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 BX 9178 .C42 E43 1827 
 Chalmers, Thomas, 1780-1847. 
 The effect of man's wrath in 
 the agitation of religious 
 
/ 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 PREACHED ON 
 
 PUBLIC OCCASIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 PRINTED FOR WILLIAM COLLINS; 
 
 WILLIAM WHYTE & CO. AND WM. OLIPHANT, EDINBURGH ; 
 
 R. M. TIMS, AND WM. CURRY, JUN. & CO. DUBLIN; 
 
 G. B. WHITTAKER, AND HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
THE EFFECT OF MAN'S WRATH IN THE AGITATION 
 OF RELIGI0U3 CONTROVERSIES: 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED AT THE OPENING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Ktlu i^rtstiijterian CJaptl in 38elfast, 
 
 ON 
 
 SABBATH, SEPTEMBER 23, 1827. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS, 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 PRINTED FOR WILLIAM COLLINS; 
 
 WILLIAM WHYTE & CO. AND WM. GLIPHANT, EDINBURGH; 
 
 K. M. TIMS, AND WM. CURRY, JUN. & CO. DUBLIN ; 
 
 AND G. B. WHITTAKER, LONDON. 
 
 1827. 
 
V 
 
 Printed by W. Ck)llins & Co. 
 Glasgow. 
 
^EllEFACE. 
 
 The following Sermon was written and preached 
 three years ago, in behalf of the Catholic Schools 
 in Glasgow; and, of course, without any anticipa- 
 tion of the more recent occasion on which it was 
 preached at Belfast, and in consequence of which 
 its publication has been called for. 
 
 The only material variation from its original 
 state occurs in pages 23, &c. where allusion is 
 made to the controversy which respects the person 
 and dignity of the Saviour. 
 
 I was no stranger to the fact, that this great topic 
 had been zealously occupying the public mind in 
 the North of Ireland ; and I may have been led by 
 this very circumstance to seize upon it. For, first, 
 if there be entire soundness in the general principle 
 of the discourse on the subject of religious differ- 
 ences, it must admit of being applied to any reli- 
 gious difference whatever. And, secondly, though 
 actuated by no other wish than that of making 
 full and lucid conveyance of the principle into the 
 minds of my hearers, it was natural to select that 
 instance, which, as being most familiar to them at 
 
the time, was best fitted to serve the purpose of 
 vivid and convincing illustration. 
 
 It could not fail to be gratifying, that, in the 
 applications made to me for the Sermon being 
 printed, so many respectable members of the Synod 
 of Ulster, as well as a number of the highest and 
 most influential people in the town and neighbour- 
 liood of Belfast, made this call, on the ground that 
 the publication was suited to the state of parties, 
 and might subserve the cause of peace and cha- 
 rity. In justice, however, both to myself and to 
 others, I think it proper to state, that, while pre- 
 paring this imperfect composition, I only felt my- 
 self to be acting as an expositor of general truth ; 
 and that, placed as I was at a distance from the 
 scene, and unacquainted with the detail of those 
 theological contentions which have lately taken 
 place, I should have deemed it both presumptuous 
 and indecorous to have set myself forth in the ca- 
 pacity of a judge, and far more in that of a censor, 
 either on the proceedings of public bodies, in regard 
 to this question, or on the conduct of individuals. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 JAMES I. 20. 
 " The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." 
 
 Without attempting, what we should feel to be 
 impossible within the limits of one discourse, to 
 expound the principle of our text in all its gener- 
 ality, we shall satisfy ourselves with adverting to 
 but one or two special applications of it. We 
 shall first consider the effect of man's wrath when 
 interposed between the call of the gospel, and the 
 minds of those to wliom the gospel is addressed — 
 and, secondly, consider the eflect of man's wrath 
 when interposed between a right and a wrong de- 
 nomination of Christianity. 
 
 I. You are all aware of there being much wrath- 
 ful controversy on the part of men relative to the 
 gospel of Jesus Christ, wherein the righteousness 
 of God is said, by the apostle, to Le revealed from 
 faith to faith. To understand the way in which 
 
 A 
 
6 
 
 this great message from heaven to earth may be 
 darkened, and altogether transformed out of its 
 native character, by the conflict and controversy 
 of its interpreters, we ask you to conceive the 
 effect, if a message of most free and unqualified 
 kindness, from some earthly superior, were just to 
 be handled in the same way. We may imagine 
 that in his bosom, there is nought but the utmost 
 good- will to us, in all its truth, and in all its ten- 
 derness ; and that he sends forth the expression 
 of it in writing, on purpose that we may read and 
 may rejoice ; and that if we but perused this pre- 
 cious document with the simplicity of children, 
 we could not fail to be gladdened by the assur- 
 ances of a love which shone most directly and 
 most unequivocally from all its pages. But instead 
 of this, we may further imagine, that between our 
 minds and all the grace and goodness of this com- 
 munication, there should spring up a whole army 
 of expounders — and that in the pride, and the 
 heat, and the bitterness of argument, they fell out 
 among themselves — and that all were vastly too 
 much engrossed, each with his own special un- 
 derstanding about the terms of the message, ever 
 to meet together in harmony, and in mutual feli- 
 citation, on the broad and unquestionable truths 
 of it. Is there no danger, w^e ask, amid the acer- 
 bities of such a thickening warfare, that men should 
 lose sight of the mildness and the mercy that lay 
 in that embassy of peace by which it had been 
 stirred? Is it not a possible thing, that many an 
 
humble spirit, whom the soft and tlic kind affection 
 of the original message might else have wakened 
 into confidence, shall feel itself disturbed and be- 
 wildered in the fierce and the fiery agitations of 
 such an atmosphere as this ? When we hear from 
 one quarter, that such is the import of the message, 
 and that we shall forfeit all the beneficence which 
 it proffers, unless we so understand it, — when, in 
 vehement resistance to this, we hear of another 
 import, and even denounced upon them w^ho refuse 
 it, the wrath of him whose good-will is the whole 
 burden of the now disputed communication, — when 
 moreover a third, and a different interpretation, is 
 listed against each of the two former, and sup- 
 ported with acrimony, and backed by the same 
 menaces of a displeasure on the part of that uni- 
 versal friend, who had set himself forth in the 
 benignest attitude, and lifted the widely-sounding 
 call of reconciliation, — certain it is, that when the 
 mind of an inquirer is involved among these, it is 
 occupied with topics of another description, and 
 another character altogether, from that of the calm 
 and the kind benevolence which resides at the 
 fountain-head, and which would have radiated 
 from thence on the hearts of a delighted people, 
 were it not for the intervenino; turbulence that 
 serves to hide, or at least to darken it. It is thus 
 that, by the angry and the lowering passions of 
 these middle men, an obscuration might be shed 
 on all the goodness and the grace which sit on 
 the brow of their superior; and that when stunned 
 
8 
 
 in the uproar of their sore controversy with the 
 challenge, and the recrimination, and the boister- 
 ous assertion of victory, and all the other clamours 
 of heated partizanship — that these might altogether 
 drown the soft utterance of that clemency whereof 
 they are the interpreters, and cause the gentler 
 sounds that issue from some high seat of muni- 
 ficence and mercy to be altogether unheard. 
 
 Now, it is altogether worthy of our considera- 
 tion, whether such might not be the effect of those 
 manifold controversies that have arisen, in regard 
 to the terms and the truths of that gospel message 
 which has come down from the sanctuary above to 
 the men of our lower world. The love for man- 
 kind which resides in the bosom of the unseen and 
 eternal God, is there most distinctly asserted ; and 
 there is also most full and frequent declaration of 
 his willingness to receive us — and in every possible 
 way of entreaty, and protestation, and kind en- 
 couragement, does he manifest the forth-puttings 
 of his longing affection towards us — and, rather 
 than not reclaim us hapless wanderers to that 
 blessedness with himself, from which we had so 
 widely departed, he lavished all the resources both 
 of his omnipotence and of his wisdom, on a scheme 
 of reconciliation, by which even the guiltiest of 
 offenders might draw nigh — and he sent the Son of 
 his everlasting regards from heaven to earth, who 
 had to surrender all his glories, and to suffer all the 
 vengeance of an outraged law, ere he could move 
 away the obstructions which stood between sinners 
 
9 
 
 and the mercy-seat — aiul, after having thus hibo- 
 riously framed a pathway of access to tluit throne 
 of righteousness, wliich is now turned into a throne 
 of grace, did he hft up a voice of invitation to walk 
 in it — a voice so diliusive, that it may go abroad 
 over all ; and yet so pointed, that it singles out 
 and specializes each of the human family, — and 
 now, with all the soul and sincerity of a Father's 
 earnestness, does he ask, in the hearing of that 
 world he has done so much to save, " What more 
 could I have done for my vineyard that I have not 
 done for it ?" Such is the character of that direct, 
 that primary demonstration, which has been made 
 to us from heaven. Such the felt love for our spe- 
 cies which is honestly and genuinely there ; and 
 well, we repeat, is it worthy of our full conside- 
 ration, whether, across the dark, the troubled me- 
 dium of human controversy, the sight of it is not 
 tarnished to the eye, the sound of it, thus mingled 
 with notes of harshest discord, is not lost upon the 
 ear. In one place, the gospel is called the ministra- 
 tion of righteousness — in another, the gift which it 
 offers, is called the gift of righteousness ; and they 
 are said to possess or to receive the righteousness 
 of God, who have laid their confident hold upon 
 that offer. But while the direct view of a benig- 
 nant and a beseeching God, as he urges the ofter 
 npon their acceptance, is so well fitted to charm 
 them into confidence, is there nothing, we ask, in 
 the din of this posterior and subordinate contro- 
 versy, that is fitted to disturb it ? Surely the noise 
 
10 
 
 that arises from the wars and the wranglings of 
 earth, falls differently upon the hearing to that 
 sweetest music which descended from the canopy 
 that is over our heads, and which accompanied the 
 declaration of good-will to us in heaven. And so, 
 altogether, that theology which shines immediate 
 from his Bible on the heart of the unlettered pea- 
 sant, may come with altered expression and effect 
 on the mind of the scholastic, after it has been 
 transmuted into the theology of the portly and 
 polemic folio. The Sun of Righteousness may 
 shed a mild and beauteous lustre upon the one, 
 which, to the eye of the other, is obscured in the 
 turbulence of rolling vapours, in the lurid clouds 
 of an angry and unsettled sky. It is precisely 
 thus, we fear, that the dogmatism on the one hand, 
 and the defiance upon the other, which are associ- 
 ated with the conflicts and the championship of 
 our profession, may have dimmed, to the vision of 
 those who are below, the face of the benign and the 
 beautiful sanctuary above ; and verily there is room 
 for the question, whether, in this way too, we have 
 not one exemplification of the text, that *' the 
 wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of 
 God." 
 
 When God beseeches us to be reconciled to him 
 in Christ Jesus, there is placed before the mind one 
 object of contemplation. When man steps forward, 
 and, in the pride or intolerance of orthodoxy, de- 
 nounces the fury of an incensed God on all who put 
 not faith in the merits and the mediation of his 
 
11 
 
 Son, there is placed before the mind another and a 
 distinct object of contemphition. And just in pro- 
 portion to the varieties of dogmatism or debate, 
 will the mind shift and fluctuate from one contem- 
 plation to another. Certain it is, that it must feel 
 a different sort of affection, when directly engaged 
 with the love of God in heaven, from what it does 
 when tost and alternated among the wrathful ele- 
 ments of human controversy upon earth. It then 
 breathes in another atmosphere ; and the whole 
 sense and savour of the encompassing medium feel 
 differently from before. And still it comes to the 
 same important, but unhappy result, as if the mu- 
 sic of the spheres had been drowned in the rude 
 and resentful outcry of noises from beneath, and 
 the ear had failed to catch the utterance of hea- 
 ven's inspiration, because lost and overborne amid 
 sounds of earthliness. It is thus that the native 
 character of Heaven's embassy may at length be 
 shrouded in subtle, but most effectual disguise, from 
 the souls of men ; and the whole spirit and design 
 of its munificent Sovereign be wholly misconceived 
 by his sinful, yet much-loved children. We inter- 
 pret the Deity by the hard and imperious scowl 
 which sits on the countenance of angry theologi- 
 ans ; and in the strife and clamour of their fierce 
 animosities, we forget the aspect of Him who is 
 upon the throne, the bland and benignant aspect of 
 that God who waiteth to be gracious. 
 
 It is thus that men of highest respect in the 
 Christian world have done grievous injury to the 
 
12 
 
 cause. Whether, we ask, would Calvin have found 
 readier acceptance for his own favourite doctrine of 
 justification by the righteousness of Christ, (that 
 only righteousness which God will accept in plea 
 of our meritorious claim to the kingdom of heaven, 
 and therefore called the righteousness of God,)— 
 whether was it likelier that he should have gained 
 the consent of men's minds to this method of sal- 
 vation, by declaring it in the spirit of gentleness, 
 and with the accents of entreaty, or by denouncing 
 it in the spirit of an incensed polemic, and with 
 that aspect which sits on his pages of severe and 
 relentless dogmatism ? Would it not have strength- 
 ened his cause, had he, in propounding the mes- 
 sage of reconciliation to his fellows upon earth, 
 caught more upon his heart of the benignity which 
 prompted the sending of that message from hea- 
 ven ? — and had the eye, the voice, the manner of 
 this able expounder of the counsels of God, repre- 
 sented more of the kindness which presided over 
 these counsels, of the compassion felt in the upper 
 sanctuary, and which there originated the forth- 
 going of the Saviour on our guilty world? Certain 
 it is, that there is nought to conciliate the spirits of 
 men to the doctrine of Calvin, all true, and all mo- 
 mentous as it is, in that wrath which glares upon 
 us so repeatedly from the dark and angry passages 
 of his argument. That violence and vituperation, 
 by which his Institutes arc so frequently deformed, 
 never do occur, we venture to affirm, but with an 
 adverse influence on the minds of his readers, in ^^ 
 
13 
 
 reference to the trutli wliicli he espouses. In 
 other words, that truth which, wlien couched in 
 the language, and accompanied with the calls of 
 affection, finds such welcome into the hearts of 
 men, hath brought upon its propounders the reac- 
 tion of stout indignant hostility, and just because 
 of the stern intolerance wherewith it has been pro- 
 posed by them. This difference, in point of efiect, 
 between the meek and the magisterial style of in- 
 struction, makes it of the utmost practical impor- 
 tance, that neither the pride nor the passions of 
 men should mingle in the discussion, when labour- 
 ing either with or against each other in the common 
 pursuit of truth. For much has it prejudiced the 
 cause of truth in the world, that it has so oft been 
 urged and insisted on with that wrath of man, 
 which, most assuredly, worketh not the righteous- 
 ness of God. 
 
 And, though not strictly under our present 
 head of discourse, there is one observation more 
 which we feel it of importance to make, ere we 
 pass on to the next division of our subject. Apart 
 from the transforming effect of human wrath to 
 give another hue, as it were, to the complexion of 
 the Godhead, and another expression than that of 
 its own native kindness, to the message which has 
 proceeded from him, there is a distinct operation 
 in the mind of an inquirer after religious truth, 
 which is altogether worthy of being adverted to. 
 When the controversialist makes an angry demand 
 upon us for our belief in some one of his positions, 
 
 B 
 
14 
 
 why, that position may be the offered and the gra- 
 tuitous mercy of God in heaven, and yet the 
 whole charm of such a proposal may be dissi- 
 pated, just through that tone and temper of intol- 
 erance in which it is expounded to us upon earth. 
 When entertained in the shape of a direct an- 
 nouncement from the Father of mercies himself^ 
 it comes with a wholly different impression upon 
 the heart from what it does when entertained in 
 the shape of an article that has been fashioned by 
 a system-builder, and then fulminated against us 
 by the hand of human combatants. All that hope 
 and that happiness which might else have beamed 
 from the doctrine of grace, and that instantly, 
 upon the soul, may, as it were, be neutralized by 
 the passionate and peremptory style of menace, 
 wherewith faith in that doctrine is insisted upon. 
 This we have already considered ; yet it must not 
 be overlooked, that even for the hope and the 
 happiness, faith is indispensable — that ere we can 
 rejoice in any truth, or take the salutary impres- 
 sion of it upon our hearts, the truth must be be- 
 lieved in 'y and, indeed, the Bible itself accompanies 
 its statements of doctrine with the exaction of our 
 faith in them. Without this faith in their reality, 
 we can have no benefit from the objects of reve- 
 lation. Faith is the avenue through which they 
 come into contact with the inner man, and by 
 which alone they can obtain an influence over 
 the affections. It is not to be wondered at, then, 
 that possessing, as it does, such vital importance, 
 
15 
 
 they who are in earnest after their salvation, 
 should set such extreme value on the acquisition 
 of faith. It is to them tlie pearl of great price. 
 If, under the economy of the Law, men staked 
 their eternity upon their works, under tlie eco- 
 nomy of the Gospel, they stake their eternity upon 
 their faith. The longings and the labourings of 
 their hearts are now as much after the riglit belief, 
 as formerly they were after the right obedience. 
 And if while, ** Do this and live," was the reign- 
 ing principle of Heaven's administration, the 
 natural anxiety for every expectant of Heaven, 
 was to do properly — now that the reigning princi- 
 ple is, " Believe and be saved," it is as just as natu- 
 ral that it should be his intense and his unceasing 
 anxiety to believe properly. 
 
 Now, observe the misdirection of which he is 
 consequently in danger. It is apt to turn away his 
 attention from the object of faith, to the act of 
 faith. If faith be any where, it is in the mind, 
 which is its proper habitation, its place of occu- 
 pancy and settlement ; and when he wants to as- 
 certain the reality of his faith, it is indeed most 
 natural that lie should go in quest of the precious 
 article through the secrecies of this dwelHng- 
 place. In other words, he looks inwardly, instead 
 of outwardly. In place of gazing abroad among 
 the objects of Revelation, and gathering from 
 thence of that direct radiance which they might 
 have streamed upon his soul, he seeks for the re- 
 flection of these objects witliin the soul itself, and 
 
16 
 
 while so employed, his inverted eye shuts out all 
 the illumination that is above him and around 
 him. It is not by looking inwardly upon the eye's 
 own retina, but by looking openly and outwardly 
 on the panorama of external nature, that we see 
 the glories of the summer landscape. It is not by 
 casting a downward regard on the tablet of vision, 
 but by casting an upward regard on the starry 
 firmament, that the wonders of the midnight sky 
 become manifest to the beholder. And it is not, 
 let it ever be remembered, it is not by a painful, 
 by a probing scrutiny amongst the mysteries or 
 the metaphysics of the inner man, that we admit 
 the light of heaven into the soul. The peace and 
 the joy of a believer do not spring from the traces 
 which he finds to be within him. They ema- 
 nate and they descend upon his heart, from the 
 truths which are suspended over him. The work 
 of faith consists not in looking to himself, but in 
 looking to the reconciled countenance of God. 
 He fetches its gladdening assurances not from any 
 light that has been struck out among the arcana 
 of his own spirit, but from that great fountain of 
 light, the Sun of Righteousness, the spiritual lumi- 
 nary which has arisen to the view of a sinful 
 world, that every one who looketh may be saved. 
 If you invert this order, if you look into yourself, 
 without looking unto Jesus, then you suspend the 
 exercise of faith at the very time that you are try- 
 ing to make sure of its existence. You look the 
 wrong way; and if by the former influence, even 
 
17 
 
 that of man's wrath interposed between you and 
 God's kindness, you were disturbed out of con- 
 fidence and of comfort — by the present influence 
 you are at least distracted away from them, even 
 because the eye of the mind, when inverted upon 
 itself, is averted from the proper object of con- 
 fidence. 
 
 Let us never cease then the presentation of this 
 object before you ; and, when visited by fears, 
 whether in looking to one's own heart, and finding 
 nought but darkness and destitution there ; or on 
 looking to the countenance of our fellow men, 
 and beholding the menace and intolerance which 
 are depicted there ; let all be overborne by a di- 
 rect view of the kindness of God. Let us lift 
 ourselves above these turbid elements of earth, 
 and be firmly and erectly confident of benevo- 
 lence in Heaven. The good will that is there 
 towards the children of men, the joy that is felt 
 there over every sinner who repenteth, the mild 
 radiance there of the upper sanctuary, and the 
 grace and the benignity which invest its glorious 
 mercy-seat — these are the things which be above 
 — these the stable realities of that place where 
 God sitteth on his throne, and where Christ sitteth 
 at the right hand of God. Yonder is the region 
 of light and of undoubted love — and, whatever the 
 mists or the obscurations may be of this lower 
 world, there is welcome, free, generous, unbounded 
 welcome to one and all in the courts of the Eter- 
 nal. The sun of our firmament is still as gor- 
 
18 
 
 geously seated in fields of ethereal beauty and ra- 
 diance as ever, when veiled from the sight of 
 mortals by the lowering sky that is underneath. 
 And so of the shrouded character of the Godhead, 
 who all placid and serene in the midst of elevation, 
 is often mantled from human eye by the turbu- 
 lence and the terror of those clouds which gather 
 on the face of our spiritual hemisphere. The un- 
 changeableness of that Deity, whose compassions 
 fail not — the constituted Mediator, who is the 
 same to-day, and yesterday, and for ever — the pro- 
 mises, which are yea and amen in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord — the word of revelation, whereof it has been 
 said, that heaven and earth shall pass away ere it 
 can pass away — these are the enduring, the unex- 
 tinguishable lights in the palace of our mild and 
 munificent Sovereign, and in which all of us are 
 called upon to rejoice. There may be no comfort 
 to draw up from the darkling recesses of our own 
 spirits — but surely it may descend upon us in floods 
 of brightness and beauty from a canopy so glo- 
 rious. There may be nought to gladden, in the 
 wrathful and the warring controversies of the men 
 who stand betwixt us and heaven — but in heaven 
 itself there are notes of sweeter and kinder melody, 
 and well may we assure ourselves in the gratula- 
 tion that is awakened there over every sinner who 
 turns unto God. 
 
 We are aware, all the time, that the truth, as it 
 is in Jesus, must be sustained by argument — that 
 this is one of the offices of the church militant 
 
19 
 
 upon earth, whose part it is to silence gainsayers, 
 and not only to contend, but to contend earnestly, 
 for the faith which was delivered unto the saints. 
 For this service, we stand deeply indebted to the 
 lore and the laborious authorship of other days — 
 to the prowess of those dauntless theologians, those 
 gigantic men of war, who, skilled alike in the 
 mysteries of the Bible, and in the mysteries of our 
 common nature, have in the vast and the venerable 
 productions which they left behind them, reared 
 such bulwarks around the system of a sound and 
 a settled orthodoxy, as have never yet been stormed. 
 Yet the most prominent article of that system — 
 that which Luther denominated the test of a stand- 
 ing or a falling church — even the doctrine of im- 
 puted righteousness by faith — although argument 
 be the weapon by which to defend it against the 
 inroad of adversaries, it is not the weapon of pe- 
 netration or of power by which to force a way for 
 its saving reception into the heart of a believer. 
 It is not in the clangour of arms, or in the shouts 
 of victory, or in the heat and hurry even of most 
 successful gladiatorship — it is not then that this 
 overture of peace and pardon from heaven falls 
 with efficacy upon the sinner's ear. It is not so 
 much in the act of intellectually proving the truth 
 of the doctrine, as in the act of proceeding upon 
 its truth, when we affectionately urge the sinner 
 to make it the stepping-stone of his return unto 
 God — it is then most generally that it becomes 
 manifest unto his conscience, and that ho receives 
 
20 
 
 in love that which in the spirit of love and kind- 
 ness has been offered to him. In a word, it is 
 when the bearer of this message from God to man, 
 urges it upon his fellow-sinners in the very spirit 
 which first prompted that message from the upper 
 sanctuary — it is when he truly represents, not alone 
 the contents of Heaven's overtures, but also that 
 heavenly kindness by which they were suggested 
 — it is when he entreats rather than when he de- 
 nounces, and when that compassion, which is in 
 the heart of the Godhead, actuates his own — it is 
 when standing in the character of an ambassador 
 from him who so loved the world, he accompanies 
 the delivery of his message with the looks and the 
 language of his own manifest tenderness — it is 
 then that the preacher of salvation is upon his best 
 vantage-ground of command over the hearts of a 
 willing people ; and when he finds that charity, 
 and prayer, and moral earnestness have done what 
 neither lordly intolerance nor even lordly argument 
 could have done, it is then that he rejoices in the 
 beautiful experience, that it is something else than 
 the wrath of man which is the instrument of work- 
 ing the righteousness of God. 
 
 The apostle says, ** covet earnestly the best 
 gifts," and then adds, " but yet I show you a more 
 excellent way" — even the way of charity. We 
 are also bidden *' to contend earnestly for the faith 
 once delivered unto the saints." But notwith- 
 standing, there may be a still more excellent and 
 efiectual way, even to " speak the truth in love." 
 
21 
 
 It is thus that the gospel, sometimes in one pas- 
 sage, blends firmness of principle with the gentle- 
 ness of kind affection, towards those who are its 
 adversaries. ** Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, 
 quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things 
 be done with charity." ** Do all things without 
 murmurings and disputings, that ye may be blame- 
 less and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke 
 in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, 
 among whom ye shine as lights in the world, hold- 
 ing forth the word of life." ** Now we exhort you 
 brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the 
 feeble-minded ; support the weak, be patient to- 
 wards all men. See that none render evil for evil 
 unto any man ; but ever follow that which is good, 
 both among yourselves and to all men." The 
 vehemence of passion is one thing. The vehe- 
 mence of sentiment is another. There is a hate- 
 fulness in the first. There is a certain noble- 
 ness to be liked and admired in the second. The 
 former vents itself in malice against the heretic. 
 The latter urges and assails the heresy. The 
 strength of irritation is wholly different from the 
 strength of conviction — and a deep sensation of 
 the importance of truth, is wholly different from a 
 sensitive dislike towards him who resists or disowns 
 it. The Bible makes the discrimination between 
 these two — and it tells us to shun the one, and to 
 cherish the other to the uttermost. Under its 
 guidance, we shall know both how to maintain 
 an unyielding front of resistance to the error, and 
 
 c 
 
22 
 
 yet to have compassion and courtesy for him who 
 is the victim of it. It is a triumph to conquer by 
 the power of argument — but it is a greater triumph 
 to conciUate and convert by the power of charity. 
 
 II. But this brings me to the second head of 
 discourse, under which I shall now, very shortly, 
 consider the effect of man's wrath, when inter- 
 posed between a right and a wrong denomination 
 of Christianity. 
 
 It can require no very deep insight into our 
 nature to perceive, that when there is proud or 
 angry intolerance on the side of truth, it must 
 call forth the reaction of a sullen and determined 
 obstinacy on the side of error. Men will submit 
 to be reasoned out of an opinion, and more espe- 
 cially when treated with respect and kindness. 
 But they will not submit to be cavalierly driven 
 out of it. There is a revolt in the human spirit 
 against contempt and contumely, insomuch that 
 the soundest cause is sure to suffer from the help 
 of such auxiliaries. When passion is enlisted on 
 one side of a controversy, then provocation is 
 awakened on the other side, — and the parties 
 erecting themselves into stouter and loftier atti- 
 tude than before, stand to each other in respective 
 positions which are mutually impregnable. It is 
 this infusion of temper by which the force even of 
 mightiest argument is paralyzed. It is when dis- 
 dain meets with defiance, when exasperating 
 charges meet with indignant recriminations, when 
 
23 
 
 the shouts of exulting victory may sting the bosom 
 of adversaries with the humiliations, but never 
 draw from their lips the acknowledgments of de- 
 feat, — it is when the war of words is animated with 
 feelings such as these, that Truth, whose still 
 small voice is all-powerful, falls from her omnipo- 
 tence and her glory, and Falsehood, resolute in the 
 midst of such stormy agitations, is only rivetted 
 thereby more firmly upon her basis. To the per- 
 versity of human error, there is now superadded the 
 still more hopeless perversity of human wilfulness 
 — and on looking at the whole resulting amount 
 from these fulminations of heated partizanship, 
 one cannot fail to acknowledge, that indeed the 
 wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of 
 God. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is the part of man, both to 
 adopt and to advocate the truth, lifting his zealous 
 testimony in its favour. Yet there is surely a way 
 of doing this in the spirit of charity — and while 
 strenuous, while even uncompromising in the ar- 
 gument, it is possible surely to observe all the 
 amenities of gentleness and good will, in these 
 battles of the faith. For example, it is not wrong 
 to feel either the strength or the importance of 
 our cause, when we plead the Godhead of the 
 Saviour, — when, in affirming this to be an article 
 of our creed, we simply repeat a statement of 
 Scripture, as distinct and absolute as it is in the 
 power of vocables to make it ; even that ** the 
 Word was God," — when, after that a sound eru- 
 
24 
 
 dition hath pronounced the integrity of this our 
 passage, we should deem it a waste and a perver- 
 sion of criticism, to suspend our belief, till we had 
 adjusted all the merits of all the controversies on 
 other and more ambiguous passages, — when after 
 being satisfied that the Bible is indeed the record 
 of an authentic communication from Heaven to 
 earth, we put faith in this its clearest utterance, 
 than which it is not within the compass of human 
 language to frame a more unequivocal, or a more 
 definite, — when contrasting the ignorance of a 
 creature so beset and limited as man, with the 
 amplitude of that infinite and everlasting light, 
 from the confines of which the message of revela- 
 tion hath broke upon our world, we count it our 
 becoming attitude to listen to all its announcements 
 even as with the docility of little children, — when, 
 more especially, in profoundest darkness as we 
 are, about the nature or constitution of the Deity, 
 who, throned in the mystery of his unfathomable 
 essence, pervades all space, and without beginning 
 or without end, unites in his wondrous Being the 
 extremes of eternity, we hold that one information 
 of himself, and from his own authoritative voice, 
 should rebuke and bid away all human imagina- 
 tions, — when, placed, as we are, in but a corner 
 of that immensity which he hath peopled with 
 innumerable worlds, with nought to instruct us 
 but the experience of our little day, and nought 
 to guide our way to that region of invisibles which 
 is all his own — we, surrendering each fond and 
 
25 
 
 favourite preconception of ours, defer to the teach- 
 ing of Him, who is himself the fountain-head of 
 existence, and whose eye reaches to the furthest 
 outskirts of the universe that he has formed. 
 And should he but tell of Him who was made 
 flesh, that He was in the beginning with God, and 
 that He w^as God, surely on a theme so vastly above 
 us and beyond us, it is for us to regulate our be- 
 lief by the very letter of this communication ; and 
 on the basis of such an evidence as this, to honour 
 the Son even as we honour the Father, is the 
 soundest philosophy, as well as the soundest 
 faith. 
 
 Yet with all these reasons for holding ourselves 
 to be intellectually right upon this question, there 
 is not one reason why the wrath of man should be 
 permitted to mingle in the controversy. This, 
 whenever it is admitted, operates not as an ingre- 
 dient of strength, but as an ingredient of weak- 
 ness. Let Truth be shrined in argument — for 
 this is its appropriate glory. And it is a sore dis- 
 paragement inflicted upon it by the hand of vin- 
 dictive theologians, when, instead of this, it is 
 shrined in anathema, or brandished as a weapon 
 of dread and of destruction over the heads of all 
 who are compelled to do it homage. The terrible 
 denunciations of Athanasius have not helped — 
 they have injured the cause. The Godhead of 
 Christ is not thus set forth in the New Testament. 
 It is nowhere proposed in the shape of a mere 
 dictatorial article, or as a naked dogma, for the 
 
26 
 
 understanding alone ; and at one place it is intro- 
 duced as an episode for the enforcement of a 
 moral virtue. In this famous passage, the practi- 
 cal lesson occupies the station of principal, as the 
 main or capital figure of the piece — and the doc- 
 trine on which so many would effervesce all their 
 zeal, even to exhaustion, stands to it but in the 
 relation of a subsidiary. The lesson is, '* Let no- 
 thing be done through strife or vain-glory ; but in 
 lowliness of mind let each esteem other better 
 than themselves. Look not every man on his 
 own things, but every man also on the things of 
 others." And the doctrine, (here noticed by the 
 Apostle, not to the end that he may rectify the 
 opinion of his disciples, but primarily and ob- 
 viously, to the end that he may rectify their con- 
 duct) the doctrine for the enforcement of the 
 lesson is, '' Let this mind be in you, which was 
 also in Christ Jesus : 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 ; and being found in fashion as a 
 man, he humbled himself, and became obedient 
 unto death, even the death of the cross." Li 
 these verses there is a collateral lesson for our 
 faith ; but the chief, the direct lesson, is a lesson 
 of charity, which is greater than faith. And 
 would the heart of Trinitarian be but as obe- 
 diently schooled as his head, by this passage — 
 would Orthodoxy, instead of the strife and the 
 
27 
 
 vain-glory which have given Iier so revolting an 
 aspect, both of pride and sternness, but put on 
 her bowels of mercy, and to her truth add ten- 
 derness — would the champions of a Saviour's dig- 
 nity but learn of his meekness and lowliness, and, 
 while they assert him to be God manifest in the 
 flesh, meet the perversity of gainsayers in the very 
 spirit of gentleness that he did, — this were the 
 way by which the Church militant might be borne 
 onwardly and upwardly to the station of the 
 Church triumphant in the world. This is the 
 way in which, by the mechanism of our moral 
 nature, to obtain ascendancy over the hearts of 
 men. Truth will be indebted for her best victo- 
 ries, not to the overthrow of Heresy, discomfited 
 on the field of argument, but to the surrender of 
 Heresy, disarmed of that in which her strength 
 and her stability lie, — of her passionate, because 
 provoked, wilfulness. Charity will do what rea- 
 son cannot do. It will take that which letteth 
 out of the way — even that wrath of man, which 
 worketh neither the truth nor the righteousness of 
 God. 
 
 But our time does not permit of any further 
 illustration — else we might have shown at greater 
 length, how, by the oversight of this great prin- 
 ciple, the cause both of truth and of righteousness 
 has been impeded in the world. Theologians 
 Iiave forgotten it in their controversies. States- 
 men have forgotten it in their laws. Never was 
 there a greater blunder in legislation, than that by 
 
28 
 
 which the forces of the statute-book have been en- 
 listed on the ^ide of truth ; and error, as was 
 quite natural, instead of being subdued, has been 
 thereby settled down into tenfold obstinacy. The 
 glories of martyrdom have been transferred from 
 the right to the wrong side of the question ; and 
 superstition, which, in a land of perfect light and 
 perfect liberty, would hide her head as ashamed, 
 gathers a title to respect, and stands forth in a cha- 
 racter of moral heroism, because of the injustice 
 which has been brought to bear upon her. She 
 ought, in all wisdom, to have been left to her own 
 natural decay — or, at least, reason and kindness 
 are the only engines which should have been made 
 to play upon her strong-holds. But with such an 
 auxiliary, as the mere- authority of terror upon the 
 one side, and such a resistance as that of a gene- 
 rous and high-minded indignation upon the other 
 — there have arisen the elements of an intermina- 
 ble warfare. And not till truth, relieved of so un- 
 seemly an associate, be confined to the use of her 
 proper weapons, wdll she be reinstated on her pro- 
 per vantage-ground. It is not in the fermentation 
 of human passions and human politics, that the 
 lessons of heaven can be with efficacy taught — and 
 ere these lessons shall go abroad in triumph over 
 the length and breadth of the land, we must recal 
 the impolicy by which we have turned a whole 
 people into a nation of outcasts. To exclude is 
 surely not the way to assimilate. It is by pervad- 
 ing, instead of separating into an unbroken mass, 
 
29 
 
 and then placing it off at a distance from us — it is 
 by extensively mingling with the men of another 
 denomination, in all the walks of civil and political 
 business — it is then, that the occasions of converse 
 and of courtesy will be indefinitely multiplied — 
 and then will it be found, that it is by an influence 
 altogether opposite to the wrath of man, that we 
 are enabled to work the righteousness of God. 
 
 But let us not make entrance on a field, to the 
 verge of which we have now been conducted by 
 the light of a principle that is abundantly capable 
 of shedding most beautiful, as w^ell as most benefi- 
 cent illustration over the whole of it. Let us ra- 
 ther conclude wdth the application of our text, not 
 to the affairs of an empire, or the affairs of a church, 
 but rather to the affairs of a single congregation. 
 Let us recur, though but for one moment, ere we 
 shall have brought our address to its close, to that 
 spirit of kindness and good will, w^hich prompted 
 the original formation of the gospel message in the 
 upper sanctuary, as being indeed the very spirit 
 by which the expounder of that message ought to 
 be actuated. He may have at times to engage 
 in conflict with the infidels or the heretics around 
 him. Nevertheless, let him be assured, that it is 
 by other armour than that which is wielded on the 
 field of controversy — by an influence more power- 
 ful still, than even that of overbearing argument, 
 by the moral and affectionate earnestness of a 
 heart that breathes the very charity and tender- 
 ness of heaven upon his audience, — it is thus that 
 
 D 
 
30 
 
 ministerial work is done most prosperously — the 
 work of winning souls, of turning sons and daugh- 
 ters unto righteousness. 
 
 It is not so easy as may be thought, to dislodge 
 the fears, or to win the confidence of nature in 
 him who is nature's God. There is a certain over- 
 hanging sense of guilt, which forms the main in- 
 Q-redient of this alienation. It is this which dark- 
 ens, to the eye of our world, the face of Heaven's 
 Lawgiver, and brings such a burden of dread and 
 of distrust on the spirit of man, that he feels no- 
 thing to invite, but to repel and overawe, in the 
 thought of Heaven's high sacredness. It is thus 
 that the aspect of the Divinity is mantled and over- 
 shaded to the human imagination ; and instead of 
 reading there the signals of welcome and good 
 will, we figure to ourselves a God dwelling in some 
 awful and august sanctuary, or seated on a throne 
 whence the fire of jealousy goeth forth to burn up 
 and to destroy. It is sin which has laid this cold, 
 this heavy obstruction, on the hearts of our out- 
 cast species. There is a strong, though secret, 
 apprehension of displeasure in the countenance of 
 Him who is above, which haunts us continually, 
 and gives us the hourly, the habitual, feeling of 
 outcasts. Man recoils to a distance from God, 
 and regards God as placed at an inaccessible dis- 
 tance from him. There is between them a gulph 
 of separation, across which man looks with disquie- 
 tude and dismay, as he would to some spectral or 
 portentous image shrouded in mystery, and all the 
 
31 
 
 more tremendous that he is invisible and unknown. 
 The greatest moral revolution which the spirit of 
 man undergoes, is when these clouds which over- 
 hang the hemisphere of his spiritual vision are all 
 cleared away, and the Godhead shines upon him 
 with a new and an opposite manifestation — when 
 simply, because now seeing the Deity under an as- 
 pect of graciousness, he, instead of trembling be- 
 fore him as an enemy, can securely trust in him as 
 a friend, and can rejoice in that Being, of whom he 
 has been made to know and to believe that He re- 
 joices over him, to bless him and to do him good. 
 Now, it is by faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 
 and by it alone, that this great revolution is achiev- 
 ed. It is through the open door of his mediator- 
 ship, that the sinner draws nigh, and beholds God 
 as a reconciled Father. It is because of that blood 
 of atonement, wherewith the mercy-seat on high 
 is sprinkled, that he is made to hear the voice of 
 welcome and of good-will which issues therefrom. 
 He now beholds no severity in the aspect of the 
 Lawgiver ; and yet, through the work of Him by 
 whom the law was magnified, he there beholds the 
 harmony of all the attributes. Such is the exqui- 
 site skil fulness of the economy under which we 
 sit, that the truth, and the justice, and the holi- 
 ness, which out of Christ were leagued against us 
 for destruction — now that these have emerged, iu 
 vindicated lustre, from that hour of darkness, 
 when the Saviour bowed down his head unto the 
 sacrifice, they are the guarantees of pardon and 
 
32 
 
 acceptance to all who lay hold of this great salva- 
 tion. It was in love to man that this wondrous 
 dispensation was framed. It was kindness, honest, 
 heartfelt, compassionate kindness, that formed the 
 moving principle of the embassy from heaven to 
 our world. We protest, by the meekness and the 
 gentleness of Christ, by the tears of Him who 
 wept at Lazarus' tomb, and over the approaching 
 ruin of Jerusalem, by every word of blessing that 
 he uttered, and by every footstep of this wondrous 
 visitor over the surface of a land on which he went 
 about doing good continually, — we protest in the 
 name of all these unequivocal demonstrations, that 
 they do Him an injustice who propound this mes- 
 sage in any other way than as a message of friend- 
 ship to our species. He came not to condemn, 
 but to save ; not to destroy, but to keep alive. 
 And he is the fittest bearer, he the best inter- 
 preter, of these overtures from above, who urges 
 them upon men, not with wrath, and clamour, 
 and controversial bitterness, but in the very spirit 
 of that wisdom from above, which is gentle, and 
 easy to be entreated, and full of mercy. 
 
 In this way the moral power of the truth is su- 
 peradded to its argumentative power. The kind 
 affection of the speaker becomes an element of 
 weight and influence in the demonstration which 
 falls from him. He does more than barely utter 
 the realities of the Gospel — he pictures them forth 
 in the persuasiveness of his own accents, in the 
 looks as well as the language of his own manifested 
 
33 
 
 tenderness. He is tlie right person for stand- 
 ing between a people and heaven — seeing that 
 Heaven's love to men is expressed visibly in his 
 own countenance, audibly in the earnestness of 
 his own voice. With a heart glowing in charity 
 to his hearers, he is the fit representative, the best 
 expounder, of that embassy, which has come from 
 the dwelling-place of the Eternal on an errand of 
 charity to our w^orld. And fraught as he is with 
 the tidings of mercy, it is not more when he urges 
 the truth, than when he affectingly sets forth the 
 tenderness of these tidings, that he charms the ac- 
 quiescence of men, and his message is felt to be 
 " worthy of all acceptation." 
 
 Before I leave you, I should like, even though 
 at the end of our discourse, and by an informal re- 
 sumption of its first topic, to possess the heart of 
 each who now hears me with the distinct assurance 
 of God's proffered good- will to him, of his free and 
 full pardon stretched out for the acceptance of him. 
 If heretofore you have been in the habit of con- 
 templating the gospel as at a sort of speculative 
 distance, and in its generality, I want you now to 
 feel the force of its pointed, its personal applica- 
 tion, and to understand it as a message addressed 
 specifically to you. The message has been so 
 framed, and couched in phraseology of such pecu- 
 liar import, that it knocks for entrance at every 
 heart, and is laid down for acceptance at every 
 door. It is true, that you are not named and sur- 
 named in the Bible ; but the term ** whosoever,'* 
 
34 
 
 associated, as it frequently is, with the offer of its 
 blessings, points that offer to each and to all of you. 
 ** Whosoever will, let him drink of the waters of 
 life freely/* It is very true that this written com- 
 munication has not been handed to you, like the 
 letter of a distant acquaintance, with the address 
 of your designation and dwelling-place inscribed 
 upon it. But the term " all,'* as good as specializes 
 the address to each, and each has a full warrant to 
 proceed upon the call, ** Look unto me, all ye ends 
 of the earth, and be saved ;" or, '* Come unto me, 
 all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest." It is furthermore true, that Christ 
 has not appeared in person at any of your assem- 
 blies, and, singling out this one individual, and that 
 other, has bid him step forward with an application 
 for pardon, on the assurance that he would receive 
 it; — but the term '* every" singles out each; and 
 he has left behind him the precious, the unexcep- 
 ted declaration, that " every one who asketh re- 
 ceiveth," that '* every one who seeketh findeth." 
 And lastly, it is true that he disperses no special 
 messengers of his grace to special individuals ; but 
 the term *' any," though occupying but its own 
 little room in a single text, has a force equally dis- 
 persive with as many messengers sent to the world 
 as there are men upon its surface. " If any man 
 thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." These 
 are the words which, unlike the wheels of Ezekiel's 
 vision, turn every way, carrying the message of 
 salvation diffusively abroad among all, and point- 
 
35 
 
 ing it distinctively to each of the human family. 
 Their scope is wide as the species, and their appH- 
 cation is to every individual thereof. And what I 
 want each individual present to understand, is, that 
 God in the gospel beseeches him to be reconciled 
 — God is saying unto him, ** Turn thou, turn thou, 
 why wilt thou die ?" 
 
 There are certain generic words attached at 
 times to the overtures of the gospel, wdiich have 
 the same twofold power of spreading abroad these 
 overtures generally among all, yet of pointing them 
 singly at each of the human family. The "world," 
 for example, is a word of this import ; and Jesus 
 Christ is declared to be a propitiation for the sins 
 of the whole world. After this, man, though an 
 inhabitant of the world, and, as such, fairly within 
 the scope of this communication, may continue to 
 forbid himself, but most assuredly God has not 
 forbidden him. The term ** sinner" is another ex- 
 ample, as being comprehensive of a genus, whereof 
 each individual may appropriate the benefits that 
 are said in Scripture to be intended for the whole. 
 ** This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accep- 
 tation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
 gave sifviers," Still it is possible, as before, that 
 many a sinner may not hold this saying to be 
 worthy, or, at least, may not make it the subject 
 of his acceptation. His demand perhaps is, that, 
 ere he can have a warrantable confidence in this 
 saying for himself, he must be specially, and by 
 name, included in it ; whereas the truth is, that to 
 
86 
 
 warrant his distrust, his want of confidence after 
 such a saying, he should be specially, and by name, 
 excluded from it. After an utterance like this, 
 instead of needing, as a sufficient reason of depen- 
 dence, to be made the subject of a particular invi- 
 tation, he would really need, as a sufficient rea- 
 son of despondency, to be made the subject of a 
 particular exception. Is not the characteristic 
 term, "sinner," sufficiently descriptive of him? as 
 much so, indeed, as if he had been named and sur- 
 named in Scripture. Does it not mark him as 
 an object for all those announcements which bear 
 on sinners, as such, or sinners generally? The 
 truth is, if we but understood the terms of this 
 great act of amnesty, and made the legitimate 
 application of them, we should perceive that, to 
 whomsoever the word of salvation has come, to 
 him the offer of salvation has been made — that 
 he is really as welcome to all the blessings of the 
 New Testament, as if he had been the only crea- 
 ture in the universe who stood in need of them ; as 
 if he had been the only sinner of all the myriads 
 of beings whom God hath formed ; and as if to re- 
 claim him, and to prevent the moral harmony of 
 creation from being stained or interrupted by even 
 so much as one solitary exception, for him alone 
 the costly apparatus of redemption had been reared, 
 and Christ had died, that God might be to indivi- 
 dually him both a just God and a Saviour. 
 
 But perhaps as striking and satisfactory an ex- 
 ample as any, is when the gospel is addressed gen- 
 
37 
 
 erically to man. The first unnoiinccment of the 
 Gospel, as heard from the canopy of heaven, was 
 not good-will to certain men, to the exclusion of 
 others — not an overture made to some, and kept 
 back from the rest of the species. The annun- 
 ciation, in all its generality, was ** good-will to 
 man/' No one individual needs to look upon 
 himself as shut out from the good-will of his Fa- 
 ther in heaven. Let him be who he may, we would 
 cheer him on to confidence, and that purely and 
 singly in virtue of his being a man. We see no 
 exception in the text, and we make no exception 
 from the pulpit. We find a general assurance in 
 the word of God ; and we cast it abroad among you 
 without reserve, and without limitation. Where it 
 is to light, and who the individual whose bosom it 
 is to enter as the harbinger of peace, we know not. 
 But sure we are that it can never light wrong •, and 
 that wherever faith in God is formed, it is followed 
 by the fulfilment of all his promises. We know well 
 the difficulties of the unbelieving, more especially 
 the scruples of the disconsolate, and with what suc- 
 cess a perverse melancholy can devise and multiply 
 its arguments for despair : but we will admit of none 
 of them. We look to our text ; and we find that 
 it recognizes no outcasts. By one comprehensive 
 glance it takes in the whole race of man ; and em- 
 powers the messenger of God to ])ly with the as- 
 surances of his good-will, all the individuals of all 
 its families. We there see that there is no strait- 
 ening with God — that favour and forgiveness are 
 
 E 
 
38 
 
 ready to come down abundantly from him upon 
 every son and daughter of the species — that his 
 mercy rejoices over all ; and that, in pouring it 
 forth over the wide extent of a sinful creation, the 
 unbelief of man is the only obstacle which it has to 
 struggle with. Tell us not, in the obstinacy of 
 your distrust, that you are such a sinner. All 
 your sins, many and aggravated as they are, are 
 the sins of a man. Tell us not of the malignity of 
 your disease. It is the disease of a man. Tell us 
 not of your being so grievous an offender, that you 
 are the very chief of them. Still you are a man, 
 Christ knew what was in man — and he knew all 
 the varieties of case and character which belonged 
 to him — and still there must be something in his 
 gospel to meet all, and make up for all ; for he 
 impairs not by one single exception the univer- 
 sality of the gospel message, which is good- will to 
 man. We again lift, in your hearing, the widely 
 sounding call — " Look unto me, all ye ends of the 
 earth, and be saved." If the call be not listened 
 to, it is not for the want of kindness, andfreeness, 
 and honesty in the call ; it is for want of confidence 
 in the called. There is no straitening with God. 
 It is all with yourselves, my brethren. It lies in 
 the cold, and dark, and narrow suspicions, which 
 fill up and stifle your own bosoms. The offer of 
 God's good-will through Christ Jesus is unto all, 
 and upon all them who believe. We want to lodge 
 the offer in your hearts, and you will not let us. 
 We want to woo you to confidence ; but you re- 
 
39 
 
 main sullen and inflexible. We want to whisper 
 peace to your souls; but you refuse the voice of 
 the charmer, let him charm ever so wisely. The 
 minister of the gospel stands before you as the 
 messenger of a beseeching God, and is charged 
 with the freest and kindest invitations to one and 
 all of you. He does not exceed his commission 
 by a single inch, when he tells of God's good-will 
 to you ; and that nought is wanting but your good- 
 will towards God, that you may obtain peace, and 
 reconciliation, and joy. All who will may come 
 and drink of the waters of life freely. God fastens 
 a mark of exclusion upon none of you. He bids 
 us preach the gospel to every creature ; and every 
 creature who believes will be saved. He has no 
 pleasure in any of your deaths. If you think 
 otherwise of God, you do him an injustice. You 
 look to him with the jaundiced eye of unbelief. 
 You array him in a darker shroud than belongs to 
 him. You mantle one of his attributes from the 
 view of your own mind. You withdraw your faith 
 from his own declaration of his own name, as the 
 Lord God, merciful and gracious. Instead of yield- 
 ing the homage of your confidence and your affec- 
 tion to the true God, you superstitiously tremble 
 before a God of your own fancy ; and put all the 
 earnest and repeated assurances of the actual God's 
 actual revelation away from you. In tliat revela- 
 tion he tries every expedient, that he may prevail 
 upon you to trust him. He does all which tender- 
 ness can devise to remove your every suspicion. 
 
40 
 
 He pleads the matter with you. He beseeches 
 you to accept of reconciliation at his hand. He 
 offers it as a gift, and descends so far as to knock 
 at the door of your hearts, and to crave your ac- 
 ceptance of it. To do away the obstructions which 
 lay on the road of access from a sinner to his of- 
 fended God, he set up the costly apparatus of re- 
 demption. As the remission of sins without the 
 shedding of blood is impossible, he cleared the 
 way between him and a guilty world of this mighty 
 barrier. Rather than lose you for ever, he sent 
 his own Son to pour out his soul unto the death 
 for you. And now that iniquity is put an end to 
 — now that an everlasting righteousness is brought 
 in — now that every attribute of his nature has been 
 magnified by the great sacrifice — now that the 
 weight of that heavy burden, which restrained the 
 expression of his good- will to the children of men, 
 has been carried away by Him who bore the chas- 
 tisement of our peace — now, my brethren, that 
 there is nothing to intercept the flow of friendship 
 from God to man, does it come down free as the 
 light of day, and rich as the exuberance of heaven, 
 upon a despairing world. 
 
 But such representations of the Gospel as these, 
 are not only the best fitted to recal you from des- 
 pair — they are also the most effectual in recalling 
 you from sin unto righteousness. The truth, that 
 God is willing to receive you, I would, bring to 
 bear on the very first movements of your return 
 from the service of sin to his service. A sense of 
 
41 
 
 his goodness, brought home to the heart by the 
 faith of the Gospel, mingles a constraining in- 
 fluence with the purposes of a mind deliberating 
 on the repentance of the Gospel. I will not, 
 therefore, keep back the view of a willing and 
 an inviting God till you have described some 
 period of terror, and walked without him the 
 cheerless round of some previous reformation. I 
 want to possess your hearts even now, with the 
 assurance of a God bending in compassion over 
 you, and saying to one and to all, " Turn ye, turn 
 ye, why will you die ?" Charged as the ministers 
 of the Gospel are, with this message of tenderness 
 to the whole human race, they should not refuse 
 to meet the most profligate among you, in the full 
 onset of his wilful and determined career, and lay 
 it across his path. They are not at liberty to keep 
 it back from the most worthless and abandoned 
 of the species. The necessity is laid upon them ; 
 and wo is unto them, if they preach not the Gos- 
 pel to sinners of all degrees, to rebels of all deno- 
 minations. You could not, my brethren, you 
 could not carry me to any one haunt of wickedness, 
 so deeply sunk in the lowest and the loathsomest 
 of sin's abominations, where I would not be untrue 
 to my office as the messenger of a beseeching God, 
 did I not lift the testimony of his willingness to 
 receive all, and to forgive all. You could not 
 point my eye to a single wanderer, so far gone 
 from the path of obedience, that the widely sound- 
 ing call of reconciliation may not reach him. 
 
42 
 
 You could not tell me of a heart so hard and so 
 impenitent, that I must not try to soften it by the 
 moving argument of a God waiting to be gracious. 
 In this, too, the principle of our text is manifest- 
 ed. The human heart may have made its stout 
 resistance to all other arguments. It may have 
 defied every warning, and sheathed itself in impe- 
 netrable obstinacy against every threatening, and 
 smothered every conviction, by plunging the whole 
 man into deeper and more desperate rebellion ; 
 and when the terrors of the Lord were brought in 
 mustering array against him, he may have gather- 
 ed himself up into a stouter attitude of defiance, 
 and put on a darker scowl of alienation. And can 
 nothing more be done to storm the citadel, which 
 has all along held out so impregnably? Has the 
 ambassador of God exhausted his quiver of all its 
 arguments ? And must the poor child of infatua- 
 tion be left, without one effort more, to the perdi- 
 tion he so determinedly clings to ? The Gospel 
 supplies one other argument — even that Gospel 
 which has so often proved the power of God, and 
 the wisdom of God, unto salvation. It unrobes 
 God of all unrelenting severity, and reveals the 
 Monarch of the universe seated on a throne of 
 mercy, and pleading the return of his strayed 
 creatures with every accent of tenderness. He 
 speaks to them with the longings of a Father be- 
 reaved of his children. He descends to the lan- 
 guage of entreaty. The great God of heaven and 
 earth knocks at the door of every rebeUious heart, 
 
43 
 
 and begs for admittance. That heart, which all 
 the severity of God could not force to repentance, 
 he now plies with the goodness of God, that he 
 may lead it to repentance. I will receive you. 
 I have no pleasure in your death. I wish you all, 
 and would welcome you all back again. O my 
 brethren, if, after the severity of God has failed to 
 move your hearts out of the inflexibility which be- 
 longs to them, he should again ply you with his 
 goodness, and your hearts shall remain in stout 
 and sullen resistance to the tenderness of his 
 touching voice — then to your disobedience of his 
 law, you have added the neglect of his salvation. 
 And surely it may be said of those who have not 
 only resisted his authority, but have despised the 
 riches of his forbearance and long-suffering, that 
 the last arrow has been shot at them, and it has 
 proved ineffectual j and that Gospel which, had 
 they received it, would have been to their souls 
 the savour of life unto life, has turned out the sa- 
 vour of death unto death. 
 
 Printed by W. Collins & Co. 
 Glasgow. 
 
• 
 
On the Respect Due to Antiquity: 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED ON FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1827, 
 
 AT THE OPENING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ^rotcj National CJurc^, itoniron^ 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNnTERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 PRINTED FOR WILLIAM COLLINS; 
 
 J. NISBET, 21, BERNER's STREET, A. PANTON, OXFORD STREET; 
 AND G. B. WHITTAKER, LONDON; 
 R. M. TIMS, AND WM. CURRY, JUN. & CO. DUBLIN; 
 ^ WILLIAM WHYTE & CO. AND WM. OLIPHANT, EDINBURGH. 
 
 1827. 
 
ON THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY^ 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 JEREMIAH VI. l& 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask 
 for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, 
 and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said. We will 
 not walk therein." 
 
 It has been well said by Lord Bacon, that the 
 antiquity of past ages is the youth of the world — 
 and therefore it is an inversion of the right order, 
 to look for greater wisdom in some former genera- 
 tion than there should be in our present day, 
 ** The time in which we now live," says this great 
 philosopher, ** is properly the ancient time, be- 
 cause now the world is ancient ; and not that time 
 which we call ancient, when we look in a retrograde 
 direction, and by a computation backward from 
 ourselves." There must be a delusion, then, in 
 that homage which is given to the wisdom of an- 
 ^^quity, as if it bore the same superiority over the 
 ^^isdom of the present times, which the wisdom of 
 an old does over that of a young man. When we 
 
speak of the wisdom of any age, we mean the wis- 
 dom which at that period belongs to the collective 
 mind of the species. But it is an older species 
 at present than it was in those days, called by us, 
 the days of antiquity. It is now both more ven- 
 erable in years, and carries a greater weight of 
 experience. It was a child before the Flood ; and 
 if it have not yet become a man, it is nearer to 
 manhood now than it was then. Therefore, when 
 reviewing the notions and the usages of our fore- 
 fathers we, instead of casting off the instructions 
 of a greater wisdom than our own, may, in fact, 
 be putting away from us childish things. It is in 
 vain to talk of Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle. 
 Only grant that there may still be as many good 
 individual specimens of humanity as before ; and 
 a Socrates now, with all the additional lights which 
 have sprung up in the course of intervening cen- 
 turies to shine upon his understanding, would be 
 a greatly wiser man than the Socrates of two thou- 
 sand years ago. It is therefore well, in the great 
 master of the New Philosophy, to have asserted 
 the prerogative, and in fact the priority, of our 
 present age — that to it belongs a more patriarchal 
 glory than to all the ages of all the patriarchs — 
 that our generation is a more hoary-headed chroni- 
 cler, and is more richly laden with the truths and 
 the treasures of wisdom, than any generation which 
 has gone before it — the olden time, wherewith w^, 
 blindly associate so much of reverence, being in- 
 deed the season of the world's youth, and the 
 
world's inexperience ; and this our modern day 
 being the true antiquity of the world. 
 
 But, however important thus to reduce the def- 
 erence that is paid to antiquity — and with whatever 
 grace and propriety it has been dorie by him who 
 stands at the head of the greatest revolution in 
 Philosophy, we shall incur the danger of running 
 into most licentious waywardness, if we receive 
 not the principle, to which I have now adverted, 
 with two modifications. 
 
 You will better conceive what these modifica- 
 tions are, by just figuring to yourself two dis- 
 tinct books, whence knowledge or wisdom may be 
 drawn — one the book of the world's experience, 
 the other, the book of God's revelation ; the one, 
 therefore, becoming richer, and more replete with 
 instruction every day, by the perpetual additions 
 which are making to it; the other, being that book 
 from which no man can take away, neither can any 
 man add thereunto. 
 
 Our first modification, then, is, that though, in re- 
 gard to all experimental truth, the world should be 
 wiser now than it was centuries ago, this is the fruit 
 not of our contempt or our heedlessness in regard 
 to former ages, but the fruit of our most respectful 
 attention to the lessons which their history affords. 
 In other words, as we are only wiser because of 
 the now larger book of experience which is in our 
 
 tnds, we are not so to scorn antiquity, as to cast 
 
 iat book away from us, but we are to learn from 
 antiquity, bv giving the book our most assiduous 
 
perusal, while, at the same time, we sit in the ex- 
 ercise of our own free and independent judgment 
 over the contents of it. Although we listen not 
 to antiquity, as if she sent forth the voice of an 
 oracle, yet we should look with most observant eye 
 to all that antiquity sets before us. She is not to 
 be the absolute mistress of our judgment, but still 
 she presents the best materials on which the judg- 
 ment of man can possibly be exercised. The only 
 reason, truly, why the present age should be wiser 
 than the past, is, that it stands on that higher 
 vantage ground which its progenitor had raised for 
 it. But we should never have reached the vantage 
 ground, if, utterly heedless of all that has gone 
 before, we had spurned the informations and the 
 science of previous generations away from us. The 
 man of three-score should not be the wiser of his 
 age, did a blight come over his memory, to ob- 
 literate all the experience and all the acquisitions 
 of his former years. The very remembrance of 
 his follies makes him wiser — and thus it is, that 
 every succeeding race gathers a new store of in- 
 struction, not from the discoveries alone, but also 
 from the devious absurdities and errors of all the 
 races that had preceded it. The truth is, that an 
 experiment may be as instructive by its failure as 
 by its success — in the one case serving as a beacon, 
 and in the other as a guide — and so from the 
 very errors and misgivings of former days might 
 we gather, by the study of them, the most solid 
 and important accessions to our wisdom. We do 
 
7, 
 
 light in not submitting to the dictation of anti- 
 quity — but that is no cause why we should refuse 
 to be informed by her — for this were throwing us 
 back again to the world's infancy, Uke the second 
 childhood of him whom disease had bereft of all 
 his recollections. Still we reserve the indepen- 
 dence of our own judgment, while we take this re- 
 trospective survey, and ask for the old paths, and 
 so compare them together as to separate the right 
 from the wrong, and fix at length on the good 
 way. And so, again, in the language of Bacon, 
 " Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men 
 should make a stand thereupon, and discover what 
 is the best way ; but when the discovery is well 
 taken then to make progression." 
 
