B

¦avtc

kar-d J'

ffilirist flnrifjring l)is Sample; or, tlje principle of ttje pritcms.

SEEM O N

VKEACHED IN THE

Mount Vernon Church of Christ

(Ubv. De. Kirk's),

BOSTON, .MASSACHUSETTS,

Sabbath, Dec. 24, 1865, "Forefathers' Day,"

Rev. J. BLASCHA'BD,
PRKSIDTKNT WBEATON COLLEGE, WHEATON, ILLINOIS.

" Stake fytse things fcena." — Jno. 2 ; 16.

BWTON:
PUBLISHED BY THK CONGREGATIONAL BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
1866.

CTljrist pnrifsing bis ®*mpk; or, tl)« |3rintiple of tl)e |)tmtans.

SERMON

PltEACIIED IN THE

Mount Vernon Church of Christ

(Ret. Dr. Kirk's),

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS,

Sabbath, Dec. 24, 1865, "Forefathers' Day,"

BY
Rev. J. BL AN CHARD,
PRESIDENT WHEATON COLLEGE, WHEATON, ILLINOIS
ll

' Kikt %st Ibings jraa." — Jno. 2:16.

BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY THE CONGREGATIONAL BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
1866.

DA KIN AND METCALF.

SERMON.

And Jesus went dp to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold
oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money, sitting : adn,
when be had made 'a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of
the temple; and the sheep and the oxen; and poured out the changers'
money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves,
Take these things hence, make not my Father's house an house of mer
chandise. —John ii. 13-16.
It would seem that our Lord twice purified his temple
of things which had not his warrant to be there, — once
at the beginning of his ministry (John ii. 14), and once
at its close (Matt. xxi. 12); and both instances were
followed by wonderful manifestations of his power in
healing the body, of his wisdom in teaching, and his
grace in saving the people.
And if it were not that his whole person and work are
so wonderful, this scene would surely seem most wonder
ful : — the meek and lowly Jesus, in the garb, perhaps, of.
a rustic artisan, and followed by a few disciples, plain and
humble like himself, in the heart of that haughty me
tropolis (and no pride is like the pride of priests), in the
temple of its national worship, assailing, denouncing, and
with a scourge of small cords, driving out, like a herd of
cowering slaves, along with their own cattle, those whom
religion had made confident, and money had made bold !

Jesus Christ closed the Jewish dispensation, and found
ed the Christian church ; and as the Father sent him into
the world, " even so " has he sent us. (John xvii. 18.)
What, therefore, he did in his temple, we are to do iri his
church. It is a serious mistake to suppose the New Testament
to be more lax than the Old ; to imagine that Christ cares
less for the purity of his churches than he did for that of
his Temple. True, the Old Testament is formal, and
the New, spiritual, — that is, in the New, the form is not
the essence of the commandment ; neither, indeed, was
it in the old, for, even then, God would " have mercy,
and not sacrifice." (Matt. ix. 13.) But the difference
between them is this : In the Old Testament the spirit
is reached through the form ; while in the New, the
form is required by the spirit. But both are precise,
for in the Old Testament church positively nothing
was left to human invention ; rites, altars, implements,
even to the tongs and snuffers, all, literally and ab
solutely, everything was made and ordered " as the
Lord commanded Moses." "For see, saith' he, that thou
make all things according to the pattern showed to
thee in the mount." (Heb. viii. 5.)
And the New Testament precept is equally compre
hensive and equally minute, " teaching them to ob
serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you."
(Matt, xxviii. 20.) And in religion who shall dare
to add anything which Christ has not commanded?
And for insisting on what God commands, and ex
cluding everything else from the religion and churches

