar a and asa ex- press alike a formation of something new {de novo\ something whose existence in this new state origi- nated in, and depends entirely upon, the will of its Creator or Maker " (p. 28). But Mr. Buckland says, when God made the sun, and moon, and stars, he did not form anything new ; he only showed these luminaries by clearing aiuay the fog I And finally, he caps the climax of absurdity by contradicting himself. He says: ''Asa, made, may be here em- ployed (Ex. XX., 1 1) to express a new arrangement of materials that existed before" (p. 35); and yet, GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 191 when the sun was said to be made on the fourth day, there was no new arrangement of the materials that existed before it remained unchanged. The scheme, then, is one of contradiction and absurdity throughout. It is a matter of lamenta- tion, though not of wonder, that those who are too wise to be taught by the oracles of God should be given up, in righteous judgment, to an implicit faith in such lying oracles as these. To show that I am not alone in my views on this subject, I give a few extracts from writers of the highest character. Dr. Chalmers, on whose au- thority Mr. Buckland and Prof. Hitchcock seem greatly to rely, speaks on this very subject : " Of the contest between the cause of revelation on the one hand, and the infidelity of the geological schools upon the other," and says " that the historical evi- dence of Scripture is quite untouched by those pretended discoveries of natural science." (Hitch., pp. 232, 233.) And again: "We should not tamper with the record by allegorizing any of its passages or phrases. We should not, for example, protract the six days into so many geological periods ; as if, by means of a lengthened natural pro- cess, to veil over the fiat of a God, the*phenomenon — if we may so term it — which, of all others, seems most offensive to the taste of some philosophers, and which they are most anxious to get rid of. We hold the week of the first chapter of Genesis to be literally a week of miracles." (Id., p. 331.) 192 SERMONS. Nicholson's Encyclopedia refers all fossil remains to the antediluvian world, and the changes of our globe recorded in the sacred Scriptures : " By this science we obtain not only a knowledge of the peculiar beings which dwelt on this planet, in its antediluvian state, but we also acquire a more correct knowledge of the structure of this globe itself. We at the same time discover the strongest proofs of those changes which it has suffered, and which are recorded hi the holy Scrip- tures, whilst our reverential admiration is excited at this wonderful display of the power and providence of the Almighty Creator." — Nich. Encyc, vol. 9, art. Oryctology. The last I shall quote at this time is Dr. Dick, late Professor of Theology in the United Secession Church, of Scotland, one of the most accomplished theologians and scholars of the age. He says (vol. 2., Edinburgh edition, pp. 218, 219) : " But here we are encountered by the pretended discoveries of modern science, and the observations which have been made upon the structure of the earth are sup- posed to contradict the Mosaic account, by proving that it must have existed at a more distant period, if it was created at all, and that it must have under- gone many revolutions prior to what we call the beginning. Some reject the account of Moses en- tirely ; and others conceive that it tells us, not of the original creation of the earth, but of the changes which took place upon it after some terrible convul- GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE, 193 sion. Thus, according to the words of a celebrated poet, ' Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata then Extract a register, from which we learn That He who made it, and revealed its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age.' — Cowper's ' Task,' book 3. This is manifestly a subject beyond the reach of our faculties; and geology, as sometimes conducted, is a monument of human presumption, which would be truly ridiculous, were it not offensive by its im- piety. '' Where wast thou,' said the Almighty to Job, 'when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.' — Job xxxviii., 4. Our philosophers do not pretend to have been pres- ent when the earth was founded, but they profess to show us how it was made, and that a much longer period was necessary to form its rocks and its strata than the Scriptures assign. Thus puny mortals, wdth a spark of intellect, and a moment for observa- tion, during which they take a hasty glance of a few superficial appearances, deem themselves authorized to give the lie to Him who made and fashioned them, and everything which they see. It happens, however, that forsaking the only safe guide in such high speculations, and following the faint and de- ceitful light of reason, they wander in the mazes of error and uncertainty. Their theories are differ- ent : what one builds up, another destroys ; and amidst the conflicts of opinions, all equally false, 194 SERMONS. the narrative of Moses stands unmoved, like the rock amidst the waves, resting on the solid basis of all the proofs by which the genuineness and in- spiration of his writings are demonstrated. * From the endless discordance in the opinions of philoso- phers on this point/ says a learned professor, ' from the manifest inadequacy of the data we are at pre- sent in possession of ; and from the physical impos- sibilities which must forever be a bar to anything more than a superficial knowledge of the earth's structure, it is preposterous to suppose that that high degree of moral evidence on which the credi- bility of Scripture rests can, with any justice, be weakened by our interpretation of phenomena, the connection of which among themselves even we certainly are at present, and probably ever shall be, incapable of explaining.' " The vanity of the reasoning of modern geologists may be manifest, and the bases of their theories over- turned, in a very easy way. They talk of primitive formations, and ascribe the origin of rocks to preci- pitation and crystallization. " Looking at a piece of granite from the mountains, they point out the characters of aqueous or igneous fusion, and say that it was formed by the agency of water or fire, carried on through a long process, which it required ages to complete. It is not denied that the substance might have been produced by the laws of chemistry ; but is it certain that it was so produced ? These laws are at present operating GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 195 throughout our world ; but, if it was not eternal, they must have had a commencement. Why may we not suppose that their Author anticipated their operation, and immediately created substances of such a structure or composition, as would have resulted from them in the natural order ? Why may we not suppose that he made rocks at first such as they would have been made by precip- itation and crystallization ? No geologist can deny that the thing was possible, unless he be an atheist, and then we have nothing to do with him or his theory; and, if it was possible, his argument from primitive formations, against the compara- tively modern date of the earth, vanishes into smoke. We say that, although certain substances might have been produced by secondary causes, God could and did produce them at once. That there was a first man, will be denied by none but an atheist. Now, if we were in possession of one of his bones, we should find that in all respects it re- sembled the bones of his posterity ; and reasoning according to the geologists, should conclude that at first its forms were soft, that they gradually be- came cartilage, and last of all acquired the hardness of their perfect state. But wc should reason false, for that bone was made solid and firm in a moment. If we saw one of the first trees, we should perceive no difference between it and a tree of more recent date. On being cut across, it would exhibit the same folds or circles, indicating the growth of sue- 196 SERMONS. cessive years, and increasing in hardness as they were nearer to the center. The theory of the geol- ogists would justify us in maintaining that it had originally sprung from a seed, and required many years to bring it to maturity ; while the fact would be, that it was the work of an instant. In both cases we have all the apparent effects of the processes of ossification and lignification, while it is certain that the processes never took place. We have, therefore, demionstration of the authority of a a rule that has been laid down, and effectually des- troys all the geological systems which represent second causes as being immediately concerned in the formation of our earth, in this, that sensible pheno- mena can not alone determine the mode of forma- tion. We have no occasion to convert each of Moses' days into thousands of years, and to conceive the chaos as an immense laboratory, from which, after the operations of ages, the earth came forth as we now see it. There was a Power adequate to create it at once, which formed the primeval rocks without the aid of fire and water, as it made perfect bones and perfect trees, independently of the second causes by which they are at produced." I have endeavored, in humble dependence on the aid of the Creator of the worlds, the God of the Bible, to show that the present is a question of faith in the history, laws, and doctrines of the Divine word, that the received doctrine of the church is required by the uniform meaning of the passages which relate GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 197 to this subject, and that the meaning attempted to be forced upon them by the theories of geologists renders them unutterably absurd, and unworthy of Moses or any other man of understanding — to say nothing of the Spirit of inspiration ; that the reasons given for the new interpretation are futile, and that there is irreconcilable contradiction between these theories and the Bible. I have examined the ques- tion as an argument against the Bible, which it is the main design of the authors of these theories to dis- prove, and shown that their arguments are baseless and their theories contradicted by their own facts, by one another, by their own authorities, and by themselves, and that the wisest men in the different departments of science, literature, and theology have denounced these theories as unfounded, presump- tuous, and impious. Christians, guard with sleepless vigilance and jeal- ous care the sacred trust committed to your care in the holy Scriptures. *' Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same things." Frown upon all attempts to tamper with the oracles of God, to force them to speak a language abhorrent to their obvious and necessary meaning. " Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." Arrayed in the panoply of God, stand fast in the evil day, and drive back to their dens the demons of infidelity and heresy, under whatever specious forms they may appear. The louder the jgS SERMONS. tempest howls about your heads, cling the closer to the rock of your salvation, the sure testimony of Him who can not be deceived and who will not lie. Pray to the " Author and Finisher of your faith that you may be strong in the faith, giving glory to God.'* ** Finally, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified." Live by faith, walk by faith, so shall you triumph by faith ; and when the heavens and the earth flee away, and no place is found for them, you will find your places at the right hand of the everlasting throne, in His ** presence, where is fulness of joy, and at his right hand, where are pleasures for evermore." Readei'; learn from this subject how impregnable are the bulwarks of the Christian faith. It has been assailed in every age, in every form which the sub- tlety of Satan and wicked men can devise ; and it has survived every attack, with not merely undi- minished, but increased, manifestation of its truth. A system of religious truth so established, and hav- ing passed unhurt through so many fiery ordeals, evinces the full and unwavering confidence of all to whom the knowledg^e of it comes. If it had been possible to disprove the truth of the Bible, it must have been disproved long before now ; for, from its very origin, it has had to wage unceasing warfare with talent, and learning, and wealth, and power, and all the utter unbelief and enmity of fallen man, and GEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. 199 the artifice and malignity of Satan, the god of this world, " who blinds the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ should shine into them." Embark, then, your eternal interest upon that truth. There is nothing on earth more sure. Nothing but faith in these precious records, and humble reliance on that Divine and compassionate Saviour whom they reveal, can give true peace to your spirit here, or assure you of a blissful immor- tality when time shall be no more. THE CHERUBIM. " So he drove out the man : and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of hfe." — Genesis iii., 24. THE day that man was banished from the home of his innocency was full of unutterable sorrow. He had thrown away the favor of his God, and the happiness of himself and his race. He had begun to taste the bitterness of that cup which the tempter had put to his lips. The holiness, justice, and truth of God, in awful majesty, were asserting their claims upon him. But although distressed, he is not in despair, for mercy also is prominent in the manifes- tation of the Divine character, and another and a brighter light bursts upon the moral chaos into which sin had thrown the fairest creation of God. In the same breath which announced to the com- bined offenders their appropriate punishments, is revealed the surety of the new Covenant, and salva- tion in him : " He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This was the dawning of gospel light, the great first promise, the germ of boundless grace and endless glory to a multitude that no man can number. In beautiful analogy with that revelation is the symbol by which is 200 THE CHERUBIM. exhibited the hopelessness of man's condition by the first covenant, and his restoration to the favor and fellowship of his reconciled God by the sec- ond — the flaming sword, which turned everyway to keep the way of the tree of life, presenting, in most impressive form, the impossibility of attaining to the life promised in the first covenant, of which the tree of life was the seal, and the cherubim opening a door of hope, through the second, by exhibiting redeemed man in the attitude of an accepted wor- shiper, the ambassador of God to man, and the leader and representative of his people to God. Thus are embodied in striking emblem the dis- abilities and doom of the covenant of works, and the privileges and duties of the covenant of grace. First. There is no salvation now by the first cove- nant. Second. The cherubim embody the scheme of salvation through the surety of the New Covenant as administered by the officers of his church, I. That the tree of life was a seal of the cove- nant of works made with Adam, the representative of our race, is evident from its mention in connec- tion with that covenant, its name, the expectations of fallen man respecting it, and this prohibition of its use, now that the constitution to which it be- longed is made void or broken, and its threatened penalty incurred. When by the entrance of sin, salvation became impossible by the work of the law, it became the Divine faithfulness and mercy 202 SERMONS. to forbid all fruitless and ruinous attempts to obtain it in that way. And the strong propensity of man, ever since, to seek to be justified by the works of the law, has abundantly shown that the prohibition was not without cause. It was a part of his moral constitution, as he came out of the hands of his Crea- tor ; and although now in ruins, it knows no other way, and is incapable of knowing it, until made new by the power of Almighty grace. For as it is an im- portant truth, " by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight," that other is like unto it, " Ye must be born again." The great Physician probes, that he may effect a thorough cure. He shows our wounds, that he may heal us. He makes us know our ruin, that we may greet with cordial welcome the remedy which, in his wisdom and mercy, he has provided in the Son of his love. 2. The principal subject to which attention is invited is the cherubim, the symbol of redeemed man in fellowship with his reconciled God, giving him the glory due unto his name, enjoying his favor and doing his will. The cherubim and sera- phim are but different names for the same com- pound animal figures described by Isaiah, Ezekiel and John. It is the hieroglyphic for the ministry of reconciliation, under every dispensation of the covenant of grace, and therefore of that covenant itself, in its privileges and fruits, in the glorious communion of God with redeemed, regenerated. THE CHERUBIM. 203 saved man, to bless him with his love here, and fit him for his glory hereafter. The figure itself ex- presses the ministry ; its office, fellowship with God. Who then are the cherubim ? What their char- acter, and what their office ? First. That the cherubim means the ministry of reconciliation appears from the context, and the uniform usage of sacred writ."^ From the connection of the text. It was evidently the Divine intention to call Adam to the duties of faith and hope, in the uttering of the first promise, that, while the pronouncing of the righteous sentence, which he had incurred by his sin, should cut off all hopes from anything in himself, this new promise might lead to trust in the righteousness of God. So, when the holy providence of God begins to ac- complish his purposes, and man is expelled the happy abode of innocency, and his return forever debarred, it was fit that his sinking spirit should be sustained and comforted by a sign of the Divine forgiveness and salvation, in the way of his own devising. Such sign was given him in the cheru- bim. Besides, if the sword were only the instru- ment which the cherubim used, it would have read with instead of and. As it is, the signs are different * Kerub, for Karob, is one near to God, his minister, one ad- mitted to his presence. 5, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited : and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." — Lev. xvi., 21, 22. What is thus taught in relation to the shadow of good things to come, is also taught in relation to the substance. '' But he was wounded for otir trans- gressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed — the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." — Isaiah liii., 5, 6. ''Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him ; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, \\^ shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied : by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many ; for he shall bear their iniquities." — Isaiah liii., 10, II ; "who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." — I Pet. ii., 24. The Lord Jesus is proved to have been a representative of his people, because everything which defines a 236 SERMONS. representative is ascribed to him, and to Adam his type, in this respect, or in none. In every other re- spect, they are perfect contrasts to each other. But in all that relates to the covenant of works, Adam and his posterity were identified. Did he sin in eating the forbidden fruit ? so did they in that very act. " By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." — Rom. v., 19; was he condemned for that act ? so were they. " By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation. " — Ver. 18. Did he become liable to the penalty of death ? so did they. Through the offense of one many be dead." — Ver. 15. The case of Christ, the antetype, and his people is parallel with this, simply as the principle of representation is held in common between them ; the covenants, the subjects, and the effects of the operation of each are entirely different. But is Christ righteous? so are his people by his obedience: " By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." — Ver. 19. Was he justified ? so are they on his account : " By the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." — Ver. 18. Was he entitled to blessedness and glory eternal, in consequence of his obedience ? so are they. " If by one man's offense death reigned by one ; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." — Ver. 17. **As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." — I Cor. xv., 22. THE A TON EM EN T. 237 All the terms by which the doctrine of atonement is expressed imply and illustrate the principle of suretyship, from the assumption of the obligations of the principle to their complete fulfillment. 1. It is called a ransom, the price of the liberty of a captive. " The son of man came to give his life a ransom, \\vrp6v'\ for many." — Matt, xx., 28. This term expresses both the value and the efficacy of his sufferings on our behalf. The immediate effect of this ransom is : 2. Redemption, the deliverance of the captive from his bonds. " In whom we have redemption, {ocitoXvrpdaiv^ through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." — Eph. i., 7. '' Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers ; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." — I Peter i., 18, 19. Besides these somewhat figurative, but not the less expressive, terms there are others which denote more particularly the way in which the atonement is made. 3. The sin offering [chalaah] expresses the assump- tion of our sin by our substitute, and his bearing it in our stead. " He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the right- eousness of God in him." — 2 Cor. v., 21. " Sacrifice and offering and burnt-offerings and offerings for sin, thou would not, neither hadst pleasure therein ; 238 SEI^AWNS. which are offered by the law ; then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second ; by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." — Heb. x., 8, 10. " Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." *' Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." — ix., 26, 28. The terms which have been adduced describe our surety assuming the load of our guilt, and, by en- during the penalty of the law in our stead, render- ing full satisfaction to Divine justice on our behalf. Those which follow indicate the efficacy of his suf- fering in the removal of guilt and the consequent wrath and curse of God. 4. Atonement [copher] literally means to cover, to hide transgression by enduring the penalty. "And the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them." — Lev. iv., 20. The corresponding verb [cophar] signifies to propitiate, to appease. *' I will appease him with the present that goeth before me." — Gen. xxxii., 20. '* As for our sins, thou wilt purge them away." — Ps. Ixv., 3. The words by which these are rendered in the Septuagint translation, and which are adopted by the New Testament writers, are : 5. Reconciliation. "To make reconciliation, \iXa(jKii(j^ai\ for the sins of the people." — Heb. ii., 17. "And he is the propitiation \i\aa/A,of\ for THE A TONEMENT. 239 our sins." — i John ii., 2. The only word translated atonement, in the New Testament, literally means reconciliation, {nar a\\ayi)v'\ — Rom. v., 1 1. It is so rendered in all the other places where it is used; " the word of reconciliation " ; — 2 Cor. v., 18, 19 ; " if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world." — Rom. xi., 15. 6. Propitiation. " Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation \i\aarrjpLoy\ through faith in his blood." — Rom. iii., 25. This word is used in the Septuagint : — Lev. xvi., 13, 15, 16, and in Heb. ix., 5, for the covering of the ark of the covenant, and hence, by a natural and beautiful transition, for that blood of the new covenant, which covers and hides the old covenant, which we have broken, from the eyes of the Holy One of Israel. The two goats, on the great day of atonement, — Lev. xvi., illustrate the two grand ideas to Avhich these terms may be referred, tJie suffering by the one that was slain, and its efficacy by the other, the scape-goat sent away into the wilderness, and bear- ing upon him all their iniquities unto a land of sepa- ration. But while Jesus zvas all that the sacrifices and the priests, the altar and the tabernacle, did but dimly shadow forth, the i?ijinite vahie of his atone- ment, whose price is above all price, has no type. This belongs exclusively to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. As this results from the divine nature of the offerer, it constitutes the divinity of his sacrifice, and sets it an unap- 240 SERMOA^S. proachable distance from everything else that bears the name. " The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." *' The church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood." But it is objected, Christ did not endure the pen- alty of the law, inasmuch as he had no remorse of conscience, nor does he suffer forever. But those who take this ground, have yet to show that there was either justice or utility in the undis- puted fact, that Christ did suffer. If it was not the penalty to our sins, what was it ? Not for his own sins; he knew no sin. His sufferings were then wholly gratuitous — not deserved either by himself or his people. And what is the infliction of undeserved misery, but injustice and cruelty? And what can be the utility of such an exhibition in the eyes of the universe ? But whether men will receive it or not, the sure testimony of God has determined the question, and that testimony will w^eigh more with right- hearted men than all the little quibbles of self-conceited sciolists. "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." — Isaiah liii., 6. '' God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law." — Gal. iv., 4, 5. " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." — Gal. iii., 13. If Christ did not endure the penalty due for the sins of his people, he is dead in vain ; for this is the very end for which he died. If the substitute, the surety, does THE ATONEMENT. 241 not meet the obligations of his principal, he fails in his undertaking, and those obligations remain unan- swered in all their force. Nor is the difficulty sug- gested by the objection, to reconcile the difference between the principal and surety with the endur- ance of the same penalty, so insurmountable as to some it may seem. To say the surety must be in every respect af- fected as the principal would have been, had the debt been exacted from him, is just to say that the principle of suretyship is useless. That it is not useless, universal experience proves; society could not exist without it. But its greatest use has been in the case of our Surety, our Kinsman-Redeemer, whereby glory unspeakable has accrued to God, and blessedness eternal to man. The infinite dignity of God makes sin against him an infinite evil, to which any possible sufferings of the sinner, man, in any given time, are infinitely disproportioned. His sufferings must, therefore, be eternal. But the infinite dignity of the Son, who thought it no robbery to be equal with God, gives infinite worth to his atonement. The glory of the person making reparation for the offence is equal to that of the person offended, and therefore his satis- faction was finished and complete in its time. Eternity of sufferings and remorse of conscience for personal offences are not essential to the death threatened for breaking the covenant of works, but accidents resulting from the nature of man as fallen. 242 SERMONS. His impotence to satisfy Divine Justice leaves him forever in debt, and his mind, conscious of guilt, lashes him with the horrors of endless remorse. The fire is never quenched because the corruption that feeds it, instead of diminishing, increases for- ever. The worm dies not because the carcase is ever putrid. But when the fire of Divine vengeance seized upon the Lamb of God,, it met neither worm nor corruption, and burnt itself out in bringing him down into the dust of death. Having laid down his life, he took it up again, and rose triumphant from the dead, the agent, the representative of his redeemed, the first fruits of them that slept. The case may be illustrated by a familiar comparison: a poor man owes a hundred dollars which he is unable to pay. If exacted from him., it involves himself and family in inextricable difficulties, from which they may never emerge. But if a kind and wealthy friend becomes surety for him, he can pay the debt with comparative ease, and all the long train of calamities, in the other case, will be entirely avoided. So, if insolvent man must pay his debt himself, the prison of hell must contain him forever. But his surety, Emmanuel, can discharge it, and not only save him from ruin, but confer on him an in- heritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, while himself, instead of being ruined in the attempt to redeem us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse in our place, re- ceives an infinite accession to his declarative glory. THE A TONEMENT. 243 He emerged from the humiliation, the shame and the wrath to which, laying aside the honors of the Deity, he involuntarily submitted, as Mediator, when he received in his sacred person the ven- geance due to us, when it was said, "Awake, O sword, against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts ; smite the shepherd." Having drunk the cup of death, the very penalty of the law, the wages of sin, whose nameless horror, amaze- ment, and anguish none but he could either under- stand or endure, he rose the vanquisher of Satan, the conqueror of sin, the victor of death, and the grave, and hell, and dragged them in triumph at his chariot wheels; while the partial obscuration of the brightness of his divine majesty increases, by con- trast, the splendors of that glory with which he is invested henceforth and forever. The varied beau- ties of the rainbow round about his throne, the glory of his character and doings reflected from the dark cloud of the wrath he had endured, the tem- pest which had beaten upon him for his people's sake, will beam the story of his spotless holiness, his inflexible justice, his inviolable truth, his im- measurable love, stronger than death, which the floods of almighty vengeance could not quench ; while every heart and every voice of the saved from amongst men ; ministers and members of the church, once militant, now triumphant, raise the anthem of the skies, "Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of 244 SER3rONS. every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests." And their elder brothers of creation, the angels of light, unenvious of their bliss, join with glad trans- port the concert of praise, *' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wis- dom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and bless- ing " : and every creature which is in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, in universal chorus swell the strain, *' Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever." IL The Extent of the Atonement, is determined by its nature : the *' Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." I. If, as has been shown, the federal union of Christ and his people is the basis of the atonement, then it extends only to those for whom he en- gaged to be surety in the everlasting covenant : who were *' chosen in him, before the foundation of the world : " — Eph. i., 4 : who were given to him ; should come unto him and be saved. " All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me ; and him that Cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day."— John vi., 37, 39. The condition of that covenant is the obedience THE ATONEMENT. 245 unto death, of the Surety, the Kinsman-Redeemer, which is therefore called " the blood of the cove- nant." " Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin." Is. liii., 10. The promise suspended upon it is, " He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand : he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By the knowledge of himself shall my righteous servant justify many ; for he shall bear their iniquities." — 10, 11. This promise is a point- blank contradiction of the supposition that those for whom his soul travailed shall perish forever, that he will condemn instead of justifying those for whom he bore iniquity. Beyond this union and its con- sequent representation and substitution, the atone- ment extends not, for these are among its essential attributes, without which the sufferings of Christ, could they have been endured (as they could not), had availed nothing. 2. All the terms by which this doctrine is ex- pressed confine the atonement to those who, viewed in the purpose of God, are the elect, and in its execution, are the finally saved. Is it a sin offering — a sacrifice ? then as He appeared to put aivay sin by the sacrifice of himself, they shall not perish for whom he suffered. Is he the Lavib of God ? then he taketh azvay sin. Is it a ransom ? a price of redemption of infinite value? then the captives for whom the price is paid must, in justice to him who paid it, in due time be free. To say 246 SEJH MOATS. otherwise is to charge injustice upon God, in not giving to the Surety what he purchased at so great a price, or to make the ransom itself of no value, seeing those for whom it was paid are lost forever, and no injustice is done. Is it a redemption ? Then its subjects must be free. Is it a propitiation ? Then, as the Saviour did not die in vain, his suffer- ings shall effect their purpose, in averting the dis- pleasure of God the Judge, and procuring accept- ance with him here, and at the Judgment Day. Is it a reconciliation ? Then those for whom it was made shall, in the time appointed, be actually recon- ciled to God by the death of his Son. An accepted sacrifice which leaves the sinner for whom it was offered and accepted under endless guilt and misery ; a ransom of infinite value which deserves not the liberty of the captives ; a redemp- tion which leaves its subjects in everlasting bondage ; a propitiation that does not remove displeasure ; a reconciliation which leaves the parties at endless variance, are gross, palpable, and inexcusable con- tradictions. But these are the proper definitions of the scriptural terms by which the doctrine of atone- ment is expressed, on the supposition of the general atonement. A doctrine, therefore, which makes ab- surdity of the Bible, must itself be absurd. 3. The atonement is expressly limited by the Holy Scriptures. The Saviour says : " I lay down my life for the sheep." — John x., 15. To say that he might lay down his life also for others who were THE A TONEMENT. 247 not his sheep, is to make his language unmeaning. Why should he say his sheep, if the objects of his death were indiscriminately the sheep and the goats? Besides, the context confines the sheep to those who should be saved : " My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me : and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish." — John X., 27, 28. The relation between the good Shepherd and his sheep exists antecedently to faith and is cause of it ; while the want of the re- lation is the negative reason why others believe not, as the absence of the sun is the reason of night. " The works that I do, they bear witness of me ; but ye believe not because yc are not of my sheep : my sheep hear my voice." — John x,, 25-27. *' Other sheep I have which are not of this fold : them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." — Ver. 16. "To you it is given on the behalf of Christy to believe on him." — Phil, i., 29. — "Christ loved //z^ church, and gave himself for it." — Eph. v., 25. The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." — Acts xx., 28. Christ's intercession is limited : " I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me." — John xvii., 9. It is worse than absurd to suppose that he would die for those for whom he would not intercede ; that he would do the greater, and would not do the less. 4. The Apostle Paul reasons from the gift of the 248 SERMONS. Son to the absolute certainty of every other good gift : '* He that spared not his own Son, but de- livered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things." — Rom. viii., 32. But if the doctrine of general atonement be true, the apostle's argument is without force, for accord- ing to it he has given his Son for those to whom he never sends the knowledge of the gift, and for whom the Son never intercedes. 