 On pondering well the view that has been now 
 given, you will come to perceive how there is in 
 truth a perfect harmony between the utmost inde- 
 pendence on the dictates of antiquity on the one 
 hand, and on the other the most deferential re- 
 gard to all its informations. 
 
 But there is a second modification, which, in the 
 case of a single individual of the species, it is easy 
 to understand, and which we shall presently apply 
 to the whole species. There is a wisdom distinct 
 from knowledge ; and one rich in the acquisitions 
 of the latter, may practically be driven from the 
 way of the former, by the headlong impulse of his 
 vicious and wrong affections. Now, a book of 
 wisdom may be taught in very early childhood. 
 It may, it is true, be the product of the accumu- 
 
8 
 
 lated experience of all ages; but it also may, as be- 
 ing a book of moral instructions, and so dictated by 
 the inspiration of a higher faculty than that of mere 
 observation — it may, instead of having been pro- 
 duced by a slow experience, have been produced 
 by the enlightened conscience of its author, al- 
 though afterwards all experience would attest the 
 way of its precepts to be a way of interest and of 
 safety, as well as a way of excellence. The lessons 
 of such a book may be urged upon man, and with 
 all a parent's tenderness, from the outset of his edu- 
 cation. He may have been trained by it to observe 
 all the infant proprieties, and to lisp the infant's 
 prayer. It may have been the guide and the com- 
 panion of his boyhood ; and not, perhaps, till in the 
 wild misrule of youthful profligacies and passions, 
 did he shut his eyes to the pure religious light 
 wherewith it had shone upon his ways. We may 
 conceive of such a man, that, after many years of 
 vicious indulgence, of growing and at length con- 
 firmed hardihood, of gradually decaying and now 
 almost extinct sensibility, — we may conceive of 
 this hackneyed veteran in the world and all its evil 
 ways, that he is at once visited by the lights of 
 conscience and memory; and that thus he is en- 
 abled to contrast the dislike, and the dissatisfac- 
 tion, and the dreariness of heart, which now prey 
 on the decline of his earthly existence, with all the 
 comparative innocence which gladdened its hope- 
 ful and its happy morning. The wisdom of his 
 manhood did not grow with its experience ; for 
 
9 
 
 now that he looks back upon it, he finds it but a 
 mortifying retrospect of wretchedness and folly ; 
 and the only way in which this experience can be 
 of use to him now, is that it may serve as a foil by 
 which to raise in his eyes the lustre and the loveli- 
 ness of virtue. And as he bethinks him of his 
 first, his early home, of the Sabbath piety which 
 flourished there, and that holy atmosphere in which 
 he was taught to breathe with kindred aspirations, 
 he cannot picture to himself the bliss and the 
 beauty of such a scene, mellowed as it is by the 
 distance, perhaps, of half a century, and mingled 
 with the dearest recollections of parents, and sis- 
 ters, and other kindred now mouldering in the 
 dust, he cannot recal for a moment this fond, 
 though faded imagery, without sighing, in the bit- 
 terness of his heart, after the good old way. 
 
 Now, what applies to one individual, may apply 
 to the species. As the world grows older, it may, 
 by some sweeping obliteration of all its ancient do- 
 cuments, lapse again into second infancy; or even 
 though it should retain all its experimental truth, 
 and grow every day richer therein, yet it is con- 
 ceivable that, from various causes, it may come to 
 shut its eyes against that moral or that revealed 
 truth, which both are the offspring of a higher 
 source than mere human experience. The one, or 
 moral truth, may be taught in all its perfection to 
 man when an infant ; and the other, or revealed 
 truth, may have been delivered to the world when 
 it was young. Neither can be added to by the 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 faculty of observation ; and, unlike to the lessons 
 of philosophy, the lessons of morality and revela- 
 tion do not accumulate by the succession of ages. 
 And just as the individual man might deviate, in 
 the progress of years, from the pure and perfect 
 virtues that were inculcated upon his childhood, 
 so the collective species might stray, in the pro- 
 gress of centuries, from that unsullied light which 
 had been held forth to them by the lamp of reve- 
 lation. In a prolonged course of waywardness, 
 they may have wandered very far from the truth 
 of heaven. They may have renounced all that 
 docility and that duteous subordination which cha- 
 racterize the disciples of a former age. Like as 
 the tyranny of youthful passions might overbear 
 the authority of those instructions which had been 
 given by an earthly parent, so the tyranny of pre- 
 judice might overbear the authority of the lessons 
 and the laws which had been given to the world 
 by our heavenly Father. And like as the great 
 spiritual adversary of the human race might, by 
 the corrupt ascendancy wliich he wields over the 
 hearts of men, seduce them from the piety of their 
 early days, so, by means of a priesthood upon 
 earth, standing forth to their prostrate and super- 
 stitious worshippers, and exercising over them all 
 the power of Satan transformed into an angel of 
 light, might he delude whole successive genera- 
 tions from the pure and primitive religion of their 
 forefathers. And after, perhaps, a whole dreary 
 millennium of guilt and of darkness, may some 
 
11 
 
 gifted individual arise, who can look athwart the 
 gloom, and descry the purer and the better age of 
 scripture light which lies beyond it. And as he 
 compares all the errors and the mazes of that vast 
 labyrinth into which so many generations had been 
 led by the jugglery of deceivers, with that simple 
 but shining path which conducts the believer unto 
 glory, let us wonder not that the aspiration of his 
 pious and patriotic heart should be for the good old 
 way. 
 
 We now see wherein it is that the modern might 
 excel the ancient. In regard to experimental 
 truth, he can be as much wiser than his predeces- 
 sors, as the veteran and the observant sage is wiser 
 than the unpractised stripling, to whom the world 
 is new, and who has yet all to learn of its wonders 
 and of its ways. The voice that is now emitted 
 from the schools, whether of physical or of politi- 
 cal science, is the voice of the world's antiquity. 
 The voice emitted from the same schools, in former 
 ages, was the voice of the world's childhood, which 
 then gave forth in lisping utterance the conceits 
 and the crudities of its young unchastened specu- 
 lation. But in regard to things not experimen- 
 tal, in regard even to taste, or to imagination, 
 or to moral principle, as well as to the stable and 
 unchanging lessons of divine truth, there is no 
 such advancement. For the perfecting of these, w^ 
 have not to wait the slow processes of observation 
 and discoveiy, handed down from one generation 
 to another. They address themselves more im- 
 
12 
 
 mediately to the spirit's eye — and just as in the 
 solar light of day, our forefathers saw the whole 
 of visible creation as perfectly as we — so in the 
 lights, whether of fancy, or of conscience, or of 
 faith, they may have had as just and vivid a per- 
 ception of Nature's beauties; or they may have 
 had as ready cl discrimination, and as religious a 
 sense of all the proprieties of life; or they may 
 have had a veneration as solemn, and an acquaint- 
 ance as profound, with the mysteries of revelation, 
 as the men of our modern and enlightened day. 
 And, accordingly, we have as sweet or sublime an 
 eloquence, and as transcendant a poetry, and as 
 much both of the exquisite and noble in all the fine 
 arts, and a morality as delicate and dignified, and, 
 to crown the whole, as exalted and as informed a 
 piety in the remoter periods of the world, as among 
 ourselves, to whom the latter ends of the world have 
 come. In respect of these, we are not on higher 
 vantage ground than many of the generations that 
 have gone by. But neither are we on lower van- 
 tage ground. We have access to the same objects. 
 We are in possession of the same faculties. And, 
 if between the age in which we live, and some 
 bright and by-gone era, there should have inter- 
 vened the deep and the long-protracted haze of 
 many centuries, whether of barbarism in taste, or 
 of profligacy in morals, or of superstition in Chris- 
 tianity, it will only heighten, by comparison, to our 
 eyes, the glories of all that is excellent ; and if 
 again awakened to light and to liberty, it will 
 
13 
 
 only endear the more to our hearts the good old 
 way. 
 
 We now proceed to the application of these pre- 
 liminary remarks. We do not think that we pre- 
 sume too much, when we address ourselves to the 
 majority of those who are here present, as if they 
 were the friends and adherents of the Church of 
 Scotland ; and we shall endeavour, on the princi- 
 ples which we have just attempted to expound, 
 first to appreciate the titles of the founders of that 
 church to the respect and the confidence of its 
 disciples — and, secondly, to consider how this re- 
 spect should be qualified, so as not to degenerate 
 into idolatry. 
 
 You will now perceive, first, how in regard to 
 all experimental truth, the moderns, furnished as 
 they are with a larger and more luminous book of 
 experience, should, in the language of the Psalmist, 
 " understand more than the ancients," — and, se- 
 condly, how in regard to all theological truth, fur- 
 nished as they are, with the same unaltered and 
 unalterable book of revelation, they should at least 
 understand as much as the ancients. Some would 
 on this ground too, contend for the superiority of 
 our modern day, because of the successive labours 
 of that criticism wherewith the Sacred Volume is 
 not amended or added to, but wherewith the ob- 
 scurities which are upon the face of it, may be gra- 
 dually cleared away. We do not lay great stress 
 upon this observation, for, without depreciating the 
 
14 
 
 worth of Scriptural criticism, we cannot admit that 
 all the additional light which is evolved by it, bears 
 more than a very small fractional value to the 
 breadth and the glory of that effulgence which 
 shines from our English Bible, on the mind of an 
 ordinary peasant. On either supposition, however, 
 the most enlightened of our moderns, is, in regard 
 to the one book, on fully equal, and in regard to 
 the other, on a far higher vantage ground than 
 the most enlightened of our ancients ; and while 
 it is our part to be as profoundly submissive as 
 they, to all that has been said, and to all that has 
 been done, by the God who is above us, here we 
 sit in the entire right of our own independent judg- 
 ment on all that has been said, and on all that has 
 been done, by the men who have gone before us. 
 
 The great service then for which the Scottish 
 and other reformers, in their respective countries, 
 deserve the gratitude of posterity, is not that they 
 shone upon us with any original light of their own, 
 but simply that they cleared away a most grievous 
 obstruction which had stood for ages, and inter- 
 cepted from the eyes of mankind the light of the 
 book of revelation. This they did, by asserting, 
 in behalf of God, the paramount authority of his 
 Scripture over the belief and the consciences of 
 men ; and asserting in behalf of man, his right of 
 private judgment on the doctrine and the informa- 
 tion which are contained in the oracles of God. 
 This right of private judgment, you will observe, 
 is a right maintained not against the authority of 
 
15 
 
 God, but against the authority of men, who have 
 either added to tlie oracles of God, or who have 
 assumed to themselves the office of being the in- 
 fallible and ultimate interpreters of his word. It 
 was ajjainst this that our reformers went forth and 
 prevailed. Theirs was a noble struggle for the 
 spiritual liberties of the human race, against the 
 papacy of Rome, and nobly did they acquit them- 
 selves of this holy warfare. At first it was a 
 fearful conflict ; when, on the one side, there 
 was the wliole strength of the secular arm, and, 
 on the other, a few obscure but devoted men, 
 whose only weapons were truth, and prayer, and 
 suffering constancy. And it is a cheering thought, 
 and full of promise both for the moral and po- 
 litical destinies of our world, that, after all, the 
 great and the governing force which men ulti- 
 mately obey, is that of Opinion — that the cause of 
 truth and righteousness, cradled by the rough 
 hand of persecutors, and nurtured to maturity 
 amid the terrors of fierce and fiery intolerance, is 
 sure at length to overbear its adversaries — that 
 contempt, and cruelty, and the decrees of arbi- 
 trary power, and the fires of bloody martyrdom, 
 are but its stepping stones to triumph — that in the 
 heat and the hardihood of this sore discipline, it 
 grows like the indestructible seed, and at last 
 forces its resistless way to a superiority and a 
 strength, before which the haughtiest potentates 
 of our world are made to tremble. The reforma- 
 tion by Luther is far the proudest example of this 
 
16 
 
 in history — who, with nought but a sense of duty 
 and the energies of his own undaunted heart to 
 sustain him, went forth single-handed against the 
 hosts of a most obdurate corruption that filled all 
 Europe, and had weathered the lapse of many 
 centuries — who, by the might of his own uplifted 
 arm, shook the authority of that high pontificate 
 which had held the kings and the great ones of 
 the earth in thraldom — who, wdth no other wea- 
 pons than those of argument and Scripture, 
 brought down from its peering altitude, that old 
 spiritual tyranny, whose head reached unto hea- 
 ven, and which had the entrenchments of deepest 
 and strongest prejudice thrown around its base. 
 When we can trace a result so magnificent as this 
 to the workings of one solitary spirit — when the 
 breast of Luther was capable of holding the germ 
 or the embryo of the greatest revolution which 
 the world ever saw — when we observe how many 
 kindred spirits caught from his the fire of that 
 noble inspiration by which it was actuated, and 
 how powerfully the voice which he lifted up in 
 the midst of Germany, was re-echoed to from the 
 distant extremities of Europe by other voices, — 
 O ! let us not despair of truth's omnipotence, and 
 of her triumph, but rest assured that, let despots 
 combine to crush that moral energy which they 
 shall never conquer, or to put out that flame 
 which they shall find to be inextinguishable, there 
 is now a glorious aw^akening abroad upon the 
 world, and, in despite of all their policy, the days 
 
17 
 
 of" its perfect light and its perfect liberty are 
 
 coming. 
 
 Our own Knox was one in the likeness of 
 Lnther ; and, perhaps, by nature of a firmer and 
 hardier temperament than he. For it must be 
 observed of the German reformer, that there w^ere 
 about him a certain softness and love of tran- 
 quillity, which inclined him more to the shade of a 
 studious retirement, than to the high places of 
 society. The truth is, that most gladly would he 
 have hid himself in some academic bower from 
 the strifes and the storms of the open world ; and 
 sore was the struggle in his bosom ere he did 
 adventure himself into the scenes of controversy 
 from which he afterwards came off so victorious. 
 It was fortunate for mankind, that though his love 
 of peace was strong, his sense of duty was yet 
 stronger, and that with a force which he felt to be 
 imperious, it bore him through the heats and the 
 hazards of his great warfare. Still it was at the 
 expense of a most painful conflict with the tender 
 and the tremulous sensibilities of his nature ; for 
 really, the man's native element w^as contempla- 
 tion ; and then did he find himself at his most ap- 
 propriate exercise, when by the weapons, whether 
 of a spiritual or literary championship, he fought, 
 as he did, most manfully, the battles of the faith. 
 Our countryman was altogether of sterner mood ; 
 and with a certain rigidity of fibre which the 
 other had not, could better sustain himself in the 
 fray, and the onset, and the close encounter of 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 more immediate assailants. It has been said of 
 him, in virtue of his impregnable nervous system, 
 that he never feared the face of clay, and thus was 
 he admirably fitted for the conduct of a high enter- 
 prise, amid the terrors of scowling royalty, and 
 among the turbulent nobles of our land. Each had 
 a part to sustain ; and each was singularly quali- 
 fied by Providence for the performance of it, — 
 the one, from his closet to spread the light of the 
 principles of reformation over the face of Christen- 
 dom — the other, in the boisterous politics of a 
 court, or by the energy of his living voice from the 
 pulpit, to do the executive work of reformation in 
 one of the provinces of Christendom. It is obvious 
 that Luther's was the superior station of the two ; 
 and that to him Knox was subordinate. And it is 
 well in this bustling age, when there is so much of 
 demand from the public functionaries of our 
 church for the labour of mere handiwork, and so 
 little for that of literary preparation — it is well to 
 notice, in the present instance, that while the 
 practical talent of Knox carried him to such high 
 ascendancy over the affairs of men, the pure and 
 the powerful intellect of Luther won for him a 
 higher ascendancy still — that through the medium 
 of the press, and by virtue of scholarship alone, 
 he bore with greater weight than did all his co- 
 adjutors on the living history of the world — and 
 that, after all, it was from the cell of studious 
 contemplation, from the silent depository of a 
 musing and meditative spirit, there came forth 
 
19 
 
 the strongest and the most widely felt impulse on 
 the mechanism of human society. 
 
 This then is the first great service which our 
 Reformers achieved for mankind, even freedom of 
 access to the Scriptures of truth, and the right of 
 private judgment, explained as we have already 
 done, over the contents of it. The second, which 
 springs immediately from the first, but which 
 deserves a separate consideration, is a theology 
 not created by them, but a theology evolved by 
 them, and most eminently subservient both to the 
 peace and the holiness of individuals, and to the 
 general virtue of the world. 
 
 In Milner's Church History (a book that I would 
 commend to the perusal of every devout and desi- 
 rous Christian) we have a deeply interesting narra- 
 tive of those mental processes through which Lu- 
 ther did at length find rest to his soul. There 
 was nought whatever in all the penances of that 
 laborious superstition wherein he had been edu- 
 cated, that could bring peace to his conscience, 
 deeply stricken as it was by a sense of guilt, and 
 of the holiness and awful majesty of that Being 
 against whom he had offended. The Spirit of God 
 seems, in the first instance, to have convinced him, 
 and that most pungently and most profoundly, of 
 the malignity of sin ; and then it was that he felt 
 how, in the whole round of the observances and 
 absolutions of the Church of Rome, he could 
 meet with no adequate Saviour. Meanwhile the 
 law pursued him with its exactions and its terrors, 
 
20 
 
 and long and weary was the period of his spirit's 
 agitations, ere he arrived at that hiding-place in 
 which alone he could confidently feel that he was 
 safe. He experienced, in regard to all the cere- 
 monies of that corrupt ritual in which he had been 
 trained, what the apostle affirms in regard to the 
 not impure, but still imperfect ritual of Moses. 
 " It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of 
 goats should take away sin." And thus, after the 
 payment of all the debts and of all the drudgeries 
 which his church had ordained for transgression, 
 he felt that his sins were not taken away. He per- 
 formed them, but he was not purged by them; 
 and so a sense of his unexpiated guilt still adhered 
 to him, like an arrow sticking fast. It was then 
 that he was led to ask for the old paths, that he 
 might find out the good way, and walk therein. 
 And it was not till the light of Scripture, beaming 
 with its own direct radiance, and powerfully re- 
 flected from the pages of Augustine, shone upon 
 his inquiry — not till he came within view of that 
 great sacrifice which was made once for the sins 
 of the world — not till the imaginary merit of human 
 actions was all swept away, and there was substi- 
 tuted in its place the everlasting righteousness 
 which Christ hath brought in — not till he saw the 
 free and the welcome recourse which one and all 
 have upon this righteousness by faith, and how, 
 instead of springing from the toilsome but polluted 
 obedience of man upon earth, it comes graciously 
 down, in a descending ministration from heaven, 
 
21 
 
 upon those who believe, — not till then, could he 
 behold the reparation that was commensurate with 
 the demand and the dignity of God's violated law. 
 Now was he made, and for the first time, to un- 
 derstand, that under the canopy of the appointed 
 mediatorship, he might continue to hear the thun- 
 ders of the law, yet feel that they rolled innocu- 
 ous over him : and this, my brethren, was the place 
 both of enlargement and of quietness, where he 
 found rest unto his soul. 
 
 It is this doctrine of imputed righteousness that 
 gives to the gospel message the character of a joy- 
 ful sound, the going forth of which among all na- 
 tions shall at length both reconcile and regenerate 
 the world. That w^ere indeed a gladsome land, 
 where this truth was preached with acceptance 
 and with power from all the pulpits. It is, in fact, 
 the great bond of re-union between earth and hea- 
 ven. It is like a cord of love let down from the 
 upper sanctuary among the sinful men who are be- 
 low ; and with every sinner who takes hold, it 
 proves the conductor, along which the virtues of 
 heaven, as well as the peace of heaven, descend 
 upon him. This doctrine of grace is altogether a 
 doctrine according to godliness, and as much fitted 
 to emancipate the heart from the tyranny of sin as 
 from the terrors of that vengeance which is due to 
 it. O, it is an idle fear, lest the preaching of the 
 cross should spread the licentiousness of a pro- 
 claimed impunity among the people. All experi- 
 ence assures tlie opposite; and that in parislies 
 
22 
 
 which are most plied with the free offers of forgive- 
 ness through the blood of a satisfying atonement, 
 there we have the best and the holiest families. 
 
 But it may be suspected, that although such a 
 theology is the minister of peace, it cannot be the 
 minister of holiness. Now, to those who have this 
 suspicion, and who would represent the doctrine 
 of justification by faith — that article, as Luther 
 calls it, of a standing or falling church — as adverse 
 to the interests of virtue, I would put one ques- 
 tion, and ask them to resolve it. How comes it 
 that Scotland, which, of all the countries in Eu- 
 rope, is the most signalized by the rigid Calvinism 
 of her pulpits, should also be the most signalized 
 by the moral glory that sits on the aspect of her 
 general population ? How, in the name of mys- 
 tery, should it happen, that such a theology as ours 
 is conjoined with perhaps the yet most unvitiated 
 peasantry among the nations of Christendom ? The 
 allegation against our Churches is, that in the argu- 
 mentation of our abstract and speculative contro- 
 versies, the people are so little schooled to the per- 
 formance of good works. And how then is it, that 
 in our courts of justice, when compared with the 
 calendars of our sister kingdom, there should be 
 so vastly less to do with their evil works? It is 
 certainly a most important experience, that in that 
 country where there is the most of Calvinism, there 
 should be the least of crime, — that what may be 
 called the most doctrinal nation of Europe, should, 
 at the same time, be the least depraved — and the 
 
23 
 
 land wlierein people are most deeply imbued with 
 the principles of salvation by grace, should be the 
 least distempered either by their week-day profli- 
 gacies, or their Sabbath profanations. When Knox 
 came over from the school of Geneva, he brought 
 its strict, and, at that time, uncorrupted orthodoxy, 
 along with him; and witli it he pervaded all the 
 formularies of that church which was founded by 
 him ; and not only did it flame abroad from all our 
 pulpits, but, through our schools and our cate- 
 chisms, it was brought down to the boyhood of our 
 land; and from one generation to another, have 
 our Scottish youth been familiarized to the sound 
 of it from their very infancy; and unpromising as 
 such a system of tuition might be in the eye of the 
 mere academic moralist, to the object of building 
 up a virtuous and well-doing peasantry, certain it 
 is, that, as the wholesale result, there has palpably 
 come forth of it the most moral peasantry in Eu- 
 rope notwithstanding. We know of great and 
 grievous declensions, partly owing to the extension 
 of our crowded cities being most inadequately fol- 
 lowed up by such a multiplication of churches and 
 parishes as might give fair scope to the energies of 
 our ecclesiastical system ; and principally, we fear, 
 to a declension from that very theology which has 
 been denounced as the enemy of practical righ- 
 teousness. But on this last topic we forbear to 
 detain you ; for vastly rather than expatiate on the 
 degeneracies of what may be termed the middle 
 age of the Church of Scotland, we incline to re- 
 
24 
 
 joice in the symptoms of its bright and blessed re- 
 vival ; and would therefore only say, that should, 
 in mockery of these anticipations, the people of 
 our land fall wholly away from the integrity of their 
 forefathers — should there come a great and general 
 deterioration in the worth of our common people, 
 it will only be because preceded by a great and 
 general deterioration in the zeal, and the doctrines, 
 and the services of our clergymen. And if ever 
 the families of our beloved land shall have apos- 
 tatised from the virtues of the olden time, it will 
 lie at the door of pastors who have been unfaithful 
 to their trust, and of pastors who have apostatised 
 from the good old divinity of other days. 
 
 But in this enumeration of Knox's services to 
 Scotland, we must now pass on from the theology 
 of this great reformer, to what may be called cer- 
 tain arrangements of ecclesiastical polity, which, 
 through his means, have been instituted in our 
 land. And this is the subject, we think, upon 
 which the schemes and the settlements of a com- 
 paratively younger age lie most open to the ani- 
 madversions of a now older world ; for, while a 
 perfect theology may be drawn at once from the 
 now finished book of revelation, it is not a perfect 
 ecclesiastical polity, but only one that admits of 
 successive improvements, which can be drawn from 
 the yet unfinished, but constantly progressive book 
 of experience. On this ground, therefore, w^e 
 shall consent to be enlightened by the venerable 
 founder of our church, but we shall not consent to 
 
25 
 
 be enthralled by him; and, in fearlessly comment- 
 ing both upon his excellencies and his errors, we 
 feel ourselves to be only breathing in that element 
 of liberty wherewith himself did impregnate the 
 atmosphere of our now emancipated land, to be 
 only following that noble example of independence 
 which himself has bequeathed to us. 
 
 But in this part of our exposition, we must be very 
 far shorter than the magnitude of the theme would 
 require ; for it is the misfortune of almost every oc- 
 casional sermon, that the topics wherewith it stands 
 associated, are far too unwieldy for one address — 
 else we should have ventured to apply our intro- 
 ductory principles on the subject of ancient autho- 
 rities and ancient times, more closely than we can 
 now afford to the question, of that precise deference 
 which is due to our illustrious Reformer. We should 
 have especially urged it upon you, that neither he 
 nor any other of the venerable Founders of our es- 
 tablishment, shone upon us in their own radiance, 
 but only by a light reflected upon us from the pure 
 and primary radiance of Scripture — and that, in 
 fact, the great service which they rendered to pos- 
 terity, lay in the removal of those obstructions 
 which stood between the truths of revelation, and 
 the private independent judgment of men. It is 
 in virtue of their exertions, that each may now 
 look to the Bible with his own eyes, and not w4th 
 the eyes of another; and we only use the privilege 
 which they have won for us, when we try even 
 themselves, either by that book of revelation which 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 shines as brightly upon us as upon them, or by 
 that book of experience to which every century is 
 adding so many leaves, and which at present shines 
 more brightly than ever on the men of our now 
 older world. The man of the day that now is, if 
 thoroughly and intelligently read in that book, is 
 as much wiser than the man of a distant antiquity, 
 as the hoary-headed sage is wiser than a stripling. 
 And in utter reversal of the prevailing tendency 
 to idolize the men of other days, as if they were 
 the patriarchs of our species, we affirm, that the 
 Luthers, and the Knoxes, and the Calvins, and the 
 Zuingliuses of old, are but as the youths of this 
 world's history, and if there be any individuals now 
 gifted with as great a degree of mental vigour 
 and sagacity, they, with a larger book of experi- 
 ence before them, are, in truth, its bearded and its 
 venerable patriarchs. 
 
 We shall now, however, confine ourselves to a 
 very few sentences about three distinct matters of 
 ecclesiastical polity — and that chiefly as specimens 
 of the way in which a man of great authority and 
 reputation may be deferred to when we think that 
 he is in the right; and be questioned, when we 
 doubt that he is in the wrong. 
 
 Our first, then, is a topic of the most cordial and 
 unmixed eulogy. Knox was the chief compiler of 
 the First Book of Discipline, and to him we owe 
 our present system of parochial education. By 
 that scheme of ecclesiastical polity, a school was 
 required for every parish, and had all its views 
 
27 
 
 been followed up, a college would have been 
 erected in every notable town. On this inestima- 
 ble service done to Scotland we surely do not 
 need to expatiate. The very mention of it lights 
 up an instant and enthusiastic approval in every 
 bosom. And with all the veneration that is due on 
 other grounds to our Reformer, we hold it among 
 the proudest glories of his name, that it stands as- 
 sociated with an institution, which has spread 
 abroad the light of a most beauteous moral deco- 
 ration throughout all the hamlets of our land, and 
 is dear to every Scottish heart as are the piety and 
 the worth of its peasant families. 
 
 In the second topic, to which we shall advert, 
 he was not so successful, but it argues not the less 
 for his sagacity and his patriotism. We mean that 
 contest, in which he failed, for the entire appro- 
 priation of the patrimony of the church to public 
 objects, rather than that it should be seized upon 
 by the rapacity of private individuals. On this 
 matter I crave the reading of a short extract from 
 the admirable biography of Knox by Dr. M*Crie 
 — a work that should be enshrined in every public, 
 and which is not sought after as it deserves, if it 
 have not also a place in every private library of 
 Scotland. 
 
 ** Another source of distress to the Reformer, 
 at this time, was a scheme which the courtiers had 
 formed for altering the policy of the church, and 
 securing to themselves the principal part of the 
 ecclesiastical revenues. This plan seems to have 
 
28 
 
 been concerted under the regency of Lennox ; it 
 began to be put into execution during that of Mar, 
 and was afterwards completed by Morton. We 
 have ah'eady had occasion to notice the aversion 
 of many of the nobiHty to the Book of DiscipUne, 
 and the principal source from which this aversion 
 sprung. While the Earl of Murray administered 
 the government, he prevented any new encroach- 
 ments upon the rights of the church ; but the suc- 
 ceeding regents were either less friendly to them, 
 or less able to bridle the avarice of the more pow- 
 erful nobles. Several of the richest benefices be- 
 coming vacant by the decease, or by the sequestra- 
 tion of the popish incumbents who had been 
 permitted to retain them, it was necessary to 
 determine in what manner they should be dis- 
 posed of for the future. The church had uniformly 
 required that their revenues should be divided, 
 and applied to the support of the religious and the 
 literary establishments ; but with this demand the 
 courtiers were by no means disposed to comply. 
 At the same time, the total secularization of them 
 was deemed too bold a step ; nor could laymen, 
 witli any shadow of consistency, or by a valid title, 
 hold benefices which the law declared to be ec- 
 clesiastical. The expedient resolved on was, that 
 the bishoprics and other livings should be presented 
 to certain ministers, who, previous to their ad- 
 mission, should make over the principal part of 
 their revenues to such noblemen as had obtained 
 the patronage of them from the court," 
 
29 
 
 This most grievous error in the conduct of the 
 Scottish reformation, (but for which Knox is not at 
 all chargeable) is but little understood by the public 
 at large, and in the statement of which therefore 
 we do not expect to be greatly sympathized with. 
 It was that compromise which took place between 
 the ecclesiastics and the nobles of our land, and in 
 virtue of which the former concurred, or rather 
 were compelled to acquiesce, in both our church 
 and our literary establishments being shorn of their 
 patrimony. The effect has been that a revenue, 
 which might have been applied to the exigencies 
 of an increasing population, now unprovided with 
 the means of Christian instruction; or which might 
 have been applied to uphold, in strength and in 
 splendour, those Universities of our land, which 
 both in their endowments and their architecture 
 are fast hastening to degradation and decay, is 
 now wholly secularized, and serves but to augment 
 the expense and the luxury of private families. 
 And in the face of all that contempt and that 
 common-place which the beneficed priesthood of 
 every establishment has to endure, we scruple not 
 to say, that what Knox by his sagacity foresaw, 
 and which he strove in vain to make head against, 
 has been most fearfully realized, — and that the high 
 interests both of religion and of learning suffer at 
 this day, under the effects of that unprincipled, 
 that truly Gothic spoliation. 
 
 We are aware of a fashionable political economy 
 in this our day, which, for the sake of leaving un- 
 
30 
 
 touched the splendour and the luxury of our higher 
 classes, would suffer the public functionaries to 
 starve ; and m opposition to which we at present 
 affirm, (for we have no time to argue) that in the 
 progress both of landed and of mercantile wealth, 
 both the officers of religion and the officers of edu- 
 cation have been left immeasurably too far behind 
 in the career of an advancing society. On this topic 
 we make common cause with all other public func- 
 tionaries; and in despite of the popular outcry 
 against it, we hold, that from the highest judges of 
 the land, to the humblest teacher of a village 
 school, there ought to be one great and general 
 augmentation, it being our first principle, that 
 every public functionary should do his duty well, 
 and our second, that every public functionary 
 should be well paid for the doing of it. 
 
 The third topic to which we shall advert, is 
 that in which we hold Knox to have been in an 
 error, though precisely such an error as I think 
 that the book of our now larger experience, in 
 which so many lessons are inscribed since his day, 
 of the wisdom and efficacy of toleration, would 
 have expelled from his mind. 
 
 It was an error, however, not confined to the 
 reformers of any particular country; for, in truth, 
 it was shared alike among all the theologians of all 
 the denominations in Christendom. It consisted 
 in the imagination, and it was an imagination quite 
 universal in these days, that Christianity could not 
 flourish, nay that it could not exist, save in the one 
 
31 
 
 framework of one certain and cleHned ecclesiastical 
 constitution ; and hence with us, that there could 
 be no light and no efficacy in the ministrations of 
 the gospel, unless they were conducted according 
 to the forms, and in the strict model and frame- 
 work of Presbytery. And so, in the works of 
 some of the older worthies of the Kirk of Scotland, 
 we read about as often of black Prelacy, as we do 
 of her who was arrayed in scarlet, and is the mother 
 of all abominations. Now, it is surely better, that 
 this extreme and exclusive intolerance is almost 
 wholly done away; and better still it would be, if 
 the two co-ordinate establishments of our island, 
 while they kept by their own respective frame- 
 works, should acknowledge each of the other, that 
 although by a different machinery, there may be 
 the same right and religious principle to animate 
 the movements, and the same high capacities for 
 religious usefulness with both; that if the one, 
 perhaps, have more thoroughly leav^ened with 
 Christianity the bulk of her population, the other 
 is more signalized by the prowess of her sons, in 
 the high walks of Christian scholarship ; that in 
 her Clarkes, and her Butlers, and her Warburtons, 
 and her Hurds, and her Horsleys, and her Paleys, 
 and her Watsons, we behold the divines of a 
 church, which of all others has stood the foremost, 
 and wielded the mightiest polemic arm in the 
 battles of the Faith. 
 
 I entreat to be forgiven if I make one allusion 
 more, if not to an error on the part of our old re- 
 
32 
 
 formers, at least to a peculiarity of theirs, which 
 is not, to say the least of it, so authoritatively en- 
 joined by the book of God's revelation, as to stand 
 exempted from all charge and reckoning on the 
 part of those who, in our own modern day, have at 
 least the benefit of a larger and more luminous 
 book of experience than they had. We utterly 
 refuse to go along with the ancients of our church 
 in their stern and severe sentiment of Prelacy. 
 And however right they may have been in their 
 sentiment of another denomination, yet still it is, at 
 the very least, a questionable thing, whether they 
 were right in their stern and severe treatment of 
 Popery. After having wrested from Popery its 
 armour of intolerance, was it right to wdeld that 
 very armour against the enemy that had fallen. 
 After having laid it prostrate by the use alone of 
 a spiritual w^eapon, was it right or necessary, in 
 order to keep it prostrate, to make use of a carnal 
 one — thus reversing the characters of that warfare, 
 which Truth had sustained, and with such triumph, 
 against Falsehood; and vilifying the noble cause 
 by an associate so unseemly, as that which the 
 power of the state can make to bear on the now 
 disarmed and subjugated minority. Surely the 
 verv strength which won for Protestantism its as- 
 cendancy in these realms is competent of itself to 
 preserve it; and if argument and scripture alone 
 have achieved the victory over falsehood, why not 
 confide to argument and scripture alone the main- 
 tenance of the truth? It is truly instructive to 
 
33 
 
 mark, how on the moment that tlie forces of the 
 statute-book were enlisted on the side of Protest- 
 antism, from that moment Popery, armed with a 
 generous indignancy against its oppressors, put on 
 that moral strength, which persecution always 
 gives to every cause that is at once honoured and 
 sustained by it. O, if the friends of religious li- 
 berty had but kept by their own spiritual weapons, 
 when the cause was moving onward in such pros- 
 perity, and with such triumph ! But when they 
 threw aside argument, and brandished the ensigns 
 of authority, then it was that truth felt the virtue 
 go out of her ; and falsehood, inspired with an 
 energy before unknown, planted the unyielding 
 footstep, and put on the resolute defiance. And 
 now that centuries have rolled on, all the influ- 
 ences, whether of persuasion or of power, have 
 been idly thrown away on the firm, the impracti- 
 cable countenance of an aggrieved population. 
 
 But we gladly hasten away from all these topics, 
 on some of wliich, indeed, we ought not to have 
 touched, but for the purpose of illustrating the 
 distinction between those cases in v/hich we should 
 defer to the voice of antiquity, and prize its direc- 
 tion as the good old way ; and those cases in which 
 the lesson that hath come down to us from anti- 
 quity, should be regarded in no other light than 
 as the puerility of a then younger species, the yet 
 weak and unformed judgment of the world's boy- 
 hood. The light of experience which feebly glim- 
 mers at the outset of History, brightens onward in 
 
 £ 
 
34 
 
 its progress. But the same does not hold of the 
 light of revelation, which shone with as pure and 
 as clear a radiance on the patriarchs of our church, 
 as it hath since done on any of its succeeding gen- 
 erations. Nay, it is a possible thing, that in the 
 ages which followed the first establishment of 
 Presbytery in Scotland, there may have been de- 
 viations from the spirit and simplicity of Scripture; 
 that the pride of intellect, and of human specula- 
 tion, may have carried it high against that authori- 
 tative truth, w^hich hath come down to our world 
 from the upper sanctuary ; that from the exercise 
 of a careless and a corrupt patronage, many of our 
 parishes may have been exposed to the withering 
 influence of a careless and a corrupt clergy ; that 
 thus, in the shape of cold and heartless apathy, a 
 moral blight, or mildew, may have descended on 
 our land; and that, what with a meagre theology 
 on the one hand, and an extinct or nearly expiring 
 zeal upon the other, there may have been an utter 
 degeneracy from that golden period, when the 
 truths of the Bible shone full upon many an un- 
 derstanding, and the spirit of the Bible animated 
 many a desirous and devoted heart. It is not that 
 the wisdom of experience was greater then than it 
 is now, but it is that the wisdom of faith and piety 
 was greater then than it is now, that we should so 
 much ameliorate our present age by calling back 
 the genius of the olden time. And did we but 
 revert as before to the strict guidance and authority 
 of Revelation ; did we, reviewing our own imagina- 
 
35 
 
 tion, make our submissive appeal to the Law and 
 to the Testimony ; did we only sufter the word of 
 God to carry it at all times over the wayward 
 fancies of men, and so recur to the apostolic hu- 
 mility, and the apostolic zeal, of former periods-^ 
 this, this is what is meant in our text by the good 
 old way. 
 
 In conclusion, let me now address you as mem- 
 bers of the Church of Scotland, which in principle 
 is essentially Protestant, and which, though like 
 other churches it has its articles and its formula- 
 ries of doctrine, yet wants no such discipleship as 
 that which is grounded on blind submission to her 
 authority, but only the discipleship of those, who 
 in the free exercise of their judgment and their 
 conscience, honestly believe her doctrine to be 
 grounded on the authority of the word of God. 
 Both her Catechism and Confession of Faith have 
 been given to the public with note and comment, 
 it is true, but with note and comment that consist 
 exclusively of Bible texts ; and so, like apples ot 
 gold in pictures of silver, they offer a list of dog- 
 mata, but of dogmata set, as it were, or embossed 
 in Scripture. The natural depravity of man ; his 
 need both of a regeneration and of an atonement ; 
 the accomplishment of the one by the efficacy of 
 a divine sacrifice, and of the other by the opera- 
 tion of a sanctifying spirit ; the doctrine that a 
 sinner is justified by faitli, followed up, most ear- 
 nestly and incessantly followed up, through the 
 pulpits of our land, by the doctrine that he is 
 
36 
 
 judged by works ; the righteousness of Christ as 
 the alone foundation of his meritorious claim to 
 heaven, but this followed up by his own personal 
 righteousness as the indispensable preparation for 
 heaven's exercises and heaven's joys ; the free 
 offer of pardon even to the chief of sinners, but 
 this followed up by the practical calls of repen- 
 tance, without which no orthodoxy can save him ; 
 the amplitude of the gospel invitations, and, in 
 despite of all that has been so unintelligently said 
 about our gloomy and relentless Calvinism, the 
 wide and unexcepted amnesty that is held forth 
 to every creature under heaven, so as that the 
 message of reconciliation may be made to circu- 
 late round the globe, and the overtures of welcome 
 and good will from the mercy seat above, be affec- 
 tionately urged on all the individuals of all the 
 families of earth below — these are the main cre- 
 denda of a church that has oft been reproached 
 for its hard and unfeeling theology — but neverthe- 
 less, a theology which, deeply seated as it still is in 
 the affections of our peasantry, hath approved itself 
 by their virtues and their general habits, to be, 
 after all, the fittest basis on which to sustain the 
 moral worth and the moral energies of a nation. 
 
 In adhering then to such a church and to such 
 a creed, you adhere to what we have no hesitation 
 in characterising as the good old way of your fore- 
 fathers — not the less dear, we trust, to many of 
 you, that you have now separated from that inter- 
 esting land, and perhaps look back through the 
 
37 
 
 dim and distant recollection of many years, to the 
 days of your cherished and well taught boyhood. 
 In this house of wider accommodation, a far 
 larger number of our countrymen than before, can 
 realize the services of a Scottish Sabbath. And, 
 when we think of the constant accessions which 
 are making to this number, and that too, by the 
 yearly influx of exposed and unprotected youth 
 into this vast metropolis, the moral importance of 
 such an erection as the present rises above all 
 computation. We cannot look indeed to those 
 who have recently quitted the parental roof, and 
 now in the open world are in the midst of its 
 snares and its fearful exposures, without regarding 
 it as the most affecting of all spectacles, when any 
 one of them gives up the comparative innocence 
 of his tender years, and thence passes into the 
 hardihood and the knowing depravity of vice. In 
 the whole compass of nature, there is not a wreck 
 more lamentable, or which presents an object of 
 more distressful contemplation, than does the ruin 
 of youthful modesty. And the flower that withers 
 upon its stalk, and all whose blushing graces have 
 now vanished into the loathsomeness of vilest pu- 
 trefaction, is but the faint emblem of so sad an 
 overthrow. That indeed is one of the darkest 
 transitions in the history of man, when he ex- 
 changes the simplicities of his early home for the 
 riot, and the intemperance, and the daring excesses 
 that are acted in haunts of profligacy — when bv 
 the loud laugh of his forerunners in .2:nilf, all his 
 
38 
 
 purposes of virtue are overborne — and he is at 
 length tempted, among the urgencies and the con- 
 taminations of surrounding example, to cast his 
 principle and his purity away from him. Be 
 assured that, in the wild and lurid gleams of 
 frantic dissipation, there is nought that can com- 
 pensate for the calm, the beauteous lustre, which 
 some have left behind you in the abode of do- 
 mestic piety. And therefore, now that you have 
 departed from the hallowed influences of an atmos- 
 phere so pure and so kindly, let me entreat you, 
 by ail the high interests which belong to you as 
 immortal creatures, that you forget not the solem- 
 nity of a father's parting advice, that you forget 
 not the tenderness of a mother's prayers. 
 
 One of the likeliest preservatives of conduct 
 through the week, is a powerful religious applica- 
 tion to the conscience upon the Sabbath. And 
 we repeat it as matter of high gratulation to our 
 Scottish families, that in a place so capacious as 
 this, the lessons of Christianity are to be minis- 
 tered according to the forms of our church, and 
 by one of the most distinguished of her sons — a 
 minister who has ever counted it a small matter to 
 be judged of man's judgment, but who is solem- 
 nized by the thought that he who judgeth him is 
 God — a minister who combines with the utmost 
 fearlessness for the creature, the utmost docility 
 and reverence for the Creator, — one whose talents 
 and whose colossal strength of mind could have 
 borne him aloft to the most arduous heights of 
 
39 
 
 science, but wlio now holds it his more becoming, 
 as indeed it is his more dignified part, to give him- 
 self wholly to the studies and the pursuits of sa- 
 credness, — one who is willing to spend and be 
 spent for the eternity of his people, and who, after 
 having survived the buffettings of a whole world 
 of gainsayers, now sits down amongst you with 
 the well earned attachment of the thousands who 
 know his worth, and who have been awakened by 
 his ministry. His are not the short-lived triumphs of 
 a mere popular empiricism, but the fairly won dis- 
 tinction of one who possesses the stamina of worth 
 and endurance, being alike gifted with great princi- 
 ple, and with great power. But it is not distinction 
 that he seeks ; for intent upon higher objects, we 
 trust the paramount aim of his spirit to be, not his 
 own glory, but the glory of the master whom he 
 serves ; and that actuated by motives which the 
 world can neither understand nor sympathise with, 
 he has received of that grace from above, which is 
 given only to the humble, and the want of which 
 would stamp an utter impotency on the ablest and 
 most splendid ministrations. If thus upholden, he 
 has nothing to fear. Already have the outrages of 
 a rude and licentious press broken their strength 
 upon him, and are dissipated. And now that the 
 fume, and the turbulence, and the uproar, of this 
 temporary warfare have been all cleared away, 
 does he stand forth with a moral dignity on his 
 part, and a warranted confidence upon yours, 
 
40 
 
 which, under God, are the best guarantees for the 
 success of his future labours. 
 
 May the spirit of all grace abundantly strengthen 
 and uphold him in the arduous office to which he 
 has been called. May living water from the sanc- 
 tuary above descend on the ministrations of the 
 word here below, and both fertilizing the soil of 
 your hearts, and fructifying the good seed which 
 is deposited there, may you be made to abound in 
 all the fruits of righteousness. May this House in 
 future years be the scene of many sound and scrip- 
 tural conversions ; and never, till in the course of 
 generations its walls have mouldered into decay? 
 and its minarets have fallen, never may it cease 
 either in our own day, or in the days of our chil- 
 dren's children, to be a gate to Heaven, a place 
 of busy and successful preparation for heaven's 
 exercises, and heaven's joys. 
 
 Printed by W. Collins & Dj. 
 Glasgow. 
 
ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS: 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED IN EDINBURGH, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 5th of march, 1826. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 GLASGOW: • 
 
 PRINTED FOR CHALMERS & COLLINS; 
 
 WILLIAM WHYTE & CO. AND WILLIAM OLIPHANT, EDINBURGH; 
 
 R, M. TIMS, AND WM. CURRY, JUN. & CO. DUBLIN; 
 
 AND O. B. WHITTAKER, LONDON. 
 
 1 8*26. 
 

TO 
 
 MRS. GIBSON, 
 
 THE BENEVOLENT FOUNDRESS 
 
 OF AN ENDOWMENT 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 PREACHING OF AN ANNUAL SERMON IN EDINBURGH, 
 
 AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, 
 
 IS INSCRIBED, WITH MUCH RESPECT, BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 ^ 
 
O.V CIWELTY TO ANIM.ILS 
 
 S E R M O N. 
 
 PROVERBS XII. 10. 
 'a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast." 
 
 The word regard is of two-fold signification, and 
 may either apply to the moral or to the intellec- 
 tual part of our nature. In the one application, 
 the intellectual, it is the regard of attention. In 
 the other, the moral, it is the regard of sympa- 
 thy, or kindness. We do not marvel at this com- 
 mon term having been applied to two different 
 things ; for, in truth, they are most intimately 
 associated ; and the faculty by which a transition 
 is accomplished from the one to the other, may 
 be considered as the intermediate link between 
 the mind and the heart. It is the faculty by 
 which certain objects become present to the 
 mind ; and then the emotions are awakened in 
 the heart, which correspond to these objects. 
 The two act and re-act upon each other. But, 
 as we must not dwell too long on generalities, we 
 
6 
 
 shall satisfy ourselves with stating, that as, on 
 the one hand, if the heart be very alive to any 
 peculiar set of emotions, this of itself is a pre- 
 disposing cause why the mind should be very 
 alert in singling out the peculiar objects which 
 excite them ; so, on the other hand, that the 
 emotions be specifically felt, the objects must be 
 specifically noticed : and thus it is, that the fa- 
 culty of attention — a faculty at the bidding of 
 the wdll, and for the exercise of which, therefore, 
 man is responsible — is of such mighty and com- 
 manding influence upon the sensibilities of our 
 nature ; insomuch that, if the regard of attention 
 could be fastened strongly and singly on the pain 
 of a suffering creature as its object, we believe 
 that no other emotion than the regard of sympathy 
 or compassion would in any instance be awakened 
 by it. 
 
 So much is this indeed the case — so sure is this 
 alliance between the mind simply noticing the 
 distress of a sentient creature, and the heart being 
 sympathetically affected by it, that Nature seems 
 to have limited and circumscribed our power of 
 noticing, and just for the purpose of shielding us 
 from the pain of too pungent, or too incessant a 
 sympathy. And, accordingly, one of the exquisite 
 adaptations in the mechanism of the human frame 
 may be observed in the very imperfection of the 
 human faculties. The most frequently adduced 
 example of this is, the limited pow^r of that organ 
 which is the instrument of vision. The imagina- 
 
tion is, that, did man look out upon Nature with 
 microscopic eye, so that many of tliose wonders 
 which now lie hid in deep obscurity sliould hence- 
 forth start into open revelation, and be hourly and 
 habitually obtruded upon his gaze, then, with his 
 present sensibilities exposed to the torture and 
 the disturbance of a perpetual and most agonizing 
 offence from all possible quarters of contemplation, 
 he would be utterly incapacitated for the move- 
 ments of familiar and ordinary life. Did he ac- 
 tually see, for example, in the beverage which he 
 carried to his lips, that teeming multitude of sen- 
 tient and susceptible creatures wherewith it is 
 pervaded, or if it were alike palpable to his senses, 
 that, by the crush of every footstep, he inflicted 
 upon thousands the' pangs of dissolution, then it is 
 apprehended that, to man as he is, the world would 
 be insupportable. For, beside the irritation of that 
 sore and incessant disgust, from which the power 
 of escaping was denied to him, there would be 
 another, and a most intense suffering, in the con- 
 stantly aggrieved tenderness of his nature. Or if, 
 by the operation of habit, all these sensibilities 
 were blunted, and he could behold unmoved the 
 ruin and the wretchedness that he strewed along 
 his path, then he might attain to comfort in the 
 midst of this surrounding annoyance ; but what 
 would become of character in the utter extinction 
 of all the delicacies and the feelings which wont 
 to adorn it? Such a change in his physical, could 
 only be adjusted to his happiness, by a reverse and 
 
8 
 
 most melancholy change in the moral constitution 
 of his nature. The fineness of his bodily percep- 
 tions would need to be compensated by a propor- 
 tional hardness in the temperament of his soul. 
 With his now finer sensations, there behoved to 
 be duller and coarser sensibilities ; and to assort 
 that eye, whose retina had become tenfold more 
 soft and susceptible than before, its owner must 
 be furnished with a heart of tenfold rigidity, and 
 a nervous system impregnable as iron, — that he 
 might walk forth in ease and in complacency, 
 while the conscious destroyer of millions by his 
 tread, or the conscious devourer of a whole living 
 and suffering hecatomb with every morsel of the 
 sustenance which upheld him. 
 
 But, for the purpose of a ni'ce and delicate bal- 
 ance between the actual feelings and faculties of 
 our nature, something more is necessary than the 
 imperfection of our outward senses. The blunt- 
 ness of man's visual organs serves, no doubt, as a 
 screen of protection against both the nausea and 
 the horror of those many spectacles, which would 
 else have either distressed or deteriorated the sen- 
 sibilities that belong to him. But then, by help 
 of the microscope, this screen can be occasion- 
 ally lifted up ; and what the eye then saw, the 
 memory might retain, and the imagination might 
 dwell upon, and the associating faculty might 
 both constantly and vividly suggest; and thus, 
 even in tlie absence of every provocative from 
 without, the lieart miglit be subjected either to a 
 
9 
 
 perpetual agitation, or a perpetual annoyance, by 
 the meddling importunity of certain powers and 
 activities which are within. It is not therefore an 
 adequate defence of our species, against a very 
 sore and hurtful molestation, that there should be 
 a certain physical incapacity in our senses. There 
 must, furthermore, be a certain physical inertness 
 in our reflective faculties. In virtue of the former 
 it is, that so many painful or disgusting objects are 
 kept out of sight. But it seems indispensable to 
 our happy or even tolerable existence, that, in vir- 
 tue of the latter, these objects, when out of sight, 
 should be also out of mind. In the oneway, they 
 lose their power to offend as objects of outward ob- 
 servation. In the otlier way, their power to haunt 
 and to harass, bv means of inward reflection, is also 
 taken away. For the first purpose. Nature has 
 struck with a certain impotency the organs of our 
 material framework. For the second, she has in- 
 fused, as it were, an opiate into the recesses of our 
 mental economv, and made it of sufficient streno^th 
 and sedative virtue for the needful tranquillity of 
 man, and for upholding that average enjoyment in 
 the midst both of agony and of loathsomeness, 
 which cither senses more acute, or a spirit more 
 wakeful, must have effectually dissipated. It is to 
 some such provision too, we think, that much of 
 the heart's purity, as well as much of its tenderness 
 is owing ; and it is well that the thoughts of the 
 spirit should be kept, though even by the weight 
 of its own lethargy, from too busy a converse with 
 
 13 
 
10 
 
 objects which are ahke offensive or alike hazardous 
 to both. 
 
 It is more properly with the second of these 
 adaptations than the first, that our argument has to 
 do— with the inertness of our reflective faculties, 
 rather than with the incapacity of our senses. It 
 is in behalf of animals, and not of animalculae, 
 that we are called upon to address you — not of that 
 countless swarm, the agonies of whose destruction 
 are shrouded from observation by the vail upon 
 the sight; but of those creatures who move on the 
 face of the open perspective before us, and not as 
 the others in a region of invisibles, and yet whose 
 dying agonies are shrouded almost as darkly and 
 as densely from general observation, by the vail 
 upon the mind. For you will perceive, that in re- 
 ference to the latter vail, and by which it is that 
 what is out of sight is also out of mind, its pur- 
 pose is accomplished, whether the objects w^iich 
 are disguised by it be without the sphere of actual 
 vision, or beneath the surface of possible vision. 
 Now, it is without the sphere of your actual, al- 
 though not beneath the surface of your possible 
 vision, where are transacted the dreadful mysteries 
 of a slaughter-house, and more especially those 
 lingeiing deaths which many an animal has to un- 
 dergo for the gratifications of a refined epicurism. 
 It were surely most desirable that the duties, if they 
 may be so called, of a most revolting trade were 
 all of them got over with the least possible expense 
 of suffering ; nor do we ever feel so painfully the 
 
11 
 
 imprecision of a Inrkin<:^ cannibalism in ofir nature, 
 as when we think of the intense study which has 
 been cjiven to the connection between modes of 
 kilHng, and the flavour or delicacy of those viands 
 which aTe served up to tlie mild, and pacific, and 
 gentle-lookinir creatures, who form the grace and 
 the ornament of our polished society. One is al- 
 most tempted, after all, to look upon them as so 
 many savages in disguise ; and so,- irr truth, we 
 should, but for the strength of that opiate whose 
 power and whose property we have just ertdea- 
 voirred to explain ; and in virtue of which, the 
 guests of an entertainment are all the while most 
 profoundly unconscious of the horrors of that pre- 
 paratory scene which went before it. It is not, 
 therefore, that there is hypocrisy in these smiles 
 wherewith they look so benignly to each other. It 
 is not that there is deceit in their words or their 
 accents of tenderness. The truth is, that one 
 shriek of agony,' if heard from without, would cast 
 mtDst oppressive gloom over this scene of convivi- 
 ality ; and the sight, but for a moment, of one 
 wretched creature quivering towards death, would, 
 with Gorgon spell; dissipate all the gaieties which' 
 enlivened it. But Nature, as it were, hath prac- 
 tised most subtle reticence^ both on the senses atld 
 the spirit of us her children ; or rather, the Author 
 of Nature hath, by the skill of his master hand, 
 instituted the harmony of a most exquisite balance 
 between the tenderness of the human feelings and 
 the listlessuess of the human faculties, so as that, 
 
 B i 
 
12 
 
 in the mysterious economy under which we live, 
 he may at once provide for the sustenance, and 
 leave entire the moral sensibilities of our species. 
 
 But there is a still more wondrous limitation 
 than this, wherewith he hath bounded and beset 
 the faculties of the human spirit. You already 
 understand how it is, that the sufferings of the 
 lower animals may, when out of sight, be out of 
 mind. But more than this, these sufferings may 
 be in sight, and yet out of mind. This is strik- 
 ingly exemplified in the sports of the field, in 
 the midst of whose varied and animating bustle, 
 that cruelty which all along is present to the 
 senses, may not, for one moment, have been pre- 
 sent to the thoughts. There sits a somewhat an- 
 cestral dignity and glory on this favourite pastime 
 of joyous old England; when the gallant knight- 
 hood, and the hearty yeomen, and the amateurs 
 or virtuosos of the chase, and the full assembled 
 jockeyship of half a province, muster together in 
 all the pride and pageantry of their great emprize — 
 and the panorama of some noble landscape, hghted 
 up with autumnal clearness from an unclouded hea- 
 ven, pours fresh exhilaration into every blithe and 
 choice spirit of the scene — and every adventu- 
 rous heart is braced, and impatient for the hazards 
 of the coming enterprise — and even the high- 
 breathed coursers catch the general sympathy, and 
 seem to fret in all the restiveness of their yet 
 checked and irritated fire, till the echoing horn 
 shall set them at liberty — even that horn which is 
 
13 
 
 the knell of death to some trembling victim, now 
 brought forth of its lurking place to the delighted 
 gaze, and borne down upon with the full and open 
 cry of its ruthless pursuers. Be assured that, amid 
 the whole glee and fervency of this tumultuous en- 
 joyment, there might not, in one single bosom, be 
 aught so fiendish as a principle of naked and ab- 
 stract cruelty. The fear which gives its lightning- 
 speed to the unhappy animal; the thickening hor- 
 rors which, in the progress of exhaustion, must 
 gather upon its flight ; its gradually sinking ener- 
 gies, and, at length, the terrible certainty of that 
 destruction which is awaiting it; that piteous cry, 
 which the ear can sometimes distinguish amid the 
 deafening clamour of the blood-hounds, as they 
 spring exultingly upon their prey ; the dread mas- 
 sacre and dying agonies of a creature so miserably 
 torn ; — all this weight of suffering, we admit, is not 
 once sympathized with ; but it is just because the 
 suffering itself is not once thought of. It touches 
 not the sensibilities of the heart; but just because 
 it is never present to the notice of the mind. We 
 allow that the hardy followers in the wild romance 
 of this occupation, we allow them to be reckless 
 of pain ; but this is not rejoicing in pain. Theirs 
 is not the delight of savage, but the apathy of un- 
 reflecting creatures. They are wholly occupied 
 with the chase itself, and its spirit-stirring accom- 
 paniments, nor bestow one moment's thought on 
 the dread violence of that infliction upon sentient 
 nature which marks its termination. It is the spi- 
 
14 
 
 ^\. of the competition, and it alone, which goads 
 onward this hurrying career j and even he, who in 
 at the death, is foremost in the triumph, although 
 to him the death itself is in sight, the agony of its 
 wretched sufferer is wholly out of mind. 
 
 We are inclined to carry this principle much 
 farther. We are not even sure if, within the whole 
 compass of humanity, fallen as it is, there be such 
 a thing as delight in suffering, for its own sake. 
 But, without hazarding a controversy on this, we 
 hold it enough for every practical object, that 
 much, and perhaps the whole of this world's cru- 
 elty, 'arises not from the enjoyment that is felt in 
 consequence of others' pain, but from the enjoy- 
 ment that is felt in spite of it. It is something 
 else in the spectacle of agony which ministers plea- 
 sure than the agony itself; and many is the eye 
 which glistens with transport at the fray of animals 
 met together for their mutual destruction, and 
 which might be brought to w^eep, if, apart from all 
 the excitements of such a scene, the anguish of 
 wounded or dying creatures were placed nakedly 
 before it. Were it strictly analyzed, it would be 
 found that the charm neither of the ancient gladi- 
 atorships, nor of our modern prize-fights, lies in the 
 torture which is thereby inflicted ; for we should 
 feel the very same charm, and look with the very 
 same intentness, on some doubtful, yet strenuous 
 collision, even among the inanimate elements of 
 nature — as, when the water and the fire contendr 
 ed for mastery, and the inherent force of the one 
 
15 
 
 was met by a plying and a powerful enginery that 
 gave impulse and direction to the other. It is even 
 so, when the enginery of bones and of muscles 
 comes into rivalship ; and every spectator of the 
 ring fastens on the spectacle with that identical 
 engrossment which he feels in the hazards of some 
 doubtful game, or in the desperate conflict and ef- 
 fervescence even of the altogether mute uncon- 
 scious elements. To him it is little else than a 
 problem in dynamics. There is a science con- 
 nected with the fight, which has displaced the 
 sensibilities that are connected with its expiring 
 moans, its piteous and piercing outcries, its cruel 
 lacerations. In all this, we admit the utter heed- 
 lessness of pain ; but we are not sure if even yet 
 there be aught so hellishly revolting as any posi- 
 tive gratification in the pain itself — or whether, 
 even in the lowest walks of blackguardism in so- 
 ciety, it do not also hold, that when sufferings 
 even unto death are fully in sight, the pain of 
 these sufferings is as fully out of mind. 
 