of Christ, reason is as imperative as Scripture. If
children offend a parent by breaking his laws, no
human being can know and tell what those children
are to do to make amends and please that parent
but himself ; and how much more when men have
offended their " Father in heaven," can no one tell
them what to do, but God ! And if the neighbor who
comes in, in your, absence, and adds to or alters your
directions, is guilty of impertinence and folly toward
yourself, as well as a fatal and terrible wrong to your
children, what name, shall be given to his conduct
who comes in between God and us, his erring crea
tures, " teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men " ?
In the Christian reformatory movement of the sixteenth
century, sublime as it was, if we may trust DAubigne",
there was one dire mistake. Luther determined to
leave standing in the churches whatever was not for
bidden by the Scriptures; while others justly insisted
on turning out of the churches everything which
God. had not 'put into them. The word of Luther
stiU was, " Where is it forbidden ? " that of some less
prominent reformers, " Where is it commanded ? " The
word of Luther prevailed ; and the present condition
of Christian churches in Europe is the practical com
ment : the Sabbath desecrated, the churches strong,
the gospel weak, and Christ himself, the living Sav
iour, pushed aside by forms and rites and governments,
which men have instituted in his name; while " dark
ness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people."
1*

"The Puritans," whos4 memory we this day hal
low and keep green, were so called, not because
they claimed to be purer than their neighbors, but
because they were resolved to "purify" the churches,
by reducing their doctrines, rites, and government to
the simple standard of God's word. Their chief dif
ficulty was with spurious church government and rites.
We are told by their historian, Neal (vol. i. 108),
that at first " there was no difference in doctrine be
tween the Puritans and Conformists." But we, the
descendants of those Puritans, have in this respect re
versed their ideas. We have sometimes split the very
hairs of doctrine. They, the Puritans, seeing the
churches of Christ were originally corrupted in their
government first, and next in their rites, and last of
all in doctrine, — false doctrine being brought in to
cover and defend those practical corruptions which
made and named the " dark ages," which, indeed, were
nothing but ages of priest-rites and despotism; see
ing this, I say, the controversies of the Puritans
turned less on doctrines than on spurious and man-
contrived rites; and they insisted that men might
not manufacture church governments for God !
In 1549, the learned and pious Hooper refused
to be consecrated in Episcopal robes ; and as this
was the entering wedge of separation, the Puritans
were sneered at as "embroiling the Christian world
for a garment." It was not, however, the garment,
but what that garment covered, which distressed them.
" Si tu diaboli pompam oderis," they quoted to Arch-

bishop Parker from Tertullian, " quicquid ex ea atti-
geris id scias esse idolatriam."1 They believed that the
robes of idolatry were idolatrous ; and to wear them
was to practise idolatry. They objected to diocesan
bishops. They condemned lordly and unchristian titles.
They hated church despotism. They denied the Apoc
rypha. They disliked Christmas, and the festivals to
which the other " masses " gave rise. They would not
kneel at communion, because it was worshipping the
host. They would not make the sign of . the cross,
because it was a piece of conjuring to keep off the
devil; nor bow the knee when the name of Jesus
occurred in the service, because it was founded on a
false interpretation.
But the principle underlying all their objections
was simply this : They wanted God's religion, and
not man's; Abel's religion, and not Cain's; Judah's
and not Jeroboam's ; the religion which God gives in
the mount, and not that which Aaron manufactures at
its base; a religion of God's appointment, and not of
man's devices.
And the question for us this day, is, Were those
PURITANS RIGHT LN THEIR CARDINAL PRINCIPLE, OR NOT?
The world has not forgotten that they hung witches,
nor is likely to, while a cold, Christless, scriptureless
rationalism lives to remind us of it; nor that they
kept up, for a time, the bad fashion, which they learned
in England, of inflicting civil penalties for religious
error.
1 If you hate the pomp of the devil, then know that whatever of that you come in
contact with, is idolatry.

But the question is, was their separation from the
rites and government of their State church based on
a folly or a fact? Is it true that God has given us
a religion, or may men make one? or, if not make
one outright, may they patch and splinter at will
the religion which is given us of God?
It is now three solid centuries since Bradshaw pub
lished his "English Puritanism." Since that time the
three systems then designated -by their leading ideas;
"Puritanism," "Presbytery," and "Prelacy," have in
this country, Scotland, and England, walked down, side
by side, through three centuries. I trust that the
mere glance at them we can now take will enable
every honest mind to try these three systems by the
Saviour's test, — their fruits.
But, before discussing the systems, let us carefully
distinguish them from the "faith of Christ," which they
all hold and have ever held in common. The English
or Episcopal church has had her martyrs, who ab
horred auricular confession, the mass, enforced celibacy,
and generally the inventions and sorceries of Rome.
And no enlightened Puritan wishes to ignore the
glorious record which Presbyterians have given to the
world, particularly in their bloodless redemption of
Scotland from Popery; and later, when eighteen thou
sand Presbyterians, in twenty-five years, suffered perse
cution ; many, even unto death ; many more to ban
ishment ; and more still, in the prisons of Dunnottar
Castle and the Bass, during the bloody and terrible
struggle of the Stuarts to force Prelacy upon Scotland.