5. The direct testimony derives confirmation from the absurdity of every other supposition. General atonement by implication charges God with injustice, for it represents him as exacting the payment of a debt a second time, after it has once been paid and he has accepted the payment. After Christ the surety has paid the debt, the original debtor must be cast into the prison of the pit for- ever, and for the same sins for which justice has already been satisfied ! Can conduct which would ruin the character of a man, be ascribed to the Righteous One, the ever-blessed God ? Either Christ died for all the sins of all men, or some of the sins of all men, or all the sins of some men — not for all the sins of all men, for then all men would be saved : which is contrary to his own testimony, ** these shall go away into everlasting punishment." Not for some of the sins of all men, for then the other sins for which he did not die would insure the perdition of all men ; which none pretend to hold. To this scheme belongs the THE A TONE ME NT. 249 evasion, that all are not saved because all do not believe, for their unbelief is either a sin or it is not ; if it is, it has either been atoned for, or it has not : if it has, why should any be lost for a sin which has already been atoned for ? If it has not, then all must perish, for all are by nature unbelievers. If it is no sin, why should they perish without cause? The only remaining supposition is the truth for which it is now contended, he died for all the sins of some men : that is, the atonement is limited. The modern evasion, that he died for sin in the abstract, nullifies atonement entirely, inasmuch as it assigns it neither object nor cause. Sin is a quality of the actions of moral beings, and can have no existence without them. Sin in the abstract is nothing, and atonement for such a nothing is itself less than nothing and vanity. 6. The text itself, when fairly interpreted, con- firms the view which has been taken, although it is often quoted to prove the contrary doctrine : " Be- hold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." The world are those whose sins he takes away, and, our opponents themselves being judges (except (Jniversalists), the sins of ail men without exception are not taken away. It may be proper here to state a general principle of interpretation which throws light upon this subject : general terms are always restricted by the subjects to which they relate, and by what is predicated of them. In the present case, the subject, the world, 250 SERMONS. is necessarily restricted by what is asserted of it — that Christ takes away their sins ; which, if asserted of every human being without exception, would contradict the other Scriptures. The statement made is only trite of some men, and therefore only extends to some. John, the forerunner, announced the Messiah whose death would introduce a more extensive dispensation of grace than had obtained, and accordingly uses a term of extensive significa- tion in relation to the object of his coming and death. How extensive its meaning is, must be learned from the context and other parts of Scrip- ture. That the word is used in a limited sense, is manifest from verse 10 of this chapter : '' The world knew him not." It does not mean that none knew him. ** The whole world lieth in wickedness," (the wicked one) — i John v., 19. In the same verse it is said, '' We are of God." " All the world wondered after the beast." — Rev. xiii., 3. If it mean every human being, why should the ''beast make war with the saints," vs. 7, 8. And in St. John xii., 19, we have a case analogous to the text, when it is used for those who have a special interest in Christ ; not every human being, but the better part of men: ''The world is gone after him." As it is perfectly obvious that scriptural usage generally gives the term a limited signification, so in all the places in which it is applied to the salva- tion of Christ, the immediate context proves that it is to be taken in a restricted sense. THE A TONEMENT. 25 1 "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." — John iii., 16. Then, as before, the greater implies the less ; the love that gave the Son insures every other gift, and the subject is defined by its predicates. Be- lieving and being saved limit the term, and identify the objects of God's unutterable love with the sub- jects of the great salvation. His counsel shall stand and he will do all his pleasure. " We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." — John iv., 42. He is the Saviour only of the saved. The saviour of the finally and irretrievably lost, is a title as absurd as it is dishonorable to the great Captain of our salvation. ** The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." — John vi., 51. But the apostle regards it as clearly absurd, to sup- pose ** that Christ is dead in vain," which certainly he would be if any of those for whom he gave his flesh should die forever. "God was in Christ, recon- ciling the world unto himself ; not imputing their trespasses unto them." — 2 Cor. v., 19. The world here are those to whom God does not impute their trespasses — whom he reconciles to himself ; that is, the saved from among men. " He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." — I John ii., I, 2. We, and the whole world, are the SERMOiVS. first fruits, and the whole harvest of those who shall enjoy the light of God's reconciled countenance, for whom Christ acts as advocate according to his own showing. " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also that shall believe on me through their word." — John xvii., 20. In the First Epistle of John the whole world is contrasted with believers then in the world, and must therefore be limited by these exceptions : '' We know that we are of God, and the wdiole world lieth in wickedness," [or the wicked one]. — I John v., 19. The word *' all " is relied upon to prove general atonement. But the context shows, in every place where it is used on the subject, that it is to be restricted to the people of Christ — the elect, the saved. The free gift came upon all men, unto justi- fication of life. — Rom. v., 18. The " all " spoken of are limited by what is asserted of them ; they are justified and live. "In Christ shall all be made alive." — i Cor. xv., 22. Who are the all ? Not every man without ex- ception, which is Universalism — These, the wicked, ''shall go away into everlasting punishment"; but those who shall be made alive : Christ has not pro- cured for them a salvable state, but salvation. To be in Christ, and to be saved, belong to the all ; but neither of these predicates belong to the lost for- ever. " If one died for all, then were all dead." — 2 Cor. v., 14. The word a.TtE'^avov^ translated were dead, THE A TONEMENT. 253 is rendered in the same verse died, and should be so rendered in this clause : '* If one died for all, then all diedr The text assumes the federal identity of Christ and the all, who died in his death and live to him who died and rose again in their stead. " Who gave himself a ransom for all." — i Tim. ii., 6. The context shows that the all is to be taken indiscrim- inately for men of all ranks and descriptions, for kings and all that are in authority : not universally, for then it were enjoined to pray for the dead and the finally lost, which is contrary to the Scriptures. Besides, this ransom deserves and must secure the deliverance of all for whom it was given. In showing how the text itself, and corresponding passages of holy Scripture, instead of disproving do establish the doctrine of limited atonement, some of the principal objections to that doctrine have been anticipated and the artillery of the opponents turned upon themselves. Some other objections on which reliance is placed remain to be considered. Such general terms as the world, the whole world, and all men, however explained by the connection in which they stand, and by other parts of Scripture on the same subject, are by many regarded as quite conclusive against particular, and in favor of indefi- nite, atonement. Many of the passages referred to have been al- ready remarked upon : it may be proper to notice a few others, that it may appear that, if they add nothing to the evidence already adduced in support 254 SERMONS. of a definite, particular, and effectual atonement, they detract nothing from it. *' We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe." — i Tim. iv., lo. If the word Saviour here relates to external salvation, and " all men " means every individual, without exception, then, indeed, universal salvation is true : but it is not true : therefore, one of these terms must be limited. Saviour, here means provi- dential preserver in danger, which the Living God is to all men, especially to believers. This confi- dence preserved the minds of the apostles in calm- ness and peace, amid the dangers and trials of their work and ministry. " Should taste death for every man." — Heb. ii., 9. The word '' man" is a supplement by the translators, and according to the context would more properly be supplied by the word so?i : " For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sotis unto glory, to make the Cap- tain of their salvation perfect though sufferings." — Verse 10. Nor is it possible that any for whom Christ died should be lost. In John xvii., 12: "None of them is lost but [si ju?f] the son of perdition "; the si/it^ is adversative, not exceptive, as in almost every other case in which it is used. Luke iv., 26, 27 ; Rev. ix., 4. To render it as an exceptive in all these cases would be to assert that the widow of Sarepta, a city of Sidon, was one of the widows of Israel ; that THE A TONEMENT. ^ 255 Naaman the Syrian was a leper of Israel ; and that men are vegetables. These being absurd, the ad- versative sense must be adopted, and then it would read : *' None of them is lost, but the son of perdi- tion is lost." " Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died." — Rom. xiv., 15. "And through thy know- ledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died?" — I Cor. viii., 11. These texts are adduced to prove that some of those for whom Christ died shall perish. But they do not assert this. The tendency of the conduct reprobated was to the de- struction of the brother, because temptation leads to sin, and sin to death ; but this is entirely consis- tent with the effectual grace of God, which can pre- vent the issue to which it tends. Why will ye die? means, why pursue the course that leads to death? not that all men who do now pursue it shall certainly perish. " Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace ? " — Heb. x., 29. But the person sanctified is the Son of God, the immediate antecedent, according to John xvii., 19. " For their sakes I sanctify my- self." To sanctify, in these and other places, means to prepare for the service of God, in his temple, which even Jesus could not do without the blood 256 SERMONS. of the covenant, his own blood ; as the High Priest could not appear in the holy places, without blood of others, so Jesus entered into the holy place not made with hands, with his own blood. " There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even deny- ing the Lord who bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." — 2 Pet. ii., i. If deanorriVy rendered Lord, means God the Father, as generally it does, — Luke ii., 29 ; Acts iv., 24, then the text has nothing to do with the question ; it simply charges these false teachers with apostasy from God, whose they were by creation and innumer- able benefits; if the Son, then, according to their own profession, they were bought by Christ, and ought to serve him. Their denial of him was aggra- vated in its sinfulness, because against their avowed principles. The Scriptures do sometimes represent things according to human opinion and profession ; as Jesus takes up, on his own principles, the young man who came to ask the way of eternal life, seek- ing to be justified by the law. And Paul says. Gal. v., 4: " Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law ; ye are fallen from grace." There are none justified by the 'law, in fact, but many may profess to be so. These teachers were Antinomians turning grace into an occasion of licentiousness. They claimed relation- ship to Christ, but he never knew them. One other objection which deserves attention, as THE A TONEMENT. 257 connected with the practical application of this sub- ject, is that the limited atonement is inconsistent with the general offer of the gospel. But if this ob- jection had real force, it would disprove the existence of God. It assumes that no blessings are to be offered to any who can not receive them. Now, even on the Arminian scheme, those whose perdition is foreseen can not believe. But, on the principle of the objection, the general offer implies a right and power to be saved beyond the limits of the actually saved, which disproves prescience, which disproves God. Wherein the supposed inconsistency lies, has never been shown. Is the merchant at liberty to offer his goods to the whole world, as far as his advertisement goes, when all the world knows he can not possibly supply all who read or hear his offer? and is it wrong in God to offer his salvation to multitudes more than he ever intended, in fact, to save ? Is the general advertisement the means of disposing of the stock in hand ? So, also, the general offer is the means of bringing those for whom Christ died, to the actual enjoyment of the blessings of his sal- vation. God offers nothing which he will withhold from those who accept his offer. He promises noth- ing, but what he will fulfill. Whosoever believes shall be saved. Try him, sinner, and you will never have reason to be ashamed of your confidence. " Him that comcth unto me, I will in no wise cast out." Your warrant to believe, is God's free offer 258 SERMONS. in the gospel : *' Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters! " Believers, behold the Lamb of God! Live upon Him by faith. Cling to his surety- ship, as the sheet-anchor of your hopes. Be not dazzled by the delusive glare of an atonement so extensive that it reaches to those who never heard of it, and are hopelessly and forever lost. All shall be saved by the only real and true atonement, that ever shall be saved. The scheme which claims ex- clusive liberality and benevolence adds nothing to the happiness of man, above that conferred by the limited atonement, while it removes in fact the only foundation of a sinner's hope, and casts unutterable dishonor upon all the perfections of God. ANSWER TO A DISCOURSE PREACHED BY DR. WILLIAM E. CHANNING AT THE DEDICATION OF THE SECOND CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH , New York, Dec. 7, 1826. 259 THE TRUE RELIGION. I'^HE Importance of the subjects embraced in this discourse, and the abilities of its author, have given it celebrity. But it is promised, that " when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." How- are we to look for the fulfillment of this promise ? Clearly by prayer, and faithful exertions in depend- ence on Divine aid, as workers together with God. Seeing then that a bold and open attack has been made upon those doctrines which have been most dear to the Church in every age, it becomes those who are set for the defence of the gospel, promptly and vigorously to repel it. Whilst the poison of the rankest heresy is diligently circulated through the veins of the community, and threatening to cor- rupt the vitals of human hope, effectual antidotes should be everywhere at hand. The plan adopted in the following remarks is to follow the writer of the discourse through his intro- duction and argument, noticing in his own language the positions he assumed, and adverting, in the course of the discussion, to the principal reasons by which he endeavors to support them. 261 262 SERMONS. He is first met on the ground which he has chosen, that of general reason ; and then the doctrines which he contradicts are established by testimonies from Holy Writ, and the opposition of his scheme and his piety to the doctrines and piety of the Bible and of truth, thence briefly inferred. First. The introduction of Dr. Channing's dis- course contains several views, having an impor- tant bearing upon the grand question in debate, " Whether Unitarianism or its opposite be the true religion? " § I. The occasion upon which this sermon was delivered, and the services of which it was a part, may serve to throw light upon the character of that system which it advocates. A house of worship is to be dedicated. According to the uniform usage of Scripture, such dedication is never made to any being but to God. When, there- fore, with religious services. Unitarians dedicate their church to Jesus Christ, who according to them is a mere man, at most a creature, they are guilty of idolatry ; for by the very act of dedication they give to a creature, equally with the Creator, the honor which is due to God alone, (2 Chron. vii., 5 ; Ezra vi., 16, 17.) Dr. Channing in the close of his sermon, where he resumes this subject, explains dedication, by *' offering up to the only living and true God : we dedicate it to the King and Father Eternal ; we dedicate it to Jesus Christ : we dedicate it to the Holy Spirit." How, then, does he dare to '' ofler up " THE TRUE RELIGION. 263 the same sacrifice to a man, and to ** emanations of light and strength? " How does this differ from dedicating temples to Jupiter, and to Virtue, or Fear? The only true answer is, the Unitarian God is a different being from the God of the Bible, who will not give his glory to another. § 2. In the very first page. Dr. Channing takes leave of his text (Mark xii., 29, 30) and the whole Scripture at once, and never through the whole ser- mon so much as pretends to establish a single point in debate by the authority of the inspired word. In this he is at least consistent with himself and the other lights of the Unitarian school — for it is their uniform endeavor to make the word of God of none effect. He informs us: "For this religious act we find, indeed, no precept in the New Testament." The old Testament he does not condescend to notice. And so, according to their own showing. Unitarians can perform religious acts without any authority from the Bible at all. To what, then, do the claims of the Bible as a rule of life amount ? Dr. Channing shall tell us. "We are not among those who consider the writ- ten 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 excellencies 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, 264 SERMONS. 