 But the term science, so strangely applied as it 
 has been in the example now quoted, reminds us 
 of another variety in this most afflicting detail. 
 Even in the purely academic walk we read or hear 
 of the most appalling cruelties; and the interest of 
 that philosophy wherewith they have been asso- 
 ciated, has been pled in mitigation of them. And 
 just as the moral debasement incurred by an act 
 of theft is somewhat redeemed, . if done by one of 
 Science's enamoured worshipj)ers, when, overcome 
 
16 
 
 by the mere passion of connoisseurship, he puts 
 forth his hand on some choice specimen of most 
 tempting and irresistible pecuharity — even so has 
 a like indulgence been extended to certain perpe- 
 trators of stoutest and most resolved cruelty ; and 
 that just because of the halo wherewith the glories 
 of intellect and of proud discovery have enshrined 
 them. And thus it is, that, bent on the scrutiny 
 of nature's laws, there are some of our race who 
 have hardihood enough to explore and elicit them 
 at the expense of dreadest suffering — who can make 
 some quaking, some quivering animal, the subject of 
 their hapless experiment — who can institute a ques- 
 tionary process by which to draw out the secrets of 
 its constitution, and, like inquisitors of old, extract 
 every reply by an instrument of torture — who 
 can probe their unfaltering way among the vitali- 
 ties of a system which shrinks, and palpitates, 
 and gives forth, at every movement of their stead- 
 fast hand, the pulsations of deepest agony; and 
 all, perhaps, to ascertain and to classify the phe- 
 nomena of sensation, or to measure the tenacity 
 of animal life, by the power and exquisiteness of 
 animal endurance. And still, it is not because of 
 all this wretchedness, but in spite of it, that they 
 pursue their barbarous occupation. Even here it 
 is possible, that there is nouglit so absolutely Sa- 
 tanic as delight in those sufferings of which them- 
 selves are the inflicters. That law of emotion by 
 which the sight of pain calls forth sym])athy, may 
 not be reversed into an opposite law, by which 
 
17 
 
 the sight of pain would call forth satisfaction or 
 pleasure. Tlic emotion is not reversed — it is only 
 overborne, in the play of other emotions, called 
 forth by other objects. He is intent on the sci- 
 ence of those })henomena which he investigates, 
 and bethinks not himself of the suffering which 
 they involve to the unhappy animal. So far from 
 the sympathies of his nature being reversed, or 
 even annihilated, there is in most cases an effort, 
 and of great strenuousness, to keep them down ; 
 and his heart is differently affected from that of 
 other men, just because the regards of his mental 
 eye are differently pointed from those of other 
 men. The whole bent and engagement of his 
 faculties are similar to those of another operator 
 who is busied with the treatment of a piece of 
 inanimate matter, and may almost be said to sub- 
 ject it to the torture, when he puts it in the in- 
 tensely heated crucible, or applies to it the tests, 
 and the various searching operations of a labora- 
 tory. The one watches every change of hue in 
 the substance upon which he operates, and waits 
 for the response whicli is given forth by a spark, 
 or an effervescence, or an explosion ; and the 
 other, precisely similar to him, w^atches every 
 change of aspect in the suffering or dying crea- 
 ture that is before him, and marks every symptom 
 of its exhaustion, or sorer distress, every throb of 
 renewed anguish, every cry, and every look of 
 that pain which it can feel, though not articulate ; 
 marks and considers these in no other light than 
 
IS 
 
 as the exponents of its variously affected physio- 
 logy. But still, could merely the same interest- 
 ing phenomena have been evolved without pain, 
 he would like it better. Only he will not be re- 
 pelled from the study of them by pain. Even he 
 would have had more comfort in the study of a 
 complex automaton, that gave out the same re- 
 sults on the same application. Only, he will not 
 shrink from the necessary incisions, and openings, 
 and separation of parts, although, instead of a life- 
 less automaton, it should be a sentient and sorely 
 agonized animal. So that there is not even with 
 him any reversal of the law of sympathy. Ther^ 
 may be the feebleness, or there may be the nega- 
 tion of it. Certain it is, that it has given way to 
 other laws of superior force in his constitution. 
 And, without imputing to him aught so mon- 
 strous as the positive love of suffering, w^e may 
 even admit for him a hatred of suffering, but that 
 the love of science had overborne it. 
 
 In the views that we have now given, and which 
 we deem of advantage for the right practical 
 treatment of our question, it may be conceived 
 that we palliate the atrociousness of cruelty. It 
 is forgotten, that a charge of foullest delinquency 
 may be made up altogether of wants or of nega- 
 tives ; and, just as the human face, by the mere 
 want of some of its features, although there 
 should not be any inversion of them, might be an 
 object of utter loathsomeness to beholders, so the 
 human character, by the mere absence of certain 
 
19 
 
 Iiabits, or certain sensibilities, which belong ordi- 
 narily and constitutionally to our species, may be 
 an object of utter abomination in society. The 
 want of natural affection forms one article of the 
 Apostle's indictment against our world; and cer- 
 tain it is, that the total want of it were stigma 
 enough for the designation of a monster. The 
 mere want of religion, or irreligion, is enough to 
 make man an outcast from his God. Even to the 
 most barbarous of our kind you apply, not the 
 term of antihumanity, but of inhumanity — not 
 the term of antisensibility : and you hold it 
 enough for the purpose of branding him for ge- 
 neral execration, that you convicted him of com- 
 plete and total insensibility. He is regaled, it is 
 true, by a spectacle of agony — but not because of 
 the agony. It is something else, therewith asso- 
 ciated, which regales him. But still he is right- 
 fully the subject of most emphatic denunciation, 
 not because regaled by, but because regardless 
 of, the agony. We do not feel ourselves to be 
 vindicating the cruel man, when we atKrm it to 
 be not altogether certain, whether he rejoices in 
 the extinction of life; for we count it a deep 
 atrocity, that, unlike to the righteous man of our 
 text, he simply does not regard the life of a 
 beast. You may perhaps have been accustomed 
 to look upon the negatives of character, as mak- 
 ing up a sort of neutral or mid-way innocence. 
 But this is a mistake. Unfeeling is but a nega- 
 tive quality; and yet we speak of an unfeeling 
 
20 
 
 monster. It is thus that even the profound expe- 
 rimentalist, whose delight is not in the torture 
 which he inflicts, but in the truth which he eli- 
 cits thereby, may become an object of keenest 
 reprobation; not because he was pleased with 
 suffering, but simply because he did not pity it — 
 not because the object of pain, if dwelt upon by 
 him, would be followed up by any other emotion 
 than that which is experienced by other men, but 
 because, intent on the prosecution of another ob- 
 ject, it was not so dwelt upon. It is found that 
 the eclat even of brilliant discover v does not 
 shield him from the execrations of a public, who 
 can yet convict him of nothing more than simply 
 of negatives — of heedlessness, of heartlessness, of 
 looking upon the agonies of a sentient creature 
 without regard, and therefore without sensibility. 
 The true principle of his condemnation is, that 
 he ought to have regarded. It is not that, in vir- 
 tue of a different organic structure, he feels dif- 
 ferently from others, when the same simple object 
 is brought to bear upon him. But it is, that he 
 resolutely kept that object at a distance from his 
 attention, or rather, that he steadily kept his at- 
 tention away from the object ; and that, in oppo- 
 sition to all the weight of remonstrance which lies 
 in the tremors, and the writhings, and the piteous 
 outcries, of agonized Nature. Had we obtained 
 for these the regards of his mind, the relentings 
 of his heart might have followed. His is not an 
 anomalous heart ; and the only way in which he 
 
21 
 
 can brace it into sternness, is by barricading the 
 avenue which leads to it. That faculty of atten- 
 tion, which might have opened the door, through 
 which suffering without finds its way to sympathy 
 within, is otherwise engaged ; and the precise 
 charge, on which either moraUty can rightfully 
 condemn, or humanity be offended, is, that he wills 
 to have it so. 
 
 It may be illustrated by that competition of 
 speed which is held, with busy appliance of whip 
 and of spur betwixt animals. A similar competi- 
 tion can be imagined between steam-carriages, 
 when, either to preserve the distance which has 
 been gained, or to recover the distance which has 
 been lost, the respective guides would keep up an 
 incessant appliance to the furnace, and the safety- 
 valve. Now, the sport and the excitement are the 
 same, whether this appliance of force be to a dead 
 or a living mechanism ; and the enormity of the 
 latter does not lie in any direct pleasure which is 
 felt in the exhaustion, or the soreness, or, finally, 
 in the death of the over-driven animal. If these 
 awake any feeling at all in the barbarous rider, it 
 is that of pain ; and it is either the want or the 
 weakness of this latter feeling, and not the pre- 
 sence of its opposite, which constitutes him a bar- 
 barian. He does not rejoice in animal suffering — 
 but it is enough to bring down upon him the charge 
 of barbarity, that he does not regard it. 
 
 But these introductory remarks, although they 
 lead, I do think, to some most important sugges- 
 
21^ 
 
 tions for the management of the evil, yet they 
 serve not to abate its appalling magnitude. Man 
 is the direct aerent of a wide and continual distress 
 to the lower animals, and the question is. Can 
 any method be devised for its alleviation? On this 
 subject that scriptural image is strikingly realized, 
 *' The whole inferior creation groaning and travail- 
 ing together in pain,'* because of him. It signi- 
 fies not to the substantive amount of the suffering, 
 whether this be prompted by the hardness of his 
 heart, or only permitted through the heedlessness of 
 his mind. In either way it holds true, not only that 
 the arch-devourer man stands pre-eminent over the 
 fiercest children of the wilderness as an animal of 
 prey, but that for his lordly and luxurious appetite, 
 as well as for his service or merest curiosity and 
 amusement, Nature must be ransacked throughout 
 all her elements. Rather than forego the veriest 
 gratifications of vanity, he will wring them from 
 the anguish of wretched and ill-fated creatures ; 
 and whether for the indulgence of his barbaric 
 sensuality, or barbaric splendour, can stalk para- 
 mount over the sufferings of that prostrate crea-^ 
 tion which has been placed beneath his feet. That 
 beauteous domain whereof he has been constituted 
 the terrestrial sovereign, gives out so many bliss- 
 ful and benignant aspects ; and whether we look 
 to its peaceful lakes, or its flowery landscapes, or 
 its evening skies, or to all that soft attire which 
 overspreads the hills and the valleys, lighted up 
 by smiles of sweetest sunshine, and where animals 
 
disport themselves in all the exuberance of gaiety 
 — this surely were a more befitting scene tor the 
 rule of clemency, than for the iron rod of a mnr- 
 derous and remorseless tyrant. But the present 
 is a mysterious world wherein we dwell. It still 
 bears much upon its materialism of the impress of 
 Paradise. But a breath from the air of Pandemo- 
 nium has gone over its living generations. And 
 so ** the fear of man, and the dread of man, is now 
 upon every beast of the earth, and upon every 
 fowl of the air, upon ail that moveth upon the 
 earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into man's 
 hands are they delivered : every moving thing 
 that liveth is meat for him ; yea, even as the green 
 herbs, there have been given to him all things." 
 Such is the extent of his jurisdiction, and with 
 most full and wanton license has he revelled among 
 its privileges. The whole earth labours and is in 
 violence because of his cruelties; and, from the 
 amphitheatre of sentient Nature, there sounds in 
 fancy's ear the bleat of one wide and universal 
 suffering, — a dreadful homage to the power of Na- 
 ture's constituted lord. 
 
 These sufferings are really felt. The beasts of 
 the field are not so many automata without sensa- 
 tion, and just so constructed as to give forth all 
 the natural signs and expressions of it. Nature 
 hath not practised this universal deception upon 
 our species. These poor animals just look, and 
 tremble, and give forth the very indications of sut- 
 feriuij that we do. Theirs is the distinct crv of 
 
24 
 
 pain. Theirs is the unequivocal physiognomy of 
 pain. They put on the same aspect of terror on 
 the demonstrations of a menaced blow. They ex- 
 hibit the same distortions of agony after the inflic- 
 tion of it. The bruise, or the burn, or the frac- 
 ture, or the deep incision, or the fierce encounter 
 with one of equal or superior strength, just affects 
 them similarly to ourselves. Their blood circu- 
 lates as ours. They have pulsations in various 
 parts of the body like ours. They sicken, and 
 they grow feeble with age, and, finally, they die 
 just as we do. They possess the same feelings ; 
 and what exposes them to like suffering from an- 
 other quarter, they possess the same instincts with 
 our own species. The lioness robbed of her 
 whelps causes the wilderness to ring aloud with 
 the proclamation of her wrongs; or the bird 
 whose little household has been stolen, fills and 
 saddens all the grove with melodies of deepest 
 pathos. All this is palpable even to the general 
 and unlearned eye ; and when the physiologist 
 lays open the recesses of their system by means of 
 that scalpel, under whose operation they just 
 shrink and are convulsed as any living subject 
 of our own species, there stands forth to view 
 the same sentient apparatus, and furnished with 
 the same conductors for the transmission of feel- 
 ing to every minutest pore upon the surface. 
 Theirs is unmixed and unmitigated pain — the 
 agonies of martyrdom, without the alleviation of 
 the hopes and the sentiments, whereof they are 
 
25 
 
 incapable. When they hiy them down to die, 
 their only fellowship is with siiilering ; for in the 
 prison-house of their beset and bounded faculties, 
 there can no relief be afforded by communion with 
 other interests or other tilings. The attention does 
 not lighten their distress as it does that of man, by 
 carrying off his spirit from that existing pungency 
 and pressure which might else be overwhelming. 
 There is but room in their mysterious economy 
 for one inmate ; and that is, the absorbing sense 
 of their own single and concentrated anguish. 
 And so in that bed of torment, whereon the 
 wounded animal lingers and expires, there is an 
 unexplored depth and intensity of suffering which 
 the poor dumb animal itself cannot tell, and 
 against whicli it can offer no remonstrance ; an 
 untold and unknown amount of wretchedness, of 
 which no articulate voice gives utterance. But 
 there is an eloquence in its silence ; and the very 
 shroud which disguises it, only serves to aggravate 
 its horrors. 
 
 We now come to the practical treatment of this 
 question — to the right method of which, we hold 
 the views that are now offered to be directly and 
 obviously subservient. , 
 
 First, then, upon this subject, we should hold no 
 doubtful casuistry. We should advance no prag- 
 matic or controversial doctrine. We should care- 
 fully abstain from all such ambiguous or question- 
 able positions, as the unlawfulness of animal food, 
 or the unlawfidness of animal experiments. We 
 
 c 
 
26 
 
 should not even deem it the right tactics for this 
 moral warfare, to take up the position of the un- 
 lawfulness of field-sports, or yet the unlawfulness 
 of those competitions, whether of strength or of 
 speed, which at one time on the turf, and at an- 
 other in the ring, are held forth to the view of as- 
 sembled spectators. We are aware that some of 
 these positions are not so questionable, yet we 
 should refrain from the elaboration of them ; for 
 we hold, that this is not the way by which we shall 
 most effectually make head against the existing 
 cruelties of our land. The moral force by which 
 our cause is to be advanced, does not lie even in 
 the soundest categories of an ethical jurisprudence 
 — and far less in the dogmata of any paltry sec- 
 tarianism. We have almost as little inclination for 
 the controversy which respects animal food, as we 
 have for the controversy about the eating of blood ; 
 and this, we repeat, is not the way by which the 
 claims of the inferior animals are practically to be 
 carried. To obtain the regards of man's heart in 
 behalf of the lower animals, we should strive to 
 draw the regards of his mind towards them. We 
 should avail ourselves of the close alliance that 
 gbtains between the regards of his attention, and 
 those of his sympathy. For this purpose, we 
 should importunately ply him with the objects of 
 suffering, and thus call up its respondent emotion 
 of sympathy, that among the other objects which 
 have hitherto engrossed his attention, and the 
 other desires or emotions which have hitherto 
 
27 
 
 lorded it over the compassion of" his nature, and 
 overpowered it ; this last may at length be re- 
 stored to its legitimate play, and reinstated in all its 
 legitimate pre-eminence over the other affections or 
 appetites which belong to him. It affords a hope- 
 ful view of our cause, that so much can be done 
 by the mere obtrusive presentation of the object 
 to the notice of society. It is a comfort to know, 
 that in this benevolent warfare we have to make 
 head, not so much against the cruelty of the public, 
 as against the heedlessness of the public , that to 
 hold forth a right view, is the way to call forth a 
 right sensibility ; and, that to assail the seat of 
 any emotion, our likeliest process is to make con- 
 stant and conspicuous exhibition of the object 
 which is fitted to awaken it. Our text, taken 
 from the profoundest book of experimental wisdom 
 in the world, keeps clear of every questionable or 
 casuistical dogma; and rests the whole cause of 
 the inferior animals on one moral element, which 
 is, in respect of principle ; and on one practical 
 method, which is, in respect of efficacy, unques- 
 tionable : " A righteous man regardeth the life of 
 his beast." Let a man be but righteous in the 
 general and obvious sense of the word, and let the 
 rejrard of his attention be but directed to the case 
 of the inferior animals, and then the regard of his 
 sympathy will be awakened to the full extent at 
 which it is either duteous or desirable. Still it 
 may be asked, to what extent will the duty go? 
 
 and our reply is, that we had rather push the duty 
 
 c 2 
 
28 
 
 forward, than be called upon to define the extreme 
 termination of it. Yet we do not hesitate to say, 
 that we foresee not aught so very extreme as the 
 abolition of animal food ; but we do foresee the 
 indefinite abridgment of all that cruelty which 
 subserves the gratifications of a base and selfish 
 epicurism. We think that a Christian and human- 
 ized society will at length lift their prevalent voice, 
 for the least possible expense of suffering to all 
 the victims of a necessary slaughter — for a business 
 of utmost horror being also a business of utmost 
 dispatch — for the blow, in short, of an instant ex- 
 termination, that not one moment might elapse 
 between a state of pleasurable existence and a state 
 of profound unconsciousness. Again, we do not 
 foresee, but with the perfecting of the two sciences 
 of anatomy and physiology, the abolition of animal 
 experiments ; but we do foresee a gradual, and, at 
 length, a complete abandonment of the experi- 
 ments of illustration, w^hich are at present a thou- 
 sand-fold more numerous than the experiments of 
 humane discovery. As to field-sports, we, for the 
 present, abstain from all prophecy, in regard, either 
 to their growing disuse, or to the conclusive ex- 
 tinction of them. We are quite sure, in the mean 
 time, that casuistry upon this subject would be 
 altogether powerless ; and nothing could be ima- 
 gined more keenly, or more energetically con- 
 temptuous, than the impatient, the impetuous dis- 
 dain wherewith the enamoured votaries of this gay 
 and glorious adventure w^ould listen to any demon- 
 
29 
 
 stration of its luiluwiulncss. We sliali thcrcl'ore 
 make no attempt to dogmatise them out of that 
 fond and favourite amusement which tliey prose- 
 cute vvitli all the intensity of a j)assion. It is not 
 thus that the fascination will be dissipated. And, 
 therefore, for the present, we should be inclined 
 to subject the lovers oi* the chase, and the lovers 
 of the prize-fight, to the same treatment, even as 
 there exists between tiiem, we are aiVaid, the af- 
 finity of a certain common or kindred character. 
 There is, we have often thought, a kind of pro- 
 fessional cast, a family likeness, by which the de- 
 votees of game, and of all sorts of stirring or haz- 
 ardous enterprise, admit of being recognized; the 
 hue of a certain assimilating quality, although of 
 various gradations, from the noted champions of the 
 hunt, to the noted champions of the ring or of the 
 racing-course; a certain dash of moral outlawry, if I 
 may use the ex{)ression, among all those children of 
 high and heated adventure, that bespeaks them a 
 distinct class in society, — a set of wild and way- 
 w^ard humorists, who have broken them loose from 
 the dull regularities of life, and formed themselves 
 into so many trusty and sworn brotherhoods, 
 wholly given over to frolic, and excitement, and 
 excess, in all their varieties. They compose a se- 
 ])arate and outstanding public among themselves, 
 nearly arrayed in the same picturesque habiliments 
 — bearing most distinctly upon their countenance 
 the same air of recklessness and hardihood — admir- 
 ing the same feats of dexterity or danger — indulg- 
 
30 
 
 Ik 
 
 ing the same tastes, even to their very literature- 
 members of the same sporting society — readers of 
 the same sporting magazine, whose strange medley 
 of anecdotes gives impressive exhibition of that one 
 and pervading characteristic for which we are con- 
 tending ; anecdotes of the chase, and anecdotes of 
 the high-breathed or bloody contest, and anec- 
 dotes of the gaming-table, and, lastly, anecdotes 
 of the high-way. We do not just affirm a precise 
 identity between all the specimens or species in this 
 very peculiar department of moral history. But, to 
 borrow a phrase from natural history, we affirm, 
 that there are transition processes, by which the 
 one melts, and demoralises, and graduates insensi- 
 bly into the other. What we have now to do with, 
 is the cruelty of their respective entertainments — 
 a cruelty, however, upon which we could not as- 
 sert, even of the very worst and most worthless 
 among them, that they rejoice in pain, but that 
 they are regardless of pain. It is not by the force 
 of a mere ethical dictum, in itself, perhaps, unques- 
 tionable, that they will be restrained from their 
 pursuits. But when transformed by the operation 
 of unquestionable principle, into righteous and re- 
 gardful men, they will spontaneously abandon 
 them. Meanwhile, we try to help forward our 
 cause, by forcing upon general regard, those suf- 
 ferings which are now so unheeded and unthought 
 of. And we look forward to its final triumph, 
 as one of those results that will historically en- 
 sue, in the train of an awakened and a moralized 
 society. 
 
31 
 
 The institution of a yearly sermon against cruelty 
 to aniiuals, is of itself a likely enough expedient, that 
 might at least be of some auxiliary operation, along 
 with other and more general causes, towards such 
 an awakening. It is not by one, but by many 
 successive appeals, that the cause of justice and 
 mercy to the brute creation will at length be prac- 
 tically carried. On this subject I cannot, within 
 the limits of a single address, pretend to ought 
 like a full or a finished demonstration. This 
 might require not one, but a whole century of ser- 
 mons ; and many therefore are the topics which 
 necessarily I must bequeath to my successors, in 
 this warfare against the listlessness 'and apathy of 
 the public. And, beside the force and the im- 
 pression of new topics, if there be any truth in 
 our doctrine, there is a mighty advantage gained 
 upon this subject of all others by the repetition of 
 old topics. It is a subject on which the public do 
 not require so much to be instructed, as to be re- 
 minded ; to have the regard of their attention 
 directed again and again to the sufferings of poor 
 helpless creatures, that the regard of their sym- 
 pathy might at length be effectually obtained for 
 them. This then is a cause to whicli the institu- 
 tion of an anniversary pleading in its favour, is 
 most precisely and peculiarly adapted. And be- 
 sides, we must confess, in the general, our par- 
 tiality for a scheme that has originated the Boyle, 
 and the Bampton, and the Warburtonian lecture- 
 ships of England, with all the \ aluable authorship 
 
32 
 
 which has proceeded from them. An endowment 
 for an annual discourse upon a given theme, is, 
 we believe, a novelty in Scotland ; though it is to 
 similar institutions that much of the best sacred 
 and theological literature of our sister country is 
 owing. We should rejoice if, in this our com- 
 paratively meagre and unbeneficed land, both 
 these themes and these endowments were multi- 
 plied. We recommend this as a fit species of 
 charity, for the munificence of wealthy individu- 
 als. V/hatever their selected argument shall be, 
 whether that of cruelty to animals, or some one 
 evidence of our faith, or the defence and illustra- 
 tion of a doctrine, or any distinct method of Chris- 
 tian philanthropy for the moral regeneration of 
 our species, or aught else of those innumerable 
 topics that lie situated within the rich and ample 
 domain of that revelation which God has made to 
 our world — we feel assured that such a movement 
 must be responded to with beneficial effect, both 
 by the gifted pastors of our Church, and by the 
 aspiring youths of greatest power or greatest pro- 
 mise among its candidates. Such institutions as 
 these would help to quicken the energies of our 
 establishment ;, and, through means of a sustained 
 and reiterated effort, directed to some one great 
 lesson, whether in theology or morals, they might 
 impress, and that more deeply every year, some 
 specific and most salutary amelioration on the 
 principles or the practices of general society. 
 Yet we are loath to quit our subject without 
 
33 
 
 one appeal more in behalf of those poor sufferers, 
 who, unable to advocate their own cause, possess, 
 on that very account, a more imperative claim on 
 the exertions of him who now stands as their ad- 
 vocate before you. 
 
 And first, it may have been felt that, by the 
 way in which we have attempted to resolve cru- 
 elty into its elements, we, instead of launching 
 rebuke against it, have only devised a palliation 
 for its gross and shocking enormity. But it is 
 not so. It is true, we count the enormity to lie 
 mainly in the heedlessness of pain; but then we 
 charge this foully and flagrantly enormous thing, 
 not on the mere desperadoes and barbarians of 
 our land, but on the men and the women of gen- 
 eral, and even of cultivated and high-bred society. 
 Instead of stating cruelty to be what it is not, and 
 then confining the imputation of it to the outcast 
 few, we hold it better, and practically far more 
 important, to state what cruelty really is, and then 
 fasten the imputation of it on the common-place 
 and the companionable many. Those outcasts to 
 whom you would restrict the condemnation, are 
 not at present within the reach of our voice. But 
 you are; and it lies with you to confer a ten-fold 
 greater boon on the inferior creation, than if all 
 barbarous sports, and all bloody experiments were 
 forthwith put an end to. It is at the bidding of 
 your collective will to save those countless myri- 
 ads who are brougiit to the regular and the daily 
 slaughter, all the difference between a gradual 
 
34 
 
 and an instant death. And there is a practice 
 reahsed in every-day life, which you can put 
 down, — a practice which strongly reminds us of a 
 ruder age that has long gone by; — when even 
 beauteous and high-born ladies could partake in 
 the dance, and the song, and the festive chivalry 
 of barbaric castles, unmindful of all the piteous 
 and the pining agony of dungeoned prisoners be- 
 low. We charge a like unmindfulness on the 
 present generation. We know not whether those 
 wretched animals, whose still sentient frameworks 
 are under process of ingenious manufacture for 
 the epicurism or the splendour of your coming 
 entertainment, — we know not whether they are 
 now dying by inches in your own subterranean 
 keeps, or, through the subdivided industry of our 
 commercial age, are now suffering all the horrors 
 of their protracted agony, in the prison-house of 
 some distant street where this dreadful trade is 
 carried on. But truly it matters nought to our ar- 
 gument, ye heedless sons and daughters of gaiety! 
 We speak not of the daily thousands who have to 
 die that man may live; but of those thousands 
 who have to die more painfully, just that man 
 may live more luxuriously. We speak to you of 
 the art and the mystery of the killing trade — from 
 which it would appear, that not alone the delicacy 
 of the food, but even its appearance, is, among 
 the connoisseurs of a refined epicurism, the matter 
 of skilful and scientific computation. There is a 
 sequence, it would appear — there is a sequence 
 
35 
 
 between an exquisite death, and an exquisite or a 
 beautiful preparation of cookery; and just in the 
 ordinary way that art avails herself of the other 
 sequences of philosophy, — the first term is made 
 sure, that the second term might, according to 
 the metaphysic order of causation, follow in its 
 train. And hence we are c^iven to understand, 
 hence the cold-blooded ingenuities of that previ- 
 ous and preparatory torture which oft is under- 
 gone, both that man might be feasted with a finer 
 relish, and that the eyes of man might be feasted 
 and regaled with a finer spectacle. The atroci- 
 ties of a Majendie have been blazoned before the 
 eye of a British public ; but this is worse in the 
 fearful extent and magnitude of the evil — truly 
 worse than a thousand Majendies. His is a cruel 
 luxury, but it is the luxury of intellect. Yours is 
 both a cruel and a sensual luxury; and you have 
 positively nought to plead for it but tlie most 
 worthless and ignoble appetites of our nature. 
 
 But, secondly, and if possible to secure your 
 kindness for our cause, let me, in tlie act of 
 drawing these lengthened observations to a close, 
 offer to your notice the bright and the beautiful 
 side of it. I would bid you think of all that fond 
 and pleasing imagery, which is associated even 
 with the lower animals, when they become the 
 objects of a benevolent care, which at length 
 ripens into a strong and cherished afi'ection for 
 them — as when the worn-out hunter is permitted to 
 
36 
 
 graze, and be still the favourite of all the domes- 
 tics through the remainder of his life; or the old 
 and shaggy house-dog that has now ceased to be 
 serviceable, is nevertheless sure of its regular 
 meals, and a decent funeral; or when an adopted 
 inmate of the household is claimed as property, 
 or as the object of decided partiality, by some one 
 or other of the children ; or, finally, when in the 
 warmth and comfort of the evening fire, one or 
 more of these home animals take their part in 
 the living groupe that is around it, and their very 
 presence serves to complete the picture of a bliss- 
 ful and smiling family. Such relationships with 
 the inferior creatures, supply many of our finest 
 associations of tenderness, and give, even to the 
 heart of man, some of its simplest yet sweetest 
 enjoyments. He even can find in these some 
 compensation for the dread and the disquietude 
 wherewith his bosom is agitated amid the fiery 
 conflicts of infuriated men. When he retires from 
 the stormy element of debate, and exchanges, for 
 the vindictive glare, and the hideous discords 
 of that outcry which he encounters among his 
 fellows, — when these are exchanged for the honest 
 welcome and the guileless regards of those crea- 
 tures who gambol at his feet, he feels that even 
 in the society of the brutes, in whose hearts there 
 is neither care nor controversy, he can surround 
 himself with a better atmosphere far, than that in 
 which he breathes among the companionships of 
 
37 
 
 his own species. Here he can rest iiimseli' from 
 the fatigues of that moral tempest whicii has beat 
 upon him so violently; and, in the play of kindli- 
 ness with these poor irrationals, his spirit can for- 
 get for a while all the injustice and ferocity of 
 their boasted lords. 
 
 But this is only saying, that our subject is con- 
 nected with the pleasures of sentiment. And 
 therefore, in the third and last place, we have to 
 offer it as our concluding observation, that it is also 
 connected with the principles of deepest sacred- 
 ness. It may be thought by some that we have 
 wasted the whole of this Sabbath morn, on what 
 may be ranked among but the lesser moralities of 
 human conduct. But there is one aspect, in which 
 it may be regarded as more profoundly and more 
 peculiarly religious than any one virtue which re- 
 ciprocates, or is of mutual operation among the 
 fellows of the same species. It is a virtue which 
 oversteps, as it were, the limits of a species, and 
 which, in this instance, prompts a descending move- 
 ment, on our part, of righteousness and mercy to- 
 wards those who have an inferior place to ourselves 
 in the scale of creation. The lesson of this day is 
 not the circulation of benevolence within the limits 
 of one species. It is the transmission of it from 
 one species to another. The first is but the charity 
 of a world. The second is the charity of a uni- 
 verse. Had there been no such charity, no de- 
 scending current of love and of liberality from spe- 
 
38 
 
 cies to species, what, I ask, should have become of 
 ourselves? Whence have we learned this attitude 
 of lofty unconcern about the creatures who are be- 
 neath us? Not from those ministering spirits who 
 wait upon the heirs of salvation. Not from those 
 angels who circle the throne of heaven, and make 
 all its arches ring with joyful harmony, when but 
 one sinner of this prostrate world turns his foot- 
 steps towards them. Not from that mighty and 
 mysterious visitant, who unrobed Him of all his glo- 
 ries, and bowed down his head unto the sacrifice, 
 and still, from the seat of his now exalted media- 
 torship, pours forth his intercessions and his calls 
 in behalf of the race he died for. Finally, not from 
 the eternal Father of all, in the pavilion of whose 
 residence there is the golden treasury of all those 
 bounties and beatitudes that roll over the face of 
 nature, and from the footstool of whose empyreal 
 throne there reaches a golden chain of providence 
 to the very humblest of his family. He who hath 
 given his angels charge concerning us, means that 
 the tide of beneficence should pass from order to 
 order, through all the ranks of his magnificent 
 creation j and we ask, is it with man that this 
 goodly provision is to terminate — or shall he, with 
 all his sensations of present blessedness, and all his 
 visions of future glory let down upon him from 
 above, shall he turn him selfishly and scornfully 
 away from the rights of those creatures whom God 
 hath placed in dependence under him^ We know 
 
39 
 
 that the cause of poor and unfriended animals 
 has many an obstacle to contend with in the diffi- 
 culties or the delicacies of legislation. But we shall 
 ever deny that it is a theme beneath the dignity of 
 legislation ; or that the nobles and the senators of our 
 land stoop to a cause which is degrading, when, in 
 the imitation of heaven's high clemency, they look 
 benignly downward on these humble and helpless 
 sufferers. Ere we can admit this, we must forget 
 the whole economy of our blessed gospel. We must 
 forget the legislations and the cares of the upper 
 sanctuary in behalf of our fallen species. We must 
 forget that the redemption of our world is sus- 
 pended on an act of jurisprudence which angels 
 desired to look into, and for effectuating which, the 
 earth we tread upon was honoured by the foot- 
 steps, not of angel or of archangel, but of God 
 manifest in the flesh. The distance upward be- 
 tween us and that mysterious Being, who let him- 
 self down from heaven's high concave upon our 
 lowly platform, surpasses by infinity the distance 
 downward between us and every thing that 
 breathes. And He bowed himself thus far for the 
 purpose of an example, as well as for the purpose 
 of an expiation ; that every Christian might extend 
 his compassionate regards over the whole of sen- 
 tient and suffering nature. The high court of 
 Parliament is not degraded by its attentions and 
 its cares in behalf of inferior creatures, else the 
 Sanctuary of Heaven has been degraded by its 
 
40 
 
 councils ill behalf of the world we occupy, and in 
 the execution of which the Lord of heaven himself 
 relinquished the highest seat of glory in the uni- 
 verse, and went forth to sojourn for a time on this 
 outcast and accursed territory. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Printed by W. Collins .<t Co. 
 Ctla-^gow. 
 
Thoughts on Unifcrsul Peace: 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 DELIVERED ON 
 
 THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1816, 
 
 THE DAY OF NATIONAL THANKSGIVING FOR THE 
 RESTORATION OF PEACE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 
 
 MINISTER 01' ST. .TOHN's CIIUUCH, GLASGOW. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 
 PRINTED FOR CHALMERS AND COLLINS; 
 
 WAUGH AND INNF.S, EDINBrRGll; 
 AND G. AND W. H. WHITTAKEH, LONDON. 
 
 1822. 
 
THOUGHTS ON UNIVERSAL PEACE 
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 Isaiah ii. 4. 
 
 Nation shall not lift up sword against nation^ 
 neither shall they learn umr any more. 
 
 There are a great many passages in Scripture, 
 which warrant tlie expectation that a time is 
 coming, when war shall be put an end to— when 
 its abominations and its cruelties shall be banish- 
 ed from the face of the earth— when those rest- 
 less elements of ambition and jealousy, which 
 have so long kept the species in a state of un- 
 ceasing commotion, and are ever and anon send- 
 ing another and another wave over the field of 
 this world's politics, shall at length be hushed 
 into a placid and enduring calm; and many 
 and delightful are the images which the Bible 
 employs, as guided by the light of prophecy; it 
 carries us forward to those millennial days, when 
 
the reign of peace shall be established, and the 
 wide charity of the gospel, which is confined by 
 no limits, and owns no distinctions, shall embo- 
 som the whole human race within the ample grasp 
 of one harmonious and universal family. 
 
 But before I proceed, let me attempt to do 
 away a delusion which exists on the subject of 
 prophecy. Its fulfilments are all certain, say 
 many, and we have therefore nothing to do, but 
 to wait for them, in passive and indolent expec- 
 tation. The truth of God stands in no depend- 
 ance on human aid to vindicate the immutability 
 of all his announcements ; and the power of God 
 stands in no need of the feeble exertions of man 
 to hasten the accomplishment of any of his pur- 
 poses. Let us therefore sit down quietly in the 
 attitude of spectators — ^let us leave the Divinity 
 to do his own work in his own way, and mark, 
 by the progress of a history over which we have 
 no control, the evolution of his designs, and 
 the march of his wise and beneficent administra- 
 tion. 
 
 Now, it is very true, that the Divinity will do 
 his own work in his own way, but if he choose 
 to tell us that that way is not without the instru- 
 mentality of men, but by their instrumentality, 
 might not this sitting down into the mere attitude 
 of spectators, turn out to be a most perverse and 
 
disobedient conclusion? It is true, that his pur- 
 pose will obtain its fulfihnent, whether we shall 
 offer or not to help it forward by our co-opera- 
 tion. But if the object is to be brought about, 
 and if, in virtue of the same sovereignty by which 
 he determined upon the object, he has also de- 
 termined on the way which leads to it, and that 
 that w^ay shall be by the acting of human prin- 
 ciple, and the putting forth of human exertion, 
 then let us keep back our co-operation as we may, 
 God will raise up the hearts of others to that 
 which we abstain from ; and they, admitted into 
 the high honour of being fellow-workers with 
 God, may do homage to the truth of his prophe- 
 cy; while we, perhaps, may unconsciously do 
 di'eadful homage to the truth of another warning, 
 and another prophecy. " I work a work in your 
 days which you shall not believe, though a man 
 declare it unto you. Behold, ye despisers, and 
 wonder and perish." 
 
 Now this is the very way in which prophecies 
 have been actually fulfilled. The return of the 
 people of Israel to their own land was an event 
 predicted by inspiration, and was brought about 
 by the stirring up of the spirit of Cyrus, who 
 felt himself charged with the duty of building a 
 house to God at Jerusalem. The pouring out of 
 the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was foretold by 
 
the Saviour ere he left the world, and was accom- 
 plished upon men, who assembled themselves to- 
 gether at the place to which they were com- 
 manded to repair; and there they waited, and they 
 prayed. The rapid propagation of Christianity 
 in those days was known by the human agents 
 of this propagation, to be made sure by the word 
 of prophecy ; but the way in which it was actual- 
 ly made sure, w^as by the strenuous exertions, the 
 unexampled heroism, the holy devotedness and 
 zeal of martyrs, and apostles, and evangelists. 
 And even now, my brethren, while no professing 
 Christians can deny that their faith is to be one 
 day the faith of all countries ; but while many of 
 them idly sit, and wait the time of God putting 
 forth some mysterious and unheard of agency, to 
 bring about the universal diffusion, there are men 
 who have betaken themselves to the obvious ex- 
 pedient of going abroad among the nations, and 
 teaching them ; and though derided by an undis- 
 cerning world, they seem to be the very men 
 pointed out by the Bible, who are going to and 
 fro increasing the knowledge of its doctrines, and 
 who will be the honoured instruments of carry- 
 ing into effect the most splendid of all its antici- 
 pations. 
 
 Now the same holds true, I apprehend, of the 
 prophecy in my text. The abohtion of war will 
 
be the effect not of any sudden or resistless visi- 
 tation from heaven on the character of men — 
 not of any mystical influence working witii all 
 the omnipotence of a charm on the passive hearts 
 of those who are the subjects of it — not of any 
 blind or overruling fatality which will come upon 
 the earth at some distant period of its history, 
 and about which, we, of the present day, have 
 nothing to do but to look silently on, without 
 concern, and without co-operation. The pro- 
 phecy of a peace as universal as the spread of the 
 human race, and as enduring as the moon in the 
 firmament, will meet its accomplishment, aye, and 
 at that very time which is already fixed by Him, 
 who seeth the end of all things from the begin- 
 ning thereof. But it will be brought about by 
 the activity of men. It will be done by the phi- 
 lanthrophy of thinking and intelligent Christians. 
 The conversion of the Jews — the spread of gos- 
 pel light among the regions of idolatry — these 
 are distinct subjects of prophecy, on which the 
 faithful of the land are now acting, and to the 
 fulfilment of which they are giving their zeal and 
 their energy. I conceive the prophecy which re- 
 lates to the final abolition of war will be taken 
 up in the same manner, and the subject will be 
 brought to the test of Christian principle, and 
 many will unite to spread a growing sense of its 
 
8 
 
 follies and its enormities, over the countries of 
 the world — and the public will be enlightened 
 not by the factious and turbulent declamations of 
 a party, but by the mild dissemination of gospel 
 sentiment through the land — and the prophecy 
 contained in this book will pass into effect and 
 accomplishment, by no other influence than the 
 influence of its ordinary lessons on the hearts 
 and consciences of individuals — and the measure 
 will first be carried in one country, not by the 
 unhallowed violence of discontent, but by the 
 control of general opinion, expressed on the 
 part of a people, who, if Christian, in their re- 
 pugnance to war, will be equally Christian in all 
 the loyalties and subjections, and meek unresist- 
 ing virtues of the New Testament — and the sa- 
 cred fire of good- will to the children of men will 
 spread itself through all climes, and through all 
 latitudes — and thus by scriptural truth convey- 
 ed with power from one people to another, and 
 taking its ample round among all the tribes and 
 families of the earth, shall we arrive at the mag- 
 nificent result of peace throughout all its provin- 
 ces, and security in all its dwelling-places. 
 
 In the further prosecution of this discourse, I 
 shall, First, expatiate a little on the evils of war. 
 
 In the Second place, I shall direct your atten- 
 
tion to the obstacles which stand in the way of 
 its extinction, and which threaten to retard for a 
 time the accompHshment of the prophecy I have 
 now selected for your consideration. 
 
 And, in the Third place, I shall endeavour to 
 point out, what can only be done at present in a 
 hurried and superficial manner, some of the ex- 
 pedients by which these obstacles may be done 
 away. 
 
 I. I shall expatiate a little on the evils of war. 
 The mere existence of the prophecy in my text, 
 is a sentence of condemnation upon war, and 
 stamps a criminality on its very forehead. So 
 soon as Christianity shall gain a full ascendency 
 in the world, from that moment war is to disap- 
 pear. We have heard that there is something 
 noble in the art of war; that there is something 
 generous in the ardour of that fine chivalric spi- 
 rit which kindles in the hour of alarm, and rushes 
 with delight among the thickest scenes of danger 
 and of enterprize; — that man is never more 
 proudly arrayed, than when, elevated by a con- 
 tempt for death, he puts on his intrepid front, 
 and looks serene, while the arrows of destruction 
 are flying on every side of him ; — that expunge 
 war, and you expunge some of the brightest 
 
10 
 
 names in the catalogue of human virtue, and de- 
 moHsh that theatre on which have been displayed 
 some of the sublimest energies of the human 
 character. It is thus that war has been invested 
 with a most pernicious splendour, and men have 
 offered to justify it as a blessing, and an orna- 
 ment to society, and attempts have been made to 
 throw a kind of imposing morality around it; 
 and one mio^ht almost be reconciled to the whole 
 train of its calamities and its horrors, did he not 
 believe his Bible, and learn from its information, 
 that in the days of perfect righteousness, there 
 will be no war; — that so soon as the character of 
 man has had the last finish of Christian principle 
 throw^n over it, from that moment all the instru- 
 ments of war will be thrown aside, and all its 
 lessons will be forgotten ; — that, therefore, what 
 are called the virtues of war are no virtues at all, 
 or that a better and a worthier scene will be pro- 
 vided for their exercise; — but in short, that at 
 the commencement of that blissful era, when the 
 reign of heaven shall be established, war wdll take 
 its departiu'e from the world with all the other 
 plagues and atrocities of the species. 
 
 But apart altogether from this testimony to the 
 evil of war, let us just take a direct look of it, 
 and see whether we can find its character engra- 
 ven on the aspect it bears to the eye of an atten- 
 
11 
 
 tive observer. The stoutest heart of this assem- 
 bly would recoil, were he who owns it, to behokl 
 the destruction of a single individual by some 
 deed of violence. Were the man who at this 
 moment stands before you in the full play and 
 energy of health, to be in another moment laid 
 by some deadly aim a lifeless corpse at your feet, 
 there is not one of you who would not prove how 
 strong are the relentings of nature at a spectacle 
 so hideous as death. There are some of you 
 who would be haunted for whole days by the 
 image of horror you had witnessed — who would 
 feel the weight of a most oppressive sensation 
 upon your heart, which nothing but time could 
 wear away — who would be so pursued by it as 
 to be unfit for business or for enjoyment — who 
 would think of it through the day, and it would 
 spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking 
 moments — who would dream of it at night, and 
 it would turn that bed which you courted as a 
 retreat from the torments of an ever-meddling 
 memory, into a scene of restlessness. 
 
 But generally the death of violence is not 
 instantaneous, and there is often a sad and 
 dreary interval between its final consummation, 
 and the infliction of the blow which causes it. 
 The winged messenger of destruction has not 
 found its direct avenue to that spot, where the 
 
12 
 
 principle of life is situated — and the soul, finding 
 obstacles to its immediate egress, has to struggle 
 it for hours, ere it can make its weary way 
 through the winding avenues of that tenement, 
 which has been torn open by a brother's hand. 
 O ! my brethren, if there be something appalling 
 in the suddenness of death, think not that when 
 gradual in its advances, you will alleviate the hor- 
 rors of this sickening contemplation, by viewing 
 it in a milder form. O! tell me, if there be any 
 relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you 
 endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying 
 man — as goaded by pain, he grasps the cold 
 ground in convulsive energy, or faint with the loss 
 of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering 
 paleness spreads itself over his countenance— or 
 wrapping himself round in despair, he can only 
 mark by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks 
 and lingers in his lacerated body — or lifting up 
 a faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring 
 helplessness, for that succour which no sympa- 
 thy can yield him. It may be painful to dwell 
 on such a representation — but this is the way in 
 which the cause of humanity is served. The eye of 
 the sentimentalist turns away from its sufferings, 
 and he passes by on the other side, lest he hear 
 that pleading voice, which is armed with a tone 
 of remonstrance so vigorous as to disturb him. 
 
13 
 
 He cannot bear thus to pause, in imagination, 
 on the distressing picture of one individual ; but 
 multiply it ten thousand times — say, how much 
 of all this distress has been heaped together upon 
 a single field — srive us the arithmetic of this ac- 
 cumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us 
 with all the accuracy of an official computation 
 — and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up 
 among the crowd of eager listeners, as they stand 
 on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance, 
 which is read to them out of the registers of death. 
 O! say, what mystic spell is that, which so 
 blinds us to the sufferings of our brethren — which 
 deafens to our ear the voice of bleeding huma- 
 nity, when it is aggravated by the shriek of dying 
 thousands — which makes the very magnitude of 
 the slaughter, throw a softening disguise over 
 its cruelties, and its horrors — which causes us to 
 eye with indifference, the field that is crowded 
 with the most revolting abominations, and ar- 
 rests that sigh, which each individual would 
 singly have drawn from us, by the report of the 
 many who have fallen, and breathed their last in 
 agony along with him ? 
 
 I am not saying that the burden of all this 
 criminality rests upon the head of the imme- 
 diate combatants. It lies somewhere ; but who 
 can deny that a soldier may be a Christian, and 
 
14 
 
 that from the bloody field on which his body is 
 laid, his soul may wing its ascending way to the 
 shores of a peaceful eternity? But when I think 
 that the Christians, even of the great world, 
 form but a very little flock, and that an army 
 is not a propitious soil for the growth of Chris- 
 tian principle — when I think on the character of 
 one such army, that had been led on for years 
 by a ruffian ambition — and been enured to scenes 
 of barbarity — and had gathered a most ferocious 
 hardihood of soul, from the many enterprises 
 of violence to which an unprincipled comman- 
 der had carried them — when I follow them to 
 the field of battle, and further think, that on 
 both sides of an exasperated contest — the gen- 
 tleness of Christianity can have no place in al- 
 most any bosom; but that nearly every heart 
 is lighted up with fury, and breathes a vindic- 
 tive purpose against a brother of the species, I 
 cannot but reckon it among the most fearful of 
 the calamities of war — that while the work of 
 death is thickening along its ranks, so many 
 disembodied spirits should pass into the presence 
 of Him who sitteth upon the throne, in such a 
 posture, and with such a preparation. 
 
 I have no time, and assuredly as little taste, for 
 expatiating on a topic so melancholy, nor can 
 I afford at present to set before you a vivid 
 
15 
 
 picture of the otlier miseries wliicli war carries 
 ill its train — Iiow it desolates every country 
 through which it rolls, and spreads violation and 
 alarm among its villages — how, at its approach, 
 every home pours forth its trembling fugitives — 
 how all the rights of property, and all the pro- 
 visions of justice, must give way before its de- 
 vouring exactions — how, when Sabbath comes, 
 no Sabbath charm comes along with it — and for 
 the sound of the church bell, which wont to 
 spread its music over some fine landscape of 
 nature, and summon rustic worshippers to the 
 house of prayer — nothing is heard but the death- 
 ful vollies of the battle, and the maddening out- 
 cry of infuriated men — how, as the fruit of vic- 
 tory, an unprincipled licentiousness which no dis- 
 cipline can restrain, is suffered to walk at large 
 among the people — and all that is pure, and reve- 
 rend, and holy in the virtue of families, is cruelly 
 trampled on, and held in the bitterest derision. 
 Oh ! my brethren, were we to pursue those details, 
 which no pen ever attempts, and no chronicle 
 perpetuates, we should be tempted to ask, what 
 that is which civilization has done for the cha- 
 racter of the species? It has tlirown a few paltry 
 embellishments over the surface of human affairs, 
 and for the order of society, it has reared the de- 
 fences of law around the rights and the property 
 
IB 
 
 of the individuals who compose it. But let war, 
 legalized as you may, and ushered into the field 
 with all the parade of forms and manifestoes — let 
 this war only have its season, and be suffered to 
 overleap these artificial defences, and you will 
 soon see how much of the security of the common- 
 wealth is due to positive restrictions, and how 
 little of it is due to a natural sense of justice 
 among men. I know well, that the plausibilities 
 of human character, which abound in every mo- 
 dern and enlightened society, have been mus- 
 tered up to oppose the doctrine of the Bible, on 
 the woeful depravity of our race. But out of the 
 history of war, I can gather for this doctrine 
 the evidence of experiment. It tells me, that 
 man, when left to himself and let loose among his 
 fellows, to walk after the counsel of his own 
 heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, will soon 
 discover how thin that tinsel is, which the boast- 
 ed hand of civilization has thrown over him. — 
 And we have only to blow the trumpet of war, 
 and proclaim to man the hour of his opportunity, 
 that his character may show itself in its essential 
 elements — and that we may see how many, in 
 this our moral and enlightened day, would spring 
 forward as to a jubilee of delight, and prowl 
 like the wild men of the woods, amidst scenes of 
 rapacity, and cruelty, and violence. 
 
17 
 
 11. But let me hasten away from this part of 
 the subject; and, in the Second place, direct your 
 attention to those obstacles which stand in the 
 way of the extinction of war, and which threaten 
 to retard, for a time, the accomplishment of the 
 prophecy I have now selected for your consider- 
 ation. 
 
 But is this the time, it may be asked, to com- 
 plain of obstacles to the extinction of war, when 
 peace has been given to the nations, and we are 
 assembled to celebrate its triumphs? Is this day 
 of high and solemn gratulation, to be turned to 
 such forebodings as these? The whole of Europe is 
 now at rest from the tempest which convulsed it — 
 and a solemn treaty, with all its adjustments and 
 all its guarantees, promises a firm perpetuity to 
 the repose of the world. We have long fought for 
 a happier order of things, and at length w^e have 
 established it — and the hard-earned bequest we 
 hand dowTi to posterity as a rich inheritance, won 
 by the labours and the sufferings of the present 
 generation. That gigantic ambition which stalk- 
 ed in triumph over the firmest and the oldest of 
 our monarchies, is now laid — and can never again 
 burst forth from the confinement of its prison- 
 hold to waken a new uproar, and send forth new 
 troubles over the face of a desolated world. 
 
 Now, in reply to this, let it be observed, that 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 every interval of repose is precious — every 
 breathing time from the work of violence is to be 
 rejoiced in by the friends of humanity — every 
 agreement among the powers of the earth, by 
 which a temporary respite can be gotten from 
 the calamities of war, is so much reclaimed from 
 the amount of those miseries that afflict the world, 
 and of those crimes, the cry of which ascendeth 
 unto heaven, and bringeth down the judgments 
 of God on this dark and rebellious province of 
 his creation. I trust, that on this day, gratitude 
 to Him who alone can still the tumults of the 
 people, will be the sentiment of every heart — 
 and I trust that none who now hear me, will 
 refuse to evince his gratitude to the Author of 
 the New Testament, by their obedience to one 
 of the most distinct and undoubted of its lessons 
 — I mean the lesson of a reverential and submis- 
 sive loyalty. I cannot pass an impartial eye over 
 this record of God's will, without perceiving the 
 utter repugnance that there is between the spi- 
 rit of Christianity, and the factious, turbulent, 
 unquenchable, and ever-meddling spirit of poli- 
 tical disaffection. I will not compromise, by the 
 surrender of a single jot or tittle, the integrity of 
 that perceptive code which my Saviour hath left 
 behind him for the obedience of his disciples. I 
 will not detach the very minutest of its features. 
 
19 
 
 from the fine picture of morality that Christ 
 hath bequeathed, both by commandment and ex- 
 ample, to adorn the nature he condescended to 
 wear — and sure I am that the man who has drunk 
 in the entire spirit of the gospel — who, reposing 
 himself on the faith of its promised immortality, 
 can maintain an elevated calm amid all the fluc- 
 tuations of this world's interest — whose exclusive 
 ambition it is to be the unexcepted pupil of pure, 
 and spiritual, and self-denying Christianity — sure 
 I am that such a man will honour the king and 
 all who are in authority — and be subject unto 
 them for the sake of conscience — and render un- 
 to them all their dues — and not withhold a sin- 
 gle fraction of the tribute they impose upon him 
 — and be the best of subjects, just because he is 
 the best of Christians — resisting none of the or- 
 dinances of God, and living a quiet and a peace- 
 able life, in all godliness and honesty. 
 
 But it gives me pleasure to advance a further 
 testimony in behalf of that government with 
 which it has pleased God, who appointeth to all 
 men the bounds of their habitation, to bless that 
 portion of the globe that we occupy. I count 
 it such a government, that I not only owe it the 
 loyalty of my principles — ^but I also owe it the 
 loyalty of my affections. I could not lightly part 
 with my devotion to that government which the 
 
20 
 
 other year opened the door to the Christianiza- 
 tion of India — I shall never withhold the tribute 
 of my reverence from that government which put 
 an end to the atrocities of the Slave Trade — I 
 shall never forget the triumph which, in that 
 proudest day of Britain's story, the cause of hu- 
 manity gained within the walls of our enlighten- 
 ed Parliament. Let my right hand forget her 
 cunning, ere I forget that country of my birth, 
 where, in defiance to all the clamours of mercan- 
 tile alarm, every calculation of interest was giv- 
 en to the wind, and braving every hazard, she 
 nobly resolved to shake off the whole burden of 
 the infamy which lay upon her. I shall never for- 
 get, that how to complete the object in behalf of 
 which she has so honourably led the way, she has 
 walked the whole round of civilized society, and 
 knocked at the door of every government in Eu- 
 rope, and lifted her imploring voice for injured 
 Africa, and pled with the mightiest monarchs of 
 the world, the cause of her outraged shores, and 
 her distracted families. I can neither shut my 
 heart nor my eyes to the fact, that at this moment 
 she is stretching forth the protection of her naval 
 arm, and shielding to the uttermost of her vigour, 
 that coast where an inhuman avarice is still plying 
 its guilty devices, and aiming to perpetuate among 
 an unoffending people, a trade of cruelty, with all 
 
21 
 
 the horrid train of its terrors and abominations. 
 Were such a government as this to be swept from 
 its base, either by the violence of foreign hostiU- 
 ty, or by the hands of her own misled and infatu- 
 ated children, — I should never cease to deplore 
 it as the deadliest interruption which ever had 
 been given to the interests of human virtue, and 
 to the march of human improvement. O ! how it 
 should swell every heart, not with pride, but with 
 gratitude, to think that the land of our fathers, 
 with all the iniquities which abound in it, with all 
 the profligacy which spreads along our streets, and 
 all the profaneness that is heard among our com- 
 panies — to think that this our land, overspread as 
 it is with the appalling characters of guilt, is still 
 the securest asylum of worth and of liberty — that 
 this is the land from which the most copious ema- 
 nations of Christianity are going forth to all the 
 quarters of the world — that this is the land which 
 teems from one end to the other of it witli the 
 most splendid designs and enterprises for the 
 good of the species — that this is the land where 
 public principle is most felt, and public objects 
 are most prosecuted, and the fine impulse of a 
 public spirit is most ready to carry its generous 
 people beyond the limits of a selfish and con- 
 tracted patriotism. Yes, and when the heart of 
 the philanthropist is sinkhig within him at the 
 
22 
 
 gloomy spectacle of those crimes and atrocities 
 which still deform the history of man, I know 
 not a single earthly expedient more fitted to 
 brighten and sustain him, than to turn his eye 
 to the country in which he lives — and there see 
 the most enlightened government in the world 
 acting as the organ of its most moral and intel- 
 ligent population. 
 
 It is not against the government of my coun- 
 try, therefore, that I direct my observations — 
 but against that nature of man in the infirmities 
 of which we all share, and the evil of which 
 no government can extinguish. We have car- 
 ried a new political arrangement, and we expe- 
 rience as the result of it, a temporary calm — ^but 
 we have not yet carried our way to the citadel 
 of human passions. The elements of war are 
 hushed for a season — ^but these elements are not 
 destroyed. They still rankle in many an unsub- 
 dued heart — and I am too well taught by the his- 
 tory of the past, and the experience of its rest- 
 less variations, not to believe that they will burst 
 forth again in thunder over the face of society. 
 No, my brethren, it will only be when diffused 
 and vital Christianity comes upon the earth, that 
 an enduring peace will come along with it. 
 The prophecy of my text will obtain its fulfil- 
 ment — but not till the fulfilment of the verses 
 
23 
 
 whicli go before it; — not till the influence of the 
 gospel has found its way to the human bosom, 
 and plucked out of it the elementary principles 
 of war; — not till the law of love shall spread 
 its melting and all-subduing efficacy, among the 
 children of one common nature; — not till am- 
 bition be dethroned from its mastery over the 
 affections of the inner man ; — not till the guilty 
 splendours of war shall cease to captivate its 
 admirers, and spread the blaze of a deceitful 
 heroism, over the wholesale butchery of the 
 species ; — not till national pride be humbled, and 
 man shall learn, that if it be individually the duty 
 of each of us in honour to prefer one another; 
 then let these individuals combine as they may, 
 and form societies as numerous and extensiv e as 
 they may, and each of these be swelled out to 
 the dimensions of an empire, still, that mutual 
 condescension and forbearance remain the un- 
 alterable Christian duties of these empires to 
 each other; — not till man learn to revere his 
 brother as man, whatever portion of the globe 
 he occupies, and all the jealousies and prefe- 
 rences of a contracted patriotism be given to the 
 wind ; — not till war shall cease to be prosecuted 
 as a trade, and the charm of all that interest 
 which is linked with its contirniance, shall cease 
 to beguile men in the peaceful walks of mer- 
 
24 
 
 chandise, into a barbarous longing after war ; 
 — not, in one word, till pride, and jealousy, 
 and interest, and all that is opposite to the 
 law of God and the charity of the gospel, shall 
 be for ever eradicated from the character of 
 those who possess an effectual control over the 
 public and political movements of the species ; 
 — not till all this be brought about; and there 
 is not another agent in the whole compass of 
 nature that can bring it about but the gospel 
 of Christ, carried home by the all-subduing 
 power of the Spirit to the consciences of men; — 
 then, and not till then, my brethren, will peace 
 come to take up its perennial abode with us, 
 and its blessed advent on earth be hailed by 
 one shout of joyful acclamation throughout all 
 its families; — then, and not till then, will the 
 sacred principle of good-will to men circulate 
 as free as the air of heaven among all countries 
 — and the sun looking out from the firmament, 
 will behold one fine aspect of harmony through- 
 out the wide extent of a regenerated world. 
 
 It will only be in the last days, " when it shall 
 come to pass, that the mountain of the Lord's 
 house shall be established in the top of the 
 mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, 
 and all nations shall flow into it : And many 
 people shall go, and say, Come ye, and let us 
 
25 
 
 go up to the moimtaiii of the Lord, to the house 
 of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of 
 his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for out 
 of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of 
 the Lord from Jerusalem ; and he shall judge 
 among the nations, and shall rebuke many peo- 
 ple;" — then, and not till then, ** they shall beat 
 their swords into plough-shares, and their spears 
 into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up 
 sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
 any more." 
 
 The above rapid sketch glances at the chief 
 obstacles to the extinction of war; and, in what 
 remains of this discourse, I shall dwell a little 
 more particularly on as many of them as my time 
 will allow me, finding it impossible to exhaust so 
 wide a topic, within the limits of the public ser- 
 vices of one day. 
 