9

The Protestant who does not feel his heart thrill, and
his eye moisten at the tunes of "Dundee," and "Mar
tyrs," — who does not cherish with a holy pride the
memories of those Presbyterians who stood calmly
dn soil wet with their own blood, for " Christ's crown
and covenant" against the inventions of Prelacy and
the Pope, — is either a bad Protestant or a blind one.
Nor do we wish to ignore or forget the precious
truth which other Christian denominations have held
and taught, and still hold and teach, in our own coun
try, and at the present day. Wherever there is a
living faith in Christ, there is a Christian brother;
and as such, we hail and love him, though for his
"wood, hay, and stubble," he may exclude us from
his communion, or shut us from his desk. Nay, even
the poor Papist may possibly find Christ amid his
sacraments; ay, and trust him too in spite of his
forms. The meek Papist, Fenelon, may teach Protest
ants the gentler Christian graces, and the lion-hearted
Luther find Christ while practising penance upon a
stone stairway at Bome.
But let us distinguish the things which differ. Two
spirits, of very opposite natures, seem to have striven
at the same time within the body of the youth in the
gospel, whose father brought him to Christ, the one
healing, the other rending him. (Mark ix. 26.) And
surely if the Spirit of God and of Satan can be
working in the same person at the same moment,,
there is, at least, no inherent absurdity in supposing
that in the religious systems now existing and com-

10
peting for our acceptance, there may be elements at
work as opposite in their nature as light is to dark
ness, or as Satan is to Christ. If, therefore, in this
discussion, I attribute some things in organizations
called churches to the "Prince of this world" (John
xii. 31), let me not be accused of 'unchurching churches,
or unchristianizing men.
Further, it was among the earliest national utterances
of Abraham Lincoln, that "No country can permanently
endure part slave, and part free ; " and its truth has since
been verified, at least in this country, by the provi
dence of God.
And the truth is equally obvious that no country
can enjoy the -highest degree of prosperity, even if it
can permanently endure conflicting church governments.
Our Congregational churches must prevail, or perish ulti
mately; indeed, I think I may say, no one expects
the sects of Christendom always to continue related to
each other as they are. The newspapers report the
new Bomish Archbishop, Manning, of England, as say
ing in a recent speech, just after his return from
Bome: — "Two things are simply apparent; one, that
Protestantism, having, like other errors, run its course
of three hundred years, is everywhere giving way; and
the, other, that the Roman Catholic church is strength-
ening and expanding on every side," and the learned
prelate goes on to say, that the "Anglican church will
soon be what the Arians and Donatists are now, — a
page in history." I wish there were no facts to en
courage such prophets and to justify such prophecy.

11

And while such is the boast of the Romish arch-
prelate, other sects and sect-leaders are earnest, ac
tive, and arrogant as he, just in proportion as their
sects resemble his in the worldliness of its spirit and
the centralization' of its power. And their vaunting
is not without reason. For "the world," which ever
" loves its own," will evermore support the worldly .
system, and forsake the divine. And when human
devices are mixed up with God's appointments in a
church, the human part always counteracts the influ
ence of the divine.
The whole subject of church government may thus
be considered as fairly up for discussion, and there is
no rock on which the mind can rest, but the Word
of God.
What then remains to us ? Shall we, too, turn sec
tarians, and raise our clamor with the rest? God
forbid. Let us ever, as we do now, love our breth
ren of other denominations. Let us recogriize their
baptisms and ordinations, welcome their cooperation,
honor their Christian virtues, learn if we may from
their teachings, and respect their prejudices, even ;
but let us see to it that we, as churches, " abide in
Christ and have his words abiding in us."
What, then, are the "words" of Christ touching the
order or discipline of a church? Simply that we, in
love, go to our offending brother alone, and "tell
him his fault." If he refuse to hear us, " take one
or two more," and repeat the effort; and "if he
neglect to hear them, tell it to the church " to which ^