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 exigencies of the ever-varying conditions in which we are placed : that revelation is not intended to supersede God's other modes of instruction ; not to disown, but to make more audible, the voice of nature." Having denied the binding force of any minute regulations, and admitted nothing but views of duty so broad as to convey (if Unitarian practice is any illustration of their theory) no definite instruc- tions at all, this oracle of Unitarianism betakes him- self to the more intelligible dictates of nature. Not only will their broad views of Scripture per- mit them to perform religious acts, but to form their religious creed, not only without the slightest inti- mations from the Divine word, but in direct contra- diction to its explicit declarations. Of this, the ser- mon under consideration is a fine specimen. Dr. Channing, however, is not alone in his views of Scripture. Anti-Trinitarians of every age since the days of Socinus have agreed in refusing to be tram- melled or restricted in their views by the decisions of Scripture, however numerous or clear."" Faustus Socinus, after having condemned the received doc- trine of atonement, says : " Ego quidam etiamsi non semel sed soepe id in sacris monimentis scriptum extaret ; non id circo tamen ita rem prorsus se habere crederem." *See Magee on Atonement, vol. i., pp. 132-134, and 157. THE TRUE RELIGION. 265 " Although it were written in the sacred records not once, but often, yet I could not believe that therefore it is even so." Smalcius afifirms of the Incarnation : " Credimus etiamsi non semel atque iterum sed satis crebro et disertissime scriptum extaret Deum esse hominem factum multo satius esse quia haec res sit absurda et sanse rationi plane contraria et in Deum blasphema modum aliquem dicendi comminisci quo ista de Deo dici possint quam ista simpliciter ita ut verba sonant intelllgere." " Although it were written, not once and again, but with sufficient frequency, and most expressly, forasmuch as this thing were evi- dently absurd, and contrary to sound reason, and blasphemous against God, we believe it to be much better to invent some mode of speaking, by which these things may be said of God, than to understand them simply as the words signify." And what says Dr. Priestly, the apostle of Uni- tarianism in this country ? Endeavoring to prove that the text (John vi., 62), "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before ? " contains no proof of Christ's pre-existence, he uses this language : '* Though not satisfied with any inter- pretation of this extraordinary passage, yet, rather than believe our Saviour to have existed in any other state before the creation of the world, or to have left some state of great dignity and happiness when he came hither, he would have recourse to the old and exploded Socinian idea of Christ's actual ascent 266 SERMONS. into heaven, or of his imagining that he had been carried up thither in a vision, which, like that of St. Paul, he had not been able to distinguish from a reality. Nay, he would not build an article of faith of such magnitude on the correctness of John's recollection, and representation of our Lord's lan- guage ; and so strange and incredible does the' hypothesis of a pre-existent state appear, that sooner than admit it he would suppose the whole verse to be an interpolation, or that the old apostle dictated one thing and his amanuensis wrote another." * With such declarations before us, confirmed by the uniform practice of Unitarian writers, to what do their occasional expressions of reverence for the holy Scriptures amount, more than a mask, under Avhich they would conceal their attempt to subvert from its foundations the religion of the Bible ? This device, however, is as flimsy as it is insidi- ous. Their semblance of Christianity is no better than a veil of cobweb, to hide their enmity to the truths of the gospel, that lurks beneath it. They profess to believe that God has spoken to them by a revelation from heaven, and yet refuse to credit his testimony ; the testimony of the source of truth and knowledge himself ! This is a greater absurd- ity a thousand-fold, than has ever been proved against the doctrine of the Trinity. These men have a much better claim to the appellation of Deists than of Christians ; for both these classes ♦Letters to Dr. Price, pp. 57, 58, etc., in Magee. THE TRUE RELIGION. 267 are to be distinguished from Trinitarians, more by what they reject, than what they beheve ; and they both agree to reject the supreme authority of the Bible in matters of faith, and appeal, as to the highest tribunal, to the decisions of reason. The principal difference between Deists and Unitarians is in the weight they attach to the evidence of a Divine revelation ; the latter admitting, the former rejecting, the conclusion to which it leads. But this difference, instead of making the Unitarian ground more tenable, makes it more glaringly weak and absurd. They have made common cause with the Deists, in adopting one class of their argu- ments — that drawn from the supposed unreason- ableness of Trinitarian doctrines ; but having also admitted the truth of the revelation. Unitarians are chargeable with the contradiction of believing that the same things are true because revealed, and not true because unreasonable. The figment, that although the Bible contains a revelation it is not that revelation, is in fact a rejec- tion of revelation ; for we shall need a new revela- tion to inform us how much of the Scriptures are infallibly true ; unless, indeed, we believe Unitarian writers have been inspired to do this needful work, for no other men, calling themselves Christians, have presumed to draw the line between the truth and the errors of that Scripture, all of which has been given by inspiration of God. His Holiness at Rome may now hide his diminished head, for he 268 SEjRMO.YS. only claims to give infallibly the sense of the Scrip- tures ; these improved Popes have undertaken to correct the errors and mistakes of the inspired writers, that is, of the Holy Spirit himself ! § 3. Dr. Channing gives a review of the dis- tinguishing features of Unitarianism : " 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 Per- son, the Only Ultimate Object of religious wor- ship." Half of this brief confession of faith consists of negatives — that there is not more than one Person in the Godhead, and that Jesus Christ is not this one God, even the Father, nor the ultimate object of religious worship. The second negative is Sa- bellianism, which Trinitarians reject : in opposi- tion to the first, they affirm that there are three co-equal Divine Persons in the one God ; and to the last, that Jesus Christ the Son is, equally with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the ultimate object of religious worship. And yet, with all this opposi- tion of sentiment, Dr. Channing professes charily for Trinitarians, who, according to him, are Poly- theists and Idolaters ! "■ We do not mean," he says, ** that we regard our peculiar views as essential to salvation "; but when THE TRUE religion: 269 he tells us (pp. 33, 34) that the Trinitarian God is stern and unjust, doing wrong to his own creatures, he makes " it evident how little reason they have to credit " liis professions of charity. If he can give the right hand of fellowship to those who worship, as he supposes, such a monster, what diffi- culty can he find in receiving to his fraternal em- brace the devil-worshippers of the East ? But if Unitarian charity can enclose in its ample embrace those who maintain principles so horrible, so con- tradictory, so blasphemous, no intelligent and pious Trinitarian can return the compliment, by recogniz- ing as a part of the Christian brotherhood those who profess such a medley of atheism and idolatry. " O my soul ! come not into their secret ; to their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united." But he undertakes to explain how persons of such contra- dictory sentiments may acknowledge one another as Christian brethren. And what is the solution of this difficulty ? Why, nothing but that Trinitarians should go over to Unitarianism ; should admit tliat they really do not believe their own system, and if the points of difference retain their places in their written creed, they be regarded in fact as things of no manner of importance. Indeed ! And do all his professions of charity amount to this, that to save their orthodoxy, in his sense of the term, he very kindly supposes that they have been from the beginning false witnesses, in testifying what they did not believe; or fools, by supposing they believed 270 SERMONS. what his superior discernment has discovered they neither could nor did believe ? Trinitarians have always contended for the doctrines in dispute, not only as true, but indispensable ; not only as having a place in the system of revealed religion, but the highest place ; not only as connected with practice, but inseparable from a truly Christian life. They can not, therefore, meet him on the ground he has assigned them, without yielding their claims to common honesty, or rejecting the testimony of their own consciousness. They are not willing to purchase his good opinion at such a price ; and if they were, he and his party would have little reason to congratulate themselves on such an accession of knaves or fools. II. The general argument of the discourse is thus stated : '* I do not propose to prove the truth of Unitarianism by scriptural authorities, for this argument would exceed the limits of a sermon, but to show its superior tendency to form an elevated religious character." And how does Dr. Channing prove his point? By taking for granted, without an attempt at proof, that his notions of piety are true. This is nothing less than begging the question at the very beginning of his argument. By piety he means, '' filial love and reverence towards God, habitual gratitude, cheerful trust, ready obedience, and though last, not least, an imitation of the ever-active and un- bounded benevolence of the Creator." Now it is THE TRUE religion: 271 perfectly obvious that this definition, according to the system of its author, contains ideas essentially different from those of Trinitarians on the same general subject. The objects of pious affections in the two systems are contradictory; and con- sequently the nature, and reasons, and causes of piety are different and contrary. When, therefore, Dr. Channing has shown that his doctrines are better calculated to promote piety, according to his idea of it, than the Trinitarian, he has shown what his opponents are not at all concerned to deny, that Unitarianism is better calculated to promote itself. The question, which of the two systems is the true one, remains untouched. The religion which this discourse approves, and shows the peculiar adaptation of the Unitarian scheme to promote, not only excludes everything which Trini- tarians account most essential to true religion, but it contains nothing against which a sober Deist would object. In their schemes there are a few points of difference : but as to their practical results on the characters of men, they aim at the same thing. A Deist may adopt fully Dr. Channing's definition of piety, and in the very sense of its author; for they are agreed respecting the object of worship, the ground of hope, and the supreme rule of faith and of life ; in all of which they are both in perfect opposition to Trinitarians. To make the argument of the discourse a good one, it would be necessary to prove that the author's ideas 272 SERMONS. of religious character are correct ; that Unitarian piety is true piety : otherwise, whatever tendency it may be shown to have to form a reh'gious character of its own kind, it proves nothing for the truth of his system. Let the character have attained all the perfection which that system aims to give it, still, in the view of Trinitarians, the person who sustains it is destitute of genuine religion ; an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, a stranger to the cove- nants of promise, without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world. Whatever might be his uprightness and benevolence toward his fellow-men, and however tender and solemn and spiritual his affections toward the God of his own mental creation, he would be regarded by the true God as an obstinate rebel, who refused to be taught by the declaration of the Divine word, any further than appeared to himself reasonable and right ; who, by refusing to honor the Son, even as the Father, refused to honor the Father that sent him, and, by denying the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit, refused to be a temple of the Holy Ghost and dedicated to his glory ; who rejected with contempt and abhorrence God's plan of recon- ciliation, and insisted on being saved in a way of his own, presumptuously trusting on his mercy with- out any regard to the satisfaction of his justice or the honor of his government, even turning upon God and charging him with cruelty and injustice to his creatures. Until Trinitarianism shall first THE TRUE RELIGION. 273 have been proved to be false, a system which has such tendencies as these can not be admitted to deserve the name of Christian, much less that of the most perfect form of Christianity itself. Dr. Channing also takes for granted, what Trini- tarians never did, and while they believe their own system never can concede, that which party soever in this controversy is wrong, their error is not ruinous, and denounces those who think otherwise, that is, the whole body of Trinitarians, as possessing " the very spirit of antichrist " (p. 6). And yet he is assured that all that is essential to true religion is " attained and accepted under all the forms of Christianity," even where that "worst of all the delusions of popery and protestantism " is avowed. He has drawn deeply upon the credulity of his readers, when he supposed they would swallow, upon the authority of his dictum, an absurdity so gross. Then may there be communion between light and darkness, Christ and antichrist, and he that believeth and an infidel. On the other hand, Trini- tarians believe that the controversy respects the very essentials of true religion ; that it is not a contest between two forms of genuine Christianity, which is the more pure and efficient, but between two contra- dictory religions, which of them is true and which is false; not a matter to be decided by comparing different degrees in things in the same kind, but by 2 74 SERMONS. contrasting opposites and then deciding, by an ap- proved test, which is genuine and which is spurious. Whether Dr. Channing or his opponents are correct on this point, he had no right to take for granted a position so important as completely to shift the ground of argument, and imply a surrender of the Trinitarian cause ; for from that common religion, which he supposes it to be the object of both systems to produce, he excludes every Trini- tarian peculiarity, and when he has done so his own system remains undisputed master of the field. The piety which refuses divine honors to the Son and Holy Spirit ; which rejects the infinite atone- ment of the one, and the new creation to a holy life of the other ; which, on the supposition that God is, and has done, what his own word unequivo- cally ascribes to him, presumes to arraign and con- demn him as unmerciful and unjust — Trinitarians are free to admit, will be much better promoted by Dr. Channing's system than by theirs ; for while they retain their reverence for the Holy Oracles, such piety will always appear to their solemn view no better than avowed rebellion against the King of kings. Dr. Channing had a right to choose his own ground ; but if he had at command any num- ber of scriptural authorities to prove the truth of Unitarianism, he might have a better iise of his discretion than to set them aside for the sake of spreading before the public eye so base a sophism. THE TRUE RELIGION. 275 Reduced to syllogistic form, his argument would stand thus : Major — That system which best promotes piety, meaning of course, Unitarian piety, is the true system. Minor — But Unitarianism is best calculated to pro- mote Unitarian piety. Conclusion — Therefore Unitarianism is the true system. The error, as has been shown, is in the major proposition, which takes for granted the very point in debate, that the Unitarian is the true religion, or that all that is essential to true religion is held by both systems in common. The latter assumption, which makes it a non-essential whether the divinity and atonement of the Son, and the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit, with their corre- sponding doctrines, be believed or blasphemed, is as firmly denied by Trinitarians as the former ; indeed it amounts to the same thing with the former, for by rejecting the essential doctrines of Trinitarianism there is nothing left as common ground but Uni- tarianism itself. The nine arguments that follow in Dr. Channing's discourse are all in support of the minor proposi- tion, that Unitarianism is best calculated to pro- mote Unitarian piety. Were it granted that he had fairly proved his point, he would not have advanced by one hair's-breadth towards the determination of the, great questions at issue. His general argument 276 SERMONS. therefore may be dismissed as unfit service : but it will be proper to examine the particular arguments by which he endeavors to prop it. § I. *' Unitarianism is a system most favorable to piety, because it presents to the mind one, and only one, infinite Person, to whom supreme homage is to be paid." Let it be remembered, that the piety here spoken of is exclusively Unitarian ; for, although Dr. Channing told us (p. 8) that he did not regard his peculiar views as essential to salva- tion, he has fairly contradicted himself in this argument by declaring the doctrine of one, and only one, infinite Father, that fundamental truth. That the foundation is not essential to the building, is an idea that would never enter the head of any man not accustomed, like speculating theologians, to build castles in the air. Let it be admitted * that the Unitarian doctrine is calculated to make a stronger impression of itself upon the mind, what then? Is it therefore true? A vast chasm must be filled up in the reasoning before that conclusion shall be reached. On the other hand, Trinitarians believe that no degree of impression produced by the idea of only one Divine Person, to the exclusion of the Son and * This admission is made only for the sake of the argument ; for by the confession of the most eminent Unitarian writers, it is contradicted by facts. See Fuller's Letters : " The Calvin- istic and Socinian Systems Examined and Compared as to their Practical Tendency." THE TRUE RELIGIO.V. 277 Holy Spirit, amounts to any true piety at all. Dr. Channing can not advance a single step without begging the question. All that can be said is, that the Unitarian is more religious in his way than the Trinitarian. Whose is the right way is still sub judice. If the truth of things is to be determined by the strength of impression, then there are degrees of reality ; that is, it may be true that there is a Trinit}% for this doctrine makes some impression on Trinitarians ; and at the same time more true that there is none, and as the more carries it over the less, therefore there is no Trinity. According this reasoning, there is a sun in summer, but none in winter, because the impression he makes is greater in summer. Again, the things of this world make a greater impression of their reality upon most of its inhabitants than those of the world to come, therefore this argument proves the mortal deist right. Dr. Channing objects to Trinitarianism, that by multiplying infinite objects for the heart, it dis- tracts it ; and argues that " 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." But if it be consistent with "the principles of our nature that the different i7npres- 278 SERMONS. sions and efnotions of piety " should flow together and be condensed into one glowing thought, one thrilling love, why should it not be consistent with the same principles that the different emotions pro- duced by the Divine Persons in the parts they severally act in the work of our salvation, should unite in one harmonious movement of the whole man in admiration, love, and devoted obedience to the Triune God? If multiplying infinite person- alities in the one Divine Nature must ** distract " the heart, what effect will it have to multiply in- finite attributes in the one Divine Person? To be consistent with himself in this argument. Dr. Chan- ning ought to reject every infinite attribute but one; otherwise he ''has reason to tremble," lest, in giving to God the honor which is due to one of these attributes, he should withhold from him what is due to another. § 2. " Unitarianism is the system most favorable to piety, because it holds forth and preserves in- violate the spirituality of God." That God is a Spirit, and that he has given us no visible similitude of himself, Dr. Channing does condescend to prove from Scripture. But what has he proved against Trinitarians? Do they deny these things, or say that the manhood of Christ Jesus is an image of the invisible God? They do not. His argument on this point is sheer misrepresentation. Trinita- rians neither teach nor believe that the spirituality of God is at all materialized by the union of human THE TRUE RELIGION. 