 The first great obstacle then to the extinction 
 of war, is the w^ay in which the heart of man is 
 carried off from its barbarities and its horrors, 
 by the splendour of its deceitful accompani- 
 ments. There is a feeling of the sublime in 
 contemplating the shock of armies, just as there 
 is ill contemplating the devouring energy of a 
 tempest, and this so elevates and engrosses the 
 w4iole man, that his eye is blind to the tears of 
 bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the 
 
26 
 
 piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek of 
 their desolated famihes. There is a gracefuhiess 
 in the picture of a youthful warrior burning for 
 distinction on the field, and lured by this gene- 
 rous aspiration to the deepest of the animated 
 throng, where, in the fell work of death, the 
 opposing sons of valour struggle for a remem- 
 brance and a name ; — and this side of the picture 
 is so much the exclusive object of our regard, 
 as to disguise from our view the mangled car- 
 cases of the fallen, and the writhing agonies of 
 the hundreds and the hundreds more who have 
 been laid on the cold ground, where they are left 
 to languish and to die. There no eye pities 
 them. No sister is there to weep over them. 
 There no gentle hand is present to ease the dying 
 posture, or bind up the wounds, which, in the 
 maddening fury of the combat, have been given 
 and received by the children of one common 
 Father. There death spreads its pale ensigns 
 over every countenance, and when night comes 
 on, and darkens around them, how many a de- 
 spairing wretch must take up with the bloody 
 field as the untended bed of his last sufferings, 
 without one friend to bear the message of ten- 
 derness to his distant home, without one compa- 
 nion to close his eyes. 
 
 I avow it. On every side of me I see causes 
 
27 
 
 at work which go to spread a most dchisive co- 
 louring over war, and to remove its shocking 
 barbarities to the back ground of our contem- 
 plations altogether. I see it in the history which 
 tells me of the superb a})pearance of the troops, 
 and the brilliancy of their successive charges. 
 I see it in the poetry which lends the magic of 
 its numbers to the narrative of blood, and tran- 
 sports its many admirers, as by its images, and 
 its figures, and its nodding plumes of chivalry, 
 it throws its treacherous embellishments over 
 a scene of legalized slaughter. I see it in the 
 music which represents the progress of the bat- 
 tle; — and where, after being inspired by the 
 trumpet-notes of preparation, the whole beauty 
 and tenderness of a drawing-room are seen to 
 bend over the sentimental entertainment; nor 
 do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to inter- 
 rupt the death-tones of the thickening contest, 
 and the moans of the wounded men as they fade 
 away upon the ear, and wnk into lifeless silence. 
 All, all goes to prove what strange and half- 
 sighted creatures we are. Were it not so, war 
 could never have been seen in any other aspect 
 than that of unmingledhatcfulness; and I can look 
 to nothing but to the progress of Christian sen- 
 timent upon earth, to arrest the strong current 
 of its popular and prevailing partiality for war. 
 
28 
 
 Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay 
 the check of severe principle, on all the subordi- 
 nate tastes and faculties of our nature. Then 
 will glory be reduced to its right estimate — and 
 the wakeful benevolence of the gospel chasing 
 away every spell, will be turned by the treach- 
 ery of no delusion whatever, from its simple, 
 but sublime enterprises for the good of the spe- 
 cies. Then the reign of truth and quietness will 
 be ushered into the world, and war, cruel, atro- 
 cious, unrelenting war, will be stript of its many 
 and its bewildering fascinations. 
 
 But again, another obstacle to the extinction 
 of war, is a sentiment which seems to be univer- 
 sally gone into, that the rules and promises of 
 the gospel which apply to a single individual, 
 do not apply to a nation of individuals. Just 
 think of the mighty effect it would have on the 
 politics of the world, were this sentiment to be 
 practically deposed from its wonted authority 
 over the counsels and .the doings of nations, in 
 their transactions with each other. If forbear- 
 ance be the virtue of an individual, forbearance is 
 also the virtue of a nation. If it be incumbent on 
 men in honour to prefer each other, it is incum- 
 bent on the very largest societies of men, through 
 the constituted organ of their government, to do 
 the same. If it be the glory of a man to defer 
 
29 
 
 liis anger, and to pass over a transgression, that 
 nation mistakes its glory which is so feehngly 
 alive to the slightest insult, and musters up its 
 threats and its armaments upon the faintest sha- 
 dow of a provocation. If it be the magnanimity 
 of an injured man to abstain from vengeance, 
 and if by so doing, he heap coals of fire upon 
 the head of his enemy, then that is the magna- 
 nimous nation, which, recoiling from violence and 
 from blood, will do no more than send its Chris- 
 tian embassy, and prefer its mild and impressive 
 remonstrance ; and that is the disgraced nation 
 which will refuse the impressiveness of the moral 
 appeal that has been made to it. — O ! my breth- 
 ren, there must be the breathing of a different 
 spirit to circulate round the globe, ere its Chris- 
 tianized nations resign the jealousies which now 
 front them to each other in the scowling attitude 
 of defiance — and much is to do with the people 
 of every land, ere the prophesied influence of the 
 gospel shall bring its vii'tuous and its pacifying 
 control to bear with effect on the counsels and 
 governments of the world. 
 
 I find that I must be drawing to a close, and 
 that I must forbear entering into several topics 
 on which I meant at one time to expatiate. I 
 wished, in particular, to have laid it fully before 
 you, how the extinction of war, though it shoidd 
 
I 
 
 30 
 
 withdraw one of those scenes on which man earns 
 the glory of intrepidity — ^yet it would leave other, 
 and better, and nobler scenes, for the display 
 and the exercise of this respectable attribute. I 
 wished also to explain to you, that however much 
 I admired the general spirit of Quackerism, on 
 the subject of war; yet that I was not prepared 
 to go all the length of its principles, when that 
 war was strictly defensive. It strikes me, that 
 war is to be abolished by the abolition of its ag- 
 gressive spirit among the different nations of the 
 world. The text seems to tell me, that this is the 
 order of prophecy upon the subject; — and that 
 it is when nation shall cease to lift up its sword 
 against nation — or, in other words, w^hen one na- 
 tion shall cease to move, for the purpose of at- 
 tacking another, that military science will be no 
 longer in demand, and that the people of the 
 earth will learn the art of war no more. I should 
 also have stated, that on this ground, I refrained 
 from pronouncing on the justice or necessity of 
 any one war in which this country has ever been 
 involved. I have no doubt, that many of those 
 who supported our former wars, looked on seve- 
 ral of them as wars for existence — but on this 
 matter I carefully abstain from the utterance of 
 a single sentiment — for in so doing, I should feel 
 myself to be descending from the generalities of 
 
31 
 
 Christian principle, and employing that pnlpit as 
 the vehicle of a qnestionable policy, which ought 
 never to be prostituted either to the unworthy ob- 
 ject of sending forth the incense of human flat- 
 tery to any one administration, or of regaling the 
 factious, and turbulent, and disloyal passions of 
 any party. I should next, if I had had time, ofler 
 such observations as were suggested by my own 
 views of political science, on the midtitude of 
 vulnerable points by which this country is sur- 
 rounded, in the shape of numerous and distant 
 dependencies, and which, however much they 
 may tend to foster the warlike politics of our go- 
 vernment, are, in truth, so little worth the ex- 
 pense of a war, that should all of them be wrest- 
 ed away from us, they would leave the people of 
 our empire as great, and as wealthy, and as com- 
 petent to every purpose of home security as ever. 
 Lastly, I might have whispered my inclination, 
 for a little more of the Chinese policy being im- 
 ported into Europe, not for the purpose of re- 
 straining a liberal intercourse between its differ- 
 ent countries, but for the puq:)ose of quieting in 
 each its restless spirit of alarm, about every foreign 
 movement in the politics and designs of other 
 nations; because, sure I am, that were each great 
 empire of the world to lay it down as the maxim 
 of its most scrupulous observance, not to med- 
 
32 
 
 die till it was meddled with, each would feel in 
 such a maxim both its safety and its triumph ; — 
 for such are the mighty resources of defensive 
 war, that though the whole transportable force 
 of Europe were to land upon our borders, the 
 result of the experiment would be such, that it 
 should never be repeated — the rallying popula- 
 tion of Britain could sweep them all from the 
 face of its territory, and a whole myriad of in- 
 vaders would melt away under the power of 
 such a government as ours, trenched behind the 
 loyalty of her defenders, and strong, as she de- 
 serves to be, in the love and in the confidence 
 of all her children. 
 
 I would not have touched on any of the lessons 
 of political economy, did they not lead me, by a 
 single step, to a Christian lesson, which I count 
 it my incumbent duty to press upon the atten- 
 tion of you all. Any sudden change in the state 
 of the demand, must throw the commercial world 
 into a temporary derangement. — And whether 
 the change be from war to peace, or from peace 
 to war, this effect is sure to accompany it. Now 
 for upwards of twenty years, the direction of our 
 trade has been accommodated to a war system, 
 and when this system is put an end to, I do not 
 say what amount of the distress will light upon 
 this neighbourhood, but we may be sure that all 
 
33 
 
 the alarm of falling markets, and ruined specula- 
 tion, will spread an oppressive gloom over many 
 of the manufacturing districts of the land. Now, 
 let my title to address you on other grounds be 
 as questionable as it may, I feel no hesitation 
 whatever in announcing it, as your most impera- 
 tive duty, that no outcry of impatience or dis- 
 content from you, shall embarrass the pacific po- 
 licy of his Majesty's government. They have 
 conferred a great blessing on the country, in 
 conferring on it peace ; and it is your part resign- 
 edly to weather the languid or disastrous months 
 which may come along with it. The interest of 
 trade is an old argument that has been set up, in 
 resistance to the dearest and most substantial in- 
 terests of humanity. When Paul wanted to bring 
 Christianity into Ephesus, he raised a storm of 
 opposition around him, from a quarter which, I 
 dare say, he was not counting on. There hap- 
 pened to be some shrine manufactories in that 
 place, and as the success of the Apostle would 
 infallibly have reduced the demand for that ar- 
 ticle, forth came the decisive argument of. Sirs, 
 by this craft we have our wealth, and should this 
 Paul turn away the people from the worship of 
 gods made with hands, thereby much damage 
 would accrue to our trade. Why, my brethren, 
 if this argument is to be admitted, there is not 
 
34 
 
 one conceivable benefit that can be offered for 
 the acceptance of the species. Would it not be 
 well, if all the men of reading in the country 
 were to be diverted from the poison which lurks 
 in many a mischievous publication — and should 
 this blessed reformation be effected, are there none 
 to be found who would feel that much damage 
 had accrued to their trade ? Would it not be 
 well if those wretched sons of pleasure, before 
 whom, if they repent not, there lieth all the 
 dreariness of an unprovided eternity — ^would it 
 not be well, that they were reclaimed from the 
 maddening intoxication which speeds them on in 
 the career of disobedience — and on this event 
 too, would there be none to complain that much 
 damage had accrued to their trade ? Is it not 
 well, that the infamy of the Slave Trade has been 
 swept from the page of British history? and yet 
 do not many of you remember how long the mea- 
 sure lay suspended, and that about twenty annual 
 flotillas, burdened with the load of human wretch- 
 edness, were wafted across the Atlantic, while 
 Parliament was deafened and overborne by un- 
 ceasing clamours about the much damage that 
 would accrue to the trade? And now, is it not 
 well that peace has once more been given to the 
 nations? and are you to follow up this goodly 
 train of examples, by a single whisper of discon- 
 
35 
 
 tent about tlie much damage that will accrue to 
 your trade ? No, my brethren, I wiU not let down 
 a single inch of the Christian requirement that 
 lies upon you. Should a sweeping tide of bank- 
 ruptcy set in upon the land, and reduce every 
 individual who now hears me, to the very hum- 
 blest condition in society, God stands pledged to 
 give food and raiment to all who depend upon 
 him; — and it is not fair to make others bleed, 
 that you may roll in affluence;— it is not fair to 
 desolate thousands of families, that yours may be 
 upheld in luxury and splendour — and your best, 
 and noblest, and kindest part is, to throw your- 
 self on the promises of God, and he will hide 
 you and your httle ones in the secret of his pa. 
 vilion, till these calamities be overpast. 
 
 III. I trust it is evident from all that has been 
 said, how it is only by the extension of Christian 
 principle among the people of the earth, tliat the 
 ati'ocities of war will at length be swept away 
 from it; and that each of us is hastening the 
 commencement of that blissful period, who, in 
 his own sphere, is doing all that in him lies to 
 bring his own heart, and the hearts of others, un- 
 der the supreme influence of this principle. It 
 is pubhc opinion, which, in the long run, gov 
 verns the world ; and while 1 look with confidence 
 
36 
 
 to a gradual revolution in the state of public opi- 
 nion, from the omnipotence of gospel truth work- 
 ing its silent, but effectual, way through the 
 families of mankind — yet I will not deny, that 
 much may be done to accelerate the advent of 
 perpetual and universal peace, by a distinct body 
 of men embarking their every talent, and their 
 every acquirement, in the prosecution of this, as 
 a distinct object. This was the way in which, a 
 few years ago, the British public were gained over 
 to the cause of Africa. This is the way in which 
 some of the other prophecies of the Bible are at 
 this moment hastening to their accomplishment ; 
 and it is in this way, I apprehend, that the pro- 
 phecy of my text may be indebted for its speedier 
 fulfilment to the agency of men, selecting this 
 as the assigned field on which their philanthropy 
 shall expatiate. Were each individual member of 
 such a scheme to prosecute his own walk, and 
 come forward with his own peculiar contribution, 
 the fruit of the united labours of all would be 
 one of the finest collections of Christian elo- 
 quence, and of enlightened morals, and of sound 
 political philosophy, that ever was presented to 
 the world. I could not fasten on another cause 
 more fitted to call forth such a variety of talent, 
 and to rally around it so many of the generous 
 and accomplished sons of humanity, and to give 
 
37 
 
 each of them a devotedness and a power far be- 
 yond whatever could be sent into the hearts of 
 enthusiasts, by the mere impulse of literary am- 
 bition. 
 
 Let one take up the question of war in its 
 principle, and make the full weight of his moral 
 severity rest upon it, and upon all its abomi- 
 nations. Let another tiike up the question of 
 war in its consequences, and bring his every 
 power of graphical description to the task of 
 presenting an awakened public with an impres- 
 sive detail of its cruelties, and its horrors. Let 
 another neutralize the poetry of war, and dis- 
 mantle it of all those bewitching splendours, 
 which the hand of misguided genius has throw^n 
 over it. Let another teach the w orld a truer, 
 and more magnanimous path to national glory, 
 than any country of the world has yet walked in. 
 Let another tell, with irresistible argument, how 
 the Christian ethics of a nation is at one with the 
 Christian ethics of its humblest individual. Let 
 another bring all the resources of his political 
 science to unfold the vast energies of defensive 
 war, and show, that, instead of that ceaseless 
 jealousy and disquietude which are ever keeping 
 alive the flame of hostility among the nations, 
 each may wait in prepared security, till the 
 first footstep of an invader shall be the signal 
 
38 
 
 for mustering around the standard of its outra- 
 ged rights, all the steel, and spirit, and patriotism 
 of the country. Let another pour the light of 
 modern speculation into the mysteries of trade, 
 and prove that not a single war has been under- 
 taken for any of its objects, where the millions 
 and the millions more which were lavished on 
 the cause, have not all been cheated away from 
 us by the phantom of an imaginary interest. 
 This may look to many like the Utopianism of 
 a romantic anticipation — ^but I shall never de- 
 spair of the* cause of truth addressed to a Chris- 
 tian public, when the clear light of principle can 
 be brought to every one of its positions, and 
 when its practical and conclusive establishment 
 forms one of the most distinct of Heaven's pro- 
 phecies — " that men shall beat their swords into 
 plough-shares, and theii' spears into pruning- 
 hooks — and that nation shall not lift up sword 
 against nation, neither shall they learn the art 
 of war any more." 
 
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THE nOCTIiIXE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY APPLIED TO 
 THE CASE OF RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES: 
 
 SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE THE 
 
 AUXILIARY SOCIETY, GLASGOW, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 HIBERNIAN SOCIETY, 
 
 FOR 
 
 ESTABLISHING SCHOOLS, AND CIRCULATING THE 
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 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. 
 
 MINISTER OF 3T. JOHN'S CIIURCU, GLASGOW. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
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 Glasgow. 
 
TO 
 
 KIRKMAN FINLAY, ESQ. M. P. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE HIBERNIAN' AUXILIARY SOCIETY IN GLASGOW; 
 
 THE FOLLOWING SERMON 
 
 IS DEDICATED, 
 
 WITH GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE 
 COUNTENANCE BESTOWED BY HIM, 
 
 ON ONE OF 
 
 THE MOST USEFUL AND BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS 
 
 IN OUR CITY, 
 
 AND WITH MUCH RESPECT, 
 
 BY \ 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 If the question were put, Wliat is Popery? an an- 
 swer might be given by the enumeration of what 
 are conceived to be its leading principles. Without 
 at all inquiring whether the conception be a just 
 one or not, there are many persons who would tell 
 us, that the members of this denomination ascribe 
 an infalUbility to the Pope; and that they hold the 
 doctrine of Transubstantiation ; and that they offer 
 religious worship to departed saints, and render an 
 external homage to images; and that they give 
 such an importance to the ceremonial of extreme 
 unction, as to conceive, that by the administration 
 of it, all the guilt of the most worthless and un- 
 renewed character is expiated and done away. — 
 It is enough to mark our aversion to these posi- 
 tions and practices, that we say, tliat every one of 
 them is unscriptural ; and that if this be a real 
 
portraiture of Popery, it is a religion which has no 
 foundation in truth or in the Bible. But this is 
 altogether a different question, in how far Popery, 
 as thus defined, is actually realized by those men 
 who wear the name and the profession of it. 
 Whether this was ever the Popery of a past age, 
 is a question of erudition, into which we propose 
 not to enter. And whether this be the Popery 
 of any people of the present age, is a question 
 of observation, into which we propose not to enter. 
 We confine ourselves to the object of looking into 
 our own hearts, and of looking to those who are 
 immediately around us, with the view of ascer- 
 taining whether the contamination and the sub- 
 stantial mischief of these alleged principles might 
 not be detected on a nearer field of observation. 
 
 We are all aware that such an attempt as this is 
 not enough to satisfy many Protestants, or to fill 
 up the measure of their zeal against what they hold 
 to be a most blasphemous and pestilential heresy. 
 They would not merely demand the disavowal of 
 a corrupt system — ^but they would like to see it 
 attached with all its deformities in the form of a 
 
personal charge to the men of a certain prominent 
 and visible denomination. Now we do not see 
 how the former demand can be more effectually 
 met, than by the denunciation of this system, 
 under whatever shape, or in whatever quarter of 
 society, it may be found. — Nor do we conceive 
 how a more honest and decisive seal of reproba- 
 tion can be set upon it, than by the expression of 
 a dislike so strong and so irreconcilable, as to be 
 felt, even when it obtrudes upon our notice any of 
 its features amongst the individuals of our own con- 
 nexion, and offers itself to view under the screen 
 of an ostensible Protestantism. As to the latter 
 demand, we frankly confess that we are not histo- 
 rically enough acquainted with the present state 
 of the CathoHc mind, to be at all able to comply 
 with it. But should any member of that persua- 
 sion come forward with his own explanations, and 
 give such a mitigated view of the peculiarities of 
 Catholics, as to leave the great evangelical doc- 
 trines of faith and repentance unimpaired by them, 
 and state that an averment of the Bible has never, 
 in his instance, been neutralised or practically stript 
 of its authority, by an averment of Popes or of 
 
8 
 
 Councils; — on what principle of candour shall the 
 recognition of a common Christianity be withheld 
 from him? Is it not better to confine our animad- 
 version to the principles of the system, and to let 
 persons alone : and if these persons shall step for- 
 ward with the affirmation that the system is ima- 
 ginary, or that, at least, it has no actual residence 
 with them, whether is it the more Christian exhi- 
 bition on our part, that we exercise, in their behalf, 
 the charity which beheveth all things, or that we 
 pertinaciously keep by a charge, the truth of which 
 they solemnly disclaim? 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Matthew vii. 3, 4, 5. 
 
 " And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's 
 eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 
 — Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the 
 mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own 
 eye? — Thou hypocrite! first cast out the beam out of thine 
 own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the 
 mote out of thy brother's eye." 
 
 The word beam suggests the idea of a rafter; and 
 it looks very strange that a thing of such magnitude 
 should be at all conceived to have its seat or fixture 
 in the eye. To remove, by a single sentence, this 
 misapprehension, I shall just say, that the word in 
 the original signifies also a thorn, a something that 
 the eye has room for, but at the same time much 
 larger than a mote, and which must, therefore, 
 have a more powerful effect in deranging the vision, 
 and preventing a man from forming a riglit estimate 
 of the object he is looking at. Take this along 
 
10 
 
 with you, and the three verses will run thus: — 
 " Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy bro- 
 ther's eye, but considerest not the thorn that is in 
 thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy bro- 
 ther, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; 
 and behold a thorn is in thine own eye? Thou 
 h}^ocrite! first cast out the thorn out of thine own 
 eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the 
 mote out of thy brother's eye." 
 
 In my farther observations on this passage, I 
 shall first introduce what I propose to make the 
 main subject of my Discourse, by a very short 
 application of the leading principle of my text, 
 to the case of those judgments that we are so 
 ready to pronounce on each other in private life. 
 And I shall, secondly, proceed to the main sub- 
 ject, viz. that more general kind of judgment which 
 we are apt to pass on the men of a different per- 
 suasion, in matters of religion. 
 
 I. Every fault of conduct in the outer man, may 
 be run up to some defect of principle in the inner 
 man. It is this defect of principle, which gives 
 the fault all its criminality. It is this alone, wliich 
 makes it odious in the sight of God. It is upon 
 this that the condemnation of the law rests ; and 
 on the day of judgment, when the secrets of all 
 hearts shall be laid open, it will be the share that 
 
11 
 
 the heart had in the matter, whicli will form the 
 great topic of examination, when the deeds done 
 in the body pass under the review of the Son of 
 God. For example, it is a fault to speak evil one 
 of another; but the essence of the fault lies in tlie 
 want of that charity, whicli thinketh no ill. Had 
 the heart been filled with this principle, no such 
 bad thing as slander would have come out of it; 
 but if the heart be not filled with this principle, 
 and in its stead there be the operation of envy, — 
 or a desire to avenge yourselves on others, by 
 getting the judgment of men to go against them — 
 or a taste for the ludicrous, which, rather than be 
 ungratified, will expose the peculiarities of the 
 absent to the mirth of a company, — or the idle and 
 thoughtless levity of gossiping, which cannot be 
 checked by any consideration of the mischief that 
 may be done by its indulgence; — I say, if any or 
 all of these, take up that room in the heart, which 
 should have been filled with charity, and sent forth 
 the fruits of it, then the stream will just be as the 
 fountain, and out of the treasure of the evil heart, 
 there will flow that evil practice of censoriousness, 
 on which the gospel of Christ pronounces its severe 
 and decisive condemnation. 
 
 But though all evil-speaking be referable to the 
 want of a good, or to the existence of an evil prin- 
 ciple in the heart, yet there is one style of evil- 
 
12 
 
 speaking cliiFereiit from another; and you can easily 
 conceive how a man addicted to one way of it, 
 may hate, and despise, and have a mortal antipa- 
 pathy, to another way of it. In this case, it is not 
 the thing itself in its essential deformity that he 
 condemns ; it is some of the disgusting accompani- 
 ments of the thing; and while these excite his 
 condemnation, and he views the man in whom 
 they are realized, as every way worthy of being 
 reprobated, he may not be aware, all the while, 
 that in himself there exists an equal, and perhaps, 
 a much larger portion of that very principle, which 
 he should be reprobated for. The forms of evil- 
 speaking break out into manifold varieties. There 
 is the soft insinuation. There is the resentful out- 
 cry. There is the manly and indignant disapproval. 
 There is the invective of vulgar malignity. There 
 is the poignancy of satirical remark. There is the 
 giddiness of mere volatility, which trips so care- 
 lessly along, and spreads its entertaining levities 
 over a gay and light-hearted party. These are all 
 so many transgressions of one and the same duty; 
 and you can easily conceive an enlightened Chris- 
 tian sitting in judgment over them all, and taking 
 hold of the right principle upon which he would 
 condemn them all ; and which, if brought to bear 
 with efficacy on the consciences of the different 
 offenders, would not merely silence the passionate 
 evil-speaker out of his outrageous exclamations. 
 
13 
 
 and restrain tlic malignant evil-speaker from his 
 deliberate tlinists at the reputation of the absent; 
 but would rebuke the humorous evil-speaker out 
 of his fanciful and amusing sketches, and the gos- 
 siping evil-speaker out of his tiresome and never- 
 ending narratives. Now you may farther conceive, 
 how a man who realizes upon his own character 
 one of these varieties, might have a positive dislike 
 to another of them; how the open and generous- 
 hearted denouncer of what is wrong, may hate 
 from his very soul the poison of a sly and secret 
 insinuation; how he who delivers himself in the 
 chastened and well-bred tone of a gentleman, may 
 recoil from the violence of an unmannerly invec- 
 tive; how he who enjoys the ridiculous of charac- 
 ter, may be hurt and offended at hearing of the 
 criminal of character; — and thus each, with the 
 thorn in his own eye, may advert with regret and 
 disapprobation to the mote in his brother's eye. 
 
 Now, mark the two advantages which arise from 
 every man bringing himself to a strict examination, 
 that he may if possible find out the principle of 
 that fault in his own mind, which he conceives to 
 deform the doinG:s and the character of another. 
 His attention is carried away from the mere accom- 
 paniment of the fault to its actual and constituting 
 essence. He pursues his search from the outward 
 and accidental varieties, to the one principle which 
 
14 
 
 spreads the leaven of iniquity over them all. By 
 looking into his own heart, he is made acquainted 
 with the movements of this principle. When 
 forced to disapprove of others, his disapprobation 
 is not a mere matter of taste, or of education, but 
 the entire and well-founded disapprobation of prin- 
 ciple. He sees where the radical mischief of the 
 whole business lies. He sees that if the principle 
 of doing no ill were established within the heart, 
 it would cut up by the root all evil-speaking in all 
 its shapes and in all its modifications. His own 
 diligent keeping of his heart upon this subject 
 would bring the matter into his frequent contem- 
 plation, and enable him to perceive where its 
 essence and its malignity lay, and give him an 
 enlightened judgment of it in all its effects and 
 workings upon others ; and thus, by the very pro- 
 gress of struggling against it, and watching against 
 it, and praying against it, and in the strength of 
 divine grace prevailing against it, and at length 
 succeeding in pulling the thorn out of his own eye, 
 he would see clearly to cast out the mote out of 
 his brother's eye. 
 
 But another mighty advantage of this self-ex- 
 amination is, that the more a man does examine, 
 the more does he discover the infirmities of his 
 own character. That very infirmity against which, 
 in another, he might have protested with all the 
 
IS 
 
 force of a vehement iiulignation, he miglit tind 
 lurking in liis own bosom, though under the dis- 
 guise of a different form. Such a discovery as 
 this will temper his indignation. It will humble 
 him into the meekness of wisdom. It will soften 
 him into charity. It will infuse a candour and a 
 gentleness into all his judgments. The struggle 
 he has had with himself to keep down the sin he 
 sees in another, will train him to an indulgence he 
 might never have felt, had he been altogether blind 
 to the diseases of his own moral constitution. 
 When he tries to reform a neighbour, the attempt 
 will be marked by all the mildness of one who is 
 deeply conscious of his own frailties, and fearful 
 of the exposures which he himself may hav^e to 
 endure. And I leave it to your own experience 
 of human nature to determine, whether he bids 
 fairer for success who rebukes with the intolerant 
 tone of a man who is unconscious of his own 
 blemishes ; or he who with all the spirituality of a 
 humble and exercised Christian, endeavours to 
 restore him who is overtaken in a fault, with the 
 spirit of meekness, " considering himself lest he 
 also be tempted.*' 
 
 Now the fault of evil-speaking is only one out 
 of the many. The lesson of the text might be 
 farther illustrated by other cases and other ex- 
 amples. I might specify the various forms of 
 
16 
 
 worldliness, and wilfulness, and fraud, and false- 
 hood, and profanity, and show how the man who 
 realizes these sins in one form, might pass his 
 condemnatory sentence on the man who realizes 
 the very same sins in another form : and I might 
 succeed in saying to the conviction of his con- 
 science, even as Nathan said to David, '* Thou 
 art the man ;" and might press home upon him 
 the mighty task of self-examination, and set him 
 from that to the task of diligent reform, that he 
 might be enabled to see the fault of his neighbour 
 more clearly, and rebuke it more gently, and 
 winningly, and considerately. But my time re- 
 strains me from expatiating; and however great 
 my reluctance at being withdrawn from the higher 
 office of dealing with the hearts and the consciences 
 of individuals, to any other office, w^hich, however 
 good in itself, bears a most minute and insignificant 
 proportion to the former, yet I must not forget 
 that I stand here as the advocate of a public 
 Society; — and I therefore propose to throw the 
 remainder of my Discourse into such a train of 
 observation as may bear upon its designs and its 
 enterprizes. 
 
 11. I now proceed, then, to the more general 
 kind of judgment which we are apt to pass on 
 men of a different persuasion in matters of rehgion, 
 — There is something iij the very circumstance of 
 
17 
 
 its being a different religion from our own, wliicli, 
 prior to all our acquaintance with its details, is 
 calculated to repel and to alarm us. It is not the 
 religion in which we have been educated. It is 
 not the religion which furnishes us with our asso- 
 ciations of sacredness. Nay, it is a religion, which, 
 if admitted into our creed, would tear asunder all 
 these associations. It would break up all the re- 
 pose of our established habits. It w^ould darken 
 the whole field of our accustomed contemplations. 
 It would put to flight all those visions of the mind 
 which stood linked with the favour of God, and 
 the blissful prospects of eternity. It would un- 
 settle, and disturb, and agitate; and this, not 
 merely because it threw a doubtfulness over the 
 question of our personal security, but because it 
 shocked our dearest feelings of tenderness for 
 that which wc had been trained to love, and 
 of veneration for that which we had been trained 
 to look at in the aspect of awful and imposing 
 solemnity. 
 
 Add to all this, the circumstance of its being a 
 religion with the intolerance of which our fathers 
 had to struggle unto the death ; a religion which 
 lighted up- the fires of persecution in other days; a 
 religion which at one time put on a face of terror, 
 and bathed its hands in the blood of cruel martyr- 
 dom ; a religion, by resistance to which, the men of 
 a departed generation are embalmed in the memory 
 
18 
 
 of the present, among the worthies of our established 
 faith. We have only to contemplate the influence 
 of these things, when handed down by tradition, 
 and written in the most popular histories of the 
 land, and told round the evening fire to the chil- 
 dren of every cottage family, who listen in breath- 
 less wonderment to the tale of midnight alarm, 
 and kindle at the battle-cry lifted by the patriots 
 of a former age, when they made their noble stand 
 for the outraged rights of conscience and of liberty 5 
 we have only to think of these things, and we 
 shall cease our amazement, that such a religion, 
 even though its faults and its merits be equally 
 unknown, should light up a passionate aversion in 
 many a bosom, and have a recoiling sense of horror 
 and sacrilege, and blasphemy associated with its 
 very name. 
 
 Now Popery is just such a religion: and I appeal 
 to many present, if, though ignorant of almost all 
 its doctrines and all its distinctions, there does not 
 spring up a quickly felt antipathy in their bosoms 
 even at the very mention of Popery. There can 
 be no doubt, that for one or two generations, this 
 feeling has been rapidly on the decline. But it 
 still lurks, and operates, and spreads a very wide 
 and sensible infusion over the great mass of our 
 Scottish population. There is now a dormancy 
 about it, and it does not break out into those rude 
 and tumultuary surges, which at one time filled 
 
19 
 
 our streets with violence, and sent a ferment of 
 jealousy and alarm over the whole face of our 
 country. But we still meet with the traces of its 
 existence. We feel it in our own bosoms when 
 we hear of any of the ceremonials of Popery: 
 and I just ask you to think of those peculiar sen- 
 sations which rise within you at the mention of 
 the holy water, or the consecrated wafer, or the 
 extreme unction of the Catholic ritual. There is 
 still a sensation of repugnance, though it be dim, 
 and in its pain fulness it be rapidly departing away 
 from us; and I think that, even at this hour, 
 should a Popish Chapel send up its lofty minarets, 
 and spread a rich and expanded magnificence 
 before the public eye, though many look with 
 unmingled delight on the grandeur of the ascend- 
 ing pile, yet there may still be detected a visible 
 expression of jealousy and offence in the side-long 
 glance, and the inward and half-suppressed mur- 
 muring of the occasional passenger. 
 
 Now, is it not conceivable that such a traditional 
 repugnance to Popery may exist in the very same 
 mind, with a total ignorance of what those things 
 are for which it merits our repugnance? May 
 there not be a kind of sensitive recoil in the heart 
 against this religion, while the understanding is 
 entirely blind to those alone features which justify 
 our dislike to it? May there not be all the vio- 
 
 B 2 
 
20 
 
 lence of an antipathy within us at Popery, and 
 there be at the same time within us all the faults 
 and all the errors of Popery? May not the thorn 
 be in our own eye, while the mote in our neigh- 
 bour's eye is calling forth all the severity of our 
 indic^nation? While w^e are sittinf^ in the chair 
 of judgment, and dealing forth from the eminence 
 of a superior discernment, our invectives against 
 what we think to be sacrilegious in the creed and 
 practice of others, may it not be possible to detect 
 in ourselves the same perversion of principle, the 
 same idolatrous resistance to truth and righteous- 
 ness ; and surely it well becomes us in this case, 
 while we are so ready to precipitate our invectives 
 upon the head of by-standers, to pass a humbling 
 examination upon ourselves, that w^e may come to 
 a more enlightened estimate of that which is the 
 object of our condemnation; and that, when we 
 condemn, we may do it with wisdom, and with 
 the meekness of wisdom. 
 
 Let us, therefore, take a nearer look of Popery, 
 and try to find out how much of Popery there is 
 in the religion of Protestants. 
 
 But, let it be premised, that many of the dis- 
 ciples of this religion disclaim much of what we 
 impute to them; that the Popery of a former age 
 may not be a fair specimen of the Popery of the 
 
21 
 
 present; that, in point of fact, many of its profes- 
 sors have evinced all the spirit of devout and 
 enlightened Christians; that in many districts of 
 Popery, the Bible is in full and active circulation; 
 and that thus, while the name and externals are 
 retained, and waken up all our traditional repug- 
 nance against it, there may be among thousands 
 and tens of thousands of its nominal adherents, 
 all the soul, and substance, and principle, and 
 piety of a reformed faith. When I, therefore, 
 enumerate the errors of Popery, I do not assert 
 the extent to which they exist. I merely say that 
 such errors are imputed to them ; and instead of 
 launching forth into severities against those who 
 are thus charged, all I propose is, to direct you to 
 the far more profitable and Christian employment 
 of shaming ourselves out of these very errors, 
 that we may know how to judge of others, and 
 that we may do it w ith the tenderness of charity. 
 
 First, then, it is said of Papists that they ascribe 
 an infallibility to the Pope, so that if he w^ere to 
 say one thing and the Bible another, his authority 
 would carry it over the authority of God. And, 
 think you, my brethren, that there is no such 
 Popery among you? Is there no taking of your 
 religion upon trust from another, Avhen you should 
 di'aw it fresh and unsullied from the fountain-head 
 of inspiration? You all have, or you ought to 
 have, Bibles ; and how often is it repeated there, 
 
22 
 
 " Hearken diligently unto me?" Now, do you 
 obey this requirement, by making the reading of 
 your Bibles a distinct and earnest exercise ? Do 
 you ever dare to bring your favourite minister to 
 the tribunal of the word, or would you tremble 
 at the presumption of such an attempt, so that 
 the hearing of the word carries a greater autho- 
 rity over your mind than the reading of the 
 word? Now this want of daring, this trembling 
 at the very idea of a dissent from your minister, 
 this indolent acquiescence in his doctrine, is 
 just calling another man master ; it is putting 
 the authority of man over the authority of God ; 
 it is throwing yourself into a prostrate attitude 
 at the footstool of human infallibility; it is not 
 just kissing the toe of reverence, but it is the 
 profounder degradation of the mind and of all 
 its faculties: and without the name of Popery, 
 — that name which lights up so ready an anti- 
 pathy in your bosoms, your soul may be infected 
 with the substantial poison, and your conscience 
 be weighed down by the oppressive shackles 
 of Popery. And all this, in the noon-day efful- 
 gence of a Protestant country, where the Bible, 
 in your mother tongue, circulates among all your 
 families, — where it may be met with in almost 
 every shelf, and is ever soliciting you to look to 
 the wisdom that is inscribed upon its pages. O ! 
 how tenderly should we deal with the prejudices 
 of a rude and uneducated people, who have no 
 
2?> 
 
 Bibles, and no art of reading among them, to 
 unlock its treasures, when we think that, even in 
 this our land, the voice of human authority carries 
 so mighty an influence along with it, and venera- 
 tion ibr the word of God is darkened and polluted 
 by a blind veneration for its interpreters. 
 
 We tremble to read of the fulminations that 
 have issued in other days from a conclave of car- 
 dinals. Have we no conclaves, and no fulmin- 
 ations, and no orders of inquisition, in our own 
 country? Is there no professing brotherhood, 
 or no professing sister-hood, to deal their censori- 
 ous invectives around them, upon the members 
 of an excommunicated world? There is such a 
 thing as a religious public. There is a " little 
 flock," on the one hand, and a " world lying in 
 wickedness," on the other. But have a care ye 
 who think yourselves of the favoured few, how 
 you never transgress the mildness, and charity, 
 and unostentatious virtues of the Gospel ; lest 
 you hold out a distorted picture of Christianity 
 in your neighbourhood, and impose that as reli- 
 gion on the fancy of the credulous, which stands 
 at as wide a distance from the religion of the New 
 Testament, as do the services of an exploded 
 superstition, or the mummeries of an antiquated 
 ritual. 
 
 But, again, it is said of Papists, that they hold 
 
24 
 
 the monstrous doctrine of Transubstantiation. 
 Now a doctrine may be monstrous on two grounds. 
 Jt may be monstrous on the ground of its absur- 
 dity, or it may be monstrous on the ground of its 
 impiety. It must have a most practically mis- 
 chievous effect on the conscience, should a com- 
 municant sit down at the table of the Lord; and 
 tliink that the act of appointed remembrance is 
 equivalent to a real sacrifice, and a real expiation ; 
 and leave the performance with a mind unbur- 
 dened of all its past guilt, and resolved to incur 
 fresh guilt to be wiped away by a fresh expiation. 
 But in the sacraments of our own country, is 
 there no crucifying of the Lord afresh? Is there 
 none of that which gives the doctrine of Tran- 
 substantiation all its malignant influence on the 
 hearts and lives of its proselytes ? Is there no 
 mysterious virtue annexed to the elements of this 
 ordinance ? Instead of being repaired to for the 
 purpose of recruiting our languid affections to the 
 Saviour, and strengthening our faith, and arming 
 us with a firmer resolution, and more vigorous 
 purpose of obedience, does the conscience of no 
 communicant solace itself by the mere perform- 
 ance of the outward act, and suffer him to go 
 back with a more reposing security to the follies, 
 and vices, and indulgences of the world ? Then, 
 my brethren, his erroneous view of the sacrament 
 may not be clothed in a term so appalling to the 
 hearts and the feelings of Protestants as Transub- 
 
25 
 
 •stantiation, but to it belongs all the immorality of 
 TransLibstantiation ; and the thorn must be pulled 
 out of his eye, ere he can see clearly to cast the 
 mote out of his brother's eye. 
 
 But, thirdly, it is said, that Papists worship 
 saints, and fall down to graven images. This 
 is very, very bad. ** Thou shalt worship the 
 Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." 
 But let us take ourselves to task upon this charge 
 also. Have we no consecrated names in the 
 annals of reformation, — no worthies who hold too 
 commanding a place, in the remembrance and 
 affection of Protestants? Are there no departed 
 theologians, whose w^orks hold too domineering 
 ar^ ascendency over the faith and practice of 
 Christians ? Are there no laborious compilations 
 of other days, which, instead of interpreting the 
 Bible, have given its truths a shape, and a form, 
 and an arrangement, that confer upon them an- 
 other impression, and impart to them another 
 influence, from the pure and original record ? 
 We may not bend the knee in any sensible cham- 
 ber of imagery, at the remembrance of favourite 
 saints. But do we not bend the understimding 
 before the volumes of favourite autliors, and do 
 an homage to those representations of the minds 
 of the men of other days, which should be exclu- 
 sively given to the representation of the mind of 
 
26 
 
 the Spirit, as put down in the book of the Spirit's 
 revelation? It is right that each of us should 
 give the contribution of his own talents, and his 
 own learning, to this most interesting cause ; but 
 let the great drift of our argument be to prop 
 the authority of the Bible, and to turn the eye of 
 earnestness upon its pages ; for if any work, in- 
 stead of exalting the Bible, shall be made, by the 
 misjudging reverence of others, to stand in its 
 place, then we introduce a false worship into the 
 heart of a reformed country, and lay prostrate the 
 conscience of men, under the yoke of a spurious 
 authority. 
 
 But, fourthly and lastly,-^for time does not 
 permit such an enumeration, as would exhaust 
 all the leading peculiarities ascribed to this faith, 
 — it is stated, that by the form of a confession, 
 in the last days of a sinner's life, and the minis- 
 tration of extreme unction upon his death-bed, 
 he may be sent securely to another world, with 
 all the unrepented profligacy, and fraud, and 
 wickedness of this world upon his forehead; that 
 this is looked forward to, and counted upon by 
 every Catholic, — and sets him loose from all those 
 anticipations which work upon the terror of other 
 men, and throws open to him an unbridled career, 
 through the whole of which, he may wanton in 
 all the varieties of criminal indulgence, — and at 
 
27 
 
 length, when death knocks at his door, if he just 
 allow him time to send for his minister, and to 
 hurry along with him, through tlie step of an ad- 
 justed ceremonial, the man's passage through that 
 dark vale, which carries him out of the world, 
 is strewed with the promises of delusion, — that 
 every painful remembrance of the past is stifled 
 amid the splendours and the juggleries of an 
 imposing ritual: and in place of conscience rising 
 upon him, and charging him with the guilty track 
 of disobedience he has run, and forcing him to 
 flee, amid the agitations of his restless bed, to the 
 blood of the great Atonement, and alarming him 
 into an earnest cry for the clean heart and the 
 right spirit, knowing that unless he be born again 
 unto repentance he shall perish ; — why, my breth- 
 ren, instead of these salutary exercises, we are 
 told, that a fictitious hope is made to pour its 
 treacherous sunshine into the bosom of a deceived 
 Catholic, — that, when standing on the verge of 
 eternity, he can cast a fearless eye over its dark 
 and unravelled vastness, — and that, for the terror 
 of its coming wrath, his guilty and unrenewed 
 soul is filled with all the radiance and all the 
 elevation of its anticipated glories. 
 
 O! my brethren, it is piteous to think of such 
 a preparation, but it is just such a preparation as 
 meets the sad experience of us all. The man, 
 
28 
 
 whose every affection has clung to the world, till 
 the last hour of his possibility to enjoy it; who 
 never put forth an effort or a prayer to be de- 
 livered from the power of sin, till every faculty 
 for its pleasures had expired; who, through the 
 varied progress of his tastes and his desires, from 
 amusement to dissipation, and from dissipation to 
 business, had always a something in all the suc- 
 cessive stages of his career, to take up his heart 
 to the exclusion of Him who formed it ; — why, 
 such a man, who never thought of pressing the 
 lessons of the minister upon his conscience, while 
 life was vigorous, and the full swing of its delights 
 and occupations could be indulged in, — do we 
 never find, even in the bosom of this reformed 
 country, that while his body retains all its health, 
 his spirit retains all its hardihood ; and not till the 
 arrival of that week, or that month, or that year, 
 when the last messenger begins to alarm him, 
 does he think of sending to the man of God, a 
 humble supplicant for his attendant prayers. Ah ! 
 my brethren, do you not think, amid the tones, and 
 the sympathies, and the tears, which an affection- 
 ate pastor pours out in the fervency of his soul, 
 and mingles with all his petitions, and all his 
 addresses to the dying man, that no flattering 
 unction ever steals upon him, to lull his conscience, 
 and smooth the agony of his departure? Then, 
 my brethren, you mistake it, you sadly mistake 
 
29 
 
 it; and even liere, wliere I lift my voice among a 
 crowd of men, in the prime and unbroken vigour 
 of their days, — if even the youngest and likeliest 
 of you all, shall, trusting to some future repent- 
 ance, cherish the purpose of sin another hour, and 
 not resolve at this critical and important Now, to 
 break it all off, by an act of firm abandonment, 
 then be your abhorrence at Popery what it may, 
 you are exemplifying the worst of its errors, and 
 wrapping yourselves up in the crudest and most 
 inveterate of its delusions. 
 
 I have left myself very little time for the a])pli- 
 cation of all this to the particular objects of our 
 Society. First, Let it correct the very gross and 
 vulgar tendency we all have to think, that the 
 kingdom of God cometh with observation. That 
 kingdom has its seat within us, and consists in the 
 reign of principle over the hidden and invisible 
 mind. The mere deposition of the Pope from 
 that throne where he sits surrounded with the 
 splendour of temporalities, — the mere ascendency 
 of Protestant princes, over the counsels and poli- 
 tics of the world, — the mere exclusion of Catholic 
 subjects from our administrations and our parlia- 
 ments, — these things are all very observable, but 
 they may all happen, without one inch of progress 
 being made towards the establishment of that 
 kingdom which cometh not with observation. 
 
30 
 
 Why, my brethren, the supposition may be a very 
 odd one, — nor do I say that it is at all likely to be 
 realized, — but for the sake of illustration, I will 
 come forward with it. Conceive that the Spirit 
 of God, accompanying the circulation of the word 
 of God, were to introduce all its truths and all its 
 lessons into the heart of every individual of the 
 Catholic priesthood ; and that the Pope himself, 
 instead of being brought down in person from the 
 secular eminence he occupies, w^ere brought down 
 in spirit, with all his lofty imaginations, to the 
 captivity of the obedience of Christ, — then I am 
 not prepared to assert, that under the influence of 
 this great Christian episcopacy, a mighty advance- 
 ment may not be made in building up the kingdom 
 of God, and in throwing down the kingdom of 
 Satan, throughout all the territories of Catholic 
 Christendom. And yet, with all this, the name 
 of Catholic may be retained, — the external and 
 visible marks of distinction may be as prominent 
 as ever, — and with all those insignia about them, 
 which keep up our passionate' antipathy to this 
 denomination, there might not be a single ingre- 
 dient in the spirit of its members, to merit our 
 rational antipathy. I beg you will just take all 
 this as an attempt at the illustration of w^hat I 
 count a very important principle; — and to make 
 the illustration more complete, let me take up the 
 case of a Protestant country, and put the supposi- 
 
31 
 
 tion, that, with the name of a pure and spiritual re- 
 Hgion, the majority of its inhabitants are utter 
 strangers to its power ; that an indifference to the 
 matters of faith and of eternity, works all the 
 effect of a deep and fatal infidelity on their con- 
 sciences ; that the world engrosses every heart, 
 and the kingdom which is not of this world, is 
 virtually disowned and held in derision among the 
 various classes and characters of society; that the 
 spirit of the New Testament is banished from our 
 Parliaments, and banished from our Universities, 
 and banished from the great bulk of our ecclesias- 
 tical establishments, and is only to be met with 
 among a few inconsiderable men, who are scouted 
 by the general voice as the fanatics and visionaries 
 of the day; — then, my brethren, I am not to be 
 charmed out of truth, and of principle, by the 
 mockery of a name. Call such a country reformed, 
 as you may, it is full of the strong-holds of Anti- 
 christ, from one end to the other of it; and there 
 must be a revolution of sentiment there, as well 
 as in the darkest regions of Popery, ere the " ene- 
 mies of the Son of God be consumed by the 
 breath of his mouth," or ** Babylon the great be 
 fallen.'' 
 
 Now, secondly, mark the influence of such a 
 train of sentiment, on the spirit of those who are 
 employed in spreading tlie light of reformation 
 
32 
 
 among a Catholic people. It will purify their 
 aim, and give it a judicious direction, and chase 
 away from their proceedings that offensive tone 
 of arrogance w^hich is calculated to irritate, and 
 to beget a more determined obstinacy of prejudice 
 than ever. Their great aim, to express it in one 
 w^ord, is to plant in the hearts of all men of all 
 countries, the religion of the Bible. Their great 
 direction w^ill be toward the establishment of right 
 principle ; and in the prosecution of it, they will 
 carefully avoid multiplying the points of irritation, 
 by giving vent to their traditional repugnance 
 against the less material forms of Popery. And 
 the meek consciousness of that woful departure 
 from vital Christianity, which has taken place even 
 in the reformed countries of Christendom, will 
 divest them of that repulsive superiority, w^hich, 
 I fear, has gone far to defeat the success of many 
 an attempt, upon many an enemy of the truth as 
 it is in Jesus. The w^hole amount of our message, 
 is to furnish you with the Bible, and to furnish 
 you with the art of reading it. We think the 
 lessons of this book well fitted to chase away the 
 manifold errors, which rankle in the bosom of our 
 own country. You are the subjects of error as 
 well as we; and we trust that you wdll find them 
 useful, in enlightening the prejudices, and in aiding 
 the frailties to which, as the children of one com- 
 mon liumanity, we are all liable. Amongst us, 
 
33 
 
 there is a mighty deference to tlie authority of 
 man: if this exist among you, here is a book 
 which tells us to call no man master, and delivers 
 us from the faUibility of human opinions. Amongst 
 us, there is a delusive confidence in the forms of 
 godliness, with little of its power: here is a book, 
 which tells us that holiness of life is the great end 
 of all our ceremonies, and of all our sacraments. 
 Amongst us there is a host of theologians, each 
 wielding his separate authority over the creed and 
 the conscience of his countrymen, and you. Ca- 
 tholics, have justly reproached us with our mani- 
 fold and never-ending varieties; but here is a book, 
 the influence of which is tlirowing all these differ- 
 ences into the back ground, and bringing forward 
 those great and substantial points of agreement, 
 which lead us to recognise the man of another 
 creed to be essentially a Christian, — and we want 
 to widen this circle of fellowship, that we may be 
 permitted to live in the exercise of one faith and 
 of one charity along with you. Amongst us, the 
 great bulk of men pass through life forgetful of 
 eternity, and think, that by the sighs and the 
 ministrations of their last days, they will earn all 
 the blessedness of its ever-during rewards. But 
 here is a book which tells us that we should seek 
 first the kingdom of God ; and will not let us off 
 with any other repentance tlian repentance now; 
 
 and tells us, what we trust, will light with greater 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 energy on your consciences than it has ever done 
 upon ours, that we should haste and make no delay 
 to keep the commandments.' O ! my brethren, 
 let us not despair that such arguments, urged by 
 the mild charity which adorns the Bible, and fol- 
 lowed up by its circulation, will at length tell on 
 the firmest defences that bigotry ever raised around 
 the conscience and the principles of men — and 
 that, out of those jarring elements which threaten 
 our empire with a wild war of turbulence and dis- 
 order, we shall, by the blessing of God, be enabled 
 to cement all its members into one great and har- 
 monious family. 
 
 I conclude with saying, that, mainly and sub- 
 stantially speaking, I conceive this to be the very 
 spirit of the attempt that is now making by the 
 Society I am now pleading for. It is not an 
 offensive declaration of war against Popery. It 
 is true that it may be looked upon virtually as a 
 measure of hostility against the errors of Catholics, 
 but no more than it is a measure of hostiUty against 
 the errors of Protestants. The light of truth is 
 fitted to chase away all error, and there is some- 
 thing in that Bible which the agents of our Society 
 are now teaching so assiduously, that is not more 
 humbling and more severe on the general spirit 
 of Ireland, than it is on the general spirit of 
 our own country. It is true, that some of the 
 
35 
 
 Catholics set their face against the estabHsh- 
 ment of our Schools, but this resistance to edu- 
 cation is not peculiar to them. It is to be met 
 with in England. It is to be met with in our 
 own boasted and beloved Scotland. It is to be 
 met with even among the enlightened classes of 
 British society — and shall we speak of it as if it 
 fastened a peculiar stigma on that country, which 
 we have left to languish in depression and igno- 
 rance for so many generations? But, this resistance 
 on the part of Catholics is far from general. In 
 one district the teachers of our Schools are chiefly 
 Roman CathoUcs ; many of the School Houses 
 are Catholic Chapels; and the great majority of 
 the Scholars are children of Catholic parents, who 
 have appeared not a little elated that their children 
 have proved more expert in their scriptural quota- 
 tions than their neighbours.- — Call you not this an 
 auspicious commencement ? Is there no loosening 
 of prejudice here ? Do you not perceive that the 
 firmest system of bigotry, ever erected over the 
 minds of a prostrate population, must give way 
 before the continued operation of such an expe- 
 dient as this ? There is no one device of human 
 policy that has done so much for Ireland in a 
 whole century, as is now doing by the progress of 
 education, and the freer circulation of the gospel 
 of light through the dark mass and interior of their 
 peasantry. Let me crave the assistance of the 
 
36 
 
 public in this place to one of the most powerful 
 instruments, that has yet been set a-going for 
 helping forward this animating cause. It is an 
 instrument ready made to your hand. The Hiber- 
 nian Society have already established 347 Schools 
 in our Sister Country, a number equal to one 
 third of the parishes in Scotland; and they are 
 dealing out education, a pure scriptural education, 
 to 27,700 Irish children. It will be a disgrace to 
 us if w^e do not signalize ourselves in such a busi- 
 ness as this. We talk of the Irish as a wild and 
 uncivilized people. It will be the indication of a 
 very gross and uncivilized public at home, if we 
 restrict our interchange with the men of the oppo- 
 site shore, to the one interchange of merchandize. 
 Let the rudeness of the Irish be what it may, sure 
 I am, that there is much in their constitutional 
 character to encourage us in this enterprize. 
 They have many good points and engaging pro- 
 perties about them. I speak not of that peculiar 
 style of genius and of eloquence, which gives such 
 fascination to the poets, the authors, the orators 
 of Ireland. I speak of the great mass, and I do 
 think that I perceive a something in the natural 
 character of Ireland, which draws me more attrac- 
 tively to the love of its people, than any other 
 picture of national manners ever has inspired. 
 Even amid the wildest extravagance of that humour 
 which sits so visibly, and so universally, on the. 
 
37 
 
 countenance of the Irish population, I can see a 
 heart and a social symi)athy along with it. Amid 
 all the wayward and ungovernable flights of that 
 rare pleasantry which belongs to them, there is a 
 something by w^hicli the bosom of an Irishman can 
 be seriously and permanently affected, and which 
 I think in juchcious hands is convertible into the 
 finest results on the ultimate character of that 
 people. It strikes me, that, of all the men on the 
 face of the earth, they would be the worst fitted 
 to withstand the expression of honest, frank, 
 liberal, and persevering kindness ; — that if they 
 saw there was no artful policy in the attentions 
 by which you plied them, but that an upright and 
 firmly sustained benevolence lay at the bottom of 
 all your exertions for the best interest of their 
 families ; — could they attain the conviction, that, 
 amid all the contempt and all the resistance you 
 experienced from their hands, there still existed 
 in your bosoms an unquelled and an undissembled 
 love for them and for their children ; — could they 
 see the working of this principle divested of every 
 treacherous and suspicious sym])tom, and unwearied 
 amid every discouragement in prosecuting the task 
 of their substantial amelioration, — Why, my breth- 
 ren, let all this come to be seen, and in a few 
 years I trust our devoted missionaries will bring it 
 before them broad and undeniable as the light of 
 day, and those hearts that are now shut against 
 
38 
 
 you in sullenness and disdain will be subdued into 
 tenderness; the strong emotions of gratitude and 
 nature will at length find their way through all 
 the barriers of prejudice ; and a people whom no 
 penalties could turn, whom no terror of military 
 violence could overcome, who kept on a scowling 
 front of hostility that was not to be softened, while 
 war spread its desolating cruelties over their un- 
 happy land, — this very people will do homage to 
 the omnipotence of charity, and when the mighty 
 armour of Christian kindness is brought to bear 
 upon them, it will be found to be irresistible. 
 
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THE UTILITY OF MISSIONS ASCERTAINED 
 BY EXPERIENCE: 
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 JOHN I. 46. 
 
 And Nathanael said unto him, Can tliere any good thing come 
 out of Nazareth? Phihp saith unto him, Come and see. 
 
 The principle of association, however useful in the 
 main, has a blinding and misleading effect in many 
 instances. Give it a wide enough field of induc- 
 tion to work upon, and it will carry you to a right 
 conclusion upon any one case or question that 
 comes before you. But the evil is, that it often 
 carries you forward with as much confidence upon 
 a limited, as upon an enlarged field of experience, 
 and the man of narrow views will, upon a few 
 paltry individual recollections, be as obstinate in 
 the assertion of his own maxim, and as boldly 
 come forward with his own sweeping generality, 
 as if the whole range of nature and observation 
 hud been submitted to him. 
 
^ 
 
 To aggravate the mischief, the opinion thus 
 formed upon the specialities of his own limited ex- 
 perience, obtains a holding and a tenacity in his 
 mind, which dispose him to resist all the future 
 facts and instances that come before him. Thus 
 it is that the opinion becomes a prejudice; and that 
 no statement, however true, or however impressive, 
 will be able to dislodge it. You may accumulate 
 facts upon facts, but the opinion he has already 
 formed, has acquired a certain right of pre-occu- 
 pancy over him. It is a law of the mind ♦which, 
 like the similar law of society, often carries it over 
 the original principles of justice ; and it is this which 
 gives so strong a positive influence to error, and 
 makes its overthrow so very slow and laborious an 
 operation. 
 
 I know not the origin of the prejudice respecting 
 the town of Nazareth ; or what it was that gave 
 rise to an aphorism of such sweeping universality, 
 as that no good thing could come out of it. Per- 
 haps in two, three, or more instances, individuals 
 may have come out of it who threw a discredit 
 over the place of their nativity, by the profligacy 
 of their actions. Hence an association between 
 the very name of the town, and the villainy of its 
 inhabitants. The association forms into an opinion. 
 The opinion is embodied into a proverb, and is 
 transmitted in the shape of a hereditary prejudice 
 to future generations. It is likely enough, that 
 many instances could have been appealed to, of 
 
people from the town of Nazareth, who gave evi- 
 dence m their characters and lives against the 
 prejudice in question. But it is not enough that 
 evidence be offered by the one party. It must be 
 attended to by the other. The disposition to resist 
 it must be got over. The love of truth and jus- 
 tice must prevail over that indolence which likes 
 to repose, without disturbance, in its present con- 
 victions; and over that malignity which, I fear, 
 makes a dark and hostile impression of others, too 
 congenial to many hearts. Certain it is, that when 
 the strongest possible demonstration was offered in 
 the person of him who was the finest example of 
 the good and fair, it was found that the inveteracy 
 of the prejudice could withstand it; and it is to be 
 feared that with the question, " Can any good 
 thing come out of Nazareth?" there were many 
 in that day who shut their eyes and their afi'ections 
 against him. 
 
 Thus it was that the very name of a town, fas- 
 tened an association of prejudice upon all its in- 
 habitants. But this is only one example out of 
 the many. A sect may be thrown into discredit 
 by a very few of its individual specimens, and the 
 same association be fastened upon all its members. 
 A society may be thrown into discredit by the 
 failure of one or two of its undertakings, and this 
 will be enough to entail suspicion and ridicule up- 
 on all its future operations. A system may be 
 thrown into discredit by the fanaticism and folly 
 
6 
 
 of some of its advocates, and it may be long be- 
 fore it emerges from the contempt of a precipitate 
 and unthinking public, ever ready to follow the 
 impulse of her former recollections^ it may be long 
 before it is reclaimed from obscurity by the elo- 
 quence of future defenders; and there may be the 
 struggle and the perseverance of many years be- 
 fore the existing association, with all its train of 
 obloquies, and disgusts, and prejudices, shall be 
 overthrown. 
 
 A lover of truth is thus placed on the right field 
 for the exercise of his principles. It is the field of 
 his faith and of his patience, and in which he is 
 called to a manly encounter with the enemies of 
 his cause. He may have much to bear, and little 
 but the mere force of principle to uphold him. 
 But what a noble exhibition of mind, when this 
 force is enough for it; when, though unsupported 
 by the sympathy of other minds, it can rest on the 
 truth and righteousness of its own principle when 
 it can select its object from among the thousand 
 entanglements of error, and keep by it amidst all 
 the clamours of hostility and contempt; when all 
 the terrors of disgrace cannot alarm it ; when all 
 the levities of ridicule cannot shame it ; when all 
 the scowl of opposition cannot overwhelm it ! 
 