12
the brother offending belongs. But if he "hear not
the church," that is final. "Let him be unto thee as
an heathen man and a publican;" that is, treat him
coolly and courteously as you would a Chinaman,
•or a Caffir: be kind to him, pity, pray for him, and
let him alone. That is all the, church-government
that Jesus Christ has given. And this is not gov
ernment in any coercive or secular sense; for with
drawing fellowship is not governing. If you take his
¦case to a bishop, or a circuit-preacher, or a Presby
tery, then you attempt to govern him; for that is
government, whether exercised by one man or a few.
But for a handful of men and women in a local
church, to cease to love, and withdraw from, a mem
ber, who by his vices has ceased to be lovely, is
not government, but liberty, and " the perfect law of
liberty." Let us now go back three hundred years, and see
where the Puritans stood. Their whole belief and
practice touching the church is given by Mr. Bradshaw
in his " English Puritanism," already cited. He says :
1st. " The Puritans hold and maintain the absolute
perfection of the Holy Scriptures, both as to faith
and worship ; and that whatsoever is enjoined as
any part of divine service that cannot be warranted
by the said Scriptures is unlawful.
2d. "That all inventions of men, especially such as
have been abused to idolatry, are to be excluded
out of the exercises of religion." — (Neal i. 248.)
This is Puritanism, and the whole of it. It is sim-

13

ply "abiding in Christ," and Christ's "words abiding
in us." The members of the first church known in
London, to be organized upon this principle were
arrested, and sixty-four men and women locked in
the prisons of Newgate and Giltspur-Compten. Even
in the days of the Puritan Cromwell, there were
but six " Independents " or " Congregationalisms " in
that august body of one hundred and fifty-one mem
bers, the Westminster Assembly. But the princi
ple thus announced by Bradshaw now numbers
its churches by thousands, and its triumphs by the
rights of man it has secured ; for the influence of
the Puritan or Congregational principle, outside of
the denomination, is far wider and mightier than
within. It has infused itself into and modified alli
other denominations, by showing a ready remedy for
their oppressions and furnishing a ready refuge for
their oppressed. Popery, prelacy, indeed no central
ized human church-organization, dares now oppress its
members, lest they should cast off its jurisdiction
and set up for themselves. Nay, the very civil
governments of Christendom have already drawn
light from the sun of a New Testament church.
Hume, Brougham, and Macaulay explicitly declare
that the Puritans put into the British Constitution
all the liberty it contains ; and, as to this country,
it is written by the French DeTocqueville, nay, it
is simply notorious, that the "Town-meeting" was
modelled from the meeting of a Congregational
Church ; that a county was but a collection of
9

14
towns, — a State, of counties, and our Federal Gov
ernment, of States; so that, as a single unit is the
element and key of all arithmetic, one free, Chris
tian man is the germ and principle and type, of
this mighty republic; and the Mayflower is the
mother of nations !
So, then, Jefferson Davis was not mistaken when
he proposed, in his speech to the Legislature of
Mississippi, to reconstruct the country with "New
England left out ! " or, as a clerical writer, in the
papers at Chicago and Milwaukee, in the interest of
Episcopacy and the rebellion, expounded it, "with
the Puritan element left out."
*
The rebel chiefs were notoriously tired of popular
.government, and wished for slavery and an empire.
They thought they could carry the country for both,
if they were once rid of New England ; and they
were not mistaken. For brave as were our Western
troops, .and mighty as were their victories, they were
led by men, in most instances, who paid fealty to
the slave-power which waged the war, long after the
representatives of New England were demanding the
equal law of God and the inalienable rights of
man. It is significant that in all the Slave States there
was scarcely one Congregational Church; but now,
in those very States, there probably will soon be
hundreds. The reason is, that Christ's churches could
not live in slavery, any more than fishes can live
in a dead sea. And the impossibility that a church