279 nature to the Divine in the person of Emmanuel — the Word made flesh ; nor that the manhood of Christ is at all the object of worship. Whatever incongruity may belong to this subject in the minds of those who hate the light, Trinitarians find no difficulty in distinguishing between the Divine nature of the Redeemer, by virtue of which he is " God over all, blessed forever," and therefore the object of worship, and his human nature, '' made of the seed of David according to the flesh." The Son assumed our nature for a different pur- pose altogether from that which Dr. Channing assigns. He " who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made him- self of no reputation, was made in the likeness of men, and was found in fashion as a man [not to ex- plain the Divine nature by the human], but that he might be obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." — Phil, ii., 6, 7, 8. After all, his inference is only connected with his premises by a " may be said," a phrase which accord- ing to Dr. Channing himself, (p. 39) is vox et pretci'ea nihil ; all that it is employed to convey " goes out — in words." The resemblance which he sees between the Incarnation of the Son and "" the mythology of the rudest pagans," if there be any, may, for aught he knows, be the resemblance between the truth and rudest counterfeit. How a '* pious Jew, in the twi- light of the Mosaic religion," would have regarded this doctrine, is a question which can only be deter- 28o SERMOiVS. mined by the authority of the Bible, and this is a tribunal to which Dr. Channing has not thought proper to refer his cause. He has an indisputable right, however, to the authority of his allies, the modern Jews, Mahometans, and Deists, the open enemies of the whole Christian religion. § 3. " Unitarianism is the system most favorable to piety (to wit. Unitarian piety), because it pre- sents a distinct and intelligible object of worship, a being whose nature, whilst inexpressibly sublime, is yet simple and suited to human apprehension." Because it presents the Unitarian idea of God, there- fore, it is most favorably to what kind of piety? Evidently Unitarian alone. According to this argu- ment (which, if it prove anything, must do so, not through the stale sophism w^hich has been exposed, but by its direct bearing on the truth of religion), those who worship gods of wood and stone, Dagon, or Vishnoo, or Juggernaut, have the advantage in distinctness and intelligibility over the Unitarians, and have therefore a better system. But when Unitarians claim, as an advantage of their system, that their God is intelligible, they strip him of all the incommunicable attributes of divinity, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, omni- potence, etc. ; or, if they do not bring him down to the measure of their necessarily limited conceptions, they arrogantly presume to grasp infinities. Dr. Channing himself admits respecting his own system (p. 40) that its truths can not be fully comprehended ; THE TRUE religion: that is, it is wholly intelligible, but can be compre- hended only as in part. If this is not a contradic- tion, it will require a hair-splitting distinguisher to tell the difference. He admits again, '' There is no object in nature or religion, which has not innumera- ble connections and relations beyond our grasp of thought." And yet he pretends to comprehend the infinite God so fully, as to decide peremptorily, in the face of the Scriptures, that he does not sustain the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as implied in the doctrine of the Trinity. The simplicity of which Unitarians boast is a very doubtful evidence of truth. The ancient physics, which referred all matter to the four primitive ele- ments, earth, air, fire, and water, had the advantage of simplicity over the present system, which reckons more than forty primitive substances ; but who would stake his character on the assertion, that therefore it was more true. But Dr. Channing pronounces the doctrine of the Trinity " misty, incongruous, contradictory." The first epithet might have been spared, inasmuch as he admits that the truths of his own system can not be fully comprehended ; of course those parts of them which are beyond his comprehension must appear ** misty" even to his clear eye. In a former part of this argument, he was understood to claim for his system an intelligibility which entirely ex- cludes its opposite ; but if he only means that it is partly intelligible, then it is partly unintelligible. 282 SERMONS. Thus has this champion of Unitarianism admitted once and again, with respect to his own doctrines, all that Trinitarians allow in relation to theirs : that the facts they involve are to us, in great part, incompre- hensible. And so is everything within and around us. When this proud objector can tell us how a volition moves the hand, or how God can be perfectly present in every place at the same time and absent from none, it will be time enough to triumph over Trinitarians, who do not pretend to know more, and who are not willing to know less, respecting the most incomprehensible of all beings, the self-existent Source of all other beings, than he has thought fit to reveal. If this then be a mere question of degrees, the Trinitarian system has the advantage, for it fills a much greater sphere in the world of religious truth. And if it has more dark places, it has many more bright ones, for there is something knowable in its every doctrine, even the most mysterious. Bat the heaviest charge against the Trinity is that it is contradictory. This is the Unitarian Achilles, who is to be seen foaming and raging on almost every point of the field of battle. But he is not quite invulnerable. It has been seen, and conceded on all hands, that our knowledge on every subject is imperfect ; that we must reach sooner or later a lie plus ultra to the operation of our minds. This contradiction then, if it exist, must be found within the limits of our THE TRUE RELIGION. 283 knowledge, or in the region of inscrutable things. In the latter division, the contradiction must either be taken for granted, or given up ; for it is impossi- ble to prove that it does or does not exist — and for this plain reason : we know nothing about the sub- ject. It is necessary to have accurate and adequate conceptions of the terms in a proportion to de- termine whether they agree or are opposed to each other. But in this department we have no positive ideas at all. The debate, then, is narrowed withfn the bounds of our knowledge. What, then, do we know of the Trinity which involves a contradiction ? We know from the Scriptures that there is but one God, possessing all possible perfection and glory. We also know that in this one God there is a plurality. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, sustaining different relations among themselves and towards men, wliich in a sense of approximation, not of accu- rate description, we call persons, because personal attributes and acts are ascribed to them. Now, what contradiction is here ? There is none in the terms. We do not say that three Gods are one God, or three persons are one person, or that God is three in the same sense that he is one. Nor is there any in the ideas. When we say that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, we do not mean that they are separate and distinct divini- ties, but that each of them possesses, in common with others, the nature, and attributes, and glory of God. Do you ask how can these things be.^ We 284 SERMONS. answer — the facts only are revealed, and therefore known ; the mode is not, and is therefore among the secret' things which belong unto the Lord. But it is said, this God is " a strange being unlike our own minds." He would not be the God of the Scriptures if he were not, in many respects, unlike his creatures. To deny this, is to take away the principal reason against image-worship. Besides, what is there in our own minds like self-existence, omniscience, or any other incommunicable perfection of God ? Will Dr. Channing deny these because he can not find anything like them in created minds? And so this vaunted argument turns out to be a mere unsup- ported assertion. The error in this objection originates in the pov- erty of language, and men's not " refining their con- ceptions of the personalities and unity of God, separating from him whatever is limited and imper- fect," in the ideas conveyed by these terms in their application to God. Hence, when they apply to him their gross and limited ideas of person, derived from themselves and the creatures around them, without correcting their conceptions by what is peculiar to the Divine Being, the unity is contra- dicted. And what is this peculiarity? Why, that these personalities are of such a kind as to consist with the unity of God. An angel might have said at the creation of man, that the unity of his person and the plurality of his natures was a contradiction, because he had never known unity of person before THE TRUE religion: 285 to consist with more than one nature, with as much reason as men now account the unity of God con- tradicted by the pkirality of persons because they have never known unity of nature to consist with more than one person. The only difference would have been, that the angel called that a contradiction which he could not deny to be a fact ; rational Christians contradict the testimony of God. They would contradict themselves, were they to apply the same rule of reasoning to the attributes which themselves acknowledge. Ask a Unitarian why he believes that God is omnipresent and eter- nal? He will tell you, because the evidence of the fact is conclusive. For the same general reason we believe the Trinity. Ask him again : " Do you fully comprehend these facts? Can your mind grasp the whole idea of an Infinite Being? He will answer, No. Pursue your inquiries : " Can you ap- ply your limited and inadequate ideas to God, and reason from them, without contradicting his bound- less nature and attributes?" If he is not willing to give a negative to this question, it can easily be proved that he ought. Let any one try the force of his mind in comprehending infinite duration, and he will soon find that his utmost stretch of thought is made up of limited portions of duration, which must always fall infinitely short of eternity. Let him apply his ideas of eternity to the life-time of the Almighty, and, measuring backward in eternity past, he will come to a point where God was not ; 286 SERMONS. and forwards, in eternity to come, he will reach a period where the Eternal will cease to be. By the absurdity of such reasoning in this case, we may see it in every other. And the same rule of right reasoning, which removes contradiction from the doctrine of the attributes, will clear it away from the doctrine of the Trinity. 4. '' Unitarianism promotes a fervent and enlight- ened piety, by asserting the absolute and unbounded perfection of God's character." In this argument Dr. Channing proceeds to reason in the same un- philosophical manner as has been exposed in the former. He will persist in attaching precisely the same ideas of person to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as he is in the habit of attaching to limited beings. Hence he brings up again the misrepre- sentation that Trinitarians believe in three different Gods. Now, this manner of reasoning on things too high for us, as is everything peculiar to God, is utterly inconsistent with the modesty of true science, and, if carried out to its legitimate results, will not stop short of blank atheism or gross idol- atry. Try it on the omnipresence of God. We have no ideas of the presence of an agent, without confining him to the sphere of his operations, and excluding him from all other space. What positive concep- tion can you form, then, of his presence in every point of space, without restoring the pagan mythol- ogy, and peopling the universe with innumerable THE TRUE RELIGION. 287 multitudes of gods? Or if you chose to conceive of it as an extended substance, filling all space, al- though that conception no creature can adequately form, yet still on that supposition you must, by ex- tending, divide and weaken your God ; so that only a part of his being, and a limited knowledge and power, can be exercised in any particular place, or you invest every point in this boundless extension with every other attribute of God. This wily reasoner brings into play the two great instruments of his art — begging the question, and changing the ground of argument. He takes for granted, that the distinction of persons in the one God is a nullity; and then, supposing that God is one person, he infers that to add to him any other persons is superfluous, or derogates from his glory, by dividing it with him : whereas the very point in dispute is, whether there are in the one God three equal and undivided persons, each of whom pos- sesses, not separately and exclusively, but in com- mon with the others, the attributes of divinity. The Trinitarian system does present one grand and glorious object of worship — the One Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — with the inexpressi- ble advantage over the Unitarian, that all the moral attributes of God are displayed in a glorious har- mony : whilst in that of the Unitarian, his holiness, justice, and truth are outraged, to make way for his mercy. Nay more ; with all its vaporing, the Unitarian scheme strips the character of God even 288 SERMONS. of the attribute of mercy ; for if it be not right to punish the transgressor, his impunity is a matter of debt. Dr. Channing does Calvinism the honor of mak- ing it the object of his bitterest hate. To be singled out from among all the battalions of the grand army of Emmanuel, as the worthiest mark for his heaviest artillery, is a strong testimony from the common enemy that their mode of warfare is the most galling, or that the positions they occupy are the most dangerous to his cause. § 5. ** Unitarianism is peculiarly favorable to piety, because it accords with nature, with the world around and the world within us." As Trini- tarians derive their doctrine from revelation alone, they are not concerned to prove that it is taught by nature : they are not willing to admit that reve- lation can not go beyond the sphere of nature, and teach us what else we had never known. To grant this, would be to meet the Deists more than half- way ; it would be to own that revelation is not necessary. Nature, however, gives no evidence against the Trinity. All the unity of design which it exhibits proves no more than the unity of coun- sel, operation, and nature of the Triune God. "Trinitarianism," he says, '' is a confused system, shut up in a few texts," '* and those so dark, that the gifted minds of Milton, Newton, and Locke could not find it there." If it had been revealed but once or twice, that were enough to satisfy any THE TRUE RELIGION. 289 who are not too wise to be taught of God. But in truth these texts are neither few nor dark : they stud the firmament of revelation, like stars for number and for brightness. Instead of escaping the perception of such gifted minds as those of Milton, Newton, and Locke, any man of common understanding must be grossly ignorant, or willfully blind, who does not see in them these first princi- ples of the oracles of God. If those distinguished men, by the authority of whose names Dr. Chan- ning would support his cause, were, as he insin- uates. Unitarian in their sentiments, then they were destitute of common honesty, for they lived and died in the communion of the Church of Eng- land,"^ one of the most prominent defenders of the Trinitarian doctrines. Those who are so defective in the moral quali- fications of good witnesses are not much to be relied on, however great their intellectual strength. Such gross hypocrites are no advantage to any cause but that of wickedness ; else Satan himself may be an honor to the cause he espouses, when he chooses to appear as an angel of light, for in * To this remark Milton is an exception. He was no churoh- man ; but it appears " he was not tainted with an heretical peculiarity of sentiment " while he lived, nor when Johnson wrote the Lives of the Poets. The posthumous work lately ascribed to him, if authentic, is at variance with his acknowl- edged writings, and only proves his authority to be nothing worth. 