 There are some very fine examples of such a 
 contest, and of such a triumph, in the history of 
 Philosophy. In the progress of speculation, the 
 doctrine of the occult qualifies fell into disrepute, 
 
and every thing tluit could be associated with such 
 a doctrine was disgraced and borne down by the 
 authority of the reigning school. When Sir Isaac 
 Newton's Theory of Gravitation was announced to 
 the world, if it had not the persecution of violence, 
 it had at least the persecution of contempt to 
 struggle with. It had the sound of an occult 
 principle, and it was charged with all the bigotry 
 and mysticism of the schoolmen. This kept it 
 out for a time from the chairs and universities of 
 Europe, and for years a kind of obscure and 
 ignoble sectarianism w^as annexed to that name 
 which has been carried down on such a tide of 
 glory to distant ages. Let us think of this, when 
 Philosophers bring their name and their authority 
 to bear upon us, when they pour contempt on the 
 truth which we love, and on the system which we 
 defend ; and as they fasten their epithets upon us, 
 let us take comfort in thinking, that w^e are under 
 the very ordeal through w hich Philosophy herself 
 had to pass, before she acheived the most splendid 
 of her victories. 
 
 Sure I am, that the Philosophers of that age 
 could not have a more impetuous contempt for the 
 occult principle, which they conceived to lie in the 
 doctrine of gravitation, than many of our present 
 Philosophers have for the equally occult principle 
 which they conceive to lie in the all-subduing 
 efficacy of the Christian Faith over every mind 
 which embraces it Each of these two doctrines 
 
8 
 
 is mighty in its pretensions. The one asserts a 
 principle to be now in operation, and which, 
 reigning over the material world, gives harmony 
 to all its movements. The other, asserts a principle 
 which it wants to put into operation, to apply to 
 all minds, to carry round the Globe, and to. visit 
 with its influence, all the accessible dominions 
 of the moral world. Mighty anticipation! It 
 promises to rectify all disorder, to extirpate all 
 vice, to dry up the source of all those sins, and 
 sufferings, and sorrows, which have spread such 
 dismal and unseemly ravages over the face of 
 society, to turn every soul from Satan unto God, 
 or in other words, to annihilate that disturbing 
 force which has jarred the harmony of the moral 
 world, and make all its parts tend obediently to 
 the Deity, as its centre and its origin. 
 
 But how can this principle be put into opera- 
 tion? How shall it be brought into contact with 
 a soul at the distance of a thousand miles from the 
 place in which we are now standing? I know no 
 other conceivable way than sending a messenger 
 in possession of the principle himself, and able to 
 convey it into the mind of another by his powers 
 of communication. The precept of " Go and 
 preach the Gospel unto every creature,'' would 
 obtain a very partial obedience indeed, if there 
 was no actual moving of the preacher from one 
 place or neighbourhood to another. Were he to 
 stand still, he might preach to some creatures ; he 
 
9 
 
 might get a smaller or a larger number to assemble 
 around him, and it is to be hoped, that, from the 
 stationary pulpits of a Christian country, the preach- 
 ing of the Word has been made to bear with efficacy 
 on the souls of multitudes. But in reference to 
 the vast majority of the world, that may still be 
 said which was said by an Apostle in the infant 
 state of our religion, How shall they hear without 
 a preacher, and how shall they preach except they 
 be sent? It is the single circumstance of being 
 sent, which forms the peculiarity so much con- 
 tended for by one part of the British Public, and 
 so much resisted by the other. The Preacher who 
 is so sent is, in good Latin, termed a Missionarij ; 
 and such is the magical power which lies in the 
 very sound of this hateful and obnoxious term, that 
 it is no sooner uttered than a thousand associations 
 of dislike and prejudice start into existence. And 
 yet you would think it very strange : The term 
 itself is perfectly correct, in point of etymology. 
 Many of those who are so clamorous in their 
 hostility against it, feel no contempt for the mere 
 act of preaching, sit with all decency and apparent 
 seriousness under it, and have a becoming respect 
 for the character of a preacher. Convert the 
 Preacher into a Missionary, and all you have done 
 is merely to graft upon the man's preaching the 
 circumstance of locomotion. How comes it that 
 the talent, and the eloquence, and the principle, 
 which appeared so respectable in your eyes, so long 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 as they stood still, lose all their respectability so 
 soon as they begin to move? It is certainly con- 
 ceivable, that the personal qualities which bear 
 with salutary influence upon the human beings of 
 one place, may pass unimpaired and have the 
 same salutary influence upon the human beings of 
 another. But this is a missionary process, and 
 though unable to bring forward any substantial 
 exception against the thing, they cannot get the 
 better of the disgust excited by the term. They 
 cannot release their understanding from the influ- 
 ence of its old associations, and these philosophers 
 are repelled from truth, and frightened out of the 
 way which leads to it, by the bugbear of a name. 
 The precept is, " Go and preach the gospel to 
 every creature under heaven." The people I allude 
 to have no particular quarrel with the preach ; but 
 they have a mortal antipathy to the go : — and 
 should even their own admired preacher offer to 
 go himself, or help to send others, he becomes a 
 missionary, or the advocate of a mission ; and the 
 question of my text is set up in resistance to the 
 whole scheme, "Can any good thing come out of it?'* 
 I never felt myself in more favourable circum- 
 stances for giving an answer to the question, than 
 I do at this moment, surrounded as I am by the 
 members of a society, which has been labouring 
 for upwards of a century in the field of missionary 
 exertion. It need no longer be taken up or treated 
 as a speculative question. The question of the 
 text may, in reference to the subject now before 
 
11 
 
 us, be met immediately by the answer of the text, 
 " Come and see." We call upon you to look to a 
 set of actual performances, to examine the record 
 of past doings, and like good pliilosophers as you 
 are, to make the sober depositions of history carry 
 it over the reveries of imagination and prejudice. 
 We deal in proofs, not in promises ; in practice, 
 not in profession; in experience, and not in ex- 
 periment. The Society whose cause I am now 
 appointed to plead in your hearing, is to all intents 
 and purposes a Missionary Society. It has a claim 
 to all the honour, and must just submit to all the 
 disgrace which such a title carries along with it. 
 It has been in the habit for many years of hiring 
 preachers and teachers, and may be convicted, 
 times without number, of the act of sending them 
 to a distance. What the precise distance is I do 
 not understand to be of any signification to the 
 argument ; but even though it should, I fear that 
 in the article of distance, our Society has at times 
 been as extravagant as many of her neighbours. 
 Her labourers have been met with in other 
 quarters of the world. They have been found 
 among the haunts of savages. They have dealt with 
 men in the very infancy of social improvement, 
 and their zeal for proselytism has far outstripped 
 that sober preparatory management, which is so 
 much contended for. Why, they have carried the 
 gospel message into climes on which Europe had 
 never impressed a single trace of her boasted 
 civilization. They have tried the species in the 
 
12 
 
 first stages of its rudeness and ferocity, nor did 
 they keep back the offer of the Saviour from 
 their souls, till art and industry had performed a 
 sufficient part, and were made to administer in 
 fuller abundance to the wants of their bodies. 
 This process which has been so much insisted 
 upon, they did not wait for. They preached and 
 they prayed at the very outset, and they put into 
 exercise all the weapons of their spiritual ministry. 
 In a word, they have done all the fanatical and 
 offensive things, which have been charged upon 
 other missionaries. If there be folly in such 
 enterprises as these, our Society has the accumu- 
 lated follies of a whole century upon her forehead. 
 She is among the vilest of the vile, and the same 
 overwhelming ridicule which has thrown the mantle 
 of ignominy over other societies, will lay all her 
 honours and pretensions in the dust. 
 
 We are not afraid of linking the claims of our 
 Society with the general merits of the Missionary 
 cause. With this cause she stands or falls. When 
 the spirit of missionary enterprise is afloat in the 
 country, she will not be neglected among the mul- 
 tiplicity of other objects. She will not suffer from 
 the number or the activity of kindred societies. 
 They who conceive alarm upon this ground, have 
 not calculated upon the productive powers of be- 
 nevolence. They have not meditated deeply upon 
 the operation of this principle, nor do they conceive 
 how a general impulse given to the missionary 
 
13 
 
 spirit, may work the twofold effect of niiiltiplying 
 the number of societies, and of providing for each 
 of them more abundantly than ever. 
 
 The fact is undeniable. In this corner of the 
 empire there is an impetuous and overbearing con- 
 tempt for every thing connected with the name of 
 Missionary. The cause has been outraged by a 
 thousand indecencies. Every thing like the cool- 
 ness of the philosophical spirit has been banished 
 from one side of the controversy, and all the epi- 
 thets of disgrace, which a perverted ingenuity 
 could devise, have been unsparingly lavished on the 
 noblest benefactors of the species. We have reason 
 to believe that this opposition is not so extensive, 
 nor so virulent in England. It is due to certain 
 provincial associations, and may be accounted for. 
 It is more a Scottish peculiarity; and while, with 
 our neighbours in the south, it is looked upon as a 
 liberal and enlightened cause ; as a branch of that 
 very principle which abolished the Slave Trade of 
 Africa; as one of the wisest, and likeliest experi- 
 ments, which, in this age of benevolent enterprise, 
 is now making for the interests of the world; as a 
 scheme ennobled by the patronage of royalty; sup- 
 ported by the contributions of opulence ; sanctified 
 by the prayers and the wishes of philanthropy; as- 
 sisted by men of the first science, and the first 
 scholarship ; carrying into execution by as hardy 
 adventurers as ever trode the desert in quest of 
 novelty; and enriching grammar, geography, and 
 
14 
 
 natural knowledge, by the discoveries they are 
 making every year, as to the statistics of all coun- 
 tries, and the peculiarities of all languages ; while, 
 I say, such are the dignified associations thrown 
 around the Missionary cause in England ; in this 
 country I am sorry to tell a very different set of 
 collaterals is annexed to it. A great proportion 
 of our nobility, gentry, and clergy, look upon it as 
 a very low and drivelling concern ; as a visionary 
 enterprise, and that no good thing can come out of 
 it ; as a mere dreg of sectarianism, and which none 
 but sectarians, or men who should have been sec- 
 tarians, have any relish or respect for. The torrent 
 of prejudice runs strongly against it, and the very 
 name of Missionary excites the most nauseous 
 antipathy, in the hearts of many, who, in other 
 departments, approve themselves to be able, and 
 candid, and reflecting inquirers. 
 
 We have no doubt that in the course of years all 
 this will pass away. But reason and experience 
 are slow in their operation; and, in the mean 
 time, we count it fair to neutralize, if possible, one 
 prejudice by another; to school down a Scottish 
 antipathy by a Scottish predilection, and to take 
 shelter from the contempt, that is now so blindly 
 and so wantonly pouring on the best of causes, under 
 the respected name of a society, which has earned, 
 by the services of a hundred years, the fairest claims 
 on the gratitude and veneration of all our country- 
 men. Come, and see the effect of her Missionary 
 
15 
 
 exertions. It is palpable, and near at hand. It 
 lies within the compass of many a summer tour; 
 and tell me, ye children of fancy, who expatiate 
 with a delighted eye over the wilds of our moun- 
 tain scenery, if it be not a dearer and a worthier 
 exercise still, to contemplate the iMbits of her once 
 rugged and wandering population. What would 
 they have been at this moment, had Schools, and 
 Bibles, and Ministers, been kept back from them? 
 and had the men of a century ago been deterred 
 by the flippancies of the present age, from the work 
 of planting chapels and seminaries in that neglected 
 land? The ferocity of their ancestors would have 
 come down unsoftened and unsubdued, to the exist- 
 ing generation. The darkening spirit of hostility 
 would still have lowered upon us from the North; 
 and these plains, now so peaceful and so happy, 
 would have lain open to the fury of merciless in- 
 vaders. O ye soft and sentimental travellers who 
 wander so securely over this romantic land, you 
 are right to choose the season when the angry ele- 
 ments of nature are asleep ! But what is it that has 
 charmed to their long repose the more dreadful 
 elements of human passion and human injustice? 
 What is it that has quelled the boisterous spirit of 
 her natives ? — and while her torrents roar as fierce- 
 ly, and her mountain brows look as grimly as ever, 
 what is that which has thrown so softening an in- 
 fluence over the minds and manners of her living 
 population? 
 
36 
 
 I know that there are several causes; but sure 
 I am, that the civilizing influence of our Society 
 has had an important share. If it be true that our 
 country is indebted to her Schools and her Bibles 
 for the most intelligent and virtuous peasantry in 
 Europe, let it never be forgotten that the Schools 
 in the establishment of our Society are nearly 
 equal to one-third of all the parishes in Scotland ; 
 that these Schools are chiefly to be met with in 
 the Highland district ; that they bear as great a 
 proportion to the Highland population, as all our 
 parochial seminaries do to all our population ; or 
 in other words, had the local convenience for the 
 attendance of scholars been as great as in other 
 parts of the country, the apparatus set a-going by 
 our Society, for the education of the Highland 
 peasantry, would have been as effective as the 
 boasted provision of the legislature, for the whole 
 of Scotland.* 
 
 * This want of local convenience for the attendance of scholars, is the 
 chief difficulty which our Society has to struggle with. The number of 
 scholars bears to the population the proportion stated in the text; but think 
 of the broad surface of a thinly peopled country, intersected with deep bays, 
 and crossed in every direction by the natural barriers of lakes and mountains. 
 There are only two ways in which education can be carried over the face of 
 a country so peculiarly formed. The first way is, by the multiplication of 
 stationary points, from which learning may emanate among the children in 
 distinct neighbourhoods. The second way is, by the operation of circulating 
 schools, which describe at intervals the blank spaces that are placed beyond 
 the reach of stationary schools. In the present situation of the Highlands, 
 both of these methods are putting into operation; and both are entitled to 
 the support and patronage of the public. But without wishing to witlidraw 
 
17 
 
 I pass over the attempts of our Society to intro- 
 duce the kiiowledije of the arts and the habits of 
 useful industry amongst tliem. I have not room 
 for every thing. And to reclaim, if possible, the 
 
 a single farthing from tlie latter of tliese methods, no one will deny that the 
 former, if it could be put into operation, is the most effectual, for the full 
 and regular education of tlie IIi<rhl:n)dprs. A fixed school, operating at all 
 seasons, will do more for its neighhourhooti, than can be done by a moveable 
 apparatus set up only at intervals, and transferring itself at the end of a few 
 months to other scenes, ami to other neighbourhoods. Let us aim, there- 
 fore, at the multiplication of the fixed points; but a mighty sum will be 
 necessary before such a system is completed; and in the mean time, let not 
 the population of the intermediate spaces be abandoned. Let the cheapest 
 and readiest expedient that offers for their education be adopted, and let the 
 public hold forth a liberal liand to the society for circulating schools. But 
 what is to hinder us to combine with tiiis, the gradual extension of the 
 system of fixed, and regular education? The parochial schools furnish us 
 with so many fixed points. The Society I am now pleading for, furnisli us 
 so many more. Tho very existence of the Gaelic Society, is a proof both 
 of the extent, and multiplicity of those intermediate spaces, over which they 
 are operating ^^nth so much efficiency. Now the precise ground upon which 
 we lay claim to the support of the public, is, that we want to scatter a few 
 more stationary schools, over these intermediate spaces— not to supersede 
 the labours of the other Society; for the period of time at which this can be 
 possibly accomplished, is still at an indefinite distance from us — but by nar- 
 rowing the ground of their operation, to enable them to do more complete 
 justice to the mighty remainder, on which they have every prospect of ex- 
 patiating for years, and generations to come; to make the task more com- 
 mensurate to their means, and enable them to circulate with greater fre^ 
 quency and eflFect, over those remoter tracts, which we have as yet no im- 
 mediate prospect of reaching. 
 
 Who would not give all jealousy to the wind, when they see hoNv beauti- 
 fully suited the operations of these two distinct Societies are to one another ? 
 Circulate, witli all possible activity, among the interjacent spaces on the one 
 hand, but do not give up the prospect of permanent establishments in these 
 spaces, on the other. The last is the })rovince of our Society, and is ad- 
 vanced as our distinct claim upon the generosity of the public. We lay 
 claim to this generosity; and, what is more, we stand in need of it. U in 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 • 
 
 prejudices of those who I fear have little sympathy 
 with the wants of the ever-during soul, I have 
 been lingering all the while upon the inferior 
 ground of temporal advantage. But I may detain 
 you for hours upon this ground, and after all I 
 have said about a more peaceful neighbourhood, 
 and a more civilized peasantry, I may positively 
 have said nothing upon the essential merits of the 
 cause. I can conceive the wish of his present 
 Majesty, that every one in his dominions may be 
 able to read the Bible, to meet an echo in every 
 bosom. But why? Because the very habit of 
 reading implies a more intelligent people, and 
 must stand associated in every mind with habits 
 of order, and comfort, and decency. But separate 
 these from the religious principle, and what are 
 
 not true that we do not teach Gaelic to our Highland scholars. The in- 
 structions given to every schoolmaster, and the Reports of the Committees 
 of Presbyteries, upon the examination of scholars, form a distinct refutation 
 to the impression which has got abroad upon this subject. Strange that 
 that Society should be charged with a hostility to Gaelic education, to whose 
 exertion and whose patronage the Highlands of Scotland are indebted for 
 the existence of the Gaelic Bible. On the other hand, it is not true that 
 oar funds are so ample as to make us independant of any appeals that can 
 be made to the generosity of the public. Our expenditure is at this mo- 
 ment pressing upon our resources. We have done much. There are hun- 
 dreds of schools regularly supported by us, but we appeal to the very exis- 
 tence of other societies for the fact, that we have still much to do. We 
 appeal to the press of applications for more schools, and more schoolmasters, 
 and more salaries. These applications come upon us every year, and the 
 painful necessity we are under of refusing many of them, proves to a de- 
 monstration, that the want of pecuniary aid is the only limit to the useful- 
 ness of our exertions. 
 
19 
 
 thev? At the very best, tliev are the virtues oi' a 
 life ; their office is to scatter a few fleeting joys 
 over a short and uncertain pilpjrimage, and to deck 
 a temporary scene witli blessings, which are to 
 })erish and be forgotten. No! in our attempts to 
 carry into effect the principle of being all things to 
 all men, let us never exalt that which is subordi- 
 nate; let us never give up our reckoning upon 
 eternity, or be asliamed to own it as our sentiment, 
 that though schools were to multiply, though 
 missionaries were to labour, and all the decencies 
 and accomplishments of social life were to follow 
 in their train, the great object would still be un- 
 attained, so long as the things of the Holy Spirit 
 were unrelished and undiscerned amongst them, 
 and they wanted that knowledge of God and of 
 Jesus Christ, which is life everlasting. This is the 
 ground upon which every Christian will rest the 
 vindication of every Missionary enterprise; and 
 this is the ground upon which he may expect to 
 be abandoned by the infidel, who laughs at piety; 
 or the lukewarm believer, who dreads to be 
 laughed at for the extravasfance to which he 
 carries it. The Christian is not for giving up the 
 social virtues ; but the open enemy and the cold 
 friend of the gospel are for giving up piety; and 
 while they garnish all that is right and amiable in 
 humanity, with the unsubstantial praises of their 
 eloquence, they pour contempt upon that very 
 ])rinciple which forms our best security for the 
 
20 
 
 existence of virtue in the world. We say nothing 
 that can degrade the social vktues in the estima- 
 tion of men ; but, by making them part of religion, 
 we exalt them above all that poet or moralist can 
 do for them. We give them God for their object, 
 and for their end the grandeur of eternity. No ! 
 it is not the Christian who is the enemy of social 
 virtue ; it is he who sighs in all the ecstacy of sen- 
 timent over it, at the very time that he is digging 
 away its foundation, and wreaking on that piety 
 which is its principle, the cruelty of his scorn. 
 
 It is very well in its place to urge the civilizing 
 influence of a Missionary Society. But this is not 
 the main object of such an institution. It is not 
 the end. It is only the accompaniment. It is a 
 never-failing collateral, and may be used as a lawful 
 instrument in fighting the battles of the Missionary 
 cause. It is right enough to contest it with our 
 enemies at every one point of advantage; and for 
 this purpose to descend, if necessary, to the very 
 ground on which they have posted themselves. 
 But, when so engaged, let us never forget the 
 main elements of our business; for there is a dan- 
 ger, that when turning the eye of our antagonists 
 to the lovely picture of peace, and industry, and 
 cultivation, raised by many a Christian missionary, 
 among the wilds of heathenism, we turn it away 
 from the very marrow and substance of our un- 
 dertaking; the great aim of which is to preach 
 Christ to sinners, and to rear human souls to a 
 beauteous and never-fading immortality. 
 
21 
 
 The wish of our pious iind patriotic king, that 
 every man in his dominions miglit be able to read 
 the Bible, has circuhited through the land. It has 
 been commented upon with eloquence ; and we 
 doubt not, that something like the glow of a virtu- 
 ous sensibility has been awakened by it. But let 
 us never forget, that in the breasts of many, all this 
 may be little better than a mere theatrical emo- 
 tion. Give me the man who is in the daily habit of 
 opening his Bible, who willingly puts himself into 
 the attitude of a Uttle child when he reads it, and 
 casts an unshrinking eye over its information and 
 its testimony. This is the way of giving effect 
 and consistency to their boasted admiration of the 
 royal sentiment. The mere admiration in itself 
 indicates nothing. It may be as little connected 
 with the sturdiness of principle as the finery of any 
 poetical delusion. Oh ! it is easy to combine a 
 vague and general testimony to the Bible, with a 
 disgusted feeling of antipathy to the methodism of 
 its actual contents; and thousands can profess to 
 make it their rallying point, who pour contempt 
 upon its doctrines, and give the lie to the faithful- 
 ness of its sayings. 
 
 Let us put you to the trial. The Bible tells us, 
 that *' he who believeth not the Son shall not see 
 life, but the wratli of God abideth on him." It 
 calls upon us ** to preach the gospel to every 
 creature," that every creature may believe it; for 
 he who so '* believeth shall not perish, but have 
 everlasting life.'* Such is the mighty difference 
 
22 
 
 between believing and not believing. It makes 
 all the difference between hell and heaven. He 
 who believeth, hath passed from death even unto 
 life; and the errand of the missionary is to carry 
 these overtures to the men of all languages, and 
 all countries; that he may prevail upon them to 
 make this transition. Some reject his overtures, 
 and to them the gospel is the savour of death unto 
 death. Others embrace them, and to them the 
 gospel is the savour of life unto life. Whatever 
 be his reception, he counts it his duty and his 
 business to preach the gospel; and if he get some 
 to hear, and others to forbear, he just fares as the 
 Apostles did before him. Now, my brethren, 
 have we got among the substantial realities of the 
 Missionary cause. We have carried you forward 
 from the accessaries to the radical elements of the 
 business; and if you, offended at the hardness of 
 these sayings, feel as if now we had got within the 
 confines of methodism ; then know that this feel- 
 ing arose in your minds at the very moment that 
 we got within the four corners of the Bible; and 
 your fancied admiration of this book, however ex- 
 quisitely felt or eloquently uttered, is nothing 
 better than the wretched flummery of a sickly and 
 deceitful imagination. 
 
 Our venerable Society has given the sanction of 
 her example to the best and the dearest objects of 
 missionaries. Like others she has kept a wakeful 
 eye over all that could contribute to the interest 
 
2.S 
 
 of the species. She luis given encouragement to 
 art and to industry, but she has never been di- 
 verted from tlie religion of the people, as the chief 
 aim of all her undertakings. To this end she has 
 multiplied schools, and made the reading of the 
 Scriptures the main acquirement of her scholars. 
 The Bible is her school-book, and it is to her that 
 the Highlands of Scotland owe the translation of 
 the Sacred Record into their own tongue. She 
 sends preachers as well as teachers amongst them. 
 As she has made the reading of the Word a prac- 
 ticable acquirement, so she has made the hearing 
 of the Word an accessible })rivilege. In short, she 
 has set up what may be called a Christian aj)para- 
 tus in many districts, which the legislature of the 
 country had left unprovided for. She is filling 
 up the blanks w^hich, among the scattered and ex- 
 tended parishes of the North, occur so frequently 
 over the broad surface of a thinly peopled country. 
 She has come in contact with those remoter groupes 
 and hamlets, which the influence of the Establish- 
 ment did not reach. And she has multipled her 
 endowments at such a rate, that very many people 
 have got Christian instruction in its different 
 branches as nearly, and as effectively to bear upon 
 them, as in the more favoured districts of the 
 land. 
 
 When a wealthy native of a Highland parisli, 
 penetrated witii a feeling of the wants of his neigh- 
 bours, erects a chapel, or endows a seminary among 
 
24 
 
 them, liis benevolence is felt and acknowledged 
 by all ; and I am not aware of a single association 
 which can disturb our moral estimate of such a 
 proceeding, or restrain the fulness of that testi- 
 mony which is due to it. But should an individual, 
 at a distance from the parish in question, do the 
 same thing; should he, with no natural claim 
 upon hnn, and without the stimulus of any of 
 those affections, which the mere circumstance of 
 vicinity is fitted to inspire ; should he, I say, 
 merely upon a moving representation of their 
 necessities, devote his w^ealth to the same cause; 
 w^hat influence ought this to have upon our esti- 
 mate of his character? Why, in all fairness, it 
 should just lead us to infer a stronger degree of 
 the principle of philanthropy, a principle which in 
 his case was unaided by any local influence what- 
 ever, and which urged him to exertion, and to 
 sacrifice, in the face of an obstacle w-hich the other 
 had not to contend with — the obstacle of distance. 
 Now^ what one individual may be conceived to do 
 for one parish, a number of individuals may do for 
 a number of parishes. They may form into a 
 society, and combine their energies and their 
 means for the benefit of the whole country, and 
 should that country lie at a distance, the only way 
 in w^hich it effects our estimate of their exertions, 
 is by leading us to see in them a stronger principle 
 of attachment to the species, and a more deter- 
 mined zeal for tlie object of their benevolence, in 
 
25 
 
 spite of the additional ditKcidties with wliich it is 
 encumbered. 
 
 Now the principle does not stop here. In the 
 instance before us, it has been carried from tiie 
 metropolis of Scotland to the distance of her 
 northern extremities. But tell me, why it might 
 not be carried round the globe. This very Society 
 lias carried it over the Atlantic, and the very ap- 
 paratus which she has planted in the Highlands 
 and Islands of our own country, she has set agoing 
 more than once in the wilds of America. The 
 very discipline which she has applied to her own 
 population, she has brought to bear on human be- 
 ings in other quarters of the world. She has 
 wrought with the same instruments upon the same 
 materials, and as in sound philos()])hy it ought to 
 have been expected, she has obtained the same 
 result — a Christian people rejoicing in the faith of 
 Jesus, and ripening tor Heaven, by a daily pro- 
 gress upon earth, in the graces and accom- 
 plishments of the gospel. I have yet to learn 
 what that is which should make the same teaching, 
 and the same Bible, applicable to one part of the 
 species, and not applicable to another. I am not 
 aware of a single principle in the philosophy of 
 man which points to such a distinction; nor do I 
 know a single category in the science of human 
 nature, which can assist me in drawing the land- 
 mark between those to whom Christianity may be 
 given, and those who are unworthy or unfit for the 
 participation of its blessings. I have been among 
 
 I) 
 
26 
 
 illiterate peasantry, and I have marked how apt 
 they were in their narrow field of observation, to 
 cherish a kind of malignant contempt for the men 
 of another shire, or another country. I have heard 
 of barbarians, and of their insolent disdain for 
 foreigners. I have read of Jews, and of their un- 
 social and excluding prejudices. But I always 
 looked upon these as the jealousies of ignorance, 
 which science and observation had the effect of 
 doing away, and that the accomplished traveller, 
 liberalised by frequent intercourse with the men 
 of other countries, saw through the vanity of all 
 these prejudices, and disowned them. What the 
 man of liberal philosophy is in sentiment, the 
 missionary is in practice. He sees in every man a 
 partaker of his own nature, and a brother of his 
 own species. He contemplates the human mind 
 in the generality of its great elements. He en- 
 ters upon the wide field of benevolence, and dis- 
 dains those geographical barriers, by which little 
 men would shut out one-half of the species from 
 the kind offices of the other. His business is with 
 man, and let his localities be what they may, 
 enough for his large and noble heart, that he is 
 bone of the same bone. To get at him, he will 
 shun no danger, he will shrink from no privation, 
 he will spare himself no fatigue, he will brave 
 every element of heaven, he will hazard the ex- 
 tremities of every clime, he will cross seas, and 
 work his persevering way through the briers and 
 thickets of the wilderness. In perils of waters, in 
 
27 
 
 perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in 
 weariness and paint illness, he seeks after him. 
 The cast and the colour are nothing to the com- 
 prehensive eye of a missionary. His is the broad 
 principle of good-will to the children of men. His 
 doings are with the species, and overlooking all 
 the accidents of climate, or of country, enough 
 for him, if the individual he is in quest of be 
 a man — a brother of the same nature — with a body 
 which a few years will bring to the grave, and a 
 spirit that returns to the God who gave it. 
 
 But this man of large and liberal principles is a 
 missionary; and this is enough to put to flight all 
 admiration of him, and of his doings. I forbear 
 to expatiate; but sure I am that certain philo- 
 sophers of the day, and certain fanatics of the day, 
 should be made to change places; if those only are 
 the genuine philosophers who keep to principles 
 in spite of names, and those only the genuine 
 fanatics who are ruled by names instead of prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 The Society for Propagating Christian Know- 
 ledge in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 
 has every claim upon a religious public ; and I 
 trust that those claims will not be forgotten among 
 the multiplicity of laudable and important objects, 
 which are now afloat in this age of benevolent en- 
 terprise. She has all the experience and respecta- 
 bility and tried usefulness of age; may she have 
 none of the infirmities of age. May she have 
 nothing either of the rust or the indolence of an 
 
28 
 
 establishment about her. Resting on the con- 
 sciousness of her own righteous, and strongly sup- 
 ported cause, may slie look on the operations of 
 other societies witli complacency, and be jealous 
 of none of them. Siie confers with them upon 
 their common objects; she assists them with her 
 experience, and when struggUng with difficulties, 
 they make their appeal to the generosity of the 
 Christian world, she nobly leads the way, and 
 imparts to them, with liberal hand, out of her own 
 revenue. She has conferred lasting obligations 
 upon the Missionary cause. She spreads over it 
 the shelter of her venerable name, and by the 
 answer of ** Come and see," to those who ask if 
 any good thing can come out of it, she gives a 
 practical refutation to the reasonings of all its ad- 
 versaries. She redeems the best of causes from 
 the unmerited contempt under which it labours, 
 and she will be repaid. The religious public will 
 not be backward to own the obligation. We are 
 aware of the prevalence of the Missionary spirit, 
 and of the many useful directions in which it is 
 now operating. But we are not afraid of the 
 public being carried aw^ay from us. We know 
 that tliere is room for all, that there are funds 
 for all; and oiu' policy is not to repress, but to ex- 
 cite the Missionary spirit, and then there will be a 
 heart for ail. 
 
 rrintcd by W. CoDUjj K to. 
 
SERMON 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 THE TRON CHURCH, GLASGOW, 
 
 ON 
 
 Wednesday, Nov. 19th, I8I7, 
 
 THE 
 
 Day of the Funeral of Her Royal Highness 
 
 THE 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. 
 
 Minister of the Tron Church, Glasgow. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 GLASGOW, 
 
 PRINTED BY JAMES IIEDDERWICK, 
 
 FOR JOHN SMITH AND SON, GLASGOW; 
 WILLIAM WHYTE, EDINBURGH; 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, J. HATCHARD, T. HAMILTON, 
 
 WILLIAMS AND CO. DANIEL COX, HIGH-STREET SOUTHWARK, AND 
 
 OGI£S, DUNCAN, AND COCHRAN, LONDON. 
 
 1818. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The following Sermon is the fruit of a very hurried and 
 unlooked for exertion — and never was there any publication 
 brought forward under circumstances of greater reluctanc} , 
 and with a more honest feeling of unpreparedness, on the part 
 of the author. The truth is, that he was at a great distance 
 from home, when the urgency of the public demand for 
 his personal appearance on the nineteenth of November, 
 reached him, and that so late, that he had no other resource 
 than to write for the pulpit during the intervals, and after 
 the exhaustion of a very rapid and fatiguing journey. It is 
 true that he might revise. But to revise such a composition, 
 would be to re-make it; and he has chosen rather to bring 
 it forward, and that as nearly as possible in the literal terms 
 of its delivery. 
 
 But it may be asked, if so unfit for the public eye, why 
 make it public? It may be thought by many, that the avowal 
 is not a wise one. But wisdom ought never to be held in 
 reverence separately from truth ; and it would be disguising 
 the real motive, were it concealed, that a very perverse 
 misconception which has gone abroad respecting one pas- 
 sage of the Sermon, and which has found its way into many 
 of the Newspapers, is the real and impelling cause of the 
 step that has been taken ; and that, had it not been for the 
 spread of such a misconception, there never would have 
 been obtruded on the public, a performance v^ritten on 
 a call of urgent necessity, and most assuredly without the 
 slightest anticipation of authorship. 
 
 But, it may be said, does not such a measure as this bring 
 the pulpit into a state of the most degrading subordination 
 to the diurnal press, since there is not a single sermon which 
 cannot be so reported, as, without the literality of direct false- 
 hood, to convey through the whole country, all the injuries 
 of a substantial misrepresentation; and if a minister should 
 condescend publicly to notice every such random and ephe- 
 meral statement, he might thereby incessantly involve him- 
 self in the most helpless and harassing of all controversy ? 
 
 Now, in opposition to this, let it be observed, that a 
 person placed in this difficult and disagreeable predicament, 
 may advert for once to such a provocation, and that for 
 the express purpose, that he may never have to do it 
 again. He may count it enough to make one decisive 
 exposure of the injustice which can be done in this way to 
 a. public instructor, and then hold himself acquitted of every 
 similar attempt in all time coming. He thereby raises a sort 
 of abiding or monumental antidote, which may serve to 
 neutralise the mischief of any future attack, or future in- 
 
sinuation. By this one act, though he may not silence the 
 obloquies of the daily press, he has at least purchased for 
 himself the privilege of standing unmoved by all the mistakes, 
 or by all the malignities which may proceed from it. 
 
 Yet, it is no more than justice to a numerous and very 
 important class of writers, to state it as our conviction of 
 the great majority of them, that they feel the dignity and 
 responsibility of their office, and hold it to be the highest 
 point of professional honour, ever to maintain the most gen- 
 tlemanly avoidance of all that is calculated to wound the 
 feelings of an unoffending individual. 
 
 There is one temptation, however, to which the Editors 
 of this department of literature are peculiarly liable, 
 which may be briefly adverted to, and the influence of 
 which, may be observed to extend even to a higher class 
 of journalists. There is an eagerness to transmute every 
 thing into metal of their own peculiar currency — there is 
 an extreme avidity to lay hold of every utterance, and to 
 send it abroad, tinged with the colouring of their own 
 party — there is a ravenous desire of appropriation extending 
 itself to every possible occurrence, and to every one indi- 
 vidual whom they would like to enlist under the banners 
 of their own partizanship, which, for their own credit, they 
 would be more careful to repress, did they perceive with 
 sufficient force, and sufficient distinctness, that it makes 
 them look more like the desperadoes of a sinking cause, 
 than the liberal and honest expounders of public politics 
 and literature, which claim so respectable a portion of the 
 intelligence of the country. 
 
 The writer of this Sermon has only to add, that he does 
 not know how a sorer imputation could have been devised 
 against the heart and the principles of a clergyman, than 
 that, on the tender and hallowed day of a nation's repose 
 from all the sordidness and all the irritations of party, he 
 should have made the pulpit a vehicle of infective against 
 any administration; or that, after mingling his tears with 
 those of his people, over the untimely death of one so dear 
 to us, he should have found room for any thing else than 
 those lessons of general Christianity, by which an unsparing 
 reproof is ministered to impiety, in whatever quarter it may 
 be found — even that impiety which wears the very same 
 features, and offers itself in the very same aspect, under 
 all administrations. 
 
 He has subjoined an Appendix, on the subject of an 
 extended ecclesiastical provision for the town of Glasgow, 
 and regrets, that he is not in such circumstances of leisure, 
 as to allow of a more full and elaborate exertion on a topic 
 so important. 
 
SERMON, &c. 
 
 For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants 
 of the world will learn righteousness." — Is a. xxvi. 9. 
 
 "O* 
 
 I AM sorry that I shall not be able to extend 
 the application of this text beyond its more 
 direct and immediate bearing on that event 
 on which we are now met to mingle our regrets, 
 and our sensibilities, and our prayers — that, 
 occupied as we all are with the mournful cir- 
 cumstance that has bereft our country of one 
 of its brightest anticipations, I shall not be able 
 to clear my way to the accomplishment of what 
 is, strictly speaking, the congregational object 
 of an address from the pulpit, which ouglit, in 
 every possible case, to be an address to the 
 conscience — that, therefore, instead of the con- 
 cerns of personal Christianity, which, under my 
 present text, I might, if I had space for it, press 
 home upon the attention of my hearers, I shall 
 be under the necessity of restricting myself to 
 
 B 
 
6 
 
 that more partial application of the text which 
 relates to the matters of public Christianity. It 
 is upon this account, as well as upon others, 
 that I rejoice in the present appointment, for 
 the improvement of that sad and sudden visita- 
 tion which has so desolated the hearts and the 
 hopes of a whole people. I therefore feel more 
 freedom in coming forward with such remarks 
 as, to the eyes of many, may wear a more public 
 and even political complexion, than is altogether 
 suited to the ministrations of the Sabbath. And 
 yet I cannot but advert, and that in such terms 
 of reproof as I think to be most truly applicable, 
 to another set of men, whose taste for preaching 
 is very much confined to these great and national 
 occasions — who, habitually absent from church 
 on the Sabbath, are yet observed, and that most 
 prominently, to come together in eager and 
 clustering attendance, on some interesting case 
 of pathos or of politics — who in this way obtrude 
 upon the general notice, their loyalty to an 
 earthly sovereign, while, in reference to their 
 lord and master, Jesus Christ, they scandalize 
 all that is Christian in the general feeling, by 
 their manifest contempt for him and for his 
 ordinances — who look for the ready compliance 
 of ministers, in all that can gratify their inclina- 
 tions for pageantry, while for the real effective 
 and only important business of ministers, they 
 have just as little reverence as if it were all a 
 matter of hollow and insignificant parade. It is 
 right to share in the triumphs of successful, and 
 
to shed tlie tears of afflicted, patriotism. But 
 it is also right to estimate according to its true 
 character, the patriotism of those who are never 
 known to offer one homage to Christianity, ex- 
 cept when it is associated with the affairs of 
 state, or with tlie wishes, and the commands, 
 and the expectations of statesmen. 
 
 But tlie frivolous and altogether despicable 
 taste of the men to whom I am alluding, must 
 be entirely separated from such an occasion as 
 the present. For, in truth, there never was an 
 occasion of such magnitude, and at the same 
 time of such peculiarity. There never was an 
 occasion on which a matter of deep political in- 
 terest was so blended and mixed up with matter 
 of very deep and afiecting tenderness. It does not 
 wear the aspect of an affair of politics at all, but 
 of an afiliir of the hearty and the novel exhibition 
 is now offered, of all party-irritations merging 
 into one common and overwhelming sensibility. 
 Oh! how it tends to quiet the agitations of every 
 earthly interest and earthly passion, when death 
 steps forward and deivionstrates the littleness of 
 them all — when he stamps a character of such 
 affecting insignificance on all that we are con- 
 tending for — when, as if to make known the 
 greatness of his power in the sight of a whole 
 country, he stalks in ghastly triumph over the 
 might and the grandeur of its most august fam- 
 ily, and singling out that member of it on whom 
 the dearest hopes and the gayest visions of the 
 people were suspended, he, by one fatal and 
 
8 
 
 resistless blow, sends abroad the fame of his 
 victory and his strength, throughout the wide 
 extent of an afflicted nation. He has indeed 
 put a cruel and impressive mockery on all the 
 glories of mortality. A few days ago, all looked 
 so full of life, and promise, and security — when 
 we read of the bustle of the great preparation — 
 and were told of the skill and the talent that 
 were pressed into the service — and heard of the 
 goodly attendance of the most eminent in the 
 nation — and how officers of state, and the titled 
 dignitaries of the land, were chariotted in splen- 
 dour to the scene of expectation, as to the joys 
 of an approaching holiday — yes, and we were 
 told too, that the bells of the surrounding villages 
 were all in readiness for the merry peal of grat- 
 ulation, and that the expectant metropolis of 
 our empire, on tiptoe for the announcement of 
 her future monarch, had her winged couriers of 
 dispatch to speed the welcome message to the 
 ears of her citizens, and that from her an em- 
 bassy of gladness was to travel over all the pro- 
 vinces of the land; and the country, forgetful of 
 all that she had suffered, was at length to offer 
 the spectacle of one wide and rejoicing jubilee. 
 O Death! thou hast indeed chosen the time 
 and the victim, for demonstrating the grim 
 ascendency of thy power over all the hopes 
 and fortunes of our species! — Our beauteous 
 Princess, whom fancy had decked with the 
 coronet of these realms, and under whose gentle 
 sway all bade so fair for the good and the peace 
 
9 
 
 of our nation, has he placed upon her bier! 
 And, as if to fill up the measure of his triunij)li, 
 has he laid by her side, tliat babe, who, but for 
 him, mi2:ht have been the monarch of a future 
 generation; and he has done that, wliich by no 
 single achievement he could otiierwise have ac- 
 complished — he has sent forth over the whole of 
 our land, the gloom of such a bereavement as 
 cannot be replaced by any living descendant of 
 royalty — he has broken the direct succession of 
 the monarchy of England — by one and the same 
 disaster, has he wakened up the public anxieties 
 of the country, and sent a pang as acute as that 
 of the most woeful domestic visitation, into the 
 heart of each of its families. 
 
 In the prosecution of the following discourse, 
 as I have already stated, I shall satisfy myself 
 with a very limited application of the text. I 
 shall, in the first place, offer a few remarks on 
 that branch of the righteousness of practical 
 Christianity, which consists in tiie duty that 
 subjects owe to their governors. And, in the 
 second place, I shall attempt to improve the 
 present great national disaster, to the object of 
 impressing upon you, that, under all our diffi- 
 culties and all our fears, it is the righteousness 
 of the people alone which will exalt and perpe- 
 tuate the nation; and that, therefore, if this great 
 interest be neglected, the country, instead of 
 reaping improvement from the judgments of God, 
 is in imminent danger of being utterly over- 
 whelmed by them. 
 
10 
 
 I. But here let me attempt the difficult task 
 of rightly dividing the Word of Truth — and 
 premise this head of discourse, by admitting, 
 that I know nothing more hateful than the, 
 crouching spirit of servility, I know not a single 
 class of men more unworthy of reverence, than 
 the base and interested minions of a court, I 
 know not a set of pretenders who more amply 
 deserve to be held out to the chastisement of 
 public scorn, than they who, under the guise 
 of public principle, are only aiming at personal 
 aggrandizement. This is one corruption. But 
 let us not forget that there is another — even 
 a spurious patriotism which would proscribe 
 loyalty as one of the virtues altogether. Now, 
 I cannot open my Bible, without learning that 
 loyalty is one branch of the righteousness of 
 practical Christianity. I am not seeking to 
 please men but God, when I repeat his words 
 in your hearing — that you should honour the 
 King — that you should obey Magistrates — that 
 you should meddle not with those who are given 
 to change — that you should be subject to princi- 
 palities and powers — that you should lead a quiet 
 and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 
 This, then, is a part of the righteousness which 
 it is our business to teach, and sure I am that 
 it is a part of righteousness which the judgment 
 now dealt out to us, should, of all others, dis- 
 pose you to learn. I know not a virtue more in 
 harmony with the present feelings, and afflictions, 
 and circumstances of the country, than that of 
 
11 
 
 a steadfast and diitermined loyalty. The time 
 has been, when such an event as the one that 
 we are now assembled to deplore, would have 
 put every restless spirit into motion, and set a 
 guilty ambition upon its murderous devices, and 
 brought powerful pretenders with their opposing 
 hosts of vassalage into the field, and enlisted 
 towns and families under the rival banners of a 
 most destructive fray of contention, and thus 
 have broken up the whole peace and confidence 
 of society. Let us bless God that these days of 
 barbarism are now gone by. But the vessel of 
 the state is still exposed to many agitations. The 
 sea of politics is a sea of storms, on which the 
 gale of human passions would make her founder, 
 Vere it not for the guidance of human principle; 
 and, therefore, the truest policy of a nation is to 
 Christianize her subjects, and to disseminate 
 among them the influence of religion. The most 
 skilful arrangement for rightly governing a state, 
 is to scatter among the governed, not the terrors 
 of power — not the threats of jealous and alarmed 
 authoritv — not the demonstrations of sure and 
 ready vengeance held forth by the rigour of an 
 offended law. These may, at times, be imperi- 
 ously called for. But a permanent security against 
 the wild outbreakings of turbulence and disaster, 
 is only to be attained by diffusing the lessons 
 of the gospel throughout the great mass of our 
 population — even those lessons which are utterly 
 and diametrically at antipodes with all that is 
 criminal and wrong in the spirit of political dis- 
 
12 
 
 affection. The only radical counteraction to this 
 evil is to be found in the spirit of Christianity; 
 and though animated by such a spirit, a man 
 may put on the intrepidity of one of the old 
 prophets, and denounce even in the ear of royalty 
 the profligacies which may disgrace or deform 
 it — though animated by such a spirit, he may 
 lift his protesting voice in the face of an unchris- 
 tian magistracy, and tell them of their errors — 
 thougli animated by such a spirit, he, to avoid 
 every appearance of evil, will neither stoop to 
 the flattery of power, nor to the solicitations of 
 patronage — and though all this may bear to 
 the superficial eye, a haini, and repulsive, and 
 hostile aspect towards the established dignities 
 of the land — yet forget not, that if a real and 
 honest principle of Christianity lie at the root 
 of this spirit, there exists within the bosom of 
 such a man, a foundation of principle, on which 
 all the lessons of Christianity will rise into visible 
 and consistent exemplification. And it is he, and 
 such as he, who will turn out to be the salvation 
 of the country, when the hour of her threatened 
 danger is approaching — and it is just in propor- 
 tion as you spread and multiply such a character 
 that you raise within the bosom of the nation, 
 the best security against all her fluctuations — 
 and, as in every other department of human 
 concerns, so will it be found, that, in this par- 
 ticular department. Christians are the salt of 
 the earth, and Christianity the most copious 
 and emanating fountain of all the guardian 
 virtues of peace, and order, and patriotism. 
 
13 
 
 The judgment under which we now labour, 
 supplies, I tliink, one toucliing, and, to every 
 good and christian mind, one powerful argu- 
 ment of loyalty. It is the distance of the prince 
 from his people which feeds the political jealousy 
 of the latter, and which by removing the former 
 to a height of inaccessible grandeur, places him, 
 as it were, beyond the reach of their sympathies. 
 Much of that political rancour, which festers, 
 and agitates, and makes such a tremendous ap- 
 pearance of noise and of hostility in our land, 
 is due to the aggravating power of distance. 
 If two of the deadliest political antagonists in 
 our country, who abuse, and vilify, and pour 
 forth their stormy eloquence on each other, 
 whether in parliament or from the press, were 
 actually to come into such personal and familiar 
 contact, as would infuse into their controversy 
 the sweetening of mere acquaintanceship, this 
 very circumstance would disarm and do away 
 almost all their violence. The truth is, that 
 when one man rails against another across the 
 table of a legislative assembly, or when he works 
 up his fermenting imagination, and pens his 
 virulent sentences against another, in the retire- 
 ment of a closet — he is fighting against a man at 
 a distance — he is exhausting his strength against 
 an enemy whom he does not know — he is 
 swellino; into indignation, and into all the move- 
 ments of what he thinks rij^ht and ijjenerous 
 principle, against a chimera of his own appre- 
 hension; and a similar re-action comes back 
 
14 
 
 upon him from the quarter that he has assailed, 
 and thus the controversy thickens, and the de- 
 lusion every day gets more impenetrable, and 
 the distance is ever widening, and the breach is 
 always becoming more hopeless and more irre. 
 parable; and all this between two men, who, if 
 they had been in such accidental circumstances 
 of juxtaposition, as could have let them a little 
 more into one another's feelings, and to one 
 another's sympathies, would at least have had 
 all the asperities of their difference smoothed 
 away by the mere softenings and kindlinesses 
 of ordinary human intercourse. 
 
 Now, let me apply this remark to the mutual 
 state of sentiment which obtains between the 
 different orders of the community. Amongst 
 the rich, there is apt at times to rankle an in- 
 jurious and unworthy impression of the poor — 
 and just because these poor stand at a distance 
 from them— just because they come not into 
 contact with that which would draw them out in 
 caurteousness to their persons, and in benevolent 
 attentions to their families. Amongst the poor, 
 on the other hand, there is often a disdainful 
 suspicion of the wealthy, as if they were actuated 
 by a proud indifference to them and to their con- 
 cerns, and, as if they were placed away from them 
 at so distant and lofty an elevation as not to re- 
 quire the exercise of any of those cordialities, 
 which are ever sure to spring in the bosom of 
 man to man, when they come to know each other, 
 and to have the actual sight of each other. 
 
15 
 
 But, let any accident place an individual of the 
 higher before tlie eyes of the lower order, on 
 the ground of their common humanity — let the 
 latter be made to see that the former are akin 
 to themselves in all the sufferings and in all the 
 sensibilities of our common inheritance — let, for 
 example, the greatest chieftain of the territory 
 die, and the report of his weeping children, or 
 of his distracted widow, be sent through the 
 neighbourhood — or, let an infant of his family 
 be in suffering, and the mothers of the humble 
 vicinity be run to for counsel and assistance — 
 or, in any other way, let the rich, instead of 
 being viewed by their inferiors through the dim 
 and distant medium of that fancied interval 
 which separates the ranks of society, be seen as 
 heirs of the same frailty, and as dependent on 
 the same sympathies with themselves — and, at 
 that moment, all the floodgates of honest sym- 
 pathy will be opened — and the lowest servants 
 of the establishment will join in the cry of dis- 
 tress which has come upon their family — and 
 the neighbouring cottagers, to share in their 
 grief, have only to recognise them as the par- 
 takers of one nature, and to perceive an assimi- 
 lation of feelings and of circumstances between 
 them. 
 
 Let me further apply all this to the sons and 
 the daughters of royalty. The truth is, that 
 they appear to the public eye as stalking o« a 
 platform so highly elevated above the general 
 level of society, that it removes them, as it 
 
16 
 
 were, from all the ordinary sympathies of our 
 nature. And though we read at times of their 
 galas, and their birth-days, and their drawing- 
 rooms, there is nothing in all this to attach us 
 to their interests and their feelings, as the in- 
 habitants of a familiar home — as the members of 
 an affectionate family. vSurrounded as they are 
 with the glare of a splendid notoriety, we scarce- 
 ly recojrnise them as men and as women, who 
 can rejoice, and weep, and pine with disease, 
 and taste the sufferings of mortality, and be 
 oppressed with anguish, and love with tender- 
 ness, and experience in their bosoms the same 
 movements of grief or of affection that w^e do 
 ourselves. And thus it is, that they labour 
 under a real and heavy disadvantage. There is 
 not, in their case, the counteraction of that 
 kindly influence, to alleviate the weight or the 
 malignity of prejudice, which men of a humbler 
 station are ever sure to enjoy. In the case of 
 a man whose name is hardly known beyond the 
 limits of his personal acquaintance, the tale of 
 calumny that is raised against him extends not 
 far beyond these limits; and, therefore, w^bere- 
 ever it is heard, it meets with a something to 
 blunt and to soften it, in those very cordialities 
 which the familiar exhibition of him as a brother 
 of our common nature is fitted to awaken. But 
 it is not so with those in the elevated walks of 
 society. Their names are familiar where their 
 persons are unknown; and whatever malignity 
 may attach to the one, circulates abroad, and 
 
17 
 
 is spread far beyond tlie limits of their possible 
 intercourse with human beiugs, and meets with 
 no kindly counteraction from our acquaintance 
 with tlie other. And tliis may explain how it 
 is, that the same exalted personage may, at one 
 and the same time, bo suffering under a load of 
 most unmerited obloquy from the wide and the 
 general public, and be to all his familiar domes- 
 tics an object of the most enthusiastic devoted- 
 ness and regard. 
 
 Now, if through an accidental opening, the 
 public should be favoured with a domestic ex- 
 hibition — if, by some overpowering visitation of 
 Providence upon an illustrious family, the mem- 
 bers of it should come to be recognised as the 
 partakers of one commonhumanity withourselves 
 — if, instead of beholding them in their gorgeous- 
 ness as princes, we look to them in the natural 
 evolution of their sensibilities as men — if the 
 stately palace should be turned into a house of 
 mourning — in one word, if death should do 
 what he has already done, — he has met the 
 Princess of England in the prime and promise 
 of her days, and as she was moving onward on 
 her march to a hereditary throne, he has laid 
 her at his feet. Ah! my brethren, when the 
 imagination dwells on that bed where the re- 
 mains of departed youth and departed infancy 
 are lying — when, instead of crowns and canopies 
 of grandeur, it looks to the forlorn husband, 
 and the weeping flither, and the human feelings 
 which agitate their bosom, and the human tears 
 
18 
 
 which flow down their cheeks, and all such symp- 
 toms of deep affliction as bespeak the workings 
 of suffering and dejected nature — what ought 
 to be, and what actually is, the feeling of the 
 country at so sad an exhibition? It is just the 
 feeling of the domestics and the labourers at 
 Claremont. All is soft and tender as womanhood. 
 Nor is there a peasant in our land, who is not 
 touched to the very heart when he thinks of the 
 unhappy Stranger who is now spending his days 
 in grief and his nights in sleeplessness — as he 
 mourns alone in his darkened chamber, and 
 refuses to be comforted — as he turns in vain 
 for rest to his troubled feelings, and cannot 
 find it — as he gazes on the memorials of an 
 affection that blessed the brightest, happiest, 
 shortest year of his existence — as he looks back 
 on the endearments of the bygone months, and 
 the thought that they have for ever fleeted away 
 from him, turns all to agony — as he looks for- 
 ward on the blighted prospect of this world's 
 pilgrimage, and feels that all which bound him 
 to existence, is now torn irretrievably away from 
 him! There is not a British heart that does not 
 feel to this interesting visitor, all the force and 
 all the tenderness of a most affecting relation- 
 ship; and, go where he may, will he ever be re- 
 cognised and cherished as a much-loved mem- 
 ber of the British family. 
 
 It is in this way, that through the avenue 
 of a nation's tenderness, we can estimate the 
 strength and the steadfastness of a nation's 
 
19 
 
 loyalty. On minor questions of the constitn- 
 tion, we may storm, and rave, and look at each 
 other a little ferociously — and it was by some 
 such appearance as this, that he, who, in the 
 days of his strength, was the foulest and the 
 most formidable of all our enemies, said of the 
 country in whicli we live, that, torn by fac- 
 tions, it was going rapidly to dissolution. Yet 
 these are but the skirmishings of a pettier war- 
 fare — the movements of nature and of passion, 
 in a land of freemen — the harmless contests of 
 men pulling in opposite ways at some of the 
 smaller ropes in the tackling of our great na- 
 tional vessel. But look to these men, in the 
 time of need and the hour of suffering — look 
 to them now, w hen in one great and calamitous 
 visitation, the feeling of every animosity is over- 
 borne — look to them now, when the darkness 
 is gathering, and the boding cloud of disaster 
 hangs over us, and some chilling fear of insecu- 
 rity is beginning to circulate in whispers through 
 the land — look to them now, when in the en- 
 tombment of this sad and melancholy day, the 
 hopes of more than half a century are to be 
 interred — look to them now, when from one 
 end of the country to the other, there is the 
 mourning of a very great and sore lamentation, 
 so that all who pass by, may say, this is a griev- 
 ous mourning to the people of the land. Oh! is 
 it possible that these can be other than honest 
 tears, or that tears of pity can, on such an emer- 
 gency as the present, be other than tears of 
 
20 
 
 patriotism. Who does not see this principle 
 sitting in visible expression on the general 
 countenance of the nation — that the people are 
 sound at heart, and that with this, as the main- 
 sheet of our dependence, we may still, under 
 the blessing of God, weather and surmount all 
 the difficulties which threaten us. 
 
 II. I now proceed to the second head of 
 discourse, under which I was to attempt such 
 an improvement of this great national disaster, 
 as might enforce the lesson, that, under every 
 fear and every difficulty, it is the righteousness 
 of the people alone which will exalt and per- 
 petuate a nation; and that, therefore, if this 
 great interest be neglected, instead of learning 
 any thing from the judgments of God, we are 
 in imminent danger of being utterly over- 
 whelmed by them. 
 
 Under my first head I restricted myself ex- 
 clusively to the virtue of loyalty, which is one 
 of the special, but I most willingly admit, 
 nay, and most earnestly contend, is also one 
 of the essential attributes of righteousness. 
 But there is a pohit on which I profess myself 
 to be altogether at issue with a set of men, who 
 composed, at one time, whatever they do now, 
 a very numerous class of society. I mean those 
 men, who, with all the ostentation, and all the 
 intolerance of loyalty, evinced an utter indif- 
 ference either to their own personal religion 
 or to the religion of the people who were around 
 
21 
 
 them — who were satisfied with the single object 
 of keeping the neighbourhoocl in a stale of* 
 poHtical tranquillity — who, if they could only 
 get the population to be quiet, cared not for the 
 extent of profaneness or of profligacy that was 
 amongst them — and who, while they thought to 
 signalise themselves in the favour of their earthly 
 king, by keeping down every turbulent or 
 rebellious movement among his subjects, did in 
 fact, by their own conspicuous example, lead 
 them and cheer them on in their rebellion 
 against the King of heaven — and, as far as the 
 mischief could be wrought by the contagion of 
 their personal influence, these men of loyalty 
 did what in them lay, to spread a practical con- 
 tempt for Christianity, and for all its ordinances, 
 throughout the land. 
 
 Now, I would have such men to understand, 
 if any such there be within the sphere of my 
 voice, that it is not with their loyalty that I am 
 quarreling. I am only telling them, that this 
 single attribute of- righteousness will never 
 obtain a steady footing in the hearts of the 
 people, except on the ground of a general 
 principle of righteousness. I am telling them, 
 how egregiously they are out of their own 
 politics, in ever thinking that they can prop 
 the virtue of loyalty in a nation, while they 
 are busily employed, by the whole instru- 
 mentality of their example and of their doings, 
 in sapping the very foundation upon which it 
 is reared. I am telling them, that if they wish 
 
 C 
 
22 
 
 to see loyalty in perfection, and such loyalty, 
 too, as requires not any scowling vigilance of 
 theirs to uphold it, they must look to the most 
 moral, and orderly, and Christianised districts 
 of the country. I am merely teaching them 
 a lesson, of which they seem to be ignorant, 
 that if you loosen the hold of Christianity over 
 the hearts of the population, you pull down 
 from their ascendency all the virtues of Chris- 
 tianity, of which loyalty is one. Yes, and I 
 will come yet a little closer, and take a look 
 of that loyalty which exists in the shape of 
 an isolated principle in their own bosoms. I 
 should like to gauge the dimensions of this 
 loyalty of theirs, in its state of disjunction from 
 the general principle of Christianity. I wish 
 to know the kind of loyalty which characterises 
 the pretenders to whom I am alluding — the 
 men who have no value for preaching, but 
 as it stands associated with the pageantry of 
 state — the men who would reckon it the most 
 grievous of all heresies, to be away from church 
 on some yearly day of the king's appointment, 
 but are seldom within its walls on the weekly 
 day of God's appointment — the men who if 
 ministers were away from their post of loyalty, 
 on an occasion like the present, would, without 
 mercy, and without investigation, denounce 
 them as suspicious characters; but who, when 
 we are at the post of piety, dispensing the more 
 solemn ordinances of Christianity, openly lead 
 the way in that crowded and eager emigration, 
 
23 
 
 which carries half tlic- rank and opulence of the 
 town away from us. What, oh! what is the 
 length, and the breadth, and tlie height, and 
 the depth of this vapouring, swaggering, high- 
 sounding loyalty! — It is nothing better than 
 the loyalty of political subalterns, in the low- 
 game of partizanship, or of whippers-in to an 
 existing administration — it is not the loyalty 
 which will avail us in the day of danger — it is 
 not to them that we need to look, in the evil 
 hour of a country's visitation; — but to those 
 right -hearted, sound -thinking Christian men, 
 who, without one interest to serve, or one hope 
 to forward, honour their king, because they fear 
 their God. 
 
 Let me assure such a man, if such a man 
 there is within tlie limits of this assembly — 
 that, keen as his scent may be after political 
 heresies, the deadliest of all such heresies lies 
 at his own door — that there is not to be found, 
 within the city of our habitation, a rottener 
 member of the community than himself — that, 
 withering as he does by his exam})le the prin- 
 ciple which lies at the root of all national pros- 
 perity, it is he, and such as he, who stands 
 opposed to the best and the dearest objects of 
 loyalty — and, if ever that shall happen, which 
 it is my most delightful confidence that God 
 will avert from us and from our children's chil- 
 dren to the latest posterity — if ever the wild 
 frenzy of revolution shall run through the ranks 
 of Britain's ])opulation, these are the men whp 
 
24 
 
 will be the most deeply responsible for all its 
 atrocities and for all its horrors *. 
 