15

should live under a system which repealed all the
rights of God and man, proves it a church of Christ,
as the impossibility for Christ to live in this world
without being crucified, proves him the Son of God.
There were, indeed, throughout the Southern States,
many churches governed by majority votes, but no,
or next to no, Puritan churches, governed by the
Word of God. Nor has the Congregational or Puritan
principle achieved its triumphs by a sectarian sacri
fice of charity. The freest minds on earth from all
sectarian bias are precisely those now grouped in
Congregational Churches ; and this the Congrega
tional Churches of New England have proved, and
more than proved, by establishing, through their men
and money, in the sections of this vast country
outside of New England, more churches of other
denominations thari they have of their own ! — a fact
which has no parallel in the history of the relig
ions of men.
Let us now, not in the spirit of sect, but in that
charity which "rejoiceth in the truth," glance at the
two systems which compete with that of the Puri
tans, namely : Presbytery and Prelacy.
And, as many are ignorant of the- practical work
ing of Presbyterianism, I would point out its un-
scriptural features. If a brother in one of the
Presbyterian Churches connected with a General
Assembly is charged with an offence, he is first tried
by "the Session," consisting of his minister and
elders. If cleared there, he can be taken by the

16
prosecutor to a movable court, called a "Presbytery,"
which is made up of ministers and elders, ehosen,
not by the churches, but by the sessions. If cleared
by the Presbytery, he can be taken by appeal to
another and commonly more distant, movable court,
called a Synod, which is made up from the Pres
byteries. If acquitted there, he can still be taken
to the General Assembly, which may meet that year
in Charleston or in New Orleans.
No sane man, who should have been robbed of
his horse, would seek to regain it by prosecuting
in such a system of courts: so unequal, for he is
not tried by his peers; so expensive, for he is at
his own costs for himself and witnesses. And yet
every Presbyterian brother connected with either
Assembly is content to leave his own and the relig
ious standing of his wife and children where he
would consider his horse lost! Then, the idea of a
supreme court, called a " General Assembly," made
up of four or five hundred ministers and elders,
meeting once a year, and sitting two or three
weeks, to exercise an appellate supervision over all
the cases of discipline which may reach it by appeal
from all its churches between Boston and San Fran
cisco, is simply an absurdity. The very best that
can be hoped of such a system, is, that the worldly
nature in itself, and worldly wisdom in its ministers,
will prevent the exercise, in this free country and
amid free churches, of the horrible powers it con
tains.

17
But the Christian objection to this system is, that it
is simply an extra-scriptural human invention, wholly
without warrant in the word of God. Every child
knows by the very names of " Session," " Presbytery,"
"Synod," and "Assembly," that such a four-story sys
tem of appellate "courts" is not found in the Bible.
Few or none of the Presbyterians, even, pretend to
find them there. In 1837, I heard the Rev. Dr.
Robert J. Breckenridge on the floor ¦ of the General
Assembly, say, in answer to a question, " No one
pretends to any scriptural warrant for this General
Assembly." These were his words.
If, then, this system is not scriptural, what is it?
I answer, it is an invention by good men to govern
the churches of Christ. It is a government for God's
children, made without leave of their Father, or war
rant of his word! It is a code of rules for "the
bride, the Lamb's wife," which the Bridegroom has
not authorized. It is a system of so-called " courts
of Christ," which Christ, our law-giver, has never sanc
tioned ; and although, like Lynch-courts in our mining
"cities, they may do good while in the hands of good men,
they are as truly without authority from the Bible,
which is the Christian's statute-book, as a Lynch com
mittee is without authority from the statute of the
State !
Such is Presbyterianism as it now exists; and its
history is not better than its theory. In Scotland,
the land of its martyrs and its glorious testimonies
for Christ, as a system of discipline, it ran down

18
rapidly, until, in 1843, five hundred of its best min
isters left it, and came out, with Dr. Chalmers at
their head, I regret to add, to repeat, in the govern
ment of their mis-called "Free Church," their origi
nal mistake ; while, in this country, as Mr. Greeley
has shown in his history of our " great conflict," those
General Assemblies have stood sentinels of the slave
power, condemning it in words but protecting it in
practice, as long as it was possible for them to do so.
But let it be remembered that these " courts " are
no part of the churches of Christ, but artificial,
' worldly systems, placed over them. As governments,
they have been ceaselessly fluctuating ; and each of
the two leading Assemblies now claims to be the true(
one, and that the other is spurious. The truth is,
both are spurious.
But I shall be told- that their doctrine is sound,
and that the Holy Spirit attends and seals the preach
ing of their ministers: — all this I rejoice to acknowl
edge, and acknowledge to rejoice. They are my
brethren ; but their church-courts are founded in er
ror. Am I, therefore, their enemy because I tell them
the truth?
I should be comparatively happy, if Episcopacy, into
which our children, and sometimes our ministers even,
are sliding, had anything like so fair a record as the
Presbyterian system.
Here, again, let me warn my hearers to separate
the faith of Christ, which we all hold in common,
from the systems which I condemn.