290 SERMONS. intellect he surpasses them, and his moral charac- ter is the antitype of theirs. Unitarians ought to have good evidence for assertions which involve so heavy a charge against men whose characters have come down to posterity with honor. How much credit is due to such assertions, may be seen by contrasting them with their own writings and their history. In showing how little reason Unitarians have to plume themselves on the authority of these great names, Trinitarians do not stake their cause on any human authority: their faith stands not in the wisdom of men, but of God. Milton, in his Paradise Lost, thus sublimely sings : " Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss, Equal to God, and equally enjoying Godlike fruition." ******* " Here shalt thou incarnate ; here shalt reign Both God and man, Son both of God and man ! " —Book III. Locke in his Paraphrase on I Cor. x. 9, thus writes: ** Neither let us provoke Christ, as some of them provoked, and were destroyed by ser- pents." — chap, xii., ver. 11., *' All which gifts are wrought in believers by one and the same Spirit, dis- tributing to every one in particular as he thinks fit," compared with verse 6: *' It is the same God that works all these extraordinary gifts in every one that has them." Note on verse 10 : *' Prophecy com- THE TRUE RELIGION. 291 prehends these three things: prediction, singing by the dictate of the Spirit and understanding, and ex- plaining the mysterious hidden sense of Scripture, by an immediate illumination and motion of the Spirit." Note on Romans, chap, i, ver. 4 : " According to the spirit of holiness, is here manifestly opposed to, according to the flesh, in the foregoing verse ; and so must mean that pure and spiritual part in him, which by divine extraction he had immediately from God." These quotations prove that their authors had seen somewhere the doctrines of the divinity and two natures of Christ, and the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. How desperate the cause which forces its defenders to exhume the illustrious dead, and suborn them to give testimony in favor of Unitarianism, in direct contradiction to their writings when alive. Nay, the very day be- fore Locke died, " he very particularly exhorted all about him to read the holy Scriptures, exalting the love of God shown to man in justifying him by faith in Jesus Christ ; and returning him special thanks for having called him to the knowledge of that Divine Saviour." — [Simpson's Plea. Of Newton it is stated [Nich. Enc. Brit.] : " He was firmly attached to the Church of England, and that book which he studied with the greatest application was the Bible." Does this look like Unitarianism. 292 SERMONS. § 6. "■ Unitarianism favors piety, by opening the mind to new and ever enlarging views of God." Dr. Channing's positions on this subject rest on his own unsupported assertions. It has not been and can not be shown, that any one legitimate deduction of reason, drawn from the works of creation and providence, contravenes any one Trini- tarian peculiarity. As far as the testimony of crea- tion and providence goes, it corroborates the Trini- tarian doctrines. When these deponents close their evidence, and revelation speaks alone, he who will not believe its witness, makes God a liar. The greatest liar in the community will be believed, when he testifies what is known from other sources to be true. Here then is the precise point of dif- ference between us : Trinitarians receive the Scrip- tures as the highest, clearest, conclusive evidence on the great subjects of religion ; Unitarians condescend to receive them when their reason testifies the same things ; but whenever there is an appearance of con- trariety, they utterly refuse to submit to the declar- ations of the Word of God, however clear and un- equivocal. What do they more than Deists or Atheists themselves? It is not true, that Trinitarianism disinclines the mind to bright and enlarged views of God's works. These works lose none of their interest and glory to the pious Trinitarian, whose mind is possessed with the delightful persuasion, that he who garnished the heavens with beauty is his Redeemer from eternal THE TRUE RELIGION. 293 death. Never does this world appear in such a radiancy as when viewed as the theater on which were exhibited the wonders of redeeming mercy, which things the angels desire to look into. The Trinity, Incarnation, and Substitution, it is objected, are doctrines " different from the teaching of the Universe." The man who never passed the boundaries of his native land knows nothing, either by sense or reason, of any other countries. He would act like a Unitarian, were he to refuse infor- mation derived from the testimony of others, but what would become of the enlargement of his views of the works of creation ? Dr. Channing says that " God's vicegerent in the human soul pronounces it a crime to lay the penal- ties of vice on the pure and unoffending." This vice- gerent must be rightly informed, or it will be a blind leader of the blind. Paul verily thought that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The objection to the vicarious sufferings of Christ either changes the ground of argument, or begs the question. If by the unoffend- ing is meant a person noway connected or identified in law with the original offender, this is an entirely different question from the one in debate. In this sense it is wrong to punish the unoffending in- stead of the guilty. But if by the unoffending is meant one who, although originally clear, voluntar- ily assumes the obligations of another, or on whom, by the authority of God, his obligations are laid, it is 294 SERMONS. a mere gratuitous assumption to say that it is a crime to lay upon him, who is thus representatively guilty, the penalties of the original offender. This assertion condemns and contradicts the dispensations of Providence towards all communities. *' Quidquid delirant reges plectuntur achivi ": Rulers rave, and the people suffer for it. David numbers the people, and the nation of Israel is visited with the pesti- lence. It is at war with an approved principle of civil society : One man, originally free, becomes surety for another, and is justly held accountable for his debts. Trinitarianism is charged with throwing a gloom over God's works, aggravating the miseries of life, and exaggerating the sins of man. This represen- tation supposes that the doctrines of man's depravity and guilt by nature, are not true. If those doctrines are true, as reason and Scripture both declare, it will be hard to give a picture of the condition of man by nature, more deeply shaded than the truth. The wretch in whose veins a deadly poison rankles has much reason for gloom until he finds an antidote. The culprit under sentence of death for his crimes can find little enjoyment in the beauties of creation, until he obtains a pardon. Who, then, is the real friend of man ? he who would show him his awful condition, and warn him of his danger, that he might flee from the wrath to come ; or he would persuade him that his condition is comfortable, though he never experienced the re- THE TRUE RELIGIOJV. 295 newing of the Holy Ghost, and that there is no dan- ger, though he never obtained redemption through the blood of Christ ? As these are fundamental doctrines in this contro- versy. Dr. Channing has alluded to some features in the character and condition of man, calculated to dis- credit them, as he supposes, in the eyes of the world. Men may, through the influence of habit derived from a truly Christian stock, of education, a happy consti- tutional temperament, and self-love, possess and ex- hibit many of the virtues which are the stability and ornament of society, and at the same time be utterly destitute of those affections, and that obedience to- ward God, which are the soul of piety. Although no man deserves to be accounted truly religious, who does not exemplify in his daily walk that mor- ality which is current and highly esteemed among men : yet he may attract the confidence of men by his uprightness and truth, and win their love by his kind and gentle deportment, while God is not in all his thoughts, and in his heart, he says to his Maker : " Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways." The fear and the love of God may be unknown, as principles of his conduct ; Jehovah may be dethroned from the dominion of his heart, and the idol mammon, or false honor, or fleshly delights, impiously exalted and most de- voutly worshiped and served in his place. Sup- pose a family of children, affectionately attentive to each other's comfort, and living in harmony and 296 SERMON'S. mutual good offices, whilst with one consent they were deaf to the voice of parental authority, and utterly destitute of love to the father that begat them, and watched over them, and provided for them, and supplied them with those enjo3^ments with which they were daily regaling themselves and each other ; would not the common sense of man- kind pronounce them dead to the duties of piety ? Would it not, with all their kindness to each other, pronounce them a company of vile ingrates, not fit to live ? Apply this illustration, which is far more favorable to Unitarian views than the real case, to the conduct of men in relation to their Creator, and it will convict them of rebellion against the author- ity of God — an entire want of love to him, and re- gard to his glory, and gratitude for his benefit ; and whenever his authority and his claims cross their inclinations, their hearts rise in positive enmity against him. And does not such a total dereliction of moral principle in their treatment of God himself prove the human race awfully depraved, and dead in sin ? Now, that men are by nature alienated from the life of God is evident from the history of the world. Except those parts which have been illumi- nated by a revelation from heaven, darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people. Idolatry and atheism, in various forms, have divided the world between them : and even in Christian countries with respect to most of their inhabitants, the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness receiveth it THE TRUE religion: 297 not. They live as habitually indifferent to God ; as satisfied in the entire absence of all fellowship with him, as if he were what an apostle calls the idols of the heathen, a " nothing in the world." Even those who have received the truth in the love of it, are decided witnesses of human depravity. They have all been brought from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God ; and they still see in themselves so much of opposition to the will of God, as keeps alive the humbling convic- tion, that '* in them that is in their flesh (or nature as far as yet unrenewed by the Divine Spirit), dwelleth no good thing." Indeed, so complete and overwhelming is the proof on this point, that there is not the slightest set-off against it. To counterbalance the worship of the sun and moon, of deified men, " Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, Whose attributes were rage, revenge, and lust," infidelity can not produce a solitary instance of a human being, save the worshipers of the God of the Bible, who answered the end of his existence, made the will of the true God the rule of his life, the glory of God his end, and the enjoyment of the Divine favor and fellowship the chief good of his existence. Even Socrates, the boast of heathen antiquity, denied, on his trial, that he was opposed to the worship of the gods of his country : and the last 298 SERMONS. act of his life was an act of idolatry. "^ And the present state of the world, in lands not Christian, is no better than the former. Superstition, idolatry, impiety, and practical if not avowed atheism, have spread their baleful influence over every land. To every individual among them, Jehovah is an un- known God, save that the ambassadors of Christ have been made the honored instruments of turn- ing some of them from their dumb idols to serve the living God. Those very men themselves, who deny this doctrine, and abuse its propagators as slanderers of human nature, notwithstanding they live in the full blaze of gospel light, do give in their own conduct confirmation of the truth, only less strong than proof from Holy Writ. They are en- deavoring with all their ingenuity and might to put out the light of the world — to exterminate the religion of the Bible. While one party are opening their battery upon the outworks, another, under cover of friendship, are undermining the citadel. Whilst one is impudently engaged in spreading open infidelity, the other, pretending Christianity, is diligently endeavoring to divest our holy religion of its life and its glory. But if innumerable and indisputable facts in the history of man in every age, not only in the regions of barbarism, but where taste and literature and science have shed their brightest beams, convict *Rollin's Ancient History, book ix., chap. 4. THE TRUE RELIGION. 299 Unitarian infidelity of error, even on the most favorable position, that men were not naturally and originally disposed to wrong each other — what shall we say, seeing in truth they are disposed to wrong each other as well as God ; to violate the duties of the second table of the law as well as the first. How little does the history of the world contain besides a detail of its crimes ! Injustice, perfidy, murder, cruelty, and oppression blacken almost every page. Whence come the wars and fightings which have, in every age, set man against his brother, and turned our earth into a field of blood ? Come they not hence even of their lusts ? On this subject let us hear the account of Paul : not that it is supposed the authority of an apostle will have any weight with those who are previously deter- mined not to submit to his decision ; but because he presents, on the veracity of a witness quite un- impeachable, a clear and comprehensive view of the universal depravity of men, and traces its his- tory from the beginning. Rom. i., 28-32: ''As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient : being filled \vith all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inven- tors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural 300 SEI^MOiV affection, implacable, unmerciful : who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death ; not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." Unless in those places where the influence of Christianity has elevated the tone of general morals, purged away the grossness and smoothed the as- perity of the natural man, his inbred corruption breaks out in every species of abomination and crime. More than three-fourths of the world are at this moment sunk in idolatry, superstition, and all their attendant evils: and even in Christian countries, what an array of laws, and judgment- seats, and prisons, and penitentiaries, and gibbets, is necessary to restrain this depravity from sweep- ing, with hideous desolation, over the land. The natural evils to which man is subjected prove him a sinner, and that not in some exempt cases only, but universally. " Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," is not only the lan- guage of the Bible, but of right reason. No other credible account can be given of the fact, that man is born to trouble as the sparks that fly upward ; that from the cradle to the grave, in every stage of his existence, he endures af^ictions till Death, the king of terrors, closes the scene ! If a deadly taint of corruption have not pervaded the mass of human- kind, why do the innocent suffer? It is not re- quired by the justice of God, but forbidden by it ; for to inflict unmerited pain is the very essence of THE TRUE RELIGION-. 30 1 injustice. It can do no good to those intelligences who look into the Divine administration of human affairs ; for it confounds the distinction between good and evil, by treating the righteous and the wicked alike. And surely it is the reverse of good- ness to inflict unnecessary misery on an innocent creature. It does not blunt the edge of this aro-u- ment to say that God can make up in another Avorld for all the evil he inflicts upon the innocent in this ; for this makes the happiness of heaven a debt to them, and not a gift, and exhibits the God of glory making reparation to his own creatures for the injury he has done them. An error here is ruinous, for none will apply for the salvation re- vealed in the Scriptures, until he is persuaded that he needs it. He must be sensible of his bondage, before he will implore the aid of the Redeemer ; he must feel his sickness, ere he will apply to the Physician of souls. There is a quackery in theol- ogy as well as in physic, which Trinitarians care- fully avoid. Their theology obscures none of the tokens of God's love within and around us ; but would first restore man's nature to such a healthful state as would fit it for enjoyment, and secure his redemption of the forfeited title to an heirship of all things present and to come. § 7. " Unitarianism promotes piety, by the high place which it assigns to piety in the character and work of Jesus Christ." " He was devoted to the Father's will, and Is 302 SERMONS. therefore a good example. His office is to reveal the Father." The influence of the example of Christ is claimed by the Trinitarians on surely as good grounds as the Unitarians can urge, one of whose distinguished writers " declares : " The Unitarian doctrine is, that Jesus of Nazareth was a man, constituted in all re- spects like other men ; subject to the same infirm- ities, the same ignorance, prejudices, and frailties." Why such a man, or any mere man, should occupy a higher place than the angels that kept their first estate, — that excel in might, that do God's will, hearkening to the voice of his word, — it remains for Unitarians to explain. Indeed, if the sufferings of Christ do not include the wrath of God due to our sins, when he redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, no reason can be as- signed why the order of precedency should not be reversed, and Stephen, and thousands of his other followers, occupy a higher place in the hearts of Christians than he by whose name they are called ; for, on the Unitarian supposition that the cup which the Father put into his hand contained in it nothing of the horrors of that death which was the wages of our sin, in the prospect of which his nature recoiled, and in the endurance of which he uttered the doleful lamentation, " My God, my God, why hast than forsaken me?" then their patience * Mr, Belsham, as quoted in the Appendix to Magee on Atonement, vol. ii., pp. 189-192. THE TRUE RELIGION. 