 * I cannot but advert here to a delicate impediment which lies in the 
 way of the faithful exercise of the ministerial functions, from the existence 
 of two great political parties, v,'hich would monopolise between them, all 
 the sentiments and all the services of the country. Is it not a very 
 possible thing, that the line of demarcation between these parties, may not 
 coalesce throughout all its extent, vv'ith the sacred and immutable line of 
 distinction between right and wrong? — and ought not this latter line to 
 stand out so clearly and so prominently to the eye of the Christian 
 ininister, that in the act of dealing around him the reproofs and the lessons 
 of Christianity, the former line should be away from his contemplation 
 altogether? But it is thus that, with the most scrupulous avoidance both of 
 the one and the other species of partizanship, he may in the direct and con- 
 scientious discharge of the duties of his office, deliver himself in such a way 
 as to give a kind of general and corporate offence to one political denomi- 
 nation; and, what is still more grievous, as to be appropriated by the men 
 of another denomination, with whom in their capacity as politicians he 
 desires no fellowship whatever, and whose applauses of him in this capacity 
 are in eveiy way most odious and insuffei'able. 
 
 It appears to us, that a Christian minister cannot keep himself in the 
 true path of consistency at all, without refusing to each of the parties, all 
 right of appropriation. Their line of demarcation is not his line. Their 
 objects are not his objects. He asks no patronage from the one — he asks 
 no favour from the other, except that they shall not claim kindred with 
 him. He may suffer, at times, from the intolerance of the unworthy 
 underlings of the former party j but never will his sensations of distaste, 
 for the whole business of party politics, become so intense and so painful, 
 as when the hosannahs of the latter party threaten to rise around him. 
 
 V/e often hear from each, and m.ore particularly from one of these 
 parties, of the virtue and the dignity of independence. The only way, it 
 appears to us, in which a man can sustain the true and complete character 
 of independence, is to be independent of both. He who cares for neither 
 of them, is the only independent man; and to him only belongs the privi- 
 lege of crossing and re-crossing their factitious line of demarcation, just as 
 he feels himself impelled by the high paramount and subordinating prin- 
 ciples of the Christianity which he professes. In the exercise of this 
 privilege, I here take the opportunity of saying, that if the chastisement 
 of public scorn should fall on those who, under the disguise of public 
 principle, ha\ e Jxnind a personal aggi-andizement for themselves, it should 
 
2 
 
 o 
 
 Having thus briefly adverted to one of the 
 causes of impiety and consequent disloyalty, 
 
 fall with equal severity on those who, under the same disguise, are seeking 
 for precisely the same object — that if there be some men in the country 
 who care not for the extent of profanenoss and profligacy that is among 
 tlie people, provided they can only keep them tjui't, there are also some 
 men %vho care not for their profaneness or their profligacy, provided they 
 can only keep them tiju/uift — who bear no other regard to the people tlian 
 merely as an instrument of annoyance against an existing administration — 
 who can shed their serpent tears over their distresses, and yet be inwardly 
 grieve<l, should either a favourable season or reviving trade dis^ippoint 
 tlieir boding speculation — who, in the face of undeniable common sense, 
 can ascribe to political causes, such calamities as are altogether due to 
 what is essential and uncontrollable in the circumstances of the country-— 
 and who, if on the strength of misrepresentation and artifice they could 
 only succeed in eflfecting the great object of their own instalment into 
 office, and tlic dispossession of their antagonists would prove themselves, 
 then, to be as indift'ercnt to the comfort, as they show themselves now 
 to be utterly indifferent to the religion and the virtue of the country's 
 population. 
 
 But turning away from the beggarly elements of such a competition as 
 this, let us remark, that, on the one hand, a religious administration will 
 never take offence at a m.ini>>ter wlio renders a pertinent reproof to any set 
 of men, even though they should happen to be tlieir own agents or tlieir 
 own underlings; and that, on the other hand, a minister who is actuated 
 by tlie true spirit of his office, will never so pervert or so prostitute its 
 functions, as to descend to the humble arena of partizanship. lie is the 
 faithful steward of such things as are profitable for reproof, and for doc- 
 trine, and for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. His single 
 object with the men who are within reach of his hearing, is, that they shall 
 come to the know ledge of the truth and be saved. In the fulfilment of 
 this object, he is not the servant of any administration — tliough he cer- 
 tainly renders such a service to the state as will facilitate the work of 
 governing to all administrations — as will bring a mighty train of civil and 
 temporal blessings along with it — an J in particular, as will diffuse over the 
 whole sphere of his influence, a loyalty as steadfast as the frisnds of order, 
 and as free from ever)' taint of political servility, as the most ronuine 
 friends of freedom can desire. 
 
 There is only one case in which it is conceived that the partizanship of 
 a Christian minister, is at all justifiable. Should the government of our 
 ©ountry ever fall into the hands of an infidel or demi-infidel adniinistra- 
 
26 
 
 I shall proceed to offer a few remarks on the 
 great object of teaching the people righteous- 
 ness, not so much in a general and didactic 
 manner, as in the way of brief, and, if possible, 
 of memorable illustration — gathering my argu- 
 ment from the present event, and availing my- 
 self, at the same time, of such principles as have 
 been advanced in the course of the preceding 
 observations. 
 
 My next remark, then, on this subject, will 
 be taken from a sentiment, of which I think you 
 must all on the present occasion feel the force 
 and the propriety. Would it not have been most 
 desirable could the whole population of the city 
 have been admitted to join in the solemn ser- 
 vices of the day? Do you not think that they 
 are precisely such services as would have spread 
 a loyal and patriotic influence amongst them? 
 Is it not experimentally the case, that, over 
 the untimely grave of our fair Princess, the 
 meanest of the people would have shed as warm 
 and plentiful a tribute of honest sensibility as 
 the most refined and delicate amongst us? And, 
 
 tion — should tlie men at the hehn of aflfairs, be the patrons of all that is 
 unchristian in the sentiment and literature of the countiy— should they 
 offer a violence to its religious establishments, and thus attempt what we 
 honestly believe v/ould reach a blow to the piety and the character of our 
 population — then, I trust that the language of partizanship will resound 
 from many of the pulpits of the land — and that it will be turned in one 
 stream of pointed invective against such a ministry as this — till, by the 
 force of public opinion, it be swept away as an intolerable nuisance, from 
 the face of our kinirdom. 
 
27 
 
 I ask, is it not unfortunate, that, on the day of 
 such an affecting, and, if I may so style it, 
 such a national exercise, there should not have 
 been twenty more churches with twenty more 
 ministers, to have contained the whole crowd 
 of eager and interested listeners? A man of 
 mere loyalty, without one other accomplish- 
 ment, will, I am sure, participate in a regret 
 so natural; but couple this regret with the 
 principle, that the only way in which the loyalty 
 of the people can effectually be maintained, is 
 on the basis of their Christianity, and then the 
 regret in question embraces an object still 
 more general — and well were it for us, if, 
 amid the insecurity of families, and the various 
 fluctuations of fortune and of arrans^ement that 
 are taking place in the highest walks of society, 
 the country were led, by the judgment with 
 which it has now been visited, to deepen the 
 foundation of all its order and of all its interests, 
 in the moral education of its people. Then 
 indeed the text would have its literal fulfilment. 
 When the judgments of God are in the earth, 
 the rulers of the world would lead the inhabi- 
 tants thereof to learn ricjhteousness. * 
 In our own city, much in this respect remains 
 to be accomplished; and I speak of the great 
 mass of our city and suburb population, when I 
 say, that through the week they lie open to every 
 rude and random exposure — and when Sabbath 
 comes, no solemn appeal to the conscience, no 
 stirring recollections of the past, no urgent calls 
 
28 
 
 to resolve against the temptations of the future, 
 come along with it. It is undeniable, that within 
 the compass of a few square miles, the daily walk 
 of the vast majority of our people is beset with 
 a thousand contaminations; and whether it be 
 on the way to the market, or on the way to the 
 work-shop, or on the way to the crov^^ded manu- 
 factory, or on the way to any one resort of 
 industry that you choose to condescend upon, 
 or on the way to the evening home, where the 
 labours of a virtuous day should be closed by 
 the holy thankfulness of a pious and affec- 
 tionate family; be it in passing from one place 
 to another; or be it arnid all the throng of 
 sedentary occupations; there is not one day 
 of the six, and not one hour of one of these 
 days, when frail and unsheltered man is not 
 plied by the many allurements of a world lying 
 in wickedness— when evil communications are 
 not assailing him with their corruptions — when 
 the full tide of example does not bear down upon 
 his purposes, and threaten to sweep all his purity 
 and all his principle away from him. And when 
 the seventh day comes, where, I would ask, 
 are the efficient securities that ought to be pro- 
 vided against all those inundations of profligacy 
 which rage without controul through the week, 
 and spread such a desolating influence among 
 the morals of the existing generation? — Oh! 
 tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets 
 of Askelon — this seventh day, on which it 
 would require a whole army of labourers to 
 
29 
 
 give every enert^y which belongs to them, to 
 the plenteous harvest of so mighty a popuhition, 
 witnesses more than one-half of the people pre- 
 cluded from attending the house of God, and 
 wandering every man after the counsel of his 
 own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes — 
 on this day, the ear of heaven is assailed with 
 a more audacious cry of rebellion than on any 
 other, and the open door of invitation plies 
 with its welcome, the hundreds and the thou- 
 sands who have found their habitual way to 
 the haunts of depravity. And is there no room, 
 then, to wish for twenty more churches, and 
 twenty more ministers — for men of zeal and 
 of strengtii, who might go forth among these 
 wanderers, and compel them to come in — for 
 men of holy fervour, w^ho might set the terrors 
 of hell and the free offer of salvation before 
 them — for men of affection, who might visit the 
 sick, and the dying, and the afflicted, and cause 
 the irresistible influence of kindness to circulate 
 at large among their families — for men, who, 
 while they fastened their most intense aim on 
 the great object of preparing sinners for eternity, 
 would scatter along the path of their exertions 
 all the blessings of order, and contentment, and 
 sobriety, and at length make it manifest as day, 
 that the righteousness of the people is the only 
 effectual antidote to a country's ruin — the only 
 path to a country's glory? 
 
 My next remark shall be founded on a prin- 
 ciple to which I have already alluded — the 
 
30 
 
 desirableness of a more frequent intercourse 
 between the higher and the lower orders of 
 society; and what more likely to accomplish 
 this, than a larger ecclesiastical accommoda- 
 tion? — not the scanty provision of the present 
 day, by which the poor are excluded from the 
 church altogether, but such a wide and generous 
 system of accommodation, as that the rich and 
 the poor might sit in company together in the 
 house of God. It is this Christian fellowship, 
 which, more than any other tie, links so inti- 
 mately together, the high and the low in country 
 parishes. There is, however, another particular 
 to which I would advert, and though I cannot 
 do so without magnifying my office, yet I know 
 not a single circumstance which so upholds the 
 golden line of life amongst our agricultural 
 population, as the manner in which the gap 
 between the pinnacle of the community and its 
 base is filled up by the week-day duties of the 
 clergyman — by that man, of whom it has been 
 well said, that he belongs to no rank, because 
 he associates with all ranks — by that man, 
 whose presence may dignify the palace, but 
 whose peculiar glory it is to carry the influences 
 of friendship and piety into cottages. 
 
 This is the age of moral experiment, and 
 much has been devised in our day for promoting 
 the virtue, and the improvement, and the eco- 
 nomical habits of the lower orders of society. 
 But in all these attempts to raise a barrier 
 against the growing profligacy of our towns, 
 
31 
 
 one important element seems to have passed 
 unheeded, and to have been altogether omitted 
 in the calculation. In all the comparative esti- 
 mates of the character of a town and the char- 
 acter of a country population, it has been little 
 attended to, that the former are distinguished 
 from the latter by the dreary, hopeless, and 
 almost impassable distance at which they stand 
 from their parish minister. Now, though it be 
 at the hazard of again magnifying my office, I 
 must avow, in the hearing of you all, that there 
 is a moral charm in his personal attentions and 
 his affectionate civilities, and the ever-recurring 
 influence of his visits and his prayers, which, if 
 restored to the people, would impart a new moral 
 aspect, and eradicate much of the licentiousness 
 and the dishonesty that abound in our cities. 
 On this day of national calamity, if ever the 
 subject should be adverted to from the pulpit, 
 we may be allowed to express our rivetted con- 
 victions on the close alliance that obtainsbetween 
 the political interests and the religious character 
 of a country. And I am surely not out of place, 
 when, on looking at the mighty mass of a city 
 population, I state my apprehension, that if some- 
 thing be not done to bring this enormous physi- 
 cal strength under the controul of Christian and 
 humanized principle, the day may yet come, 
 when it may lift against the authorities of the 
 land, its brawny vigour, and discharge upon 
 them all the turbulence of its rude and volcanic 
 energy. 
 
32 
 
 Apart altogether from the essential char- 
 acter of the gospel, and keeping out of view 
 the solemn representations of Christianity, by 
 which we are told that each individual of these 
 countless myriads carries an undying principle 
 in his bosom, and that it is the duty of the 
 minister to cherish it, and to watch over it, as 
 one who must render, at the judgment -seat, 
 an account of the charge which has been com- 
 mitted to him — apart from this consideration 
 entirely, which I do not now insist upon, 
 though I blush not to avow its paramount 
 importance over all that can be alleged on the 
 inferior ground of political expediency, yet, on 
 that ground alone, I can gather argument enough 
 for the mighty importance of such men, devoted 
 to the labours of their own separate and peculiar 
 employments — giving an unbewildered attention 
 to the office of dealing with the hearts and prin* 
 ciples of the thousands who are around them — 
 coming forth from the preparations of an un- 
 broken solitude, armed with all the omnipotence 
 of Truth among their fellow-citizens — and who, 
 rich in the resources of a mind which meditates 
 upon these things and gives itself wholly to them, 
 are able to suit their admonitions to all the 
 varieties of human character, and to draw their 
 copious and persuasive illustrations from every 
 quarter of human experience. But I speak not 
 merely of their Sabbath ministrations. Give to 
 each a manageable extent of town, within the 
 compass of his personal exertions, and where he 
 
S3 
 
 might be able to cultivate a ministerial influence 
 among all its families — put it into his power to 
 dignify the very humblest of its tenements by 
 the courteousness of his soothing and bene- 
 volent attentions — let it be such a district of 
 population as may not bear him down by the 
 multiplicity of its demands; but where, with- 
 out any feverish or distracting variety of la- 
 bour, he may be able to familiarise himself to 
 every house, and to know every individual, and 
 to visit every spiritual patient, and to watch 
 every death-bed, and to pour out the sympathies 
 of a pious and affectionate bosom over every 
 mourning and bereaved family. Bring every 
 city of the land under such a moral regimen as 
 this, and another generation would not pass 
 away, ere righteousness ran down all their 
 streets like a mighty river. That sullen de- 
 pravity of character, which the gibbet cannot 
 scare aw^ay, and which sits so immoveable in 
 the face of the most menacing severities and in 
 despite of the yearly recurrence of the most 
 terrifying examples, — could not keep its ground 
 against the mild, but resistless application of an 
 effective Christian ministry. The very worst of 
 men w^ould be constrained to feel the power of 
 such an application. Sunk as they are in igno- 
 rance, and inured as they have been from the first 
 years of their neglected boyhood, to scenes of 
 w^eek-day profligacy and Sabbath profanation — 
 these men, of whom it may be said, that all 
 their moralities are extinct, and all their ten- 
 
34 
 
 dernesses blunted — even they would feel the 
 power of that reviving touch, which the mingled 
 influence of kindness and piety can often im- 
 press on the souls of the most abandoned — 
 even they would open the flood-gates of their 
 hearts, and pour forth the tide of an honest 
 welcome on the men who had come in all the 
 cordiality of good- will to themselves and to their 
 families. And thus might a humanizing and an 
 exalting influence be made to circulate through 
 all their dwelling-places: and such a system as 
 this, labouring as it must do at flrst, under all 
 the discouragements of a heavy and unpro- 
 mising outset, would gather, during every year 
 of its perseverance, new triumphs and new tes- 
 timonies to its power. And all that is ruthless 
 and irreclaimable, in the character of the present 
 day, would in time be replaced by the softening 
 virtues of a purer and a better generation. This 
 I know to be the dream of many a philanthro- 
 pist; and a dream as visionary as the very 
 wildest among the fancies of Utopianism it ever 
 will be, under any other expedient than the one 
 I am now pointing to; and nothing, nothing 
 within the whole compass of nature, or of ex- 
 perience, will ever bring it to its consummation, 
 but the multiplied exertions of the men who 
 carry in their hearts the doctrine, and who bear 
 upon their persons the seal and commission of 
 the New Tetament. And, if it be true that 
 towns are the great instruments of political 
 revolution — if it be there that all the elements 
 
35 
 
 of disturbance are ever found in busiest fermen- 
 tation — if we learn, from the history of the past, 
 that they are the favourite and the frequented 
 rallying -places for all the brooding violence of 
 the land — who does not see that the pleading 
 earnestness of the Christian minister is at one 
 with the soundest maxims of political wisdoni, 
 when he urges upon the rulers and magistrates 
 of the land, that this is indeed the cheap defence 
 of a nation — this the vitality of all its strength 
 and of all its greatness. 
 
 And it is with the most undissembled satisfac- 
 tion that I advert to the first step of such a pro- 
 cess, within the city of our habitation, as I have 
 now been recommending. It may still be the 
 day of small things; but it is such a day as ought 
 not to be despised. The prospect of another 
 church and another labourer in this interesting: 
 field, demands the most respectful acknowledg- 
 ment of the Christian public, to the men who 
 preside over the administration of our affairs; 
 and they, I am sure, will not feel it to be op- 
 pressive, if, met by the willing cordialities of a 
 responding population, the demand should ring 
 in their ears for another, and another, till, like 
 the moving of the spirit on the face of the wa- 
 ters, which made beauty and order to emerge 
 out of the rude materials of creation, the germ 
 of moral renovation shall at length burst into 
 all the efftorescence of moral accomplishment — 
 and the voice of psalms shall again be heard in 
 our families — and impurity and violence shall 
 
36 
 
 be banished from our streets — and then, with 
 the erazure of these degenerate days again 
 replaced in characters of gold, the escutcheons 
 of our city shall tell to every stranger, that 
 Glasgow flourisheth through the preaching of 
 the Word *. 
 
 And though, under the mournful remembrance 
 of our departed Princess, we cannot but feel, 
 on this day of many tears, as if a volley of light- 
 ning from heaven had been shot at the pillar of 
 our State, and struck away the loveliest ornament 
 from its pinnacle, and shook the noble fabric to 
 its base; yet still, if we strengthen its foundation 
 in the principle and character of our people, it 
 will stand secure on the deep and steady basis of a 
 country's worth, which can never be overthrown. 
 And thus an enduring memorial of our Princess 
 will be embalmed in the hearts of the people, 
 and good will emerge out of this dark and bitter 
 dispensation, if, when the judgments of God 
 are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world 
 shall learn righteousness. 
 
 * The original motto of the City is, " Let Glasgow flourish through the 
 preaching of the Word;" which, by the curtailment alluded to, has been 
 reduced to the words, " Let Glasgow flourish." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Dr. Adam Smith, in his Treatise on the Wealth of Nations, 
 argues against religious establishments, on the ground that 
 the article of religious instruction should be left to the pure 
 operation of demand and supply, like any article of ordinary 
 merchandise. He seems to have overlooked one most ma- 
 terial circumstance of distinction. The native and untaught 
 propensities of the human constitution, will always of them- 
 selves secure a demand for the commodities of trade, suffi- 
 ciently effective to bring forward a supply equal to the real 
 needs of the population, and to their power of purchasing. 
 But the appetite for religious instruction, is neither so strong 
 nor so universal as to secure such an effective demand for it. 
 Had the people been left in this matter to themselves, there 
 would, in point of fact, have been large tracks of country 
 without a place of worship, and without a minister. The 
 legislature have met the population half-way, by providing 
 them with a church and a religious teacher, in every little 
 district of the land ; and by this arrangement have increased, 
 to a very great degree, the quantity of attendance and the 
 quantity of actual ministration. In point of fact, a much 
 greater number of people do come to church, and do come 
 within the application of Christian influence, when the 
 church and the preacher is provided for them, than if they 
 had been left to build a meeting-house, and to maintain a 
 preacher themselves. There is a far surer and more abundant 
 supply of this wholesome influence, dealt out among the 
 population under the former arrangement, than under the 
 latter one; and it is this excess of moral and religious good, 
 which forms the only argument for a national establishment 
 that I shall now insist upon. 
 
 The argument of Dr. Smith goes to demonstrate the folly 
 of a national establishment, either of meal-sellers or of 
 butchers, or of any national establishment for supplying the 
 people with the necessaries and the comforts of life. But 
 the peculiarity already adverted to, renders it totally inappli- 
 cable to the question of a national establishment for supply- 
 ing the people with the lessons of Christianity. 
 
 D 
 
38 
 
 The experiment, indeed, has been tried with variations 
 on a large scale, and with results which are very instructive. 
 In the southern, and, we believe, in the middle States of 
 America, there is no general provision for the clergy. The 
 population are left to find their own way to the supply of 
 their own wants in this particular; and we have been cred- 
 ibly informed, that there are, at this moment, from four to 
 five millions of the people of the United States, who are 
 growing up without any regular administration of the Word, 
 or of its ordinances amongst them. In the northern States, 
 there is a legislative provision ; and the difference in point 
 of moral habit and character, between their population and 
 that of the other States, is all in favour of religious estab- 
 lishments. 
 
 But we have long thought, that a still surer and more 
 impressive argument may be drawn from a nearer field of 
 observation. The article of general education has one 
 property in common with the article of religious education. 
 The appetite for it among the people, is not so great as the 
 use of it to the people : — its agreeableness is not equal to its 
 advantage. And, therefore, if left to their own native de- 
 mand, it would not in fact be called for, up to the extent 
 that it would be beneficial. This, then, supplies a fair oc- 
 casion for the interference of government; and it is wise in 
 them to build, in every section of their territory, a school 
 and a school-house; and to defray part of the expense of the 
 schoolmaster in the shape of salary ; and to meet the people 
 half way, by placing this apparatus within their view ; and by 
 making scholarship both cheap and accessible, to lure their 
 families to the habit of attendance. In Scotland, this has 
 given rise to the parochial establishment of schools; and 
 we have only to look to the respective peasantries of the two 
 sister kingdoms, that we may estimate aright, the wisdom and 
 the good of such establishments. In Scotland, a ready made 
 apparatus for education has been obtruded on the view of 
 the people for upwards of a whole century; and it is quite an 
 anomaly in any of our lowland and country parishes, when 
 any person rises to manhood without the acquirement of the 
 elements of education. In England, this matter has been left 
 to Dr. Smith's operation of demand and supply; and, till very 
 
39 
 
 lately, when Societies have been instituted, which will never 
 accomplish the object with the fulness and the certainty that 
 parish schools do, the arts of reading and writing were rare 
 accomplishments among the lower classes of society in that 
 country. This difference between the two people, in point 
 of general education, just hinges on the very principles which 
 are concerned in the question of religious education; and 1 
 can never look to the moral and intelligent character of our 
 own people, without gathering from it such a lesson, as endears 
 to me all the religious as well as all the literary establish- 
 ments of our nation. 
 
 But a still more direct and homeward argument, on the 
 same side, maybe drawn from the ecclesiastical state of our 
 larger cities. It is quite notorious that the population of 
 these cities has greatly outstripped the provision of churche.i 
 that has been made for them by the establishment; or, in 
 other words, the establishment takes up a very small pro- 
 portion of the ground, and leaves a mighty remainder to 
 that very operation to which Dr. Smith seems inclined 
 to leave the whole extent of the country. It were, there- 
 fore, an interesting point to ascertain, in how far this re- 
 mainder is taken up by dissenters, or by those who exemplify 
 the effect of that great principle of demand and supply, which 
 is supposed by some to supersede the necessity of a religioui 
 establishment. I beg leave to recommend the prosecution 
 of this important survey, to those who perceive its bearings 
 on a great practical question most intimately connected 
 with the interior policy of the state, and with the best inter- 
 ests of the population. 
 
 It was partly with this object in view, that the writer of 
 this, lately made a survey of his own parish, consisting of a 
 certain district in the city of Glasgow. Those who reside 
 in the place will recognize it, when he tells them that it 
 comprises all that portion of the city which lies to the east of 
 the Saltmarket, and to the south of the Gallowgate, within 
 the limits of the royalty, and containing a population of 
 eleven thousand one hundred and twenty souls. He now 
 regrets exceedingly that he did not push his Inquiries to that 
 degree of particularity which would have enabled him to 
 state with precision the number of individual sitters, both 
 
40 
 
 in the establishment and among dissenters. He merely 
 ascertained the nmnber of three descriptions of families — 
 those who had seats in the establishment — those who had 
 scats among the dissenters — and those who had seats no 
 where. He found that in the great majority of families, 
 there were sitters somewhere ; but soon perceived, that 
 if, from the commencement of his survey, he had made it 
 an object to ascertain the number of sitters in each family, 
 he would have made out a fearful deficiency indeed of 
 congregational attendance and congregational habits among 
 the people. He at times accidentally got the information 
 of one individual seat being all that was taken by a family 
 of ten members; and, while he submits himself to the 
 correction of more accurate surveys, he ventures the asser- 
 tion, for the present, that, out of the above population, 
 there are not three thousand five hundred sitters of every 
 description — of whom the sitters in dissenting-houses form 
 at least two-thirds of the whole *. 
 
 Now, in this district of town, there ought to be a church- 
 going population of nearly seven thousand. The establishment 
 does not furnish accommodation for one-sixth of this number, 
 leaving a mighty remainder, over which Dr. Smith's favourite 
 principle is free to expatiate. And it certainly has expatiated, 
 and with an effect, too, which claims the gratitude and the 
 acknowledgments of the Christian public. The dissenters have, 
 at the very least, accomplished double the quantity of good 
 in this part of the town, which the establishment has done. 
 But with all their zeal, and all the worth and hterature of their 
 
 * By a decision of the law upon the quantity of accommodation for the 
 parish of Tingwall in Shetland, a church was ordered that would hold 
 from one-half to two- thirds of the inhabitants; and it is obvious that a 
 greater proportion can conveniently attend in town than in country parishes. 
 
 In the former editions of this Discourse, an inaccuracy of statement had 
 been inadvertently admitted iipon this subject, though not at all affecting 
 tlie substance of the argument. And it may further be added, that, from more 
 minute surveys, taken since, on smaller portions of the parish, the number 
 of individual sitters is not more than one-fourth of the population; which 
 proportion, if maintained over the whole parish, would make the number 
 of seats taken, both in the establishment and out of it, to be considerably 
 less than three thousand. 
 
41 
 
 clergy, and the many accomplishments which they possess, and 
 no where more than in Glasgow, for attracting a population, 
 and for obtaining a wide and extensive influence among them, 
 do we behold tlic one-half of the whole ground unreached 
 and unreclaimed by them, and altogether left without the 
 benefit of the fittest and most powerful instrument of moral 
 cultivation among the people. 
 
 I recur, therefore, to the difference in point of attendance 
 and in point of actual ministration between that state of 
 things where the population are left to themselves, and that 
 state of things where they are met by a regular and a ready 
 made provision, as the great practical argument for the 
 necessity and the good of religious establishments. I assert 
 that, if, with the growing population, there had been a 
 growing ecclesiastical provision for their m.oral and religious 
 wants ; and that, if ministers had been permitted to cultivate 
 a close and spiritual connection with their parishes, by that 
 connection not being rendered impracticable; and that, if the 
 mischievous system had not been adopted, of widening the 
 breach still more between them and the people of their local 
 and geographical vineyard, by exposing those seats, for 
 which the parish ought, in all justice and in all expediency, 
 to have the preference, to the general competition of the whole 
 city; and that, if the clergy had been permitted to give their 
 concentrated energies, each to a manageable district, where 
 he stood endeared to the great mass of the families by his 
 week-day attentions, and where the influence of these atten- 
 tions was strengthened every week by the recurrence of his 
 Sabbath ministrations; and that, if the government of our 
 country had not fallen into the monstrous impolicy of 
 withdrawing the mind and the talent of the clergy, from 
 their own peculiar objects, by the overwhelming accumulation 
 of civil and of secular duties, which they have laid upon them; 
 and that, if in this respect they had not been imitated by 
 all the municipalities of the land, who, if not resisted to the 
 uttermost, would do what in them lay to accelerate that 
 precious transformation, by which the ministers of religion 
 must at length, in our larger towns, sink down into officers 
 of police, or drivelling subsidiaries to the mere arrangements 
 of state and city regulation. — Had some of these plain tilings 
 
42 
 
 been done, and some of them not been done, then I assert, 
 that, at this moment, there would have been in full circula- 
 tion throughout that peopled mass, which looks to the distant 
 eye so awfully impenetrable, the kindly and pacific flow of 
 such a sweetening, but powerful influence, as would have 
 made the complexion of our larger cities to be as different 
 from what it is now, as the softness of home and of friendship 
 is different from the rude aspect of hostility, or as the music 
 of church-bells differs from the wild and terrific notes of 
 insurrectionary violence. 
 
 It may perhaps be thought an anomaly of sentiment, that 
 one so impressed with the need and the advantage of an 
 extended religious establishment, should be equally decided 
 as to the advantage of a most zealous, active, and unrestrained 
 dissenterism. If the former were armed with such a power 
 of intolerance as would enable it to crush the latter, instead of 
 ablessing it would prove a curse to the country which sustained 
 it. It would soon be overrun with indolence and corruption, 
 and the various evils which are ever sure to result from the 
 exercise of a secure and independent patronage. We are not 
 stating it as our opinion, that this patronage should be vested 
 otherwise than it is at present. We are not sure if any 
 good would result from its transference to any other quarter 
 than the one in which it has taken up its actual residence. 
 We can never so forget the way in which many of the 
 orthodox congregations of England have relapsed into Uni- 
 tarianism, nor be so blind to the degree in which the 
 infection of Arianism has spread itself over the North of 
 Ireland, as to admit it as an infallible position, that popular 
 patronage is the best way of raising a barrier against error 
 of doctrine among the ministers of religion. We have long 
 thought that the moral renovation of our people is not to be 
 effected by pulling down the frame-work either of our Scotch 
 or our English Establishments, and substituting others in 
 their place. It is to be done by animating each of them 
 with the breath of a fresher and more vigorous existence. 
 And for the accomplishment of this object, we shall ever 
 look upon dissenters as great moral benefactors of their 
 country. They have taken up part of that ground which 
 has been left untouched by the national clergy; though, 
 
43 
 
 for the reasons already given, we do not think that they 
 will ever overtake the whole of it. They call forth a 
 most salutary re-action in the church. They exert a most 
 salutary control over tlie dispensers of patronage. They 
 do make such progress at times as to perplex and alarm the 
 bigots of an establishment. But such, we believe to be the 
 native preference of our people for our establishments, that 
 we feel quite confident and secure, that dissenters never will 
 make more progress than they deserve to make; and that 
 they never will obtain such an ascendency over the mind of 
 the country, as to lead to the subversion of its religious es- 
 tablishments, till these establishments deserve to be sub- 
 verted. And in such an enlightened country as ours, the 
 vigilant eye of the friends of the church and of its patrons, 
 is open to all this; and the sense of the public is beginning 
 to be more alive to an efficient clergy; and the mighty hold 
 which dissenters have over the population, alarming to 
 many, but never in the slightest degree alarming to us, has 
 lent an additional impulse to these considerations; and thus it 
 is that they are conferring a most important blessing upon our 
 establishment, by raising within its bosom the salutary coun- 
 teraction of zeal, and diligence, and piety. Such are the only 
 legitimate weapons of our warfare. And in these circum- 
 stances, and with a single view to the moral and religious 
 character of our people, we hail dissenters as our best and 
 most valuable auxiliaries. We look upon them as indispen- 
 sable friends, whose services we cannot spare. We disclaim 
 all sympathy with those who are ashamed, or with those who 
 are afraid of them. We should like to see every badge and 
 remnant of inferiority taken from off their persons, and are 
 most thoroughly convinced that their full and equal admis- 
 sion into all the offices of the state, is an essential step in the 
 progress of an enlightened policy. 
 
 No one who reads, and no one who heard the preceding 
 sermon with attention, will conceive that by the introduction 
 of twenty more churches and twenty more ministers, I meant 
 to come forward with any formal or didactic specification of 
 the additional number that would be required in Glasgow. 
 We are quite aware, that in the eyes of men who are not ac- 
 customed to the exercise of generalization, there is nothing 
 
44 
 
 which Imparts a more visionary character to any proposal 
 of improvement, than to lay in perspective before them the 
 whole of its effect on the ultimate condition and character 
 of our country. It is in fact placing before them a state 
 of society so different from that which is immediately around 
 us, that they feel as if they were transported into fairy-land; 
 and this confirms them in their obstinate suspicion, that all 
 about it is theoretical; and from the moment that this 
 impression has found a lodgment within them, they become 
 deaf as adders to every one representation of the plain and 
 practicable steps by which the matter gradually arrives at 
 its accomplishment. The building of one new church at 
 present in Glasgow, is one step. The release of the existing 
 clergy from the secularities laid on them by government, 
 would be another step. The ready imitation of this salutary 
 , release, on the part of our municipalities, would be a third 
 step. The very simple enactment, that the preference for 
 church-seats as they fell vacant, should be granted to the 
 inhabitants of the corresponding parish, would be no unim- 
 portant step. A growing demand for accommodation on the 
 part of the people, and a liberal arrangement with those 
 wealthy individuals who would willingly undertake the ex- 
 pense and the hazard of the erection of as many churches as 
 should be called for, would be another mighty and decisive 
 step in this great progression. And in a few years, a conviction 
 of the good that was done by the real and practical exhibition 
 of it, would ensure the continuance of the noble reformation. 
 We neither expect, nor do we contend for any thing magical 
 and instantaneous. This great national improvement may 
 be as slow in its progress as the great national corruption was, 
 which it is intended to remedy. It were desirable if it could 
 be effected in a single day. But we shall rejoice if it be 
 effected during the lapse of a single generation. And how- 
 ever necessary it may be in arguing the matter, to outrun 
 the present habits of thinking which obtain on this subject, 
 there is no danger whatever that in the execution of a matter 
 so weighty and so operose, there will be any such rapidity 
 as shall at all disturb the repos^e of the most quiescent and 
 sober-minded citizens. 
 
 James Hedderwick, Printer, 26, Bell-Street, Glasgow. 
 
SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE THE 
 
 ^orirtn for JXtlitt of tijt 33c0titute ^ith. 
 
 IN 
 
 St. ANDREW'S CHURCH, EDINBURGH, 
 
 ON 
 
 SABBATH, APRIL 18, 1813. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 
 
 MINISTER OF THE TRON CHURCH, GLASGOW. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 
 PRINTED BV JAMES HEDDERWICK, 
 
 FOR JOHN SMITH AND SON, GLASGOW; 
 
 WILLIAM WHYTE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH; 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 
 
 JOHN HATCHARD, GALE AND FENNER, THOMAS HAMILTON, E. COX AND SON, 
 
 D. COX, AND OGLES, DUNCAN, AND COCHRAN, LONDON. 
 
 1818. 
 
A SERMON. 
 
 ** Blessed is he that considereth the Poor; the Lord will 
 deliver him in time of trouble." — Psal. xli. 1. 
 
 There is an evident want of congeniality 
 between the wisdom of this world, and the 
 wisdom of the Christian. The term " wisdom," 
 carries my reverence along with it. It brings 
 before me a grave and respectable character, 
 whose rationality predominates over the inferior 
 principles of his constitution; and to whom I 
 willingly yield that peculiar homage which the 
 enlightened, and the judicious, and the manly, 
 are sure to exact from a surrounding neigh- 
 bourhood. Now, so long as this wisdom has for 
 its object some secular advantage, I yield it an 
 unqualified reverence. It is a reverence which 
 all understand, and all sympathise with. If, in 
 private life, a man be wise in the management of 
 his farm, or his fortune, or his family; or if, in 
 public life, he have wisdom to steer an empire 
 through all its difficulties, and to carry it to 
 
 A 
 
aggrandisement and renown — the respect which 
 I feel for such wisdom as this, is most cordial and 
 entire, and supported by the universal acknow- 
 ledgment of all whom I call to attend to it. 
 
 Let me now suppose that this wisdom has 
 changed its object — that the man whom I am 
 representing to exemplify this respectable attri- 
 bute, instead of being wise for time, is wise for 
 eternity — that he labours by the faith and sanc- 
 tification of the gospel for unperishable honours 
 — ^that, instead of listening to him with admira- 
 tion at his sagacity, as he talks of business, or 
 politics, or agriculture, we are compelled to listen 
 to him talking of the hope within the veil, and of 
 Christ being the power of God, and the wisdom 
 of God, unto salvation : — what becomes of your 
 respect for him now? Are there not some of you 
 who are quite sensible that this respect is greatly 
 impaired, since the wisdom of the man has taken 
 so unaccountable a change in its object and in its 
 direction? The truth is, that the greater part of 
 the world feel no respect at all for a wisdom 
 which they do not comprehend. They may love 
 the innocence of a decidedly religious character, 
 but they feel no sublime or commanding senti- 
 ment of veneration for its wisdom. All the truth 
 of the Bible, and all the grandeur of eternity, will 
 not redeem it from a certain degree of contempt. 
 Terms which lower, undervalue, and degrade, 
 suggest themselves to the mind; and strongly 
 
dispose it to throw a mean and disagreeable 
 colouring over the man who, sitting loose to the 
 objects of the world, has become altogether a 
 Christian. It is needless to expatiate; but what 
 I have seen m}'self, and what must have fallen 
 under the observation of many whom I address, 
 carry in them the testimony of experience to the 
 assertion of the Apostle, '* that the things of the 
 spirit of God are foolishness to the natural man, 
 neither (•^n he know them, for they are spirit- 
 ually discerned.'* 
 
 Now, what I have said of the respectable 
 attribute of wisdom, is applicable, with almost 
 no variation, to another attribute of the human 
 character, to which I would assign the gentler 
 epithet of " lovely.'* The attribute to which I 
 allude, is that of benevolence. This is the 
 burden of every poet's song, and every eloquent 
 and interesting enthusiast gives it his testimony, 
 I speak not of the enthusiasm of methodists and 
 devotees, I speak of that enthusiasm of fine sen- 
 timent which embellishes the pages of elegant 
 literature, and is addressed to all her sighing and 
 amiable votaries, in the various forms of novel, 
 and poetry, and dramatic entertainment. You 
 would think if any thing could bring the 
 Christian at one with the world around him, it 
 would be this; and that, in the ardent benev- 
 olence which figures in novels, and sparkles in 
 poetry, there would be an entire congeniality 
 
with the benevolence of the gospel. I venture 
 to say, however, that there never existed a 
 stronger repulsion between two contending sen- 
 timents, than between the benevolence of the 
 Christian, and the benevolence which is the 
 theme of elegant literature — that the one, with 
 all its accompaniments of tears, and sensibilities, 
 and interesting cottages, is neither felt nor un- 
 derstood by the Christian as such; and the 
 other, with its work and its labour of love, its 
 enduring hardness as a good soldier of Jesus 
 Christ, and its living, not to itself, but to the 
 will of Him who died for us, and who rose again, 
 is not only not understood, but positively nau- 
 seated, by the poetical amateur. 
 
 But the contrast does not stop here. The 
 benevolence of the gospel is not only at antipodes 
 with that of the visionary sons and daughters of 
 poetry, but it even varies in some of its most 
 distinguishing features from the experimental 
 benevolence of real and familiar life. The fan- 
 tastic benevolence of poetry is now indeed pretty 
 well exploded; and, in the more popular works 
 of the age, there is a benevolence of a far truer 
 and more substantial kind substituted in its 
 place — the benevolence which you meet with 
 among men of business and observation — the 
 benevolence which bustles and finds employment 
 among the most public and ordinary scenes; and 
 which seeks for objects, not where the flower 
 
blows loveliest, and tlie stream, with its gentle 
 murmurs, falls sweetest on the ear; but finds 
 them in its every-day walks, goes in quest of 
 them through the heart of the great city, and is 
 not afraid to meet them in its most putrid lanes 
 and loathsome receptacles. 
 
 Now, it must be acknowledged, that this 
 benevolence is of a far more respectable kind 
 than that poetic sensibility, which is of no use, 
 because it admits of no application. Yet I am 
 not afraid to say, that, respectable as it is, it 
 does not come up to the benevolence of the 
 Christian, and is at variance, in some of its most 
 capital ingredients, with the morality of the 
 gospel. It is well, and very well as far as it 
 goes; and that Christian is wanting to the will 
 of his Master, who refuses to share and go along 
 with it. The Christian will do all this, but he 
 would like to do more; and it is at the precise 
 point where he proposes to do more, that he 
 finds himself abandoned by the co-operation and 
 good wishes of those who had hitherto supported 
 him. The Christian goes as far as the votary of 
 this useful benevolence; but then he would like 
 to go further, and this is the point at which he 
 is mortified to find that his old coadjutors refuse 
 to go along with him; and that, instead of being 
 strengthened by their assistance, he has their 
 contempt and their ridicule, or, at all events, 
 their total want of sympathy to contend with. 
 
8 
 
 The truth is, that the benevolence I allude to, 
 with all its respectable air of business and good 
 sense, is altogether a secular benevolence. 
 Through all the extent of its operations, it 
 carries in it no reference to the eternal duration 
 of its object. Time, and the accommodations 
 of time, form all its subject, and all its exercise. 
 It labours, and often with success, to provide 
 for its object a warm and a well sheltered tene- 
 ment; but it looks not beyond the few little 
 years when the earthly house of this tabernacle 
 shall be dissolved, when the soul shall be driven 
 from its perishable tenement, and the only 
 benevolence it will acknowledge or care for, 
 will be the benevolence of those who have 
 directed it to a building not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens. This, then, is the point 
 at which the benevolence of the gospel separates 
 from that worldly benevolence, to which, as far 
 as it goes, I offer my cheerful and unmingled 
 testimony. The one minds earthly things, the 
 other has its conversation in heaven. Even 
 when the immediate object of both is the same, 
 you will generally perceive an evident distinc- 
 tion in the principle. Individuals, for example, 
 may co-operate, and will often meet in the same 
 room, be members of the same society, and go 
 hand in hand most cordially together for the 
 education of the poor. But the forming habits 
 of virtuous industry, and good members of 
 society, which are the sole consideration in the 
 
heart of the worldly philanthropist, are but mere 
 accessaries in the heart of the Christian. The 
 main impulse of his benevolence, lies in furnish- 
 ing the poor with the means of enjoying that 
 bread of life which came down IVom heaven, 
 and in introducing them to the knowledge of 
 those Scriptures which are the power of God 
 unto salvation to every one who believeth. 
 Now, it is so far a blessing to the world, that 
 there is a co-operation in the immediate object. 
 But what I contend for, is, that there is a total 
 want of congeniality in the principle; that the 
 moment you strip the institution of its temporal 
 advantages, and make it repose on the naked 
 grandeur of eternity, it is fallen from, or laughed 
 at, as one of the chimeras of fanaticism; and 
 left to the despised efforts of those whom they 
 esteem to be unaccountable people, who sub- 
 scribe for missions, and squander their money 
 on Bible societies. Strange effect, you would 
 think, of eternity to degrade the object with 
 which it is connected! But so it is. The blaze 
 of glory, which is thrown around the martyrdom 
 of a patriot or a philosopher, is refused to the 
 martyrdom of a Christian. When a statesman 
 dies, who lifted his intrepid voice for the liberty 
 of the species, we hear of nothing but of the 
 shrines and the monuments of immortality. 
 Put into his place one of those sturdy reformers, 
 who, unmoved by councils and inquisitions, 
 stood up for the religious liberties of the world: 
 
10 
 
 and it is no sooner done, than the full tide of 
 congenial sympathy and admiration is at once 
 arrested. We have all heard of the benevolent 
 apostleship of Howard, and what Christian will 
 be behind his fellows with his applauding testi- 
 mony? But will they, on the other hand, share 
 his enthusiasm, when he tells them of the 
 apostleship of Paul, who, in the sublimer sense 
 of the term, accomplished the liberty of the 
 captive, and brought them that sat in darkness 
 out of the prison-house? Will they share in the 
 holy benevolence of the apostle, when he pours 
 out his ardent effusions in behalf of his country- 
 men? They were at that time on the eve of the 
 cruelest sufferings. The whole vengeance of 
 the Roman power was mustering to bear upon 
 them. The siege and destruction of their city 
 form one of the most dreadful tragedies in the 
 history of war. Yet Paul seems to have had 
 another object in his eye. It was their souls 
 and their eternity which engrossed him. Can 
 you sympathise with him in this principle, or 
 join in kindred benevolence with him, when he 
 says, that " my heart's desire and prayer for 
 Israel is that they might be saved?" 
 
 But, to bring my list of examples to a close, 
 the most remarkable of them all may be 
 collected from the history of the present 
 attempts which are now making to carry the 
 knowledge of divine revelation into the Pagan 
 and uncivilized countries of the world. Now, 
 
11 
 
 it may be my ignorance, but I am certainly not 
 aware of the fact, that without a book of religi- 
 ous faith; without religion, in fact, being the 
 errand and occasion, we have ever been able in 
 modern times so far to compel the attention 
 and to subdue the habits of savages, as to throw 
 in among them the use and the possession of a 
 w^ritten language. Certain it is, however, at all 
 events, that this very greatest step in the process 
 of converting a wild man of the woods into a 
 humanized member of society, has been accom- 
 plished by Christian missionaries. They have 
 put into the hands of barbarians this mighty 
 instrument of a written language, and they have 
 taught them how to use it*. They have formed 
 an orthography for wandering and untutored 
 savages. They have given a shape and a name 
 to their barbarous articulations; and the children 
 of men, who lived on the prey of the wilderness, 
 are now forming in village schools to the arts 
 and the decencies of cultivated life. Now, I 
 am not involving you in the controversy, 
 w^hether civ^ilization should precede Christianity, 
 or Christianity should precede civilization. It 
 
 • As, for instance, Mr. John Elliot, and the Moravian brethren among 
 tlie Indians of New England and Pennsylvania; the Moravians in South 
 America; Mr. Hans Egede, and the Moravians in Greenland; the latter 
 in Labradore, among the Eskimaux; the Missionaries in Otaheite, and 
 other South Sea islands; and Mr. Brunton, under tlie patronage of the 
 Society for ^lissions to Africa and the East, who retluced the language of 
 the Susoos, a nation on the coast of AtYica, to writing and grammatical 
 form, and printed in it a spelling-book, vocabulary, catechism, and some 
 tracts. Otlier instances besides might be given. 
 
12 
 
 is not to what has been said on the subject, but 
 to what has been done, that we are pointing 
 your attention. We appeal to the fact; and as 
 an illustration of the principle we have been 
 attempting to lay before you, we call upon you 
 to mark the feelings, and the countenance, and 
 the language, of the mere academic moralist, 
 when you put into his hand the authentic 
 and proper document where the fact is record- 
 ed — we mean a missionary report, or a mission- 
 ary magazine. We know that there are men 
 who have so much of the firm nerve and hardi- 
 hood of philosophy about them, as not to be 
 repelled from truth in whatever shape, or from 
 whatever quarter, it comes to them. But there 
 are others of a humbler cast, who have transferred 
 their homage from the omnipotence of truth, to 
 the omnipotence of a name; who, because 
 missionaries, while they are accomplishing the 
 civilization are labouring also for the eternity of 
 savages, have lifted the cry of fanaticism against 
 them; who, because missionaries revere the 
 word of God, and utter themselves in the lan- 
 guage of the New Testament, nauseate every 
 word that comes from them as overrun with the 
 flavour and phraseology of methodism; who 
 are determined, in short, to abominate all that 
 is missionary, and suffer the very sound of the 
 epithet to fill their minds with an overwhelming 
 association of repugnance, and prejudice, and 
 disgust. 
 
13 
 
 We would not have counted this so remarkable 
 an example, had it not been that missionaries 
 are accomplishing the very object on which the 
 advocates for civilization love to expatiate. 
 They are working for temporal good far more 
 effectually than any adventurer in the cause 
 ever did before; but mark the want of congeni- 
 ality between the benevolence of this world, 
 and the benevolence of the Christian; they 
 incur contempt, because they are working for 
 spiritual and eternal good also: Nor do the 
 earthly blessings which they scatter so abun- 
 dantly in their way, redeem from scorn the 
 purer and the nobler principle which inspires 
 them. 
 
 These observations seem to be an applicable 
 introduction to the subject before us. I call 
 your attention to the "way in which the Bible 
 enjoins us to take up the care of the poor. It 
 does not say, in the text before us. Commiserate 
 the poor; for, if it said no more than this, it 
 would leave their necessities to be provided for 
 by the random ebullitions of an impetuous and 
 unreflecting sympathy. It provides them with 
 a better security than the mere feeling of com- 
 passion — a feeling which, however useful for the 
 purpose of excitement, must be controlled and 
 regulated. Feeling is but a faint and fluctuating 
 security. Fancy may mislead it. The sober 
 realities of life may disgust it. Disappointment 
 
14 
 
 may extinguish it. Ingratitude may embitter it. 
 Deceit, with its counterfeit representations, 
 may allure it to the wrong object. At all events, 
 Time is the little circle within which it in 
 general expatiates. It needs the impression of 
 sensible objects to sustain it; nor can it enter 
 with zeal or with vivacity into the wants of the 
 abstract and invisible soul. The Bible, then, 
 instead of leaving the relief of the poor to the 
 mere instinct of sympathy, makes it a subject 
 for consideration — Blessed is he that considereth 
 the poor — a grave and prosaic exercise I do 
 allow, and which makes no figure in those high- 
 wrought descriptions, where the exquisite tale 
 of benevolence is made up of all the sensibilities 
 of tenderness on the one hand, and of all the 
 ecstacies of gratitude on the other. The Bible 
 rescues the cause from the mischief to which a 
 heedless or unthinking sensibility would expose 
 it. It brings it under the cognizance of a higher 
 faculty — a faculty of steadier operation than to 
 be weary in well-doing, and of sturdier endurance 
 than to give it up in disgust. It calls you to 
 consider the poor. It makes the virtue of 
 relieving them a matter of computation as well 
 as of sentiment; and, in so doing, it puts you 
 beyond the reach of the various delusions, by 
 which you are at one time led to prefer the 
 indulgence of pity to the substantial interest of 
 its object; at another, are led to retire chagrined 
 and disappointed from the scene of duty, because 
 
15 
 
 you have not met with the gratitude or the 
 honesty that you laid your account with; at 
 another, are led to expend all your anxieties 
 upon the accommodation of time, and to over- 
 look eternity. It is the office of consideration 
 to save you from all these fallacies. Under its 
 tutorage, attention to the wants of the poor 
 ripens into principle. I want to press its ad- 
 vantages upon you, for I can in no other way 
 recommend the Society whose claims I am 
 appointed to lay before you, so effectually to 
 your patronage. My time will only permit me 
 to lay before you a few of their advantages, and 
 I shall therefore confine myself to two leading 
 particulars. 
 
 1. The man who considers the poor, instead 
 of slumbering over the emotions of a useless 
 sensibility, among those imaginary beings whom 
 poetry and romance have laid before him in all 
 the elegance of fictitious history, will bestow 
 the labour and the attention of actual business 
 among the poor of the real and the living world. 
 Benevolence is the burden of every romantic 
 tale, and of every poet's song. It is dressed 
 out in all the fairy enchantments of imagery and 
 eloquence. All is beauty to the eye and music 
 to the ear. Nothing seen but pictures of felicity, 
 and nothing heard but the soft whispers of 
 gratitude and affection. The reader is carried 
 along by this soft and delightful representation 
 
16 
 
 of virtue. He accompanies his hero through all 
 the fancied varieties of his history. He goes 
 along with hi in to the cottage of poverty and 
 disease, surrounded, as we may suppose, with all 
 the charms of rural obscurity, and where the 
 murmurs of an adjoining rivulet accord with 
 the finer and more benevolent sensibilities of 
 the mind. He enters this enchanting retirement, 
 and meets with a picture of distress, adorned in 
 all the elegance of fiction. Perhaps a father 
 laid on a bed of languishing, and supported by 
 the labours of a pious and affectionate family, 
 where kindness breathes in every word, and 
 anxiety sits upon every countenance — where 
 the industry of his children struggles in vain to 
 supply the cordials which his poverty denies 
 him — where nature sinks every hour, and all 
 feel a gloomy foreboding, which they strive to 
 conceal, and tremble to express. The hero of 
 romance enters, and the glance of his benevolent 
 eye enlightens this darkest recess of misery. He 
 turns him to the bed of languishing, tells the 
 sick man that there is still hope, and smiles com- 
 fort on his despairing children. Day after day 
 he repeats his kindness and his charity. They 
 hail his approach as the footsteps of an angel of 
 mercy. The father lives to bless his deliverer. 
 The family reward his benevolence by the ho- 
 mage of an affectionate gratitude; and, in the 
 piety of their evening prayer, offer up thanks to 
 the God of heaven, for opening the hearts of 
 
17 
 
 the rich to kindly and beneficent attentions. 
 The reader weeps with dehght. The visions 
 of paradise play before his fancy. His tears 
 flow, and his heart dissolves in all the luxury 
 of tenderness. 
 
 Now, we do not deny that the members of the 
 Destitute Sick Society may at times have met 
 with some such delightful scene, to soothe and 
 to encourage them. But put the question to any of 
 their visitors, and he will not fail to tell you, that 
 if they had never moved but when they had some- 
 thing like this toexcite and to gratify their hearts, 
 they would seldom have moved at all; and their 
 usefulness to the poor would have been reduced 
 to a very humble fraction of what they have actu- 
 ally done for them. What is this but to say, that 
 it is the business of a religious instructor to give 
 you, not the elegant, but the true representation 
 of benevolence — to represent it not so much as 
 a luxurious indulgence to the finer sensibilities of 
 the mind, but according to the sober declaration 
 of Scripture, as a work and as a labour — as a 
 business in which you must encounter vexation, 
 opposition, and fatigue; where you are not always 
 to meet with that elegance which allures the 
 fancy, or with that humble and retired adversity, 
 which interests the more tender propensities of 
 the heart; but as a business where reluctance 
 must often be overcome by a sense of duty, and 
 where, though oppressed at every step, by envy, 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 disgust, and disappointment, you are bound to 
 persevere, in obedience to the law of God, and 
 the sober instigation of principle. 
 
 The benevolence of the gospel lies in action. 
 The benevolence of our fictitious writers, in a 
 kind of high-wrought delicacy of feeling and 
 sentiment. The one dissipates all its fervour in 
 sighs, and tears, and idle aspirations — the other 
 reserves its strength for efforts and execution. 
 The one regards it as a luxurious enjoyment for 
 the heart — the other, as a work and a business 
 for the hand. The one sits in indolence, and 
 broods, in visionary rapture, over its schemes of 
 ideal philanthropy — the other steps abroad, and 
 enlightens, by its presence, the dark and pesti- 
 lential hovels of disease. The one wastes away 
 in empty ejaculation — the other gives time and 
 trouble to the work of beneficence — gives edu- 
 cation to the orphan— provides clothes for the 
 naked, and lays food on the tables of the hungry. 
 The one is indolent and capricious, and often 
 does mischief by the occasional overflowings of 
 a whimsical and ill-directed charity — the other is 
 vigilant and discerning, and takes care lest its 
 distributions be injudicious, and the effort of 
 benevolence be misapplied. The one is soothed 
 with the luxury of feeling, and reclines in easy 
 and indolent satisfaction — the other shakes off 
 tlie deceitful languor of contemplation and soli- 
 tude, and delights in a scene of activity. Re- 
 
19 
 
 member, that virtue, in general, is not to feel, 
 but to do— not merely to conceive a purpose,' 
 but to carry that purpose, into execution— not 
 merely to be overpowered by tlie impression of 
 a sentiment, but to practice what it loves, and 
 to imitate what it admires. 
 
 To be benevolent in speculation, is often to 
 be selfish in action and in reality. The vanity 
 and the indolence of man delude him into a 
 thousand inconsistencies. He professes to love 
 the name and the semblance of virtue, but the 
 labour of exertion and of self-denial, terrifies 
 him from attempting it. The emotions of kind- 
 ness are delightful to his bosom, but then they 
 are little better than a selfish indulgence. They 
 terminate in his own enjoyment. They are a 
 mere refinement of luxury. His eye melts over 
 the picture of fictitious distress, while not a tear 
 is left for the actual starvation and misery by 
 which he is surrounded. It is easy to indulge 
 the imaginations of a visionary heart in going 
 over a scene of fancied affliction, because here 
 there is no sloth to overcome— no avaricious 
 propensity to control— no offensive or disgusting 
 circumstance to allay the unmingled impression 
 of sympathy which a soft and elegant picture 
 is calculated to awaken. It is not so easy to be 
 benevolent in action and in reality, because here 
 there is fatigue to undergo— there is time and 
 money to give— there is the mortifying spec- 
 
20 
 
 tacle of vice, and folly, and ingratitude, to en- 
 counter. We like to give you the fair picture 
 of love to man, because to throw over it false 
 and fictitious embellishments, is injurious to its 
 cause. They elevate the fancy by romantic 
 visions which can never be realised. They em- 
 bitter the heart by the most severe and mortify- 
 ing disappointments, and often force us to retire 
 in disgust from what heaven has intended to be 
 the theatre of our discipline and preparation. 
 Take the representation of the Bible. Bene- 
 volence is a work and a labour. It often calls 
 for the severest efforts of vigilance and industry 
 — a habit of action not to be acquired in the 
 schools of fine sentiment, but in the walks of 
 business; in the dark and dismal receptacles of 
 misery; in the hospitals of disease; in the putrid 
 lanes of our great cities, where poverty dwells 
 in lank and ragged wretchedness, agonised with 
 pain, faint with hunger, and shivering in a frail 
 and unsheltered tenement. 
 
 You are not to conceive yourself a real lover 
 of your species, and entitled to the praise or the 
 reward of benevolence, because you weep over 
 a fictitious representation of human misery. A 
 man may weep in the indolence of a studious 
 and contemplative retirement; he may breathe 
 all the tender aspirations of humanity; but what 
 avails all this warm and effusive benevolence, if 
 it is never exerted — if it never rise to execution 
 
21 
 
 — if it never carry him to the accomplishment 
 of a single benevolent purpose — if it shrink 
 from activity, and sicken at the pain of fatigue? 
 It is easy, indeed, to come forward with the cant 
 and hypocrisy of fine sentiment — to have a heart 
 trained to the emotions of benevolence, while 
 the hand refuses the labour of discharging its 
 offices — to weep for amusement, and have no- 
 thing to spare for human suffering, but the tribute 
 of an indolent and unmeaning sympathy. Many 
 of you must be acquainted with that corruption 
 of Christian doctrine which has been termed 
 Antinomianism. It professes the highest reve- 
 rence for the Supreme Being, while it refuses 
 obedience to the lessons of his authority. It 
 professes the highest gratitude for the sufferings 
 of Christ, while it refuses that course of life and 
 action which he demands of his followers. It 
 professes to adore the tremendous Majesty of 
 heaven, and to weep in shame and in sorrow- 
 over the sinfulness of degraded humanity, while 
 every day it insults heaven by the enormity of 
 its misdeeds, and evinces the insincerity of its 
 repentance by its wilful perseverance in the 
 practice of iniquity. This Antinomianism is 
 generally condemned; and none reprobate it 
 more than the votaries of fine sentiment — your 
 men of taste and elegant literature — your epicures 
 of feeling, who riot in all the luxury of theatrical 
 emotion; and who, in their admimtion of what 
 is tender, and beautiful, and cultivated, have 
 
22 
 
 alwaj'^s turned with disgust from the doctrines 
 of a sour and illiberal theology. We may say 
 to such, as Nathan to David, " Thou art the 
 man." Theirs is, to all intents and purposes, 
 Antinomianism — and an Antinomianism of a 
 far more dangerous and deceitful kind, than the 
 Antinomianism of a spurious and pretended 
 orthodoxy. In the ^Antinomianism of religion, 
 there is nothing to fascinate or deceive you. It 
 wears an air of repulsive bigotry, more fitted to 
 awaken disgust, than to gain the admiration of 
 proselytes. There is a glaring deformity in its 
 aspect, which alarms you at the very outset, and 
 is an outrage to that natural morality which, 
 dark and corrupted as it is, is still strong enough 
 to lift its loud remonstrances against it. But, 
 in the Antinomianism of high-wrought senti- 
 ment, there is a deception far more insinuating. 
 It steals upon you under the semblance of virtue. 
 It is supported by the delusive colouring of 
 imagination and poetry. It has all the graces 
 and embellishments of literature to recommend 
 it. Vanity is soothed, and conscience lulls 
 itself to repose in this dream of feeling and of 
 indolence. 
 