19

Episcopacy has long been the State religion of an
Empire, which, till the United States arose, was the
first government on earth, — the freest, the greatest!
If, therefore, Episcopacy has made for itself an
indifferent record, it has not been for lack of a field,
and all the elements of worldly influence, power, intel
ligence, and wealth. It, too, has had its martyrs for
the truth of Christ. Seldom, perhaps never, in the
history of persecution, has more piety and learning
perished together, than was burned in 1555, in front
of the old Baliol College, where Latimer and Ridley
perished at the same stake, — or in a single person,
than was burned in Cranmer the .following year.
And these men, be it remembered, were burned upon
a question of church government and rites : the papal
supremacy and the real presence. Let no Christian
fail to glorify Christ in these men; nor yet in the
Leightons, the Legh Richmonds, and the Tyngs of
later times.
But what we have to consider, is, the "Episcopal
Church," ordained by Queen Elizabeth, "by act of
Parliament," continued substantially the same by her
successors until now, and copied, as near as may be,
in the "Protestant Episcopal Church of the United
States." Their faith in Christ they had as we have it,
from God. But Elizabeth told her bishop, when re
constructing the ruins left by bloody Mary, to make
the liturgy as Evangelical as he could, and yet "keep
the popish people in the church."

20

This single sentence of the Queen's shows the an
imus of that organization, as an organization, ever
since. It was worldly in its origin, and has been
so in its continuance. It was, from the first, a Jero
boam's religion, based upon political considerations.
It was born of a Queen, and has affected empire
ever since. It is to-day in .the Sandwich Islands seiz
ing their well-earned laurels from the missionaries of
the American Board, and spurning from their pulpits
the very men who have christianized the Islands to
their hands? Let no one say that we insult it by
comparing it with the calf-worship of Bethel and of
Dan. Like Jeroboam's religion, it derived its pres
tige from the magnificence of a court.
But this may be called theorizing. Let us come
to facts. Episcopacy had stood as the state religion,
sustained by the power and treasure of -England, from
Elizabeth to Victoria, — a period of two hundred and
seventy years, when an attempt was made, in 1843,
to rally the clergy of Great Britain against the errors
of the Oxford Tracts, — errors of which Bishop Mcll-
vaine said: "they do not put us on the road to
Rome; they have taken us there." The effort was
general and earnest. All of the clergy called Evan
gelical signed the petitions against the candles, saint-
worship, purgatory, real presence, and rit .ml salvacion
of Dr. Pusey and the Tractarians; when of (16,000)
sixteen thousand clergymen of the Establishment, only
four thousand could be rallied against Romanizing their
church! And it cannot be denied, that much of the

21

gospel-life in the English Establishment has been forced
into it from without by the workings of dissent. For
when men like Cobden and Bright were pressing the
Tory interest, a patron-lord wrote his diocesan, "For
God's sake, bishop, if you have a pious young man
in orders, send him to us, or our people will all go over
to the Chapel, and we shall be left in a minority
in our elections." Thus pious stock has risen in " the
Church." Nor has the American daughter of the English
State-church a fairer record to show. Like Christ's
disciples on the night of his betrayal, overborne by
our great national curse and disaster, other churches
have been derelict, but the Episcopal Church stood
by and " confirmed " Jefferson Davis and Braxton
Bragg when first the rebellion began to falter.
And if the head of Jefferson Davis shall fall, it
will be because the consecrating hands of an Epis
copal bishop, laid on him when his crimes were in
their zenith, could not shield that head from justice.
Nay, even since the rebellion has fallen, their trien
nial convention of bishops, clergy, and distinguished
laymen, have refused leave to their people to give
thanks to God for the overthrow of treason and the
emancipation of slavery ! though their slavery was
the stone on the cave's mouth where Christ and
human freedom lay buried !
" These," it may be said, " are the frailties and
errors of men." They are the errors of a system —
a dire and fatal system — which pushes aside Christ,