303 ' was more unshrinking, their submission more un- complaining than his. From this consequence every truly Christian heart revolts, with whatever apathy it may be viewed by those whose steady aim and persevering effort it is to degrade the Son whom angels are commanded to worship, and all to honor even as they honor the Father. His official pre-eminence, on this scheme, is as great a mystery as his personal. If his divinity be denied, and his influence as a teacher be confined to his personal ministry and to what is recorded of his preaching, his pre-eminence is ** a riddle "-^formore souls appear to have been brought to the knowledge of the truth by the preaching of the apostles than by his ; and their writings, under the influence of the Spirit, are more extensive and full on the va- rious parts of the Christian doctrine than all that is extant of his sayings. His priestly office, agreeably to this system, con- sists only in intercession. If Dr. Channing relies on the intercession of one saint, he can certainly find no fault with the Roman Catholics for their {-eliance on the intercession of all saints, or any other saint. The difficulty with Trinitarians is, how these crea- tures can exercise a power peculiar to God, " search- ing the heart " to know what are the wants of those who desire their interest at the court of Heaven. Besides, on this scheme the intercession of Christ is not only superfluous, because everything can be accomplished without it, but it is an insult to the 304 SERMONS. Divine mercy, by implying that it needs anything to excite it to action. His office of King is turned into a figure of speech. " 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." This work he accomplishes by leaving us a holy example, and teaching " the doctrine of eternal life, and that the favor of God extended to the Gentiles equally with the Jews, and he was occa- sionally inspired to foretell future events." " But when Jesus or his apostles deliver opinions upon subjects unconnected with the object of their mis- sion, such opinions, and their reasonings upon them, are to be received with the same attention and cau- tion with those of other persons in similar circum- stances, of similar education, and with similar habits of thinking." It is egregious trifling with the un- derstandings and feelings of the Christian commu- nity for men who can thus fritter away the work and offices of the Redeemer into sounds, signifying nothing, to pretend either love or respect for his name. To those who believe the Scriptures there is no more difficulty (for all practical purposes) in understanding the person of Christ composed of two natures, divine and human, than the person of man composed of body and spirit. All the in- congruity and absurdity of which infidels of every class have ever complained is to be laid to the THE TRUE RELIGION. 305 charge of their own unbelief, and not of the glorious fact, or the luminous evidence which proves it. § 8. " Unitarianism promotes piety, by meeting the wants of man as sinners": "these wants are, assurances of that mercy which seeks the lost, and blesses the returning child." To these views there are several insuperable ob- jections. In the first place, Unitarianism does not meet the wants of the sinner at all, by giving any solution to the problem, how God can be just and yet justify the ungodly. As to how a sinner can be delivered from his obligation to punishment, Dr. Channing does not give a syllable of instruction. He escapes from the difficulty of reconciling the claims of justice and mercy by denying the claims of justice altogether. Unitarianism "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." Of course it makes no pro- vision for the removal of the sinner's guilt. In their rage for simplicity, these Rational Christians not only reject all the Divine persons but one, and every moral attribute but love, but they deny the relations of Governor and Judge, and leave him only that of Father. The proprieties even of this ref- lation condemn their scheme; for, according to the laws given by Moses, parents were required to ^wi^ testimony against their own rebellious children, and deliver them up to death, not for their amendment, 3o6" SERMONS. but that others might hear and fear. (Deut. xxi., 18-21.) Their views are in perfect contradiction to reason as well as Scripture. If men are moral agents, there must be a law and a penalty, a governor and a judge. A law without a penalty is a thing unknown ; and a law with a penalty which is never inflicted, even when the law is most atro- ciously violated, is a bugbear. Is God the Judge of all the earth ; is he the Governor among the nations? Shall his throne, established in justice and judgment, have fellowship with iniquity, by proclaiming a universal amnesty for all manner and degree of crimes that have been or shall be com- mitted ? What would men think of a earthly ruler, who, instead of being a terror to evil-doers, an avenger to execute wrath, should uniformly par- don every transgressor of the laws ? Would he not be execrated by the injured and insulted commu- nity, as a betrayer of his trust, an encourager of wickedness, as joining in a conspiracy against the common good ? This scheme denies of God the attribute of jus- tice. " A God all mercy, is a God unjust." This point is clear, if " the gifted mind of Milton " understood it : " Die he, or Justice must, unless for him Some other able and as willing pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death." — " Paradise Lost," Book 3. If it be no part of the character of God to hate THE TRUE RE LI G 10 M. 3^7 all workers of iniquity, to take vengeance on trans- gressors, then either he loves the way of evil-doers, and will bless them, or he is indifferent to the con- duct of his intelligent and moral creatures. But to look with equal eye upon virtue and vice argues an utter destitution of moral taste, an entire want of intrinsic holiness ; and to bless with his love and everlasting glory those who have lived and died in sin would imply in him who thus eminently rewards iniquity a character positively bad. Such notions exhibit the Creator not only shorn of his glories, but encompassed with the rayless horrors of eternal night. Now to deny of God an essential attribute, is to undeify him. Nothing can exist divested of any of its essential parts. Take from man his head or his heart, and he is not. Deny of God the attribute of rectoral justice, and you dethrone him, or turn his throne into a throne of iniquity. If God is just, those who deny this attribute are atheists. What they call God, has no counterpart in existence ; is a nonentity, — a nothing. It is as different from the true God, as a headless trunk from a living man ; as the God of Epicurus from the God of the Scrip- tures, to whom vengeance belongs. Another objection to this system is, that it inflicts a deadly wound upon the interests of the sinner, by administering an opiate to his conscience. If all the evils incurred by transgression were only the loss of God's image and the happiness of hea- 3o8 SERMONS. ven, with the shame and suffering which belong to this, the consciences of sinners would give them little or no disturbance. For those pleasures they have no relish ; nay, they are a weariness and a loathing — they can not away with them. Give them a Mahometan paradise, and the Christian heaven they can lose without a sigh. It is the fearful look- ing for of a judgment to come that makes them tremble. If, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, the hearts of the children of men are fully set in them to do evil, what a full swing will they give to their indulgence in sin, when assured, by a system calling itself Christian, that no punishment will ever be inflicted ! Besides, the Unitarian doctrine denies the attri- bute of mercy, by denying that there is any penalty to be remitted ; of course, the Unitarians are yet to be informed that there is any such *' quality " in God. The Trinitarian idea of mercy is that in common, as well as scriptural use. " And if he to whom little is forgiven, will love little, how much more glorious will the Divine mercy appear to him, who believes he has been forgiven the debt of eternal death, than to the man who denies that any debt of punishment has ever been incurred." — (Luke vii., 41-48.) The object this scheme aims at, is to bring back lost minds to God ; and this it has no adequate means to accomplish. The love of God, severed from his justice and truth, has never kept one of THE TRUE RELIGION. 309 Adam's race from sin, nor reclaimed one trans- gressor from the evil of his ways. Nay, repentance itself is impossible. No one can be sorry for having offended God, who believes that God never was offended. That sorrow which springs only from having played the fool with one's own interests, and has no respect to the injured rights of God, is in a religious sense no repentance at all. Dr. Channing objects to Trinitarianism, that "it gives such views of God, that mercy cannot coalesce with him ; that under his government man has no need of mercy, for he owes no allegiance and there- fore can contract no guilt. He is the injured party : the wrong lies on the side of the Creator." It is evident at first sight, that between these two systems, each of which charges the other with stripping the character of God of both justice and mercy, there can be no compromise, no communion, no common religion. Those fearful consequences have been charged upon Trinitarianism, because it teaches that men come into the world charged with the guilt of Adam's sin, and that eternal punish- ment is threatened as the wages of sin. The fact of guilt derived from the sin of man's representative is the only reasonable account of the phenomena of original and universal depravity, and the ills that flesh is heir to. It is a fact that accords with all that we know of the dispensations of Providence, and only assumes what is a first principle in reli- gion — what God does, must be right. What God 3IO SERMONS. has threatened can be known only from what he has declared in his Word, and can therefore never be determined by general reason. The appeal is to the Word and to the testimony. But if, as Trinitarians believe, these doctrines are clearly taught in the Word of God, and confirmed by the voice of reason, as far as reason testifies, then these consequences belong to Dr. Channing himself, and those who think with him. They have taken part with the enemies of God. They have presumptuously dared to call the Holy One of Israel to their bar, and con- demn him as unmerciful and unjust. How fearful the depravity which could venture upon a position like this ! How deadly the enmity against the Only True God, which could give expression to blasphe- mies fit only for the tenants of hell ! He objects to the manner in which Trinitarianism supposes pardon to be communicated. It teaches "that the sufferings of the sinner are removed by a full satisfaction made to Divine justice, in the suffer- ings of a substitute." To this he opposes his own definition of forgiveness, w^hich excludes all judicial infliction on account of sin, and which is contrary to the meaning of the term in Scripture and common use. On this point let us hear the gifted Locke, for whose authority Unitarians pretend so much rever- ence. In his paraphrase on Rom. iv., 25, he says of Jesus our Lord, " who was delivered to death for our offenses, and was raised again for our justifica- tion "; and in his note on the same place, " that our THE TRUE RELIGION. 311 Saviour by his death atoned for our sins, and so we were innocent, and thereby freed from the punish- ment due to sin." The salvation of the sinner is a matter of pure mercy to him. The intervention of a substitute makes the exercise of mercy consistent with the claims of justice. But Dr. Channing does not like this circuitous remission. ''Nothing," he says, " should stand between the soul and God's mercy." No. Not even to preserve inviolate the justice and truth of God? Why then does the intercession of Christ stand between the soul and God's mercy? He objects to the doctrine of an infinite atone- ment : First, that " it supposes man placed under a legislation, and the sovereign possessed of attributes at which he shudders." Many a criminal has shud- dered before at the severity of the law which con- demned him to death. But in a contest between a judge and a criminal at his bar, about the evil of his sin, it is not difficult to see whose opinion de- serves the most weight. The comparison by which he endeavors to bring odium upon the doctrine of the cross, serves only to show his enmity to the truth. As it contains no argument, it requires none in reply. " Christ crucified " haa been, in every age, "to the Jew a stumbling-block, and to the Greek foolishness." It does contain, however, a gross and willful misrepresentation of the Trinitarian doctrine ; I say willful, for in the very next paragraph he states and endeavors to set their doctrine aside. He has 312 SEJ^A/OJVS. said that the primary idea of atonement is "the public execution of a God," which according to him- self means that " the Eternal Being really suffered and died." To represent the Divine Nature as suf- fering death is not only unauthorized, but directly contrary to the Trinitarian doctrine. Their stand- ard writings and confessions of faith give no coun- tenance to any such idea. This he ought to have known before he ventured to publish such a charge. They publish to the world what he would intimate is only to be extorted from the private convictions of pious Trinitarians. '* God took into union with himself our nature, that is, a human body and soul, and these bore the suffering for our sins ; which per- son is very God and very man, yet one Christ." " He endured most grievous torments imme- diately in his soul, and most painful sufferings in his body." * The rule confirmed by scriptural and common use, by which the orthodox language on this sub- ject is justified, is thus laid down : " Christ, in the work of mediation, acteth according to both na- tures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature." (Acts xx. 28. John iii. 13. i John iii. 16.) How common an expression it is for * Westminster Confession, chap. viii. THE TRUE RELIGION. 313 the loss of lives at sea, — " Every soul on board perished ! " Thus having charged Trinitarians with what they do not hold, he construes their denial of it into a confession of defeat, whilst the real point in debate remains untouched, — Whether the divine nature being united to the human, in the one per- son of Christ, " without conversion, composition, or confusion," does not give to the vicarious sufferings of the human nature, as an atonement for sin, a value that is infinite ? His second objection is, that the doctrine is " wholly delusion." This goes upon the supposition, that the suffer- ings of Christ's human nature derive no additional value from its union with his Divine person. Locke quotes Acts xx. 28, very familiarly to prove a pur- chase: ''the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood." His "' gifted mind " saw no delusion in the doctrine. It is as truly the afBiction of a man that his finger is cut, as that his good name is slandered ; although the seat of suffering in the one case is his body, in the other his mind. The suffering endured by a man's body is a greater natural evil than the same amount of pain endured by the body of a brute ; and the wounds of a patriot general in behalf of his country endear him more to the hearts of his countrymen than those of his private soldiers endear them. If, then, the same amount of suffering rises in importance with the dignity of the sufferer, who shall limit the im- 314 SERMONS. portance of the sufferings, as an atonement for sin, endured in his human nature by Emanuel, God with us. In a postscript to his sermon Dr. Channing laments the necessity he was under of using the word atonement in its Trinitarian sense. What then is the true sense ? ** I have a strong impression that the prevalent views of it may easily be shown to be false, though the true views of it may not so easily be established. On this point there is a diversity of opinion." But Unitarians have pretended to explain it by the moral influence of Christ's suffer- ings, in the way of example, and as a confirmation of the truth which he taught. Now it seems that the true views of this fundamental doctrine have never yet been established, not even by these modern luminaries themselves. Their establish- ment exists only in the unexplored and difficult regions of possibility. If Unitarians have author- ized Dr. Channing to be their confessor, they have swung from their moorings, and know not where they shall anchor again. Afloat upon the ocean of scepticism, but one point is determined — that they never will yield to the truth. § 9. Unitarianism promotes piety, because it is a rational religion." How rational this religion is, has been seen in the preceeding part of these remarks. A very rational religion truly! which prefers groundless and ever-shifting theory to the plainest facts in the providence and word of God ; THE TRUE religion: 3^5 which, if its principles were reduced to practice, would subvert the foundations of civil society. By- denouncing all judicial inflictions, it would let the worst part of society loose like beasts of prey, to raven upon the best : it would dethrone Jehovah from the government of his own creatures, forcing him to see his laws trampled upon, his mercy despised, and his threatenings set at nought with impunity. What it wants, however, in reason, it makes up in ** reasoning pride," a quality common to infidels of every class, from the foul-mouthed Atheist to the smooth-tongued Unitarian. On the other hand, whilst Trinitarians contending for the supreme jurisdiction of the holy Scriptures on the subject of religion, " believe and show the reason of a man," they deny the charge brought against them by their opponents, that they quench their intellectual light. They give to reason the place and office which belong to her, to determine, first, the evidences of Divine revelation, and then, by fair interpretation, what that revelation contains. They only refuse to exalt her to a station which the experience of the world demonstrates that she is utterly unable to fill. And to reject the light of revelation in favor of that reason, is as absurd as to refuse the aid of the king of day in discerning the face of a country, and the relative situation of places upon it, and insist on determining those things by the light of a taper at midnight. Since then, upon examination, it turns out that the light 1 6 SERMONS. within them (of which Unitarians boast so loudly) is darkness, how great is their darkness ! Having heard the verdict of reason, let us bring this cause to the tribunal of Scripture, and submit with rever- ence to its unerring decisions. § I. The doctrine of the Trinity Is taught, Matt, xxviii. 