 Let us dismiss these lying vanities, and 
 regulate our lives by the truth and soberness 
 of the New Testament. Benevolence is not in 
 word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 
 It is a business with men as they are, and with 
 
28 
 
 human life as drawn by the rough hand of 
 experience. It is a duty which you must per- 
 form at the call of principle; though there be 
 no voice of eloquence to give splendour to your 
 exertions, and no music of poetry to lead your 
 willing footsteps through the bowers of enchant- 
 ment. It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic 
 emotion. It is an exertion of principle. You 
 must go to the poor man's cottage, though no 
 verdure flourish around it, and no rivulet be 
 nigh to delight you by the gentleness of its 
 murmurs. If you look for the romantic sim- 
 plicity of fiction, you will be disappointed: but 
 it is your duty to persevere, in spite of every 
 discouragement. Benevolence is not merely 
 a feeling, but a principle — not a dream of rapture 
 for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for 
 the hand to execute. 
 
 It must now be obvious to all of you, that it 
 is not enough that you give money, and add 
 your name to the contributions of charity. You 
 must give it with judgment. You must give 
 your time and your attention. You must descend 
 to the trouble of examination. You must rise 
 from the repose of contemplation^ and make 
 yourself acquainted with the object of your 
 benevolent exercises. Will he husband your 
 charity with care, or will he squander it away 
 in idleness and dissipation? Will he satisfy him- 
 self with the brutal luxury of the moment, and 
 
24 
 
 neglect the supply of his more substantial ne- 
 cessities, or suffer his children to be trained in 
 ignorance and depravity? Will charity corrupt 
 him into slothfulness? What is his peculiar 
 necessity? Is it the want of health, or the want 
 of employment? Is it the pressure of a numerous 
 family? Does he need medicine to administer 
 to the diseases of his children? Does he need 
 fuel or raiment to protect them from the incle- 
 mency of winter? Does he need money to satisfy 
 the yearly demands of his landlord, or to pur- 
 chase books, and to pay for the education of his 
 offspring? 
 
 To give money, is not to do all the work and 
 labour of benevolence. You must go to the 
 poor man's sick-bed. You must lend your hand 
 to the work of assistance. You must examine 
 his accounts. You must try to recover those 
 debts which are due to his family. You must 
 try to recover those wages which are detained 
 by the injustice or the rapacity of his master. 
 You must employ your mediation with his 
 superiors. You must represent to them the 
 necessities of his situation. You must solicit 
 their assistance, and awaken their feelings to 
 the tale of his calamity. This is benevolence 
 in its plain, and sober, and substantial reality; 
 though eloquence may have withheld its imagery, 
 and poetry may have denied its graces and its 
 embellishments. This is true and unsophisticated 
 
25 
 
 goodness. It may be recorded in no earthly 
 documents; but, if done under the influence of 
 Christian principle — in a word, if done unto 
 Jesus, it is written in the book of heaven, and 
 will give a new lustre to that crown to which his 
 disciples look forward in time, and will wear 
 through eternity. 
 
 You have all heard of the division of labour, 
 and I wish you to understand, that the advantage 
 of this principle may be felt as much in the 
 operations of charity, as in the operations of 
 trade and of manufactures. The work of bene- 
 ficence does not lie in the one act of giving 
 money; there must be the act of attendance; 
 there must be the act of inquiry; there must 
 be the act of judicious application. But I 
 can conceive that an individual may be so 
 deficient in the varied experience and attention 
 which a work so extensive demands, that he 
 may retire in disgust and discouragement from 
 the practice of charity altogether. The insti- 
 tution of a Society such as this, saves this 
 individual to the cause. It takes upon itself all 
 the subsequent acts in the work and labour of 
 love, and restricts his part to the mere act of 
 giving money. It fills the middle space between 
 the dispensers and the recipients of charity. 
 The habits of many who now hear me, may 
 disqualify them for the work of examination. 
 They may have no time for it; they may live 
 
26 
 
 at a distance from the objects; they may neither 
 know how to introduce, nor how to conduct 
 themselves in the management of all the details; 
 their want of practice and of experience may 
 disable them for the work of repelling imposition; 
 they may try to gain the necessary habits; and 
 it is right that every individual among us should 
 each, in his own sphere, consider the poor, and 
 qualify themselves for a judicious and discrimi- 
 nating charity. But, in the mean time, the 
 Society for the Relief of the Destitute Sick, is 
 an instrument ready made to our hands. Avail 
 yourselves of this instrument immediately; and, 
 by the easiest part of the exercise of charity, 
 which is to give money, you carry home to the 
 poor all the benefit of its most difficult exercises*. 
 The experience which you want, the members 
 of this laudable Society are in possession of. By 
 the work and observation of years, a stock of 
 practical wisdom is now accumulated among 
 them. They have been long inured to all that 
 is loathsome and discouraging in this good work; 
 and they have nerve, and hardihood, and prin- 
 ciple, to front it. They are every way qualified 
 to be the carriers of your bounty, for it is a path 
 they have long travelled in. Give the money, 
 and these conscientious men will soon bring it 
 
 * A Society for the Destitute Sick, is not nearly liable to such an extent 
 of objection, as a Society for the Relief of General Indigence. But it 
 were well, if they kept themselves rigidly to their assigned object; and that 
 the cases to which they administered their aid, were competently certified. 
 
27 
 
 into contact witli the right objects. They know 
 the way through all the obscurities of this me- 
 tropolis; and they can bring the offerings of 
 your charity to people whom you will never see, 
 and into houses which you will never enter. It 
 is not easy to conceive, far less to compute the 
 extent of human misery; but these men can 
 give you experience for it. They can show you 
 their registers of the sick and of the dying; they 
 are familiar with disease in all its varieties of 
 faintness, and breathlessness, and pain. — Sad 
 union! they are called to witness it in conjunc- 
 tion with poverty; and well do they know that 
 there is an eloquence in the imploring looks of 
 these helpless poor, which no description can 
 set before you. Oh ! my brethren, figure to your- 
 selves the calamity in all its soreness, and 
 measure your bounty by the actual greatness of 
 the claims, and not by the feebleness of their 
 advocate. 
 
 I have trespassed upon your patience; but, at 
 the hazard of carrying my address to a length 
 that is unusual, I must still say more. Nor would 
 I ev^er forgive myself if I neglected to set the 
 eternity of the poor in all its imjiortance before 
 you. This is the second point of consideration 
 to which I wish to direct you. The man who 
 considers the poor, will give his chief anxiety 
 to the wants of their eternity. It must be 
 evident to all of you, that this anxiety is little 
 
28 
 
 felt. I do not appeal for the evidence of this to 
 the selfish part of mankind — there we are not to 
 expect it. I go to those who are really benevo- 
 lent — who have a wish to make others happy, 
 and who take trouble in so doing; and it is a 
 striking observation, how little the salvation of 
 these others is the object of that benevolence 
 which makes them so amiable. It will be found, 
 that, in by far the greater number of instances, 
 this principle is all consumed on the accommo- 
 dations of time, and the necessities of the body. 
 It is the meat which feeds them — the garment 
 which covers them — ^the house which shelters 
 them — the money which purchases all things: 
 these, I say, are what form the chief topics of 
 benevolent anxiety. Now, we do not mean to 
 discourage this principle. We cannot afford it; 
 there is too little of it; and it forms too refresh- 
 ing an exception to that general selfishness which 
 runs throughout the haunts of business and 
 ambition, for us to say any thing against it. 
 We are not cold-blooded enough to refuse our 
 delighted concurrence to an exercise so amiable 
 in its principle, and so pleasing in the warm and 
 comfortable spectacle which it lays before us. 
 The poor, it is true, ought never to forget, that 
 it is to their own industry, and to the wisdom 
 and economy of their own management, that they 
 are to look for the elements of subsistence — that 
 if idleness and prodigality shall lay hold of the 
 mass of our population, no benevolence, however 
 
29 
 
 unbounded, can ever repair a mischief so irreco- 
 verable — that if they will not labour for them- 
 selves, it is not in the power of the rich to create 
 a sufficiency for them; and that though every 
 heart were opened, and every purse emptied in 
 the cause, it would absolutely go for nothing 
 towards forming a well-fed, a well-lodged, or a 
 well-conditioned peasantry. Still, however, there 
 are cases which no foresight could prevent, and no 
 industry could provide for — where the blow falls 
 heavy and unexpected on some devoted son or 
 daughter of misfortune, and where, though 
 thoughtlessness and folly may have had their 
 share, benevolence, not very nice in its calcula- 
 tions, will feel the overpowering claim of actual, 
 helpless, and imploring misery. Now, I again 
 offer my cheerful testimony to such benevolence 
 as this; I count it delightful to see it singling 
 out its object, and sustaining it against the cruel 
 pressure of age and of indigence; and when I 
 enter a cottage where I see a warmer fireside, 
 or a more substantial provision, than the visible 
 means can account for, I say that the landscape, 
 in all its summer glories, does not offer an object 
 so gratifying, as when referred to the vicinity of 
 the great man's house, and the people who live 
 in it, and am told that I will find my explana- 
 tion the7'e. Kind and amiable people! your 
 benevolence is most lovely in its display, but 
 oh! it is perishable in its consequences. Does 
 it never occur to you, that in a few years this 
 
30 
 
 favourite will die — that he will go to the place 
 where neither cold nor hunger will reach him, 
 but that a mighty interest remains, of which, 
 both of us may know the certainty, though 
 neither you nor I can calculate the extent. 
 Your benevolence is too short — it does not 
 shoot far enough a- head — it is like regaling a 
 child with a sweatmeat or a toy, and then aban- 
 doning the happy unreflecting infant to expo- 
 sure. You make the poor old man happy with 
 your crumbs and your fragments, but he is an 
 infant on the mighty range of infinite duration; 
 and will you leave the soul, which has this 
 infinity to go through, to its chance? How 
 comes it that the grave should throw so impene- 
 trable a shroud over the realities of eternity? 
 How comes it that heaven, and hell, and judg- 
 ment, should be treated as so many nonentities; 
 and that there should be as little real and opera- 
 tive sympathy felt for the soul, which lives for 
 ever, as for the body after it is dead, or for the 
 dust into which it moulders? Eternity is longer 
 than time; the arithmetic, my brethren, is all on 
 our side upon this question; and the wisdom 
 which calculates, and guides itself by calcula- 
 tion, gives its weighty and respectable support 
 to what may be called the benevolence of faith. 
 
 Now, if there be one employment more 
 fitted than another to awaken this benevolence, 
 it is the peculiar employment of that Society 
 
31 
 
 for which I am now pleading. I would have 
 anticipated such benevolence from the situation 
 they occupy, and the information before the 
 public bears testimony to the fact. The truth 
 is, that the diseases of the body may be looked 
 upon as so many outlets through which the 
 soul finds its way to eternity. Now, it is at 
 these outlets that the members of this Society 
 have stationed themselves. This is the inter- 
 esting point of survey at which they stand, and 
 from which they command a look of both worlds. 
 They have placed tliemselves in the avenues 
 which lead from time to eternity, and they have 
 often to witness the awful transition of a soul 
 hovering at the entrance — struggling its way 
 through the valley of the shadow of death, and 
 at last breaking loose from the confines of all 
 that is visible. Do you think it likely that men, 
 with such spectacles before them, will withstand 
 the sense of eternity? No, my brethren, they 
 cannot, they have not. Eternity, I rejoice to 
 announce to you, is not forgotten by them ; and 
 with their care for the diseases of the body, 
 they are neither blind nor indifferent to the 
 fact, that the soul is diseased also. We know 
 it well. There is an indolent and superficial 
 theology, which turns its eyes from the danger, 
 and feels no pressing call for the application of 
 the remedy — which reposes more in its own 
 vague and self-assumed conceptions of the mercy 
 of God, than in the firm and consistent repre- 
 
32 
 
 sentations of the New Testament — which over- 
 looks the existence of the disease altogether, 
 and therefore feels no alarm, and exerts no 
 urgency in the business — which, in the face of 
 all the truths and all the severities that are 
 uttered in the Word of God, leaves the soul 
 to its chance; or, in other words, by neglecting 
 to administer any thing specific for tlie salvation 
 of the soul, leaves it to perish. We do not want 
 to involve you in controversies; we only ask 
 you to open the New Testament, and attend 
 to the obvious meaning of a word which occurs 
 frequently in its pages — we mean the word saved. 
 The term surely implies, that the present state 
 of the thing to be saved, is a lost and an undone 
 state. If a tree be in a healthful state from its 
 infancy, you never apply the term saved to it, 
 though you see its beautiful foliage, its flourish- 
 ing blossoms, its abundant produce, and its 
 progressive ascent through all the varieties in- 
 cidental to a sound and a prosperous tree. But 
 if it were diseased in its infancy, and ready to 
 perish, and if it were restored by management 
 and artificial applications, then you would say 
 of this tree that it was saved; and the very term 
 implies some previous state of uselessness and 
 corruption. What, then, are we to m.ake of 
 the frequent occurrence of this term in the 
 New Testament, as applied to a human being? 
 If men come into this world pure and innocent; 
 and have nothing more to do but to put forth 
 
 * 
 
33 
 
 the powers with which nature lias endowed 
 them, and so to rise through the progressive 
 stages of virtue and excellence, to the rewards 
 of immortality, you would not say of these men 
 that they were saved when they were translated 
 to these rewards. These rewards of man are 
 the natural effects of his obedience, and the 
 term saved is not at all applicable to such a 
 supposition. But the God of the Bible says 
 differently. If a man obtain heaven at all, it 
 is by being saved. He is in a diseased state, 
 and it is by the healing application of the blood 
 of the Son of God, that he is restored from that 
 state. The very title applied to him proves the 
 same thing. He is called owr Saviour, The 
 deliverance which he effects is called our salva- 
 tion. The men whom he doth deliver are called 
 the saved. Doth not this imply some previous 
 state of disease and helplessness? And from 
 the frequent and incidental occurrence of this 
 term, may we not gather an additional testimony 
 to the truth of what is elsewhere more expressly 
 revealed to us, that we are lost by nature, and 
 that to obtain recovery, we must be found in 
 Him who came to seek and to save that which 
 is lost. He that believeth on the Son of God 
 shall be saved, but he that believeth not, the 
 wrath of God abideth on him. 
 
 We know that there are some who loathe this 
 representation; but this is just another example 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 of the substantial interests of the poor being 
 sacrificed to misavdnagement and delusion. It is 
 to be hoped that there are many who have looked 
 the disease fairly in the face, and are ready to 
 reach forward the remedy adapted to relieve it. 
 We should have no call to attend to the spiritual 
 interests of men, if they could safely be left to 
 themselves, and to the spontaneous operation of 
 those powers with which it is supposed that 
 nature has endowed them. But this is not the 
 state of the case. We come into the world with 
 the principles of sin and condemnation within 
 us; and, in the congenial atmosphere of this 
 world's example, these ripen fast for the execu- 
 tion of the sentence. Daring the period of this 
 short but interesting passage to another w^orld, 
 the remedy is in the gospel held out to all; and 
 the freedom and universality of its invitations, 
 while it opens assured admission to all who will, 
 must aggravate the weight and severity of the 
 sentence to those who will not; and upon them 
 the dreadful energy of that saying will be 
 accomplished, — " How shall they escape if they 
 neglect so great a salvation?" 
 
 We know part of your labours for the eternity 
 of the poor. We know^ that you have brought 
 the Bible into contact w^ith many a soul. And 
 we are sure that this is suiting the remedy 
 to the disease; for the Bible contains those 
 words which are the power of God through 
 
35 
 
 faith unto salvation, to every one who believes 
 them. 
 
 To this established instrument for working: 
 faith in the heart, add the instrument of hearing. 
 When you give the Bible, accompany the gift 
 with the living energy of a human voice — let 
 prayer, and advice, and explanation, be brought 
 to act upon tliem; and let the warm and deeply- 
 felt earnestness of your hearts, discharge itself 
 upon theirs in the impressive tones of sincerity, 
 and friendship, and good will. This is going 
 substantially to work. It is, if I may use the 
 expression, bringing the right element to bear 
 upon the case before you; and be assured, that 
 every treatment of a convinced and guilty mind 
 is superficial and ruinous, which does not lead it 
 to the Saviour, and bring before it his sacrifice 
 and atonement, and the influences of that Spirit 
 bestowed through his obedience on all who 
 believe on Him. 
 
 While in the full vigour of health, we may 
 count it enough to take up with something short 
 of this. But — striking testimony to evangelical 
 truth! go to the awful reality of a human soul 
 on the eve of its departure from the body, and 
 you will find that all those vapid sentimentalities 
 which partake not of the substantial doctrine of 
 the New Testament, are good for nothing. 
 Hold up your face, my brethren, for the truth 
 
36 
 
 and simplicity of the Bible. Be not ashamed of 
 its phraseology. It is the right instrument to 
 handle in the great work of calling a human 
 soul out of darkness into marvellous light. Stand 
 firm and secure on the impregnable principle, that 
 this is the Word of God, and that all taste, and 
 imagination, and science, must give way before 
 its overbearing authority. Walk in the footsteps 
 of your Saviour, in the twofold office of caring 
 for the diseases of the body, and administering 
 to the wants of the soul ; and though you may 
 fail in the former — though the patient may never 
 arise and walk, yet, by the blessing of heaven 
 upon your fervent and effectual endeavours, the 
 latter object may be gained — the soul may be 
 lightened of all its anxieties — the whole burden 
 of its diseases may be swept away — it may be of 
 good cheer, because its sins are forgiven — and 
 the right direction may be impressed upon it 
 which will carry it forward in progress to a 
 happy eternity. Death may not be averted, but 
 death may be disarmed. It may be stripped of 
 its terrors, and instead of a devouring enemy, it 
 may be hailed as a messenger of triumph. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 JAMES HBDDERWICK, PRINTER, 26, BELL-STREET, GLASGOW. 
 
The Importance of Civil Government to Society, and the Duty 
 of Christians in regard to it. 
 
 f^-^^0^^m^im0f^ 
 
 A ^mmwmm 
 
 PREACHED IS 
 
 ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, GLASGOW, 
 
 ON 
 
 SABBATH, THE SOfk APRIL, 1820. 
 
 BY THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 
 
 Minister of St. John^s Churchy Gloxgow. 
 
 THIRD EDITION, 
 
 (BaA®B(DW2 
 
 PRINTED FOR CHALMERS & COLLINS, 
 
 68< Wilion-street, Glai>gow ; 
 
 WILLIAM WHTTE i CO, WAUGH A INNES, OGLE, ALLARDICE & THOMSON, EDINBURGH; 
 
 BALDWIN, CRADOCK 5c JOY, 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORMK k BROWN, 
 
 B. J. HOLD9WORTH, O. k W. B. WHJTTAKER, W. BAYNES ic SON , &nd T. UAMILTON, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 1820. 
 
K. CHAPMAN, Printer, 
 
 Glasgow. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IN preparing the first part of the following composition, the 
 Author had no view whatever to the publication of it. He was 
 merely prosecuting the ordinary course of his pulpit lectures ; 
 and, in so doing, borrowed some illustrations of the passage of 
 the day, from the existing aspect of society, and the recent oc- 
 cun'ences of his own neighbourhood. These, he fears, have 
 given an interest to tlie discourse, far beyond what is usually 
 excited by the generalities of Christian doctrine and Christian 
 application, and have brought on an entreaty for its appearance 
 in print, greatly more urgent than he feels himself inclined to 
 resist. After having rendered his compliance with the requests 
 that were proffered to him, he supplemented what had been al- 
 ready written with a few additional observations. It is thujs that 
 it comes before the public as a whole, in a form rather more mis- 
 shapen and miscellaneous, than it would have done had there 
 been a prospective regard to publication from the outset ; and, 
 with the statement of this disadvantage, it is left to the indul- 
 gence of the reader. 
 
A SERMON. 
 
 ROMANS, CHAP. III. 9—19. 
 
 " What then? .ire we better than they ? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both 
 Jews .anil Gentiles, tluit they are .all under sin ; As it is written. There is none righteous, no, 
 not one : Tliere is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They arc 
 all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable ; there is none that doeth good, 
 no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues they have used deceit; the 
 poiaon of asps is under their lips : \VTiose mouth is full of ciursing and bitterness ; Their feet 
 are swifl to shed blood : Destruction and misery are in their ways : And the way of i>cacc 
 have they not known : There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know, that what 
 things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law ; that every mouth may be 
 stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." 
 
 There are certain of these charges which can be 
 brought more simply and speedily home in the way 
 of conviction than certain others of them. Those 
 which bring man more directly before the tribunal 
 of God, can be made out more easily than those 
 which bring him before the tribunal of his fellows. 
 It were difficult to prove, that, in reference to man, 
 there are not some of the species who have not 
 something to glory of; but it should not be so dif- 
 ficult to prove, that w^e have nothing to glory of 
 before God. Now, the conclusion of the Apostle's 
 argument in this passage is, that it is before God 
 that all the world is guilty; and if we, in the first 
 instance, single out those verses which place man 
 before us in his simple relationship to the God who 
 formed him, we ought not to find it a hard matter 
 to carry the acquiescence of our hearers in the sen- 
 tence which is here pronounced upon our guilty 
 species. 
 
6 
 
 One of* those verses is, that " there is none righteous, 
 ho, not one." To be held as having righteously 
 kept the law of your country, you must keep the 
 whole of it. , It is not necessary that you accumu- 
 late upon your persons the guilt of treason, and for- 
 gery, and murder, and violent depredation, ere you 
 forfeit your lives to an outraged government. By 
 one of these acts you incur just as dreadful and as 
 entire a forfeiture as tliough guilty of them all. The 
 hundred deeds of obedience will not efface or ex- 
 piate the one of disobedience ; and we have only to 
 plead for the same justice to a divine that you ren- 
 der to a human administration, in order to convince 
 every individual who now hears us, conscious, as 
 he must be, of one, and several, and many acts of 
 transgression against the law of God, that there is 
 not one of them who is righteous before him. 
 
 " There is none that understandeth, there is none 
 that seeketh after God," is another of these verses. 
 We will venture to say of every man, without ex- 
 ception, who has not submitted himself to the great 
 doctrine of this epistle, which is justification by 
 faith, that there is not one principle clearly intelli- 
 gible even to his own mind, on which he rests his 
 acceptance with the God whom he has offended. 
 He may have some obscure conception of his mercy, 
 but he has never struck the compromise between 
 his mercy and his justice. He has never braved the 
 inquiry, how is it possible that a sinner can be par- 
 doned without a dissolution of God's moral govern- 
 ment? If he has ever taken up the question, " What 
 shall I do to be saved?" he has never, in the prosecu- 
 tion of it, looked steadily in the face at the Truth and 
 Holiness of the Godhead. He has never extricated 
 
1 
 
 his condition as a sinner, from the dilemma of God's 
 conflicting attributes ; or apprehended, to his own 
 satisfaction, how it is that the dignity of Heaven's 
 throne can be upheld, amid the approaches of tlie 
 polluted, who dare the inspection of eternal purity, 
 and offer to come nigh, on the single presumption of 
 God's connivance at sin, — and a connivance founded 
 too on the vague impression of God's simple, and 
 easy, and unresisting tenderness. What becomes of 
 all that which stamps authority upon a law, and 
 props the majesty of a Lawgiver, is a question that 
 they have not resolved; and that just because it is 
 a question which they do not entertain. They are 
 not seeking to resolve it. That matter which ap- 
 pertains to the very essence of a sinner's salvation, 
 is a matter of which they have no understandino- • 
 and they do not care to understand it. They are 
 otherwise taken up, and giving themselves no un- 
 easiness upon the subject. They, all their lives 
 long, are blinking, and evading the questions which 
 lie at the very turning point of that transition by 
 which a sinner passes from a state of wrath into a 
 state of acceptance. They hold the whole of this 
 matter in abeyance ; and the things of the world en- 
 gross, and interest, and occupy, their whole hearts, 
 to the utter exclusion of him who made the world. 
 They are seeking after many things, but they are 
 not seeking after God. — If you think that this is 
 bearing too hard upon you, tell us what have been 
 the times, and what the occasions, on which you 
 have ever made the finding of God the distinct and 
 the business object of your endeavours ? When did 
 you ever seek him truly ? AVhen did your efforts 
 in this way ever go beyond the spirit and the charac- 
 
8 
 
 ter of an empty round of observation ? What are 
 the strenuous attempts you ever made to push the 
 barrier which intercepts the guilty from the God 
 whom they have rebelled against ? If you are really 
 and heartily seeking, you will find; but, without the 
 fear of refutation, do we affirm of all here present 
 who have not reached the Saviour, and are not in 
 their way to him, that none of you understandeth, 
 and none of you seeketh after God. 
 
 '•' They are all gone out of the way, they are to- 
 gether become unprofitable, there is none that doetli 
 good ; no, not one," is another of these verses. We 
 do not say of the people whom we are now address- 
 ing, that they have gone out of the way of honour, or 
 out of the way of equity, or out of the way of fair, 
 and pleasant, and companionable neighbourhood. 
 But they, one and all of them, are out of the way of 
 godliness. When the Prophet complains of our spe- 
 cies, he does not affirm of them that they had turned 
 every one to a way either of injustice or cruelty; 
 but he counts it condemnation enough, that they 
 had turned every one to his own way. It is iniquity 
 enough in his eyes that the way in which we walk 
 is our own way, and not God's ; that in the prose- 
 cution of it we are simply pleasing ourselves, and 
 not asking or caring whether it be a way that is 
 pleasing to him; that the impelling principle of 
 what we do is our own will, and not his authority ; 
 that the way in which we walk is a way of inde- 
 pendence upon God, if not of iniquity against our 
 fellows in society ; that it is the way of one who 
 walks in the sight of his own eyes, and not of one 
 who walks under the sight and in the service of an- 
 other; that God, in fact, is as good as cast off from 
 
9 
 
 us; and we say what is tantamount to tliis, that we 
 will not have him to reign over us. This is the 
 universal habit of Nature ; and if so, Nature is 
 out of the way, and the world at large ofi'ers a 
 monstrous exception to the habit of the sinless and 
 unfallen, where all, from the highest to the lowest, 
 walk in that rifjhtful subordination which the thinfr 
 that is formed should ever have towards him who 
 formed it. It is this which renders all the works 
 of mere natural men so unprofitable, that is, of no 
 value in the high count and reckoning of eternity. 
 They want the great moral infusion which makes 
 them valuable. There is nothing of God in them ; 
 having neither his will for their principle, nor the 
 advancement of any one cause which his heart is 
 set upon for their object. They may serve a tem- 
 porary puqiose. They may slied a blessing over 
 the scenery of our mortal existence. They may mi- 
 nister to the good, and the peace, and the protection 
 of society. They may add to the sunshine or the 
 serenity of our little day upon earth ; and yet be 
 unprofitable, because they yield no fruit unto im- 
 mortality. Destitute as they all are of godliness, 
 they are destitute of goodness. They have not the 
 essential spirit of this attribute pervading them. 
 And though many there are to whom the preach- 
 ing of the cross is foolishness, and who have reached 
 a lofty estimation in the walks of integrity and ho- 
 nour, and even of philantliropy and patriotism, yet, 
 with the taint of earthliness which vitiates all they 
 do, in the estimation of Heaven's Sanctuary there 
 is none of them that doeth good ; no, not one. 
 
 We now pass onward to another set of charges, 
 which it may not be so easy to substantiate on the 
 
10 
 
 ground of actual observation. They consist of 
 highly atrocious offences against the peace and the 
 dearest interests of society. It is true, that the 
 apostle here drops the style of universality which 
 he so firmly sustains in the foregoing part of his 
 arraignment, when he speaks of all being out of the 
 way, and of none, no, not one, being to be found 
 on the path of godliness. And it is further true, 
 that, in the subsequent prosecution of his charges, 
 he quotes several expressions which David made 
 use of, not against the whole species, but against 
 his own enemies. But yet it will be found, that 
 though the picture of atrocity here drawn may 
 not in our day be so broadly exhibited as in the 
 ruder and more barbarous periods of this world's 
 history, yet, that the principles of it are still busily 
 at work ; that though humanity be altered a little 
 in its guise, it is not, apart from the gospel, at all 
 altered in its substance ; that though softened down 
 into a somewhat milder complexion, its fiercer ele- 
 ments are not therefore extinguished, but only lie 
 for a time in a sort of slumbering concealment; 
 that though law and civilization, and a more en- 
 lightened sense of interest, may have stopped the 
 mouth of many a desolating volcano, which would 
 else have marred and wasted the face of society, 
 yet do the fiery materials still exist in the bosom of 
 society. It is religion alone which will kill the 
 elementary principles of human wickedness, and 
 every expedient short of religion will do no more 
 than restrain the ebullition of them. So that, dark 
 as the scriptural representation of our nature is ; and 
 though here personified by the Apostle into a mon- 
 ster, whose delight is in the most foul and revolting 
 
11 
 
 abominations; with a throat like an open sepulchre, 
 emitting contempt, and hatred, and envy, and every 
 thing offensive ; and a tongue practised in the arts of 
 deceitfulness ; and lips from which the gall of ma- 
 lignity ever drops in unceasing distillation ; and a 
 mouth full of venomous asperity; and feet that run 
 to assassination as a game ; and with the pathway on 
 which she runs marked by the ruin and distress that 
 attend upon her progress ; and with a disdainful 
 aversion in her heart to the safety and inglorious- 
 ness of peace ; and, finally, with an aspect of defi- 
 ance to the God that called her into being, and 
 gave all her parts and all her energies — though this 
 sketch of our nature was originally taken by the 
 Psalmist from the prowling banditti that hovered 
 on the confines of Judea, yet has the Apostle, by ad- 
 mitting it into his argument, stamped a perpetuity 
 upon it, and made it universal, — giving us to un- 
 derstand, that if such was the character of man, as it 
 stood nakedly out among the rude and resentful 
 hostilities of a barbarous people, such also is the 
 real character of man among the glosses, and the 
 regularities, and the monotonous decencies of mo- 
 dern society. 
 
 There is one short illustration which may help 
 you to comprehend this. You know that oaths 
 were more frequent at one time than they are now 
 in the conversation of the higher classes, and that 
 at present it is altogether a point of politeness to 
 abstain from the utterance of them. It is a point of 
 politeness, we fear, more than a point of piety. 
 There may be less of profaneness in their mouths, 
 while there may be as much as ever in their hearts ; 
 and when the question is between God and man, and 
 
12 
 
 with a view to rate the godliness of the latter, do 
 you think that this is at all alleviated by a mere 
 revolution of taste about the proprieties of fashiona- 
 ble intercourse ? There may be as little of religion 
 in the discontinuance of swearing, when that is 
 brought about by a mere fluctuation in the mode 
 or hon ton of society, as there is of religion in the 
 adoption of a new dress, or a new style of enter- 
 tainment. And, in like manner, murder in the 
 act may be less frequent now, while, if he who 
 hateth his brotlier be a murderer, it may be fully 
 as foul and frequent in the principle ; and theft, in 
 the shape of violent and open depredation, be iio 
 longer practised by him who gives vent to an equal 
 degree of dishonesty through the chicaneries of 
 merchandize ; and that malice which wont in other 
 times to pour itself forth in resentful outcry, or 
 vulgar execration, may now find its sweet and se- 
 cret gratification in the conquests of a refined po- 
 licy ; and thus may there lurk under the soft and 
 placid disguises of well-bred citizenship, just as 
 much of unfeeling deceit, and unfeeling cruelty, as 
 were ever realized in the fiercer contests of sava'ge 
 warfare, so as to verify the estimate of our apostle, 
 even when applied to the character of society in 
 modern days, and to make it as evident with the 
 duties of the second table as it is with the first, that 
 in every thing man has wandered far from the patli 
 of rectitude, and in every thing has fallen short of 
 the glory of God* 
 
 The truth is, there is much in the whole guise of 
 modern society that is fitted to hide from human 
 eyes the real deformity of the human character. We 
 think that, apart from Christianity, the falsehood 
 
13 
 
 and the ferocity of* our species are essentially the 
 same with what they were in the most luisettled 
 periods of its history — that, however moukled into 
 a different form, they retain all the strength and 
 substance that they ever had — and that, if certain 
 restraints were lifted away, certain regulations which 
 liave their hold not upon the principle, but upon 
 the selfishness of our nature; then would the latent 
 ])ropcnsities of man again break forth into open ex- 
 hibition, and betray him to be the same guileful, 
 and rapacious, and vindictive creature he has ever 
 shown himself to be, in those places of the earth 
 where government had not yet introduced its re- 
 straints, and civilization had not yet introduced its 
 disguises. 
 
 And even when society has sat down into the 
 form of a peaceful and well-ordered commonwealth, 
 will it be seen that the evil of the human heart, 
 though it come not forth so broadly and so outrage- 
 ously as before, is just as active in its workings, and 
 just as unsubdued in its principle as ever. We ap- 
 prehend that man to be mainly ignorant of life, and 
 to be unpractised or untaught among the collisions 
 of human intercourse, who is not aware that even 
 among our politest circles, smoothed as they may 
 be into perfect decorum, and graced by the smile of 
 soft and sentimental courtesy, there may lurk all 
 the asperities and heart-burnings so honestly set 
 forth by our Apostle ; and that even there the artiul 
 malignity of human passion finds, in slanderous in- 
 sinuations, and the devices of a keen and dexterous 
 rivalry, its effectual vent for them. And little 
 has he experienced of the trick and treachery of 
 business, who thiidis that, in the scramble of its ea* 
 
14 
 
 ger competitions, less deceit is now used with the 
 tongue, than in the days when the Psalmist was 
 compassed round with the snares of his adversaries. 
 And slightly has he reflected on the true character, 
 that often beams out from beneath the specious fal- 
 lacy which lies over it, who does not perceive that 
 there may, even with law, be as determined a spirit 
 of injustice, among the frauds and the forms of bank- 
 ruptcy, as that which in the olden time, and without 
 law, carried violence and rapine into a neighbour's 
 habitation. And there is a lack of insight with him 
 who thinks, that in civilized war, with all its gallant 
 courtesies, and all its manifestos of humane and 
 righteous protestation, there may not be the same 
 kindling for the fray, and the same appetite for blood, 
 that gives its fell and revengeful sweep to the toma- 
 hawk of Indians. There is another dress and another 
 exterior upon society than before ; but be assured, 
 that in so far as it respects the essentials of human 
 characters, the representation of the Apostle is still 
 the true one. Whatever were the deceitful, or 
 whatever were the murderous propensities of man, 
 three thousand years ago, they have descended to our 
 present generation ; and we are not sure but that, 
 through the regulation vents of war, and of bank- 
 ruptcy, there is as full scope for their indulgence as 
 ever. There may be a change in the mode of these 
 iniquities, without any change at all in the matter 
 of them ; and after all that police, and refinement, 
 and the kindly operation of long pacific intercourse, 
 have done to humanize the aspect of these latter days, 
 we are far from sure whether upon the displacement 
 of certain guards and barriers of security, the slum- 
 bering ferocities of man might not again announce 
 
1^ 
 
 o 
 
 their existence, and break out, as before, into open 
 and declared violence. 
 
 All this, while it gives a most humiliating esti- 
 mate of our species, should serve to enhance to our 
 minds the blessings of regular Government. And 
 it were curious to question the agents of police upon 
 this subject, the men who are stationed at the place 
 of combat and of guardianship, with those who 
 have cast oft* the fear of God, and cast oft* also the 
 fear of man to such a degree, as to be ever ventur- 
 ing across the margin of human legahty. Let the 
 most observant of all these public functionaries 
 simply depone to the eftect it would have, even 
 upon our mild and modern society, were this guar- 
 dianship dissolved. Would it not be evident to 
 him, and is it not equally evident to you all, that 
 the artificial gloss which now overspreads the face 
 of it would speedily be dissipated ; and that, under- 
 neath, would the character of man be sure to stand 
 out in far nearer resemblance to that sketch, how- 
 ever repulsive, which the inspired writer has here 
 offered of our species ? Were anarchy the order of 
 our day, and the lawless propensities of man per- 
 mitted to stalk abroad in this the season of their 
 wild emancipation ; were all the restraints of order 
 driven in, and human strength and human fierce- 
 ness were to ride in triumph over the prostrate au- 
 thorities of the land ; were the reigning will of our 
 country, at this moment, the will of a spontaneous 
 multitude, doing every man of them, in rude and 
 random ebullitions, what was right in his own eyes; 
 with just such a fear of our heavenly superior as 
 now exists in the world, but with all fear and reve- 
 rence for earthly superiors taken away from it ; let 
 
16 
 
 us just ask you to conceive the effect of such a state 
 of things, and then to compute how little there is 
 of moral, and how much there is of mere animal re- 
 straint in the apparent virtues of human society. 
 There is a twofold benefit in such a contemplation. 
 It will enhance to every Christian mind the cause 
 of loyalty, and lead him to regard the power that 
 is, as the minister of God to him for good. And it 
 will also guide him through many delusions to ap- 
 preciate justly the character of man; to distinguish 
 aright between the semblance of principle and its 
 reality ; and to gather, from the surveys of experi- 
 ence, a fresh evidence for the truth of those Scrip- 
 tures, which speak so truly of human sinfulness, 
 and point out so clearly the way of human salva- 
 tion. 
 
 But it is not necessary, for the purpose of identi- 
 fying the character of man, as it now is, with what 
 the character of man was, in its worst features, in 
 the days of the Royal Psalmist, to make out by 
 evidence a positive thirst after blood on the part of 
 any existing class in society. We are not sure 
 that it was any native or abstract delight in cru- 
 elty which prompted the marauders of other days 
 to deeds of violence. Place a man in circumstances 
 of ease and of self-complacency, and he will revolt 
 from the infliction of unnecessary pain, just as the 
 gorged and satiated animal of prey will suffer the 
 traveller to pass without molestation. It forms no 
 part of our indictment against the species, that his 
 appetite for blood urges him onwards to barbarity, 
 but that his appetite for other things will urge him 
 on to it ; and that if, while he had these things, he 
 would rather abstain from the death of his fellow-. 
 
IT 
 
 men, yet, rather than want these things, he would 
 inflict it. It is not that his love of cruelty is the 
 originating appetite which carries him forward 
 to deeds of cruelty, but that his abhorrence of 
 cruelty is not enough to arrest the force of other 
 appetites, when tliey find that human life lies in 
 the way of their gratification. Tiie feet of the bor- 
 derers of Judea made haste to shed blood ; but, just 
 because, like the borderers of our own land, their 
 love of booty could only be indulged with human 
 resistance among human habitations. And were 
 these days of public licentiousness again to return — 
 were the functions of government suspended, and 
 the only guarantee of peace and of property were 
 the native rectitude of the species — did the power of 
 anarchy achieve its own darling object of a jubilee 
 all over the country for human wilfulness, and in 
 this w^ay were not the past inclinations revived, 
 but just the present inclinations of man let loose 
 upon society — a single month would not elapse, ere 
 scenes of as dread atrocity were witnessed, as those 
 which the Psalmist has recorded, and those which 
 the Apostle has transmitted, as the exemplars, not 
 of practical, but of general humanity. I'he latent 
 iniquities of the human heart would rea])pear just 
 as soon as the compression of human authority was 
 lifted away from them ; and these streets be made to 
 flow with the blood of the most distinguished of our 
 citizens ; and the violence at first directed against the 
 summit of society, would speedily cause the whole 
 frame of it to totter into dissolution ; and in this our 
 moral and enlightened day it would be found, that 
 there was enough of crime in the country to spread 
 terror over all its provinces, and to hold its prostrate 
 
 G 
 
18 
 
 families in bondage ; and witli such a dreary inter- 
 regnum of tumult, and uproar, and vagrancy, as this, 
 would there be a page of ]5ritish history as deeply 
 crimsoned over, as are the darkest annals of the bar- 
 barity of our species — all proving how indispensable 
 the ordinance of human government is to the well- 
 being of society ; but also proving, that if it be the 
 will, and the inward tendency, and the unfettered 
 principle, which constitute the real elements of the 
 character of man, this character has only been co- 
 loured into another hue, without being transformed 
 into another essence, by an ordinance which can 
 only keep its elements in check, but never can ex- 
 tinguish them. 
 
 And on applying the spiritual touchstone of the 
 gospel, may we perhaps fasten a similar charge on 
 many in society, who never suspected it possible 
 that they had any part in the Apostle's dark repre- 
 sentation of our foul and fallen nature. Even in 
 the wildest scenes of anarchy, it may not be the love 
 of cruelty, but the love of power or of plunder, which 
 leads men to the most revolting abominations of 
 cruelty. It is not so much a ravenous desire after 
 human blood, as a regardlessness about it, which 
 stamps a savage barbarity on the characters of men. 
 It is their regard for the objects of avarice and am- 
 bition, coupled with their regardlessness about the 
 quantity of human life, that lies in the way of them ; 
 which is enough to account ibr deeds of atrocity as 
 monstrous as ever were committed, either by bloody 
 tvrants, or ferocious multitudes. Now, may not 
 this regard on the one hand, and this regardlessness 
 on the other, be fully exemplified by him who looks 
 with delight on the splendid reversion that awaits 
 
1J> 
 
 him, and cares not how soon the death of liis aged 
 relative may bring it to his door ? And may it not be 
 exempHfied by him who, all in a tumult with military 
 glee, and the visions ofmilitary glory, longs for some 
 arena crowded with the iellows of his own sentient 
 nature, on which he might bring the fell implements 
 of destruction to bear, and so signalize himself in 
 the proud lists of chivalry or patriotism ? And 
 most striking of all, perhaps, may it not be exem- 
 plified, by the most gentle and pacific of our citi- 
 zens, who, engrossed with the single appetite of 
 fear, and under the movements of no other regard 
 than a regard to his own security, might listen with 
 secret satisfaction to the tale of the many hundreds 
 of the rebellious who had fallen — and how the 
 sweep of fatal artillery, or the charge of victorious 
 squadrons, told with deadly execution on the flying 
 multitude? We are not comparing the merits of 
 the cause of order, which arc all triumphant, with 
 those of anarchy ; tlie inscribed ensigns of which 
 are as hateful to every Christian eye, as ever to the 
 Jews of old was the abomination of desolation spoken 
 of by -Daniel the prophet. We are merely expound- 
 ing the generalities of a nature, trenched upon every 
 side of it in dcceitfulness ; and where, under the 
 gloss of many plausibilities, there lurk, unsuspected 
 and unknown, all the rudiments of depravity ; and 
 through the intricacies of which, he who saw with 
 the eye of inspiration could detect a permanent and 
 universal taint, both of selfishness and of practical 
 atheism. The picture that he has drawn will bear 
 to be confronted with the humanity of modern, as 
 well as of ancient days; and, though taken olTat 
 first from the ruder specimens of our kind, yet, oh a 
 
20 
 
 narrow inspection, will it be found to be substanti- 
 ated among the delicate phases of our more elegant 
 and artificial society ; so as that every mouth should 
 be stopped, and the whole world be brought in guilty 
 before God. 
 
 In looking to the present aspect of society, it is 
 not easy so to manage our argument as to reach 
 conviction among all, that all are guilty before God ; 
 and that, unknowing of it themselves, there may 
 be the lurking principles of what is dire in human 
 atrocity, even under the blandest exhibitions of our 
 familiar and every-day acquaintanceship. But, as 
 there are degrees of guilt, and as these are more or 
 less evident to human eyes, it would, perhaps, de- 
 cide the identity of our present generation, with 
 those of a rude and savage antiquity, could w^e run 
 along the scale of actual wickedness that is be- 
 fore us, and fasten upon an exemplification of it so 
 plainly and obviously detestable as to vie with all 
 that is recorded of the villany of our species in for- 
 mer ages of the world. And such a one has occur- 
 red so recently, that there is not one here present 
 who, upon the slightest allusion, will not instantly 
 recognize it. We speak not of those who have openly 
 spoken, and that beyond the margin of legahty, a- 
 gainst the government of our land. We speak not 
 of those who have clamoured so loudly, and lifted 
 so open a front of hostility to the laws, as to have 
 brought down upon them the hand of pubhc ven- 
 geance. We speak not even of those who, steeled 
 to the purposes of blood, went forth to kill and to 
 destroy, and, found with the implements of violence 
 in their hands, are now awaiting the sentence of an 
 earthly tribunal on the enormity into which they 
 
21 
 
 have fallen. But we speak to our men of deeper 
 contrivance ; to those wary and unseen counsellors 
 who have so coolly conducted others to the brunt 
 of a full exposure, and then retired so cautiously 
 within the shelter of their own cowardice; those 
 men of print, and of plot, and of privacy, in whose 
 hands the other agents of rebellion were nothing 
 better than slaves and simpletons ; those men of 
 skill enough for themselves, to go thus far, and no 
 farther, and of cruelty enough for others, as to care 
 not Iiow many they impelled across the verge of 
 desperation ; those men who have made their own 
 harvest of the passions of the multitude, and now 
 skulk in their hiding places, till the storm of ven- 
 geance that is to sweep the victims of their treach- 
 ery from the land of the living shall have finally 
 blown away ; those men who spoke a patriotism 
 which they never felt, and shed their serpent tears 
 over sufferiui^s which never drew from their bosoms 
 one sigh of honest tenderness. Tell us, if, out of the 
 men who thus have trafficked in delusion, and, in 
 pursuance of their unfeeling experiment, have en- 
 tailed want and widowhood upon families, there 
 may not as dark a picture of humanity be drawn 
 as the Psalmist drew out of the rude materials that 
 were around him : And, after all that civilization 
 has done for our species, and all that smoothness of 
 external aspect into which government has moulded 
 the form of society ; is it not evident, that upon the 
 slightest relaxation of its authoritv, and the faintest 
 prospect of its dissolution and overthrow, there is 
 lying in reserve as much of untamed and ruthless 
 ferocity in our land, as, if permitted to come forth, 
 would lift an arm of bloodv violence, and scatter 
 
99 
 
 all the cruelties of the reign of terror among Its 
 habitations ? 
 
 These are rather lengthened illustrations in which 
 we have indulged ; but who can resist the temp- 
 tation that offers itself, when an opening is given 
 for exhibiting the accordancy that obtains between 
 the truths of observation, and the averments of 
 scripture ; when facts are before us, and such a use 
 of them can be made, as that of turning them into 
 materials by which to strengthen the foundations of 
 orthodoxy ; and when, out of scenes which rise with 
 all the freshness of recency before us, it can be shown 
 how the sturdy apostolic doctrine will bear to be 
 confronted with every new display, and every new 
 developement of human experience ? And, ere we 
 have done, we should like to urge three lessons upon 
 you, from all that has been said ; the first with a 
 view to set your theology upon its right basis ; and 
 the second with a view to set your loyalty upon its 
 right basis ; and the third with a view to impress a 
 right practical movement on those who hold a na- 
 tural or political ascendancy in our land. 
 
 I. First, then, as to the theology of this question. 
 We trust you perceive how much it is, and how 
 little it is, that can be gathered from the comparative 
 peace and gentleness of modern society ; how much 
 the protection of families is due to the physical re- 
 straints that are laid on by this world's government, 
 and how little is due to the moral restraints that 
 are laid on by the unseen government of Heaven ; 
 how little the existing safety of our commonwealth, 
 both from crime and turbulence, is owing to the 
 force of any considerations which are addressed to 
 
23 
 
 the principle of man, and how much of it is owing 
 to the force of such considerations as are addressed 
 to man's fears and man's selfishness ; — all proving, 
 that if human nature, in this our age, do not break 
 forth so frequently and so outrageously into vio- 
 lence as in other ages that have gone by, it is only 
 because it is shackled, and not because it is tamed. 
 It is more like the tractableness of an animal led a- 
 bout by a chain, tiian of an animal inwardly softened 
 into a docility and a mildness which did not for- 
 merly belong to it It is due, without doubt, to 
 the influence of a very strong and very salutary 
 counteraction ; but it is a counteraction that has 
 been formed out of the interest of man, and not out 
 of the fear of God. It is due, not to the working 
 of that celestial machinery which bears on the spir- 
 itual part of our constitution, but to the working of 
 another machinery most useful for the temporary 
 purpose which it serves, yet only bearing on the 
 material and worldly part of our constitution. On 
 this point, observation and orthodoxy are at one; 
 and one of the most convincing illustrations which 
 the Apostle can derive to his own doctrine, may be 
 taken from the testimony of those who, in the shape 
 of legal functionaries, are ranged along that line of 
 defence, over which humanity, with its numerous 
 outbreakings of fraud, and rapacity, and violence, is 
 ever passing. Let them simply aver, on their own 
 experimental feeling, what the result would be, if 
 all the earthly safeguards of law and of government 
 were driven away from the rampart at which they 
 are stationed; and they are just preaching ortho- 
 doxy to our ears, and lending us their authority to 
 one of its articles, when they tell us, that upon such an 
 
24 
 
 event the whole system of social life would go into 
 unhingement, and that, in the wild uproar of human 
 passions which would follow, kindness, and confi- 
 dence, and equity, would take their rapid flight 
 from human habitations. 
 
 II. But, secondly, the very same train of argu- 
 ment which goes to enlighten the theology of this 
 subject, serves also to deepen and to establish within 
 us all the principles of a most devoted loyalty. That 
 view of the human character, upon which it is con- 
 tended, by the divine, that unless it is regenerated 
 there can be no meetness for heaven, is the very 
 same with that view of the human character upon 
 which it is contended, by the politician, that unless 
 it is restrained there will be no safety from crime 
 and violence along the course of the pilgrimage 
 which leads to it. An enlightened Christian recog- 
 nizes the hand of God in all the shelter that is 
 thrown over him from the fury of the natural ele- 
 ments ; and he equally recognizes it in all the shel- 
 ter that is thrown over him from the fury of the 
 moral elements by which he is surrounded. Had 
 he a more favourable view of our nature, he might 
 not look on government as so indispensable ; but, 
 with the view that he actually has, he cannot miss 
 tlie conclusion of its being the ordinance of Heaven 
 for the church's good upon earth ; and that thus a 
 canopy of defence is drawn over the heads of Zion's 
 travellers ; and they rejoice in the authority of hu- 
 man laws as an instrument in the hand of God for 
 the peace of their Sabbaths, and the peace of their 
 sacraments ; and they deprecate the anarchy that 
 would ensue from the suspension of them, with as 
 
2 
 
 f: 
 
 much honest principle, as they would deprecate the 
 earthquake that might engulph, or the hurricane 
 that might sweep away their habitations ; and, a- 
 ware of what humanity is, when left to itself, they 
 accept, as a boon from heaven, the mechanism which 
 checks the effervescence of all those fires that would 
 else go forth to burn up and to destroy. 
 
 This, at all times the feeling of every enlightened 
 Christian, must have been eminently and peculiarly 
 so at that time when our recent alarms were at the 
 greatest height. It was the time of our sacrament ; 
 and, to all who love its services, must it have been 
 matter of grateful rejoicing, that, by the favour of 
 Him who sways the elements of Nature, and the as 
 uncontrolable elements of human society, we were 
 permitted to finish these services in peace ; that, in 
 that feast of love and good-will, we were not rudely 
 assailed by the din of warlike preparation ; that, ere 
 sabbath came, the tempest of alarm, which had 
 sounded so fearfully along the streets of our city, 
 was hushed into the quietness of sabbath ; so that, 
 like as if in the midst of sweetest landscape, and 
 amongst a congregation gathered out of still and 
 solitary hamlets, and with nothing to break in upon 
 the deep repose and tranquillity of the scene, save 
 the voice of united praise, from an assembly of de- 
 vout and revering worshippers, were we, under the 
 protection of an arm stronger than any arm of flesh, 
 and at the bidding of a voice more powerful than 
 that of mighty conquerors, suffered to enjoy the 
 pure and peaceful ordinances of our faith, with all 
 the threats and all the outcries of human violence 
 kept far away from us. 
 
 It was the apprehension of many, that it might 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 have been otherwise. And, what ought to be their 
 enduring gratitude, when, instead of the wrath of 
 man let loose upon our families ; and a devoted city 
 given up to the frenzy and the fierceness of a mis- 
 guided population ; and the maddening outcry of 
 combatants plying against each other their instru- 
 ments of destruction ; and the speed of flying mul- 
 titudes, when the noise of the footmen and the 
 noise of the horsemen gave dreadful intimation of 
 the coming slaughter ; and the bursting conflagra- 
 tion, in various quarters, marking out where the 
 fell emissaries of ruin were at work ; and the shock, 
 and the volley, and the agonies of dying men, tell- 
 ing the trembling inmates of every household, that 
 the work of desperation had now begun upon the 
 streets, and might speedily force its way into all the 
 dwelling-places : — this is what that God, who has 
 the elements of the moral world at command, might 
 have visited on a town which has witnessed so many 
 a guilty sabbath, and harbours within its limits the 
 ungodliness of so many profane and alienated fami- 
 lies — In what preciousness, then, ought that sab- 
 bath to be held ; and what a boon from the kind- 
 ness of long-suffering Heaven should we regard its 
 quietness ; when, instead of such deeds of vengeance 
 between townsmen and their fellows, they walked 
 together in peaceful society to the house of prayer, 
 and sat in peacefulness together at its best loved 
 ordinance. 
 
 The men who prize the value of this protection 
 the most, are the men who feel most the need of 
 human government, and who most revere it as an 
 ordinance of God. Such is their opinion of the 
 heart, that they believe, unless it be renewed by 
 
2T 
 
 divine grace, there can be no translation into a bles- 
 sed eternity ; and such is their opinion of the heart, 
 that they believe, unless its native inclinations be 
 repressed by human government, there can be no 
 calm or protected passage along the track of con- 
 veyance in this world. Their loyalty emerges from 
 their orthodoxy. With them it has all the tenacity 
 of principle ; and is far too deeply seated to be laid 
 prostrate among the fierce and guilty agitations of 
 the tumultuous. They have no part in the rancour 
 of the disaffected; and they have no part in the am- 
 bitiousness of the dark and daring revolutionist ; and 
 seeking, as they do, to lead a quiet and a peaceable 
 life, in all godliness and honesty, a season of turbu- 
 lence is to them a season of trial, and would be a 
 season of difficulty, had they not the politics of the 
 Bible to guide their way among the threats and tlie 
 terrors of surrounding desperadoes. " Honour the 
 king, and meddle not with those who are given to 
 change," are the indelible duties of a record tbat is 
 indelible ; and they stamp a sacredness upon Chris- 
 tian loyalty. They are not at liberty to cancel what 
 God has enacted, and to expunge what God has 
 written. They are loyal because they are rehgious ; 
 to suffer in such a cause is persecution, to die in it 
 is martyrdom. 
 
 There is a mischievous delusion on this subject. In 
 the minds of many, and these too men of the first in- 
 fluence and station in the country, there is a haunting 
 association which still continues to mislead them, 
 even in the face of all evidence, and of all honest 
 and credible protestation ; and in virtue of whicli 
 they, to this very hour, conceive that such a religion 
 as thvy call methodism, is the invariable companion 
 
28 
 
 of a plotting, artful, atld restless democracy. This is 
 truly unfortunate ; for the thing called methodism 
 is neither more nor less than Christianity in earnest; 
 and yet they who so call it, have it most honestly at 
 heart to promote the great object of a peaceful, and 
 virtuous, and well-conditioned society; and not 
 therefore their disposition, which is right, but their 
 apprehension upon this topic, which is egregiously 
 wrong, has just had the effect of bending the whole 
 line of their patronage and policy the wrong way. 
 And thus are they unceasingly employed in at- 
 tempting to kill, as a noxious plant, the only element 
 which can make head against the tide of irreligion 
 and blasphemy in our land ; conceiving, but most 
 wofully wide of the truth in so conceiving, that there 
 is a certain approving sympathy between the sanc- 
 tity of the evangelical system, and the sedition that 
 so lately has derided and profaned it. The doctri- 
 nal Christianity of this very epistle would be called 
 methodistical by those to whom we are now allud- 
 ing; but sure we are, that the disciple who goes 
 along with Paul, while he travels in argument 
 through the deeper mysteries of Faith, will not a- 
 bandon him when, in the latter chapters of his work, 
 he breaks forth into that efflorescence of beautiful 
 and perfect morality with which he winds up the 
 whole of his wondrous demonstration ; but will 
 observe the bidden conduct as a genuine emanation 
 of the expounded creed — when told, that every soul 
 should be subject unto the higher powers, and that 
 there is no power but of God, and that the powers 
 which be are ordained of God. And whosoever, 
 therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance 
 of Gk)d ; and they that resist shall receive to them- 
 
29 
 
 selves damnation. Wherefore, ye must needs be 
 subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' 
 sake. 
 
 III. We venture to affirm, that it is just the 
 want of this Christianity in earnest which has 
 brought our nation to the brink of an emergency 
 so fearfid as that upon Avhich we are standing. 
 When Solomon says, that it is righteousness whicli 
 exalteth a nation, he means something of a deeper 
 and more sacred character than the mere righteous- 
 ness of society. This last may be learned in the 
 school of classical or of civil virtue ; and an argu- 
 ment may be gathered in its behalf even from the 
 views of an enlightened selfishness ; and, all lovely 
 as it is in exhibition, may it draw from the tasteful 
 admirers of what is fine in character even something 
 more than a mere nominal acknowledgment. It 
 may carry a certain extent of practical conformity 
 over the real and living habits of those who, faultless 
 in honour, and uprightness, and loyalty, are never- 
 theless devoid of the religious principle altogether ; 
 and who, so far from being tainted with methodism, 
 in the sense of that definition which we have already 
 given of it, would both repudiate its advances upon 
 their own family, and regret any visible inroads it 
 might make on our general population. 
 
 That Solomon does mean something more tlian 
 the virtues to which we are now alluding, is evident 
 we think from this circumstance. The term ri(»ht- 
 eousness, admits of a social and relative application, 
 and in this application, may it introduce a conception 
 into the mind that is exclusive of God. But the same 
 cannot be said of the term sin. This generally sug- 
 
30 
 
 gests the idea of God as the Being sinned against. 
 The one term does not so essentially express the idea 
 of conformity to the divine law, as the other tei-m 
 expresses the idea of transgression against it. It 
 does not carry up the mind so immediately to God; 
 because, with the utter absence of him from our 
 thoughts, may it still retain a substance and a sig- 
 nificancy, as expressive of what is held to be right 
 in a community of human beings. It is well, then, 
 that the clause, " Righteousness exalteth a nation,'* 
 is followed up by the clause, " But sin is a reproach 
 to any people ;" and that thus the latter term, which 
 is equivalent to ungodliness, by the contrast in which 
 it stands with the former term, leads us to the true 
 import of the first of these two clauses, and gives us 
 to understand Solomon as saying, that it is godli- 
 ness that exalteth a nation. 
 
 Cut away the substratum of godliness, and how, 
 we ask, will the secondary and the earth-born right- 
 eousness be found to thrive on the remaining soil 
 which nature supplies for rearing it. It is an error 
 to think that it will make a total withdrawment of 
 itself from the world. It will still be found, in strag- 
 gling specimens, among some sheltered and conge- 
 nial spots even of this world's territory — at times 
 among the haunts of lettered enthusiasm ; and at 
 times on the elevated stage of a rank which stands 
 forth to public notice, or of an opulence which is 
 raised above the attacks of care and of temptation ; 
 and, at times, on the rarely-occurring mould of a 
 native equity, when, in middle and comfortable life, 
 the rude urgencies of want and of vulgar ambition 
 do not overbear it. Even there it will grow but 
 sparingly, without the influences of the gospel; as 
 
3! 
 
 it did in those ages, and as it still does in those 
 countries where the gospel is unknown. But, if 
 you step down from those moral eminences, or if 
 you come out from those few sweet and kindred 
 retirements, where the moral verdure has stood, 
 unblighted, even in the absence of Christianity, and 
 thence go forth among the ample spaces, and the 
 wide, and open, and general exposures of society ; 
 if, on the arena of common life, you enter the teem- 
 ing families of the poor, and hold converse with the 
 mighty host who scarcely know an interval be- 
 tween waking hours of drudgery and hours of 
 sleeping unconsciousness; if, passing away from the 
 abodes of refinement, you mingle with the many 
 w^hose feelings and whose faculties are alike buffet- 
 ed in the din and the dizzying of incessant labour. 
 We mean to affix no stigma on the humbler brethren 
 of our nature; but we may at least be suffered to 
 say, that among the richest of fortune and accom- 
 plishment in our land, we know not the individual 
 whose virtues, if transplanted into the unkindHer 
 region of poverty, would have withstood the ope- 
 ration of all the adverse elements to whicli it is ex- 
 posed, — unless upheld by that very godliness which 
 he perhaps disowns, that very methodism on which 
 perhaps he pours the cruelty of his derision. 
 