22

in his own temple, and sets up rites and priestism
in his place !
Spurious religious rites to-day govern the unchris
tian and a large part of the Christian world. And
though we, the descendants of the Puritans, have
their solemn declaration, sealed with their blood,
that all rites invented by men, and not given by
Christ, are "unlawful;'" though we see in much of
our foreign emigration the sure and certain effects
of such rites on character ; though we know from
the Scriptures that God > " hath not respect " to the
self-projected worship of Cain ; though we know,
with Charlotte Elizabeth, from Moses and from Paul,
that " whatsoever worship is not paid to God is
received by Satan;" that "the things which Gentiles
sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils," not to God ; yet
hosts of false rites and dark " orders " rising like
mists and exhalations all around us, darkening our
moral heavens, confounding men's notions of relig
ion, decoying the simple, bribing the covetous with
promises' of money, luring the ambitious with hopes
of preferment, and dazzling the fantastic with mys
tery and show, hang along our horizon like clouds,
heavy and portentous of wrath!
Which way soever we turn,' we are met and
challenged by rites which the Puritans abhorred.
We cannot take up a "Christian Almanac," though
published by avowed Puritans, but we meet on the
cover a calendar of such days and rites as men have
invented and added to the appointed worship of God.

23
Take at random a few of these names which' our
children read from our almanac covers, and see
how barbarous they sound from a Christian pulpit:
"Purification of the Blessed Virgin;" "Ember days;"
"Rogation Sunday;" "Lent;" "Saints Simon and
Jude;" "Saint Michael and all Angels;" "All Saints
day;" "Holy innocents;" with more' individual and
particular saints' days than patience can recite, or
rational memory retain; — and then say, is it strange
that heads replete with such materials should have
occasion for the words of Watts : —
" How they divide our wavering minds,
And leave but half for God."
But such things do not, will not, leave half the
mind for God. They soon absorb the whole of it.
For worship in the soul, like fealty in woman, is
for one. And if history teaches anything, it teaches
that when human ' devices are mixed with God's
appointments, the inventions always take the lead,
and characterize the organization in which they are
so mixed. Take the following proofs: —
The ancient Sabians worshipped God and idols;
but when they had consecrated a field to both, they
were continually taking the fruits from God's part,
and adding to that of their idols. Mohammed re
formed ; upon Sabianism. He taught but one God,
and acknowledged Christ as a, prophet. But his fol
lowers dropped Christ, and to-day the creed of the
Sultan makes no mention of his name. So the Mor-

24

mons, who are a reproduction of the Saracens, with
another inspired book beside the Bible, and another
prophet beside Christ, call themselves the " Church of
Jesus Christ, or Latter Day Saints." But they obey false
prophets, worship spirits, and deride the Scriptures.
Nay, even the workers with familiar spirits among ua
put compliments to Christ in their books ; " howbeit
in works they deny him."
In all these instances, Satan is not Christ's fair an
tagonist, but his crafty rival. His method is not to
deny religion, but to counterfeit it; not to confront
Christians, but delude ; not to resist revelation, but alloy
it ; not to reject, but adulterate ; not to assault Chris
tianity, but to mix; even as the spirit who infested
the soothsaying damsel at Philippi, moved her to
praise Paul and Silas, and mingle in their meetings,
in order, if possible, to corrupt them and confound
the minds of the people. Thus Satan hides among
the very ordinances of religion; well knowing that
in a mixed religion, part human and part divine,
the frail and sinful hearts of men will evermore lean
to the human and forsake the divine.
So was it in Christ's day. He told the Jews
that their human worships were "vain." "In
vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men." (Matt. xv. 9.) And not
only were their traditionary worships "vain," but as
ever since, so then, their traditions made the "com
mandments of God of none effect." (Mark, vii. 13.)
Thus is it ever. Nothing is so purifying as true