19: "Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Baptism is the seal of admission into the household of God — the sacred rite by which is performed the most solemn act of religious worship, even the con- secration of the whole man, to the service and glory of God. " In or into the name," expresses to whom the consecration is made. That it is made to the Father, is not disputed ; but whatever proves this in the text proves equally that it is made also to the Son and to the Holy Spirit — the Triune God of the Bible. A man can do no greater honor to God than to devote himself to him. In devoting him- self, then, to the Son and Holy Spirit, he regards them together with the Father, his God. It is absurd to suppose that the baptized are devoted to the service and glory of a creature, and "■ emana- tions," in the same manner and with the same solem- nity as to the Most High God. It is inconceivable why the Saviour should use language which is directly calculated, if the Unitarian hypothesis be true, to promote idolatry, Moreover, in obeying this command, the apostles baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus, which can only be justified by THE TRUE RELIGION. 317 saying that, when one Divine person is named, the others are understood from the unity of the Divine Nature. The argument is equally strong, if the formula be rendered as in our version, " in the name, by the authority "; for if "■ in the name of the Father " means by the authority of God (and the phrase is equally strong in the case of the Son and Holy Spirit), their authority is, equally with that of the Father, the authority of God. But that a creature, and " emanations," should be joined in an act of supreme authority with the Most High God, is absurd. The truth contained in this passage, written over the very threshold of visible Christ- ianity, is corroborated by others in the commence- ment of revelation. Gen. i. 26 ; " And God said, let us make man in our image, after our like- ness." Here God is represented in some sense plural, and holding counsel about the creation of man. The meaning is clear on the Trinitarian doctrine, but utterly inexplicable on any other. Some have said that God took counsel with his angels. But were they capable of acting the part of creators, or of being his counselors to teach him ? " I am Jehovah, that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself." Besides, when man was made, it was in the image of God, and not of angels. Again : it has been said that God speaks after the manner of earthly kings. But the form of speaking was utterly unknown among the kings of 3i8 SERMONS. ancient times : not an example of it is to be found in the Bible. 2 Cor. xiii. 14: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." Now, as it is acknowledged on all hands that when the apostle says " the love of God be with you all," it is a prayer to the Father, that his love might be with his people, so when he says, " the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all," it is a prayer to the Son, for his grace upon the people ; and so of the Holy Ghost ; for the form of expression in all these cases is precisely the same. This inter- pretation is confirmed by parallel passages. Rom. i. 7 : " Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," I Cor. xvi. 23 : " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." Rev. i. 4, 5 : '' Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come ; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne ; and from Jesus Christ." On the Trini- tarian system these passages are consistent and intel- ligible ; but according to the Unitarian, the apostle invokes grace and peace from a creature and emana- tions equally with the only true God. Can prayer to the Virgin Mary, and all the other saints in the Roman calendar, be more idolatrous and absurd ? What can the grace of Christ mean more than the grace of Abraham or Paul? How does addressing prayer to "emanations" differ from the worship of the pagan goddess Fear? THE TRUE RELIGION. 3^9 To give its full force to the argument from scrip- ture in support of the doctrine of the Trinity, it would be necessary to adduce the numerous pas- sages which prove the true and proper divinity of the Son, and the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. A few texts will be quoted as speci- mens. 1. The divinity of the Son is taught, John i., 1-3 : " The Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him ; and without him was not anything made that was made." Ver. 14: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. Rom. ix., 5 : "Of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever." Heb. i., 8: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." Ver. 6 : " When he bringeth in the first- begotten into the world, he saith. And let all the angels of God worship him." Rev. v., 13: "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying. Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." 2. In confirmation of the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit, consider John xiv., 26 : " But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 320 SERMONS. things." Acts v., 3-4 : " Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." i Cor. ii., 10: "For the Spirit searcheth all things; yea, the deep things of God." Ps. cxxxix., 7: '' Whither shall I go from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?" 2 Pet. i., 21: "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." i Cor. xii., 11 : "But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." Heb. ix., 14: " How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself with- out spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God." One of the arts by which Unitarians attempt to impose upon the ignorant and unwary, is to quote passages of Scripture relating to one part of a sub- ject, and thence draw inferences against another part. They adduce texts to prove that there is only one God, which Trinitarians assert as well as they ; and thence infer an entirely different thing — that there are not three persons in that one God. Their authorities contain nothing on the point at issue. To disprove the Divine nature of the Son, they produce Scripture to show that he has the nature of man. On the subject of the true humanity of the Saviour, there is no dispute. We say that the Word THE TRUE RELIGION. 32 1 became flesh ; was made of the seed of David ac- cording to the flesh. But we say more (Rom. ix., 5), that '* He is over all, God blessed forever." Philip ii., 6, 7: "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God : but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." These texts afford a very natural expla- nation of the different representations which the Scriptures give of the Redeemer. When he is said to grow in wisdom and in stature — not to know the day of judgment — to be inferior to the Father, — how obvious is it to refer these descriptions to his human nature, and his becoming the Father's servant in assuming the ofifice of Mediator! But when the names, and attributes, and works, and worship, which are proper only to God, are ascribed to him, to what shall these be referred but to his Divine nature ? If any one, in attempting to prove that there is no spirit in man, should produce the evidence that he has a body, it would be re- garded as a demonstration of the weakness of his own mind, or an insult to the understanding of his readers. There is as much sound philosophy in this, as there is of genuine theology in the argument which would refute the doctrine of the Saviour's divinity, by proving his human nature. It would be very difficult, indeed, for Dr. Channing to compose a sermon against Trinitarian doctrines, were he to confine himself to Scripture testimonies against them 322 SERMONS. on the points debated, for not one such testimony does the Bible contain. His difficulty will be, not to condense within proper limits the multiplicity of his proofs, but to collect any materials for such a work at all: ** Hoc opus hie labor est." He will need optics of Hudibrastic keenness, '* to see what is not to be seen." § 2. The doctrine of innate universal depravity is taught in such texts as these : Gen. vi., 5 : " And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Gen. viii., 21 : ** For the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." Ps. xiv., 2, 3 : " The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy : there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Ps. li., 5 : " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Eph. ii., i, 3 : " Ye were dead in trespasses and sins ; were by nature children of wrath, even as others." Believers to whom the apostle wrote, and others, divide the world between them ; therefore all are by nature children of wrath. Rom. v., 12: *' By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Ver. 18: "By the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." " By one man's disobedience, many THE TRUE RELIGION. 323 were made sinners." The same doctrine is implied in all those texts which teach the necessity of regeneration. Thus saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, John iii., 3 : " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Ver . 7 : " Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." § 3. The doctrine of Atonement, or redemption by the blood of Christ, from the curse of the law, the penalty of sin. Of this the sacrifices under the law were types. Heb. x., i: "The law having a shadow of good things to come." Heb. ix., 12 : " Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Unitarianism reverses the scriptural order, and explains away the sacrificial language applied to Christ, by calling it allusion to the sacrifices of the law. Gal. iii., 13: ''Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." I Pet. ii., 24: "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree : by whose stripes ye were healed." Rev. i., 5, 6 : " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood ; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." If such language does not express the idea that the sufferings of Christ removed from believers the punishment due to their sins, no words can express it, for there are none plainer in any language. According to the Unitarian exposition, we ought to 324 SERMONS. say we were redeemed by Stephen, and Peter, and James, for they also left us a good example, and sealed their doctrine in their blood. § 4. The necessity of an Atonement, in order to the salvation of sinners. Heb. ix., 22 : *' Without shedding of blood, there is no remission." Ex. xxxiv., 7: God "will by no means clear the guilty." Ps. Ixxxix., 14 : " Justice and judgment are the habi- tation of thy throne." Ps. xi. 6 : " Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest : this shall be the portion of their cup." Rom. vi., 23 : " The wages of sin is death." § 5. The necessity of an individual interest in the righteousness of Christ. Rom. x.,4: "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." John iii., 36: " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life : and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him." § 6. The eternity of the punishment of the wicked. Matt, xxv., 46 : " These shall go away into everlasting punishment." Rev. xiv., ii : " The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." Mark ix., 44: "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." These texts need no comment. If any will not believe them, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. In opposition to these, and the other correspond- ing doctrines of the oracles of God, all that is pecu- THE TRUE RELIGION. 325 liar to Unitarianism consists. Unless therefore, their system is better than the Bible, it can not be better calculated to promote "a truly elevated Christian character " than that which it opposes. Indeed they who hold it have no right to be called Chris- tians, any more than they deserve to be called New- tonian philosophers who contradict the distinguish- ing principles in the system of Newton ; or repub- licans, who denounce and oppose all that is charac- teristic of a republican government. We are now prepared for placing this question : Whether Trinitarianism or its opposite is better calculated to form a truly elevated religious char- acter on its proper ground ? Reason, on being examined, gives not a whisper of evidence in favor of Unitarianism ; and her testimony, although fav- orable to Trinitarianism as far as it goes, is, alone and unaided, quite insufficient to inform us wherein the religion of a sinner consists, or how to attain it. Whilst those who prefer her light to that of revela- tion are unavoidably left to the darkness which they love, it may be satisfactory to those who are willing to be taught by Him who cannot lie, briefly to state the question according to the Scriptures. It may also be important to remark, that while Reason, considered as an eternal light, by which the nature and relations of things are made known, is left out of view, yet Reason, as the eye of the mind, which judges of objects upon which a sufficient light is thrown by revelation, is never abandoned. 326 SERMONS. and her office in the whole business of religion is quite indispensable. 1. As the first step in the formation of this religious character, a great moral change is necessary in every instance. 2 Cor. v., 17 : " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." John iii., 3 : " Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God." Now the orthodox scheme tends to produce this commencement of religion, by teaching the doc- trines — 1st, Of original and universal depravity; and, 2d, Consequently the necessity of regenera- tion ; 3d, The necessity of Divine and supernatural influence to produce it, and the agency of the Holy Spirit in its production, hence called the '* renewing of the Holy Ghost." But the Unitarian tendency is all against this work ; for they deny the heredi- tary guilt which makes it necessary, and the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit, the Author of the change, its increase and perfection. 2, The rnan turned from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God, lives a life of faith upon the Son of God, as the ground of his hope for pardon and eternal life. Trinitarianism promotes this, by teaching the necessity of an atonement, in order to the salvation of sinners ; that one of infinite value has been made by the death of Christ, by which those who believe on him are redeemed from the curse of the THE TRUE RELIGION. 327 law, the penalty of sin. Unitarian tendency moves in an opposite direction ; for they reject both the necessity and the fact of any satisfaction being rendered to the justice of God for the sins of those who are saved. 3. The God to whose service and glory he is de- voted is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Trinitarian system promotes this devotion, by teaching that the true God is a Trinity. Uni- tarianism exerts all its energies to expel the belief of that doctrine from the world. 4. He reverences and adores the holiness and justice which make sin exceeding sinful, and de- nounces eternal woe upon all impenitent trans- gressors, nay, the curse upon every violation of the law, whilst he is grateful for the mercy which pro- vided an infinite ransom. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- soever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life." Trinitarianism tends to promote both the fear and the love of God, by teaching that they are due, to the utmost of our faculties, to the harmonious excellencies of the Divine Character, as they are ex- hibited most gloriously in the work of redemption, (Ps. Ixxxv. 10), where '' Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." But Unitarianism teaches its votaries, ** instead of thanking the Sovereign for providing an infinite substitute, to shudder at the attributes 328 SERMONS. which render this expedient necessary." The con- clusion of the whole matter is, that Unitarianism, instead of tending to form an elevated religious character, is directly calculated as far as it prevails, to banish true religion from the world. In fine, let all who love the truth and the souls of men be reminded, that the question in this con- troversy is not whether a more or less perfect form of Christianity shall prevail, but whether the re- ligion of the Scriptures is to be preferred before the traditions and inventions of men. Let them be awake to the existence and ruinous nature of that anti-Christian system which, with siren voice, allures but to destroy ; which fortifies the natural ungodli- ness of men with the mail of an infidel philosophy, until its wretched votaries, their consciences quieted by a spurious religion, and themselves removed from the means and the influences of the true gos- pel, unto another which is not the gospel of Christ, waste in vanity the time of their merciful visitation, ^nd then sink into the jaws of the second death. While, then, you regard with true benevolence the persons of those who oppose themselves to the truth as it is in Jesus — the doctrine that is accord- ing to godliness — give no place, no, not for a moment, to their heresies of perdition. Trini- tarians will, moreover, account it their duty not only to instruct those who oppose themselves, but also to pray for them, if peradventure God may grant them repentance, to the acknowledging of THE TRUE RELIGION. 329 the truth, and that they may deliver themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are led captive by him at his will. Thus only can the charity of Trini- tarians embrace their theological antipodes ; for if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. They who possess the temper of Him who prayed for his murderers do earnestly desire that the Unitarians, like Paul, may embrace, and even " preach the gospel which once they destroyed "; like holy Stephen, may commit their immortal souls, at the hour of death, into the hands of the Redeemer, praying, *' Lord Jesus, re- ceive my spirit ! " and, welcomed to the joy of their Lord, may unite in the anthem of the skies, ascrib- ing ''blessing, and honor, and glory, and power to Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever ! "