 And here it may be remarked, how much the 
 taste of many among the higher orders of society, is 
 at war with the best security that can be devised for 
 the peace and the Avell-being of society. There are 
 many among them who admire the blossoms of vir- 
 tue, while they dislike that only culture which can 
 spread this lovely efflorescence over the whole field 
 of humanity. They advert not to this — that the vir- 
 
32 
 
 tue which is cradled in the lap of abundance, and is 
 blown into luxuriance among the complacencies of 
 a heart at ease, would soon evince its frailty were 
 it carried out among the exposures of an every-day 
 world ; that there it would droop and perish under 
 the uncongenial influences which, apart from religion, 
 would positively wither up all the honesties and deli- 
 cacies of humble life ; and therefore, that if they nau- 
 seate that gospel, which ever meets with its best ac- 
 ceptance, and works its most signal effects upon the 
 poor, they abandon the poor to that very depravity 
 into which they themselves, had they been placed a- 
 mong the same temptations and besetting urgencies, 
 would assuredly have fallen. The force of native inte- 
 grity may do still what it did in the days of Pagan 
 antiquity, when it reared its occasional specimens of 
 worth and patriotism ; but it is the power of godli- 
 ness, and that alone, which will reclaim our popu- 
 lation in the length and breadth of it, and shed a 
 moral bloom, and a moral fragrance, over the wide 
 expanse of society. But with many, and these too 
 the holders of a great and ascendant influence in 
 our land, godliness is puritanism, and orthodoxy is 
 repulsive moroseness, and the pure doctrine of the 
 Apostles is fanatical and disgusting vulgarity ; and 
 thus is it a possible thing, that in their hands the 
 alone aliment of public virtue may be withheld, or 
 turned into poison. Little are they aware of the 
 fearful reaction which may await their natural en- 
 mity to the truth as it is in Jesus ; and grievously 
 have they been misled from the sound path, even 
 of political wisdom, in the suspicion and intolerance 
 wherewith they have regarded the dispensers of the 
 word of life among the multitude. The patent way 
 
33 
 
 to disarm Nature of her ferocities, is to Christianize 
 her; and we should look on all our alarms with 
 thankfulness, as so many salutary indications, did 
 they lead either to multiply the religious edifices, or 
 to guide the religious patronage of our land. 
 
 But, again, it is not merely the taste of the high- 
 er orders w^hich may be at war with the best inter- 
 ests of our country. It is also their example ; not 
 their example of dishonesty, not their example of 
 disloyalty, not their example of fierce and tumultu- 
 ous violence, but an example of that which, how- 
 ever unaccompanied with any one of these crimes in 
 their own person, multiplies them all upon the per- 
 son of the imitators — we mean the example of their 
 irreligion. A bare example of integrity on the part 
 of a rich man, w^ho is freed from all temptations to 
 the opposite, is not an effective example with a poor 
 man, who is urgently beset at all hands with these 
 temptations. It is thus that the most pure and 
 honourable example which can shine upon the poor 
 from the upper walks of society, of what we have 
 called the secondary and the earth-born righteous- 
 ness, will never counterwork the mischief which 
 emanates from the example that is there held forth 
 of ungodliness. It is the poor man's sabbath which 
 is the source of his week-day virtues. The rich 
 may have other sources ; but take away the sab- 
 bath from the poor, and you inflict a general dese- 
 cration of character upon them. Taste, and Honour, 
 and a native love of Truth, may be sufficient guaran- 
 tees for the performance of duties to the breaking 
 of which there is no temptation. But they are not 
 enough for the wear and exposure of ordinary life. 
 They make a feeble defence against such tempta- 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 tions as assail and agitate the men who, on the rack 
 of their energies, are struggling for subsistence. 
 With them the relative obligations hold more singly 
 upon the religious ; and if the tie of religion, there- 
 fore, be cut asunder, the whole of their morality 
 will forthwith go into unhingement. Whatever 
 virtue there is on the humbler levels of society, it 
 holds direct of the sabbath and of the sanctuary ; 
 and when these cease to be venerable, the poor cease 
 to be virtuous. You take away all their worth, 
 when you take away the fear of God from before 
 their eyes ; and why then should we wonder at the 
 result of a very general depravation among them, if 
 before their eyes there should be held forth, on the 
 part of their earthly superiors, an utter fearlessness 
 of God ? The humbler, it ought not to be expect- 
 ed, will follow the higher classes on the ground 
 of social virtue ; for they have other and severer 
 difficulties to combat, and other temptations, over 
 which the victory would be greatly more arduous. 
 But the humbler will follow the higher on the 
 ground of irreligion. Only they will do it in their 
 own style, and, perhaps, with the more daring and 
 lawless spirit of those who riot in the excesses of 
 a newly felt liberty. Should the merchant, to 
 lighten the pressure of work in his counting-house, 
 make over the arrears of his week-day correspon- 
 dence to the snug and secret opportunity of the 
 coming sabbath ; — the hard wrought labourer just 
 follows up this example in his own way, when, not 
 to lighten, but to solace the fatigue of the six 
 days that are past, he spends the seventh in some 
 haunt of low dissipation. Should the man of 
 capital, make his regular escape from the dull Sun- 
 
35 
 
 day, and the still duller sermon, by a rural excur- 
 sion, with his party of choice spirits, to the villa of 
 weekly retreat, Avhich by his wealth he has pur- 
 chased and adorned — let it not be wondered at, that 
 the man of drudgery is so often seen, with his band 
 of associates, among the suburb fields and pathways 
 of our city ; or that the day whicli God hath com 
 manded to be set apart for liimself, should be set 
 apart by so vast a multitude, who pour forth upon 
 our outskirts, to the riot and extravagance of holi- 
 day. Should it be held indispensible for the accom 
 modation of our higlier citizens, that the great cen 
 tral lounge of politics, and periodicals, and news, be 
 opened on Sabbath to receive them ; then, though 
 the door of public entry is closed, and with the help 
 of screens, and hangings, and partial shutters, some- 
 thing like an homage is rendered to public decency, 
 and the private approach is cunningly provided, and 
 all the symptoms of sneaking and conscious impro- 
 priety, are spread over the face of this guilty indul- 
 gence — let us not wonder, though the strength of 
 example has forced its way through the im potency 
 of all these wretched barriers, and that the readinsr- 
 rooms of sedition and infidelity are now open every 
 sabbath, for the behoof of our general population. 
 Should the high-bred city gentleman hold it foul 
 scorn to have the raillery of the pulpit thus let 
 loose upon his habits, or that any parson who fills 
 it should so presume to tread upon his privileges 
 — ^let us no lonorer wonder, if this verv lannruaore, 
 and uttered, too, in this very spirit, be reechoed 
 by the sour and sturdy Radical, who, equal to his 
 superior in the principle of ungodliness, only out- 
 peers him in his expressions of contempt for the 
 
36 
 
 priesthood, and of impetuous defiance to all that 
 wears the stamp of authority in the land. It 
 is thus that the impiety of our upper classes now 
 glares upon us from the people, with a still darker 
 reflection of impiety back again ; and that, in the 
 general mind of our country, there is a suppressed 
 but brooding storm, the first elements of which were 
 injected by the men who now tremble the most 
 under the dread of its coming violence. 
 
 It is the decay of vital godliness amongst us, 
 that has brought on this great moral distemper. It 
 is irreligion which palpably lies at the bottom of it. 
 Could it only have confined its influences among 
 the sons of wealth or of lettered infidelity, society 
 might have been safe. But this was impossible ; 
 and, now that it has broke forth on the wide and 
 populous domain of humanity ; is it seen that, while 
 a slender and sentimental righteousness might have 
 sufficed, at least, for this present world, and among 
 those whom fortune has shielded from its adversi- 
 ties, it is only by that righteousness which is prop- 
 ped on the basis of piety that the great mass of 
 a nation's virtue can be upholden. 
 
 There is something in the history of these Lon- 
 don executions that is truly dismal. It is like get- 
 ting a glimpse into Pandeemonium ; nor do we be- 
 lieve that, in the annals of human depravity, did 
 ever stout hearted sinners betray a more fierce and 
 unfeeling hardihood. It is not that part of the exhi- 
 bition which is merely revolting to sensitive nature 
 that we are now alluding to. It is not the struggle, 
 and the death, and the shrouded operator, and the 
 bloody heads that were carried round the scaffold, 
 and the headless bodies of men who, but one hour 
 
31 
 
 before, lifted their proud defiance to the Cod in 
 whose presence the Avhole decision of their spirits 
 must by tliis time have melted away. It is the 
 moral part of the exhibition that is so appalling. 
 It is the firm desperado step with which they ascend- 
 ed to the place of execution. It is the imdaunted 
 scowl which they cast on the dread apparatus before 
 them. It is the frenzied and bacchanaUan levity 
 with which they bore up their courage to the last, and 
 earned, in return, the applause of thousands as fierce 
 and as frenzied as themselves. It is the unquellcd 
 daring of the man, who laughed, and who sung, 
 and who cheered the multitude, ere he took his 
 leap into eternity, and was cheered by the multi- 
 tude, rending the air with apj)robation back again. 
 These are the doings of infidelity. These are the 
 genuine exhibitions of the popular mind, after that 
 lieligion has abandoned it. It is neither a system 
 of unclu'istian morals, nor the meagre Christianity 
 of those who deride, as methodistical, all the pecu- 
 liarities of our Faith, that will recal our neglected 
 population. There is not one other expedient by 
 which you will recover the olden character of Eng- 
 land, but by going forth with the gospel of Jesus 
 Christ among its people. Nothing will subdue them, 
 but that regenerating power which goes along with 
 the faith of the New Testament. And nothing will 
 charm away the alienation of their spirits, but their 
 belief in the overtures of redeeming mercy. 
 
 But we may expatiate too long ; and let us there- 
 fore hasten to a close with a few brief and categori- 
 cal aimouncements, which we shall simply leave 
 with you as materials for your own consideration. 
 
38 
 
 First, though social virtue, and loyalty, which is 
 one of its essential ingredients, may exist in the up- 
 per walks of life apart from godliness — yet godliness, 
 in the hearts of those who have the brunt of all the 
 common and popular temptations to stand against, 
 is the main and effective hold that we have upon 
 them for securing the righteousness of their lives. 
 
 Secondly, the despisers of godliness are the enemies 
 of the true interest of our nation; and it is possible 
 that, under the name of methodism, that very in- 
 strument may be put away w^hich can alone recal 
 the de^^arting virtues of our land. 
 
 Thirdly, where godliness exists, loyalty exists; 
 and no plausible delusion — no fire of their own 
 kindling, lighted at the torch of false or spurious 
 patriotism, will ever eclipse the light of this plain 
 authoritative scripture — " Honour the King, and 
 meddle not with those w^io are given to change." 
 
 But, again, such is the power of Christianity, 
 tliat, even though partially introduced in the whole 
 extent of its saving and converting influences, it 
 may w'ork a general effect on the civil and secular 
 virtues of a given neighbourhood. It is thus that 
 Christianity may only work the salvation of a few, 
 while it raises the standard of morality among many. 
 The reflex influence of one sacred character upon 
 the vicinity of his residence may soften, and purify, 
 and overawe many others, even where it does not 
 spiritualize them. This is encouragement to be- 
 gin with. It lets us perceive that, even before a 
 
39 
 
 great spiritual achievement has been finished, a kind 
 of derived and moral influence may have widely 
 and visibly spread among the population. It is 
 thus that Christians are the salt of the earth ; and 
 we know not how few they are that may preserve 
 society at large from falling into dissolution. It is 
 because there are so very few among us, that our 
 nation stands on the brink of so fearful an emer- 
 gency. Were there fewer, our circumstances would 
 be still more fearful ; and if, instead of tliis, there 
 were a few more, the national virtue may reattain 
 all the lustre it ever had, even while a small frac- 
 tion of our people are spiritual men. It is in this 
 way, that we would defend those who so sanguinely 
 count on the power of Christianity, from the impu- 
 tation of being at all romantic in their hopes or un- 
 dertakings. It may take ages ere their ultimate 
 object, which is to generalize the spirit and charac- 
 ter of the millenium in our world, be accomplished. 
 But if there were just a tendency to go forth among 
 our people on the errand of Christianizing them, 
 and that tendency were not thwarted by the enmity 
 and intolerance of those who revile, and discourage, 
 and set at nought all the activities of religious zeal, 
 we should not be surprised though, in a few years, 
 a resurrection were witnessed amongst us of all the 
 virtues that establish and that exalt a nation. 
 
 But, lastly, alarming as the aspect of the times is, 
 and deeply tainted and imbued as the minds of 
 many are with infidelity ; and widely spread as the 
 habit has become of alienation from all the ordi- 
 nances of religion; and sullen as the contempt may 
 be, wherewith the hardy blasphemer of Christianity 
 
40 
 
 would hearken to its lessons, and eye its ministers, 
 yet even he could not so withstand the honest and 
 persevering good-will of one on whom there stood, 
 visibly announced, the single-hearted benevolence of 
 the gospel, as either to refuse him a tribute of kind- 
 liness, when he met him on the street, or as to reject, 
 with incivihty and disdain, the advances he made 
 upon his own family. Even though he should sternly 
 refuse to lend himself to any of the processes of a 
 moral and spiritual operator, yet it is a fact expe- 
 rimentally known, that he will not refuse to lend his 
 children. The very man who, unpitying of himself, 
 danced and sung on the borders of that abyss which 
 was to engulph him in a lake of vengeance for ever, 
 even he had about him a part of surviving tender- 
 ness, and he could positively weep when he thought of 
 his family. He who, had he met a minister of state 
 would have murdered him, had he met the sabbath 
 school teacher who ventured across his threshold, 
 and simply requested the attendance of his children, 
 might have tried to bear a harsh and repulsive front 
 against him, but would have found it to be impos- 
 sible. Here is a feeling which even the irreligion 
 of the times has not obliterated, and it has left, as it 
 were, an open door of access, through which we might 
 at length find our way to the landing-place of a purer 
 and better generation. We hear much of the olden 
 time, when each parent presided over the religion 
 of his own family, and acted, every sabbath even- 
 ing, the patriarch of Christian wisdom among the 
 inmates of his own dwelling-place. How is it that 
 this beautiful picture is again to be realized ? Is it 
 by persuasives, however forcible, addressed to those 
 who never listen to them ? Is it by the well-told 
 
41 
 
 regrets of a mere indolent sentimentalism ? Is it 
 by lifting up a voice, that will die in distance away, 
 long ere it reach that mighty population who lie so 
 remote from all our churches, and from all our ordi- 
 nances ? Are we to be interdicted from bending 
 the twig with a strength which we do have, because 
 others require of us to bend the impracticable tree, 
 with a strength which we do not have? The ques- 
 tion is a practical one, and should be met experi- 
 mentally ; — how is the olden time to be brought 
 back again ? Is it by merely looking back upon 
 it with an eye of tasteful contemplation ; or, is it 
 by letting matters alone ; or, is it by breathing in- 
 dignation and despite against all the efforts of reli- 
 gious philanthropy ; or, is it by disdainful obloquy 
 against those who do something, on the part of those 
 that do nothing? Who, in a future generation, 
 will be the likeliest parents for setting up the old 
 system? the children who now run neglected through 
 the streets, or those who, snatched from sabbath 
 profanation, receive a weekly training among the 
 decencies and the docilities of a religious school ? 
 It is not tlie experimental truth upon this question, 
 that the amount of family religion is lessened, un- 
 der such an arrangement, in those houses where it 
 had a previous existence ; but that, instead of this, 
 it is often established in houses where it was before 
 unknoAvn. It is true, that unless a sabbath-school 
 apparatus be animated by the spirit of God, it will 
 not bear with effect on the morals of the rising 
 generation ; but still it is by tlie frame-work of some 
 apparatus or other that the spirit works: and we 
 deem that, the likeliest and the best devised for the 
 present circumstances of our country, which can se» 
 
 F 
 
42 
 
 cure, and that immediately, the most abundant 
 strength of application on tender and susceptible 
 childhood. * 
 
 In conclusion, we may advert to a certain class 
 of society, now happily on the decline, who are 
 fearful of enlightening the poor ; and would rather 
 
 * Had not the Sermon been extended to so great a length, its Author 
 might have entered a little more into detail on the operation and advan- 
 tage of the sabbath-school system ; an omission, however, which he less 
 regrets, as, in the work of supplying it, he would have done little more 
 than repeated what he has recently published on the subject, in a more 
 express form. 
 
 The same remark applies to the cursory allusion that he has made on 
 that melancholy topic, the lack of city churches, and the unwieldy extent 
 of city parishes ; he having, elsewhere, both deUvered the arithmetical 
 statements upon this topic, and also ventured to suggest the gradual 
 remedy that might be provided for the restoration of church- going habits 
 among the people of our great towns. 
 
 He takes the opportunity which this Note affords him, of referring the 
 attention of his readers to a truly Christian charge, drawn up by the Me- 
 thodist body in November last, on the subject of the political discontents 
 which then agitated the country. It was circulated, he understands, 
 among the members and ministers of that connexion, and ought for ever 
 to dissolve the imagination of any alliance between the spirit of method - 
 ism» and the spirit of a factious or disaffected turbulence. 
 
 He would further observe, that the mighty influence of a sabbath on 
 the general moral and religious character of the people, may serve to vin- 
 dicate the zeal of a former generation about this one observance ; a zeal 
 which is regarded by many as altogether misplaced -and puritanical. 
 Without entering into the question, whether ths Law of the Country 
 should interfere to shield this day from outward and visible profanation, 
 it may at least be affirmed, that the opinion of those who rate the alter- 
 nations of Christianity in a land, by the fluctuating regards which, from 
 one age to another, are rendered to the Christian Sabbath, is deeply 
 founded on the true philosophy of our nature. 
 
43 
 
 that every thing was suffered to remain in the qui- 
 escence of its present condition ; and though the 
 Bible may be called the key to the kingdom of 
 Heaven, yet, associating, as they do, the turbulence 
 of the people with the supposed ascent that they 
 have made in the scale of information, would not 
 care so to depress them beneath the level of their 
 present scanty literature, as virtually to deny them 
 the use and the possession of the Oracles of God. 
 Such is the unfeeling policy of those who would 
 thus smother all the capabilities of humble life, and 
 lay an interdict on the cultivation of human souls, 
 and barter away the eternity of the lower orders, 
 for the temporal safety and protection of the 
 higher ; and, in the false imagination, that to sow 
 knowledge is to sow sedition in the land, look sus- 
 piciously and hardly on any attempt thus to edu- 
 cate the inferior classes of society. It is well that 
 these bugbears are rapidly losing their influence — 
 and we know not how^ far this is due to our late 
 venerable monarch, who, acting like a father for the 
 good of his people, certainly did much to rebuke 
 this cruel and unfeeling policy away from his em- 
 pire. His saying. That he hoped to see the time, when 
 there should not be a poor child in his dominions 
 
 And however questionable it may be, whether Government should 
 ever interfere, with its restraining penalties, against the violation of the 
 sabbath, certain it is, that it ought never to shock the feelings of the 
 rehgious public by its own unnecessary freedoms with the sacredness of 
 this day. With this view, we regret the Sunday pre^iarations for the 
 recent executions in London, and would further suggest the abolition 
 of all military music on that day. 
 
44 
 
 who was not taught to read the Bible, deserves to be 
 enshrined among the best and the wisest of all the 
 memorabilia of other days. It needs only the Saxon 
 antiquity of Alfred, to give it a higher place than 
 is edven to all that is recorded even of his wis- 
 dom. We trust that it will be embodied in the 
 remembrance of our nation, and be handed down as 
 a most precious English tradition, for guiding the 
 practice of English families ; and that, viewed as the 
 memorial of a Patriot King, it will supplant the old 
 association that obtained between knowledge and 
 rebellion, and raise a new association in its place, 
 between the cause of education and the cause of 
 loyalty. Be assured, that it is not because the people 
 know too much, that they ever become the wiUing 
 subjects of any factious or unprincipled demagogue 
 
 it is just because they know too little. It is just 
 
 because ignorance is the field on which the quackery 
 of a political impostor ever reaps its most abundant 
 harvest. It is this which arms him with all his 
 superiority ; and the way eventually to protect so- 
 cietv from the fermentation of such agitators, is to 
 scatter throughout the mass as much of knowledge 
 and information as will equalize the people to the 
 men who bear them no other regard, than as the 
 instruments of uproar and overthrow. No coercion 
 can so keep down the cause of scholarship, as that 
 there shall not be a sufficient number, both of edu- 
 cated and unprincipled men, to plot the disturbance 
 and overthrow of all the order that exists in society. 
 You cannot depress these to the level of popular 
 ignorance, in a country where schools have not been 
 universally instituted. You cannot unscholar dema- 
 gogues down to the level of an untaught multitude ; 
 
45 
 
 and the only remaining alternative is, to scholar the 
 multitude up to the level of demagogues. Let Scot- 
 land, * even in spite of the exhibition that she has 
 recently made, be compared with the other two 
 great portionsof our British territory, and it will be 
 seen, historically, as well as argumentatively, that the 
 w^ay to tranquillize a people is not to enthral but to 
 enlighten them. It is, in short, with general know- 
 ledge as it is with the knowledge of Christianity. 
 There are incidental evils attendant on the progress 
 of both ; but a most glorious consummation will be 
 the result of the perfecting pf both. Let us go forth, 
 without restraint, on the work of evangelizing the 
 world, and the world, under such a process, will 
 become the blissful abode of Christian and well-or- 
 dered famihes. And let us go forth, with equal alac- 
 rity, to the work of spreading education among our 
 own people ; and, instead of bringing on an antici- 
 pated chaos, will it serve to grace and to strengthen 
 
 • What we regret most in our late disturbances, is, that it irjay serve 
 to foment the prejudice which still exists against the cause of jjopular 
 education. It is worthy of remark, that, of late years, both in Glasgow 
 and Paisley, this cause has been most lamentably on the decline ; inso- 
 much that we will venture to say, there is no town population in Scot* 
 land which has become so closely assimilated, in this respect, to the 
 manufacturing population of our sister country. Any danger which may 
 be conceived to arise from education, proceeds not from the extent of it 
 in any one class of society, but from the inequality of it between jieople 
 either of the same, or of different classes ; thus rendering one part of the 
 popuLition more manageably subserA'ient to any designing villany or 
 artifice that may exist in another part. The clear and direct way of 
 t-estoring this inequality, is, not to darken and degrade all, which is im* 
 practicable, but, as much as possible, to enlighten all. 
 
46 
 
 all the bulwarks of security in the midst of us. The 
 growth of intelligence and of moral worth among 
 the people, will at length stamp upon them all that 
 majesty of which they will ever be ambitious ; and, 
 instead of a precarious tranquillity, resting upon the 
 basis of an ignorance ever open to the influences of 
 delusion, will the elements of peace, and truth, and 
 righteousness, be seen to multiply along with the 
 progress of learning in our land. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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THE TWO GREAT INSTRUMENTS 
 
 APPOINTED FOB THE 
 
 PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL; 
 
 ASD TflE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAK PUBLIC TO KEEP THEM 
 BOTH IN VIGOROUS OPERATION : 
 
 SERMON 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE 
 
 THE DUNDEE MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 
 
 On Monday, October 26, 1S12. 
 
 BT TH£ 
 
 Rev. THOMAS CHALMERS, Kilmany. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
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SERMON, &c. 
 
 KoM. X. 17. 
 *• Faith Cometh by hearing, and hearing hy the word of God 
 
 In the prosecution of the following discourse, I shall //ri/ 
 lay before you, in a few words, the general lesson which 
 the text furnishes ; and, in the second place, I shall appl 
 it to explain the objects of that Society, whose claims to the 
 generosity of the public I am appointed to advocate. 
 
 First, As all is suspended upon God, and as he reigns 
 with as supreme a dominion in the heart of man as in the 
 world around us, there is no doubt that every affection of 
 this heart — the remorse which imbitters it, the teiTor Avhich 
 appals it, the faith which restores it, the love which in- 
 flames it, — there can be no doubt, I say, that all is the work 
 of God. However great the diversity of operations, it ishethat 
 worketh all in all ; and the apostle Paul expressly ascribes 
 the faith of a human soul to the operation of his hand, when 
 he prays, in behalf of the Thessalonians, that God would 
 fulfil in them all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the 
 work of faith with power. 
 
 But, on the other hand, it is evident, that throughout the 
 wide extent of nature and of Providence, though it be God 
 alone that worketh, yet he worketh by instruments ; and 
 that, without any wish to question or to impair his sove- 
 reignty, it is an established habit of language, to ascribe 
 that to the instrument which is solely and exclusively due 
 to the Omnipotent himself. We say that it U rain which 
 
4 
 
 makes the grass to grow. It is God, in fact, who makes 
 the grass to grow ; and he does it by the instrumentality 
 of rain. Yet we do not say that there is any impiety in 
 this mode of expression ; nor does it imply that we, in 
 thought, transfer that to the instrument, which is due only 
 to him in whose hand the instioiment is ; it is a mere habit 
 of language, and the apostle himself has fallen into the use 
 of it. None were more impressed than he, with the pious 
 sentiment, that all depends upon God, and cometh from 
 God ; yet he does not overlook the instrumentality of a 
 preacher, and tells the Romans, in the words of my text, 
 that " faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word 
 of God." 
 
 If, in that extraordinary age, when the Author of nature 
 broke in upon the constancy of its operations, and asserted 
 by miracles, his own mighty power to subdue and to con- 
 troul it — if, in such an age, one of his own inspired mes- 
 sengers does not overlook the use and agency of instru- 
 ments, surely it would ill become us to overlook them. It 
 is right that we should carry about wllh ii«, at all times, and 
 in all places, a sentiment of piety ; but it must not be piety 
 of our own forging, — it must be the prescribed piety of re- 
 velation ; we have no right to sit in indolence, and wait for 
 the immediate agency of Heaven, if God has told us, that 
 it is by the co-operation of human beings that the end 
 is to be accomplished, and if he orders that co operation, 
 we are not merely to acquiesce in the sentiment that it is 
 God who does the thing, but we must acquiesce in his man- 
 ner of doing it ; and if that be by instruments, nothing re- 
 mains for us but submissively to concur, and obediently to 
 go along with it. 
 
 Now, let it be observed, that the operation of the two 
 instruments laid before us in the text, is somewhat differ- 
 ent at present from what it was in the days of the apostles. 
 Those were the days of inspiration ; and the faith which 
 was so widely diffused through the world in the first ages 
 of Christianity, came by the hearing of inspired teachers. 
 
The two steps of the process were just whatTwe find them 
 described in the passage before us : Faith came by hear- 
 ing, — it came by the hearing of the apostles ; and hearing 
 came by the word of God, — for, in the great matters of sal- 
 vation, the apostles spake only as God put the word into 
 their mouth, and as the spirit of God gave them utterance. 
 
 But, whatever is capable of being spoken, is capable of 
 being written also ; and it was not long before the teach- 
 ers of Christianity committed to writing the doctrine of 
 salvation. It went over the world, and it has come down 
 to posterity, in the form of gospels and epistles. The col- 
 lection of these documents is still called the Word of God : 
 it is, in fact, that word come down to us by the instrumen- 
 tality of written language. If you read it with the impres- 
 sion on your mind that it is the genuine production of in- 
 spired men, you are in circumstances likely enough for re- 
 ceiving faitli. Now, however, there is a change in one of 
 the instruments : it makes all the difference betwixt the 
 messenger delivering the message in person, and sending 
 you the substance of it in a -written communication. In 
 each of the ways, faith may result, and faith has resulted 
 from it : there have been many thousand examples of the 
 efficacy of the latter process as well as of the former ; in 
 which case, we may say that faith came by reading, and 
 reading by the word of God. 
 
 We are not to suppose, however, when reading was sub- 
 stituted in the place of hearing, that hearing was entirely 
 laid aside. It is true that you can no longer hear the im- 
 mediate messengers of Heaven ; but you can hear the de- 
 scendants of those messengers : you can no longer hear men 
 who have the benefit of inspiration ; but you can hear men 
 whose office it is to give their study to the written documents, 
 which the inspiration of a fonner age has left behind it. We 
 know that you have access to these documents yoiu-selves; and 
 may light and learning grow and multiply among you ! — we 
 know, that, upon the solitary reading of the word. Heaven 
 often sends its most precious influences ; but we know 
 
6 
 
 that Heaven also gives a salutary aiid a saving influence t» 
 tlie living energy of a human voice — that the man who 
 speaketh from the heart speaketh to it — that the tones of 
 earnestness, and sincerity, and feeling, carry an emphasis 
 and an infection along with them — that there is an impres- 
 sion in the power of example — that there is an authority in 
 superior learning — that there is a charm in fervent piety 
 — that there is a usefulness in the wisdom which can ap- 
 ply scripture to the varieties of individual experience — that 
 there is a force and urgency in pathetic exhortation — that 
 there is a constraining influence in the watchful anxiety of 
 him who entreats you to mind the things which belong to 
 your peace. These ai'e undoubted facts, and the minister 
 who can combine all these in his own person, and bring 
 them to bear upon the minds of his people, may, under the 
 blessing of God, convert the hearing of the word into an 
 instrument of mighty operation even in these latter days, 
 and may exemplify my text upon many of those who are 
 sitting and listening around him. Faith may be wrought 
 in them with power ; and when asked to explain the process 
 by which they arrived at it, they truly say, that their faith 
 came by hearing, and their hearing by the word of God. 
 
 In no age of the church, indeed, does it appear, that the 
 one instrument ever superseded the other ; or that, upon 
 the mere existence of the written word among the people, 
 the healing of that word was ever dispensed with as a su- 
 perfluous exercise. When Ezra received the written law, 
 there is no doubt that copies of it would spread and multi- 
 ply in the country ; yet this was not enough in the eye of 
 that great Jewish reformer : He himself opened the book 
 in the sight of the people, and they stood up : He had 
 priests and Levites along witli him ; and we are told in 
 Nehemiah, that they not only " read in the book in the law 
 of God distinctly, but they gave the sense, and caused the 
 people to understand the reading." And we have reason 
 to believe, that this reading and expounding of the law was 
 Tiot acted upon on one solitary occasion, but that, from the 
 
days of Ezra it formed a permanent institution among the 
 Jews. We meet with traces of its existence in the 5^ew 
 Testament. In the Acts of the Apostles, we have some in- 
 formation respecting the service of the synagogue. WTien 
 Paul and his companions came to Antioch, in Pisidia, they 
 went into the synagogue, on the Sabbdth-day, and sat 
 down ; and after the reading of the law and the prophets 
 —a circumstance introduced without any explanation, as if 
 it had been a mere matter of course, and a customary exer- 
 cise among them — after this reading of the law and the pro- 
 phets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, 
 '*" Men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation unto 
 the people, say on." But, in the Gospel by Luke, we have 
 a piece of history still more decisive ; when our Saviour 
 himself not only sanctions by his presence, but gives the 
 high authority of his example, to the reading and exposition 
 of the word : He stood up, and read a passage out of their 
 scriptures, and expounded the passage to them. It is not 
 likely that there was any violation of the established order 
 of the synagogue in this proceeding of our Savioiur's. It 
 was not his practice to fly in the face of any existing insti- 
 tution ; and, from this passage we collect not merely the 
 high sanction of his example to the practice of reading and 
 expouncUng, but we also collect, that it was a practice in 
 established operation among the Jews. And it has descend- 
 ed, without interruption, through all the successive ages of 
 Christian worship. The inspired teachers of Christianity 
 deemed it necessary to leave something more than the writ- 
 ten volume of inspiration behind them ; they left teachers 
 and overseers : and, to this very day, the readings, and the 
 explanations, and tlie sermons of Christian pastors, arc su- 
 peradded to the silent and solitary reading of Christian 
 people ; and both are found to be instruments of mighty 
 operation, for the perfecting of the saints, and for the edify- 
 ing of the body of Christ. 
 
 Neither instrument is to be dispensed with. If yon 
 have liearing without readings you lay the church open to 
 
8 
 
 all the corruptions of Popery. You have priests, but you 
 have no Bibles ; you have a minister, but you have no word 
 of God to confront him ; you take your lesson from the 
 wisdom of man, and throw away from you all the light and 
 benefit of revelation; the faith of the people lies at the 
 mercy of every capricious element in the human character ; 
 it fluctuates with the taste and the understanding of the mi- 
 nister ; the precious interest of your souls is committed to 
 the passions and the prejudices of a fellow mortal — that inte- 
 rest for which God himself has made so noble a provision— 
 for which he sent his Eternal Son into the world, and con- 
 ferred miracles and revelations on his followers. By pin- 
 ning your creed to your minister, you put the whole of this 
 provision away from you ; you change a heavenly instruc- 
 tor for an earthly ; you turn from the offered guidance of 
 the Almighty, and resign the keeping of your conscience 
 to one who, in as far as he wanders from the word of God, 
 is as blind and ignorant and helpless as yourself. No, my 
 brethren ! keep fast by your Bible : try if you can to outstrip 
 us in the wisdonn of the word of Christ ; and bring the sa- 
 lutary controul of a zealous, and enlightened, and reading 
 population, to bear upon the priesthood. Let not your 
 faith come by hearing alone ; but let your hearing be tried 
 by the word of God : let it not be said, that what you be- 
 lieve is what you have heard; and that what you have heard 
 is what prejudice, or fancy, or habit, or unauthorised spe^ 
 culation, may have suggested to your minister : Let it be 
 said that what you believe is what you have heard — not be- 
 cause what you have heard cometh from him, and is sup- 
 ported by his authority; but because you know it to be the 
 doctrine of the Bible, and you are satisfied that he has acted 
 the part of a faithful Interpreter, — not because you have 
 tried tlie word by the hearing ; but because you have tried 
 the hearing by the word, — not because you have brought 
 revelation under the tribunal of your minister ; but because 
 you have brought your minister under the tribunal of reve- 
 lation. In the mighty concern of your faith, we give yon 
 
every encouragement to bring your own reading and your 
 own discernment into action. Have the Bible, that high 
 and ultimate standard ot* appeal, perpetually in your eye ; 
 cultivate a growing acqiuiint«mce with this stantlard ; it will 
 keep all right and steady, and save you from being agitated 
 by the ever-varying winds of human doctrine and human 
 speculation ; your faith will come by hearing, but your 
 hearing by the word of God. 
 
 But, I again repeat it, neither instrument is to be dis- 
 pensed with. If you have reading without hearing, you 
 throw away the benefit of a public ministry; an institution 
 sanctioned by the Bible, and transmitted to us through all 
 the successive ages of the church, from tlie very time of the 
 Apostles. Let every man, if possible, be as enlightened 
 as his minister ; and let us make perpetual approaches to 
 that state of things when " they shall teach no more every 
 man his brother, and every man his neighbour, saying, 
 ' Know the Lord ;' for they shall all know me, from the 
 least of them even to the greatest." It is our delight and 
 our confidence that scriptural knowledge is every day ex- 
 tending among you ; but we cannot shut our eyes to the 
 obvious fact, that the degree of illumination foretold by the 
 prophet is not yet arrived, — that though the majority be 
 thinning every year, yet the unenlightened are still the ma- 
 jority, — that priests have still to do what they did in the 
 days of Ezra ; they have not merely to read in the book 
 of the law distinctly, but they have to give the sense, 
 and cause you to understand the reading, — that though 
 after the era oi universal light, some may think that the 
 institution of a public ministry might be dispensed with, 
 yet as the era has not yet arrived, but we are only on the 
 road to it, the institution itself is one of the most powerful 
 expedients for hastening its accomplishment. But what is 
 more, I would not rashly give up the iicaring of the word 
 even after the light of perfect knowledge has dawned in all 
 its brilliancy upon the world. " Wherefore, I will not be 
 negligent," says the apoctle Peter, '' to put you alwavs in 
 
lO 
 
 remembrance of these things, though you know them and 
 be established in the present truth." Though you have no 
 knowledge to receive, you have memories to be refreshed : 
 minds which, however pure, need to be stirred up by way 
 of remembrance. It is true, you have the Bible within 
 your reach ; but every man knows how different in point 
 of certainty is the doing of a thing which may be done at 
 any time, and the doing of a thing which habit and duty 
 have accustomed you to repeat at stated intervals. You 
 may not be disposed at all times to bring your minds into 
 contact with your Bibles ; but upon a simple and mechani- 
 cal act of obedience to the Sabbath-bell, a population is as- 
 sembled, and a minister is in his place, whose office it is to 
 bring the Bible into contact with your minds. I do not 
 speak of his ministrations from house to house; I speak 
 of his ministrations from the pulpit, whence it is often 
 the high prerogative of a single man to make the word of 
 God bear with energy and effect upon the consciences of 
 hundreds. And he can do more than this ; he can spread 
 around him the infection txf his own piety • he can kindle 
 the fine ardours of sentiment and sincerity among his hear- 
 ers ; he can pour out all his tenderness and all his anxiety 
 upon them ; by the power and urgency of a living voice, 
 he can touch the hearts of his people ; and, with the blessing- 
 of God upon his endeavours, he can pull down the indo- 
 lence, and the security, and the strong holds of corruption 
 within them. The worth of the man can give a mighty 
 energy to the words of the minister; and, what with the ex- 
 ample of one, and the stirring eloquence of another, 1 hold an 
 active, a pure, and a zealous ministry, spread over the face 
 of the country, and labouring in its districts and parishes^, 
 to be one great palladium of Christianity in the land. 
 
 This brings me, in the Second place, to the object of that 
 Society, whose claims upon the generosity of the public I 
 am appointed to lay before you. 
 
 But pardon me, if I put a case to you, taken from ordinary 
 life, for the sake of familiar and convincing illustration. 
 
11 
 
 Let me suppo«?e, that upon any one indivklual among 
 you there has devolved the entire maintenance of a helj)- 
 less orphan, and that you lie under a solemn obligation to 
 acquit yourself to the full of this benevolent undertaking. 
 You know that the term " maintenance" embraces in it 
 many particulars ; but, for the present, I shall confine my 
 attention to two, — the food to eat, and the raiment to put 
 on. Both must be provided for the object of your charity ; 
 and for this purpose, you must look forward to the pay- 
 ment of separate accounts ; and the thing which you are 
 bound to do cannot be accomplished without satisfying the 
 demands of two or more tradesmen. You may feed the 
 child, — but withhold from it raiment, and you leave it to 
 perish in the inclemency of the weather ; you may clothe 
 the child, but withhold from it food, and it dies in the ago- 
 nies of hunger. You have done something, it is true ; and 
 that something was very essential : but you have also omit- 
 ted somethmg ; and that something was equally essential, 
 so much so, indeed, that, by virtue of the omission, the 
 unhappy orphan has perished ; and upon you lies the guilt 
 and the cruelty of having abandoned it. I speak in these 
 strong terms, because I am supposing that the individual is 
 both bound and able to accomplish the entire maintenance 
 of the child. Yet when called to account for the barbarity 
 of his conduct, I can conceive an explanation by which he 
 might attempt to palliate his negligence. " It is true, I 
 was quite equal to the task ; but then I was so teased by 
 the number of separate accounts and separate applications ! 
 Had one tradesman undertaken to provide all tlie articles 
 of maintenance, my patience would not have been ex- 
 hausted: I had not one, but several, to satisfy; and I fairly 
 confess, that I got tired and disgusted at the number of 
 them." The answer to this is quite obvious. It is found, 
 that if one man devotes an undivided attention to one kind 
 of work, he cai-ries it to far greater perfection than if his 
 attention were distracted among several. It is this prin-. 
 iiiple which has given rise to the division of employment in 
 
12 
 
 society ; each individual betakes himself to his own trade 
 and his own manufacture ; the accommodations of life are 
 poured in far greater abundance upon the country ; and 
 each article is both better done, and furnished far more 
 cheaply, than if one individual had undertaken to prepare 
 every thing which enters into the maintenance of a human 
 bemg. 
 
 When our Saviour left the earth, he left a task behind 
 him, to his disciples — '' Go ye therefore, and teach all na- 
 tions." A great part of the task has devolved upon us ; 
 for it is not yet accomplished ; there are nations who never 
 heard of the name of Jesus ; and the cause of sending light 
 and Christianity amongst them is left an orphan upon the 
 world. There are thousands, even in this professing coun- 
 try, who would spurn at the orphan, and pour upon it the 
 cruelty of their derision. But there are others who feel an 
 emphasis in the last words of their Saviour, and have taken 
 into their protection the cause which he has bequeathed to 
 us. On the benevolence of a Christian public, the mainte- 
 nance of that cause is devolved ; it is their part not to leave 
 it to perish amongst tlie garbled and unfinished operations 
 of a cold, timid, and hesitating selfishnesfi|- The propaga- 
 tion of the gospel is a task which your Saviour has consign- 
 ed to you. It is a cause tlie maintenance of which consists 
 of various particulars ; but I confine myself to two — you 
 must put the mighty instruments of my text into operation ; 
 and you must keep them a-going till your object be accom- 
 plished. That object is the salvation of the Heathen. 
 There is only one name given under heaven Avhereby men 
 can be saved. There is onlj' one way in which salvaticHi 
 can be brought about, and it is this — " The gospel is the 
 power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth." 
 My text tells you that " faith comcth by hearing, and hear- 
 ing by the word of God." Send Bibles among them : but 
 there are many countries, where, without missionaries, a 
 I^ible is a sealed book, and a packet of Bibles a mere spec- 
 tacle for savages to stare at. ^^ ithout a human agent ii> 
 
13 
 
 the business, yon keep back one of tlie instruments entire- 
 ly, — you keep back the hearing of the word ; and what is 
 more, without a human agent, you leave tlie other instru- 
 ment unfinished, — you may give the Bible, but you keep 
 back the capacity of reading it. Both must be done ; anrl 
 if you withhold Iiuman agents, you starve and you stifle 
 the cause which it is your duty to support and to stand by 
 through all its necessities. 
 
 To make the case before us correspond in all its points 
 to the imaginary one which I have already brouglit forward, 
 the first question I have to answer, is. Whether there be 
 ability in the public to discharge the various claims which 
 are made upon its benevolence ? My reply is a very short 
 one. Much has been already done in the way of turning 
 men from darkness to the light and the knowledge of Cliris- 
 tianity ; and what we aim at is, that this rate of activity be 
 not only kept up, but extended. Now, to estimate whe- 
 ther there be a fund in the country for future operations, 
 let us calculate the actual expences of the past. I do not 
 confine myself to the expences of the Missionary Society ; 
 I add to them the expences of the Bible Society, and all 
 the others which exist in the country for religious purposes : 
 I am fairly within limits, when I say that the joint expence 
 of the whole does not exceed a hundred thousand pounds in 
 the year.* Before you stand appalled at the magnitude of 
 the sum, divide it among the British population : and you 
 will find, that what has been already done for the extension 
 of Gospel light among the nations of the world, amounts to 
 a penny a month for each householder, or twopence a year 
 for each individual witliin the limits of the empire. This 
 plain statement sets the question of ability at rest ; and any 
 objection on the score of extravagance in our demands upon 
 the public will not bear a hearing. 
 
 The next question we have to answer, is. Why are we 
 tensed, then, with so many separate applications ? Could 
 
 * It is now considerably beyond this. 
 
1^ 
 
 not one society embrace all the various objects connected 
 with religion ; and could not all the various demands be re- 
 duced to the simplicity of one yeai-ly subscription ? — One 
 society might embrace all the objects connected with reli- 
 gion ; but, on the principle of the division of employment, 
 separate societies, each devoting itself to one of these ob- 
 jects, are productive of greater good : they do more busi- 
 ness, upon cheaper terms. Instead of one society, over- 
 powered with the extent, and embarrassed with the multi- 
 pUcity of its concerns, we have many, each cultivating one 
 department, and giving the labours of its committee to one 
 assigned object. It is just another example of the separa- 
 tion of employments. The Societies of England have na- 
 turally formed themselves into that arrangement which 
 they find to be most useful and efficient : and when I see 
 one with its printing utensils, multiplying copies of the 
 Word of God, — another, with its Missionary College train- 
 ing adventurous spirits for all the climes and countries of 
 the world,— another, with its Jewish Chapel, for fighting 
 the battles of the faith with its oldest and most inveterate 
 enemies,— another, with its apparatus of schools and teach- 
 ers, for carrying the Lancasterian method among the unlet- 
 tered population of all countries, — another, singling out 
 Africa as the sole object of its exertions ; and by the intro- 
 duction of knowledge and the arts, contriving some repara- 
 tion for the wrongs of that deeply-injured continent ; — in 
 ail these I see a refreshing spectacle, a warm spirit of reli- 
 gious benevolence animating them all ; but each, by beta- 
 king itself to its own object, and assiduously culturing its 
 own vineyard, rendering the work and the labour of love 
 far more productive than any single society with the wealth 
 of all at its command could possibly have accomplished. 
 
 The propagation of the gospel is a cause, the maintenance 
 of which consists of various particulars ; but I restrict your 
 attention to two, — the providing of Bibles, and the provi- 
 ding of human agents. The former is the word of God, one 
 of the instruments of my text. The latter, by teaching them 
 
IS 
 
 to read^ teaches unlettered people to use that instrument ; 
 and to the latter belongs the exclusive office ol* bringing 
 the other instrument to bear upon them — the instrument 
 of hearing. The Society whose office it is to provide the 
 former instrument, is well known by the name of the Bible 
 Society : The Society whose office it is to provide the latter 
 instrument, is also well known by the name of the Mission- 
 ary Society. It is the duty of a Christian public to keep 
 both instruments in vigorous operation. Each of these So- 
 cieties has mighty claim.s upon you : I will not venture to 
 pronounce a comparison between them ; but if the question 
 were put to me, shall any part of the funds of the one So- 
 ciety be transferred to the other ? I would not hesitate to 
 reply. Not one farthing. You are not to provide food for 
 the orphan at the expence of its raiment ; nor are you to 
 provide raiment for it at the expence of its food : you are to 
 provide both, at the expence ot^ those upon whom its main- 
 tenance has devolved ; you are to interest the public in both 
 objects; you are to state, and you state truly, that nei- 
 ther of them is yet sufficiently provided for, — that every 
 shilling of addition to the tunds of either Society, is an ad- 
 dition of good to the Christian cause, — that though as much 
 has been done as to justify the most splendid anticipations, 
 yet much more remains to be done, in both depaitments, 
 before these anticipations can be carried into effect. Each 
 Society should send its advocates over the country ; and 
 if one of them were at this moment sounding the merits of 
 the Bible Society in another church and to another people, 
 I would not view him as a rival, but hail him as a brother 
 and as a friend ; and when told of the success of his efforts, 
 and the magnitude of his collection, I would bless God and 
 rejoice along with him. 
 
 • They are sister societies. I have not time to detail the 
 operations of either ; for these I refer you to their Reports, 
 which are published every year, and are accessible to all of 
 you : but, to satisfy you, I shall select a few particulars, 
 from a source which you will deem pure and unexception- 
 
16 
 
 able : I shall give the testimony of one Society to the use* 
 fulness of another ; and from the Reports of the Bible So- 
 ciety, I shall present you with arguments why, whatever ex- 
 tent and efficiency be given to the one, the other is not to 
 be abandoned. 
 
 The very second in the list of donations by the Bible So- 
 ciety, is " To the Mohawk nations, two thousand copies of 
 the Gospel of St John." But who prepared the Indians of 
 Upper Canada for such a present ? — They were Missiona- 
 ries. There are Missionaries now labouring amongst them 
 employed by our Society ; and had it not been for the pre- 
 vious exertions of human agents, this field of usefulness 
 would have been withlield from the Bible Society altoge- 
 ther. 
 
 Another donation is, '' To India, to be applied to the 
 translation of the Scriptures into the Oriental languages, 
 one thousand pounds ■" this has been swelled by farther do- 
 nations to a very princely sum. It is in aid of the noble 
 undertaking of translating the Scriptures into the fifteen 
 languages of India. But who set it agoing .^ — A Mission- 
 ary Society.* Who showed that it was practicable ?— The 
 human agents sent out by that society. Who are accom- 
 plished for presiding over the different translations > — The 
 same human agents, who have lived for years among the 
 natives, and have braved resistance and death in the noble 
 enterprize. Who formed a Christian population eager to 
 receive these versions the moment they have issued from 
 the press, and who have already absorbed whole editions of 
 the New Testament? — The same answer, — Missionaries. 
 Our own Society can lay claim to part of this population : 
 they have formed native schools, and have added to the 
 number of native Christians. 
 
 The next two donations I offer to your attention are, first, 
 " For circulation in the West India Islands and the Spanish 
 Main, one hundred Bibles and nine hundred Testaments ia 
 
 * The translators in India were sent out by the Baptist Societj^ 
 
17 
 
 various languages ;" second, " To negro congregations of 
 Christians in Antigua, &c. five hundred Bibles and one 
 thousand Testaments." Why is there any usefulness in 
 this donation ?— Because Missionaries have gone before it. 
 Do these copies really circulate ? Yes, they do, among the 
 negroes whom those intrepid men have christianized under 
 the scowl of jealousy, — whom they have taught to look up 
 to the Saviour as tlieir friend, and to heaven as their as}'- 
 lum, — and who, for the home they have been so cruelly 
 torn from, have held out rest to their oppressed but belie- 
 ving spirits in the mansions which Christ has gone to pre- 
 pare for them. 
 
 The next example shall comprise several donations. 
 " First, To the Hottentot Christians at Bavian's kloof and 
 Grune kloof, in South Africa, so many Bibles and Testa- 
 ments ; second. To the Rev. Dr Van der Kemp, at Bethels- 
 dorp, South Africa, for the Christian Hottentots, &c. fifty 
 Dutch Testaments and twelve Dutch Bibles; third. To 
 tlie Rev. Mr Anderson, Orange River, South Africa, fifty 
 
 Dutch Testaments and t^rclvc Outch Bibles ; fourth, To 
 
 the Rev. Mr Albrecht, in the Namacqua country. South 
 Africa, fifty Dutch Testaments and twelve Dutch Bibles ; 
 fifth. To the Rev. Mr Kicherer, GraafF Reinet, South Afri- 
 ca, one hundred Dutch Testaments and twelve Dutch Bi- 
 bles." Now, what names and what countries are these ?— . 
 They are the very countries which the Missionary Society 
 is now cultivating, and the names of the very laboui'ers sent 
 out and maintained by them. The Bibles and Testaments 
 are sent out in behalf of the many hundreds whom our So- 
 ciety had previously reclaimed from Heathenism : The one 
 Society is enabled to scatter the good seed in such profu- 
 sion, because the other Society had prepared the ground for 
 receiving it. Nor are the labours of these illustrious men 
 confined to the business of christianizing ; they are at this 
 moment giving the arts, and industry, and civilization, to 
 the natives : they are raising a beautifril spectacle to the 
 moral eye amid the wilderness ai'ound them ; — they are fl^i** 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 ving piety, aud virtue, and intelligence, to the prowling sa« 
 vages of Africa ; and extending among the wildest of Na- 
 ture's children the comforts and the decencies of humani- 
 zed life. O, ye orators and philosophers, who make the 
 civilization of the species yoiu: dream ! look to Christian 
 Missionaries, if you want to see the men who will realize 
 it : you may deck the theme with the praises of your un- 
 substantial eloquence ; but these are the men who are to 
 accomplish the business ! They are now risking every earth- 
 ly comfort of existence in the cause ; while you sit in silken 
 security, and pour upon their holy undertaking the cruelty 
 of your scorn. 
 
 But I must draw to a close ; and shall only offer one do- 
 nation more to your notice, as an evidence of the close al- 
 liance in point of effect betwixt the Bible and Missionary 
 Societies — those two great fellow-labourers in the vineyard 
 of Christian benevolence. " For the Esquimaux Indians, 
 one thousand copies of St Matthew's Gospel, in their ver- 
 nacular tongues." Who gave these Indians a written lan- 
 guage? Who translated a gospel into their Vernacular 
 tongue? By what unaccountable process has it been brought 
 about, that we now meet with readers and Christians 
 among these furred barbarians of the North ? The answer 
 is the same. All done by the exertions of Missionaries ; and 
 had it not been for them, the Bible Society would no more 
 have thought at present of a translation into the language 
 of Labrador, than they would have thought of a translation 
 into any of the languages of unexplored Africa. 
 
 The two Societies go hand in hand. The one plows while 
 the other sows : And let no opposition be instituted betwixt 
 their claims on the generosity of the public. Let the ad- 
 vocates of each strain to the uttermost. The statement I 
 have already given, proves that there is a vast quantity of 
 unbroken ground in the country for subscriptions to both j 
 and how, by the accumulation of httles which no individu- 
 al will ever feel or regret, a vast sum is still in reserve for 
 the operations of these Christian philanthropists. They are 
 
19 
 
 9t this moment shedding a glory over the land, far beyond 
 what the tumults or the triumphs of victory can bestow : 
 Their deeds are peaceful, but they are illustrious ; and they 
 are accomplishing a grander and a more decisive step in the 
 history of the species, than even he, who, in the mighty ca- 
 reer of a sweeping and successful ambition, has scattered 
 its old establishments into nothing. I have only to look 
 forward a few years, and I see him in his sepulchre ; and a 
 few years more, and all the dynasties he has formed give 
 way to some new change in the vain and restless politics of 
 the world. But the men with whom I contrast him have a 
 more unperishable object in contemplation : I see the su- 
 blime character of eternity stamped upon their proceed- 
 ings ! The frailties of earthly politics do not attach to them ; 
 for they are the instruments of God, — they are carrying on 
 the high administration of Heaven,— they are hastening the 
 fulfilment of prophecies uttered in a far distant antiquity : 
 " Many are going to and fro, and knowledge is increased :" 
 *' For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your 
 ways my ways, saith the Lord ; for sm tho heavens are high- 
 er than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, 
 and my thoughts than yoiu- thoughts. For as the rain Com- 
 eth do\Mi and the snow from heaven, and returneth not 
 thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth 
 and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to 
 the eater,— so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my 
 mouth : It shall not return unto me void ; but it shall accom- 
 plish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing 
 whereto I sent it." 
 
 I stand here as the advocate for the Missionary Society 
 —for the men who are now going to and fro and increasing 
 knowledge, and are preparing ground in so many different 
 quarters of the world for the good seetl of the word of God. 
 I have already urged upon you the plea of their usefulness ; 
 I have now to urge upon you the plea of their necessities. 
 They have exerted themselves not only according to their 
 power, but beyond their power : They are in debt to their 
 
20 
 
 Treasurer. Their embarrassments are their glory ; and it 
 is your part to save them from these embarrassments, lest 
 they should become your disgrace. It is not for me to sti 
 in judgment upon the circiunstances of any individusl 
 amongst you. Are you poor ?— I ask you to give no more 
 than you can spare ; nor will I keep back from you what 
 the Bible says, " That he who provideth not for his own, and 
 especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, 
 and is worse than an infidel." But the same Bible gives ex- 
 amples of the exercise of charity and alms-giving among the 
 poor : The widow who threw her mite into the treasury was 
 very poor : The members of the church in Corinth were in ge- 
 neral poor ; — ^t least we are told that there were not many 
 mighty, and not many noble, not many rich, among them ;— • 
 and yet this does not restrain the Apostle from soliciting, near 
 does it restrain them from contributing to the necessities of 
 the poor saints which were in Jerusalem. Throw the little you 
 can spare into the treasury of Christian beneficence : It may 
 be small; but if you give with cheerfulness, it will be counted 
 more than many splendid donations. And as we are among 
 scriptural examples and scriptural authorities, let us otter to 
 your notice another advice of the Apostle : " Once a week, 
 let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prosm 
 pered him." This brings down the practice of charity to 
 the level of the poor and labouring classes of society. Let 
 me suppose that God enables you to lay by a single penny 
 a week to the cause I am pleading for, — a small offering you 
 will allow ; but mark the power and the productiveness of 
 littles : If each householder of this town were to come for- 
 ward with his penny a week, it would raise for the Mis- 
 sionary Society upwards of a thousand pounds a year. I 
 I know that, in point of fact, they will not all come forward,— 
 that a few are really not able, and that more are not willing. 
 Let me suppose, then, the trumpet sounded, by which all the 
 destitute, all the faint-hearted, all the mockers at piety, are 
 warned away from the cause, and that the number is redu- 
 pe4 to one out of ten : There is nothing yery sanguine, 
 
21 
 
 surely, in the calculation, that one-tenth would stand by 
 this glorious cause, — a small proportion, no doubt ; but if 
 cftrried in the same proportion over the face of the country, 
 it would produce for our Society an annual sixty thousand 
 poHnds,— a sum exceeding by six times any yearly income 
 which they have yet realized. I wish to exalt tlie poor to 
 the consequence which belongs to them : There is a weight 
 and an influence in numbers, and they have it. The indivi- 
 dual offering may be small, but the produce of these week- 
 ly associations would give a mighty energy to the benevo- 
 lent enterprises that are now afloat in the country. You 
 have it in your power to form such an association ; you can 
 hold forth tlie example of a vigorous and well-conducted 
 system ; you can lead the way ; you can spread abroad the 
 statement of your success : Be assured that others would 
 socm follow ; and the combined efforts of our poor men and 
 our labourers, would do more for the cause of the gospel 
 than all the splendid offerings which the rich have yet 
 thrown into the treasury. 
 
 Let me now turn to the rich, and entreat from them a li- 
 berality, and an aid worthy of the situation in which Provi- 
 dence has placed them. They have already signalized them- 
 selves ; and one of the most animating signs of our day, is 
 the opening and extending sjTnpathy of the great for the 
 spiritual necessities of their brethren. I call upon them to 
 open their hearts, and pour out the flood of their benevo- 
 lence on this purest and worthiest of causes, — a cause, on 
 which the civilization of the globe, and the eternity of mil. 
 lions, is suspended. I hope better things of you, my weal- 
 thier hearers, than that you will do any thing but spurn at 
 the paltry calculations which prey upon the fancies of the 
 unfeeling and the sordid. " I give so much already !— I 
 am so beset with applications .'-—I give to the Bible So- 
 ciety; I give to the charitable institutions of the town ; I 
 give to the vagrant who stands at my door; I give to 
 the subscription-paper that is unfolded in my parlour ; I 
 fan assailed with beggary in all its forms ; and, from the 
 
22 
 
 clamorou s beggary of the streets to the no less clamorons 
 beggary of the pulpit, there is an extorting process going on, 
 which, I have reason to fear, will in the end impoveri^ and 
 exhaust me!" Pardon me, my brethren ; lam in posses* 
 sion of no ground whatever for imputing this pathetic lamen- 
 tation to you ; nor do I know that I am now perscHiifying a 
 single individual amongst you : I am merely bringing for- 
 ward a specimen of that kind of eloquence, which is some- 
 times uttered upon an occasion like the present ; and I do 
 it for the purpose of bringing forward the effectual refuta- 
 tion of which it admits. We do not ask any to impoverish 
 OP exhaust themselves. We assail the rich with no more 
 urgency than the poor ; for we say to both alike — Give on- 
 ly what you can spare. We hold the question of almsgiv- 
 ing to depend not on what has been already given, but on 
 what superfluity of wealth you are still in possession of. 
 We know, that to this question very different answers will 
 be given, according to the principles and views and temper 
 of the individual to whom it is applied ; nor are we eager 
 to pursue the question into all its applications. We do not 
 want the offerings of an extorted charity; we barely state 
 the merits of the case, and leave the impression with your 
 own hearts, my friends and fellow Christians. But when I 
 take a view of society, and see the profusion and the splen- 
 dour that surround me, — when I see magnificence in every 
 room that I enter, and luxury on every table that is set 
 before me, — when I see the many thousand articles where 
 retrenchment is possible, and any one of which would 
 purchase for its owner the credit of unexampled libera- 
 lity, when I see the sons and the daughters of fortune 
 
 swimming down the full tide of enjoyment ; and am told, 
 that out of aU this extravagance there is not a fragment 
 to spare for sending the light of Christianity into the 
 negro's hut, or pouring it abroad over the wide and dreary 
 wilderness of Paganism ; — surely, surely, you will agree 
 with me in thinking, that we have now sunk down into the 
 age of frivolity and of little men. Think of this, my bre* 
 
23 
 
 thren,— that upon what a single' individual has withheld 
 out of that which he ought to have given, the sublime march 
 of a human soul from time to eternity may have been ar- 
 rested ! Seize upon this conception in uU its magnitude ; 
 and tell me, if, when put by the side of the sordid plea and 
 the proud or angry refusal, all the gaieties of wealth, and 
 all its painted insignificance, do not wither into nothing. 
 
 But I must come to a conclusion. There are hearts which 
 will resist every power of urgency that is brought to bear 
 upon them ; but there are others which do not require it,— 
 those hearts which feel the influence of the gospel, and have 
 the experience of its comforts. Those to whom Christ is 
 precious, will long that others should taste of that precious- 
 ness. Those who have buried all their anxieties and all 
 their terrors in the sufficiency of the atonement, will long 
 that the knowledge of a remedy so effectual should be car- 
 ried round the globe, and put within the reach of the my- 
 riads who live in guilt, and who die in darkness. Those 
 who know that the only refuge of man is under the cover- 
 ing of the one Mediator, will long to strpfrh forth the cur- 
 tains of so secure a habitation — to lengthen the cords, and 
 to strengthen the stakes— to break forth on the right hand 
 and on the left, and to extend a covering so ample over the 
 sinners of all latitudes, and of all countries. In n word, those 
 who love the honour of the Saviour, will long that his king- 
 dom be extended, till all the nations of the earth be brought 
 under his one grand and universal monarchy — till the powers 
 of darkness shall be extinguished — till the mighty Spirit 
 which Christ purchased by his obedience shall subdue every 
 heart, shall root out the existence of sin, shall restore the 
 degeneracy of our fallen nature, shall put an end to the rest- 
 less variations of human folly and human injustice, and 
 shall establish one wide empire of righteousness over a vir- 
 tuous and a happy world. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 EoiNBUROH : 
 
 Printed by A, BaUour. 
 
Published hi/ the same Author, and Sold by 
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 Ditto, 12mo. - , - - -00* 
 
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