25

worship ; nothing go corrupting as false. All that
Christ has appointed, — closet-prayer, social prayer, bap
tism, the Communion, and a Christian discipline, — every
one is a telegraphic wire extending to and bringing
influence from Christ ; while every religious inven
tion reaches and brings back a mesmerism from Satan.
Such is the voice of history. Such the voice of
God. And shall Presbyterians and Episcopalians, — shall
we ourselves prove an exception to this universal
law, that to mix religion is to destroy it?
In our great National Council last June (1865)
President Sturtevant, in the opening discourse, ap
proved by the whole body, said : " Fathers and brethren,
we must have done with this folly. We must make
this ecclesiastical question one of principle."
But what principle is there for us but that laid
down by the Puritans ; namely, to follow Scripture
and forsake tradition ?
And we have occasion for devout thankfulness to
God that our Congregational churches have been merci
fully kept from forsaking tho Puritan principle, which is
admitting no other rule in church government and
rites than the word of God. There is, however, I
regret to say, one exception ; which is, the omission
by our churches of the name and ordination of
Elders. "They hold," says Bradshaw of the Puritans, "that
by God's ordinance, the congregation should choose
other officers as assistants to the ministers in the
government of the church, who are, jointly with the
4

26

ministers, to be overseers of the manners and con
versation of the whole congregation." (Neal I. 249.)
In the "Report on Church Polity," presented by Dr
Bacon, and printed by our late National Council, the
Scriptural doctrine of Eldership is expressly laid down.
His report says: "The number of elders or bish
ops in a particular church is neither prescribed nor
limited, but it is to be determined by the discre
tion of the church itself. ... In the American
Congregatioual churches at the beginning, it was
thought needful that each church should have at
least three elders. The modern usage, concentrating
all the powers of eldership in one person . . is
exceptional, rather than normal." Then I submit
that almost all our Congregational churches having
each but a single elder and he a preaching elder,
are on this point in an abnormal condition ! So
thought Rev. John Wise, of Ipswich, whose able work
is republished entire, with commendation by our
Congregational Board. He begs for restoration of
the eldership.
The name of elders came into New England with
the Puritans and was retained more than half a cen
tury. It then gave place to the name of " Commit,
tee" a, word taken from, a town-meeting. We still
have the eldership in fact. No church ever did or
ever will keep up discipline without having some
persons selected to attend to it; and all who read
the New Testament know that such persons are
there called "elders;" and those New Testament el-

27
ders (excepting those who labor in word and doc
trine) were precisely what we call a "standing com
mittee," or a "committee of discipline." Precisely
such were the Ephesian elders, whom Paul charged
to "take heed to themselves and to all the flock.'
(Acts xx. 28.) And all that our churches need, in
order to conform outwardly to the word of God,
which is the Puritan principle, is simply a vote to
call our standing committee-men elders, and to set
them apart to their most difficult work — far more
difficult and responsible than preaching — by the
prayers of the church.
And why, since the word of God, the Puritan prin
ciple, the report in our great Council, the necessities
of our churches, and common sense itself require it,
— why shall not that vote pass in every one of our
churches ?
If Presbyterians will consider it a concession to their
system, be it so. Perhaps they will love us the better
for it ; but, concession or not, it is the word of God !
Any one taking a concordance and looking at texts
can easily see that there is about twenty times more
authority in the New Testament for "elders" than
for "deacons," which is a scriptural office. And since
we have God's eldership, why should we not give
it God's name for it ? why should we separate what
God hath joined, — the name from the thing, — and
send a mere unordained committee-man to exercise
discipline and " heal the hurts " of the God's people ?
Why should the children of New England attend, ,

28

and choose officers all their lives, without once hearing
in their church-meetings that name of office most
common in their Bibles ? I rejoice that some Con
gregational churches have already restored the name
and ordination of elders, and more are considering it.
"But why," one says, "if we have the thing, con
tend for the name elder ? " By restoring the name
and ordination of elders, you gain for your church
an impregnable, because scriptural, position. You
avoid confusion of ideas caused by putting on 'dea
cons the work of elders. And, above all, you make
room for Christ and his " word " in our churches.
The grand evil in our churches is not outward
but inward. We are in Jacob's condition before he
saw the opening heavens and descending angels in
his dream. God is in our churches, but multitudes
" know it not."
Let us then arise and purify the temples of God ;
our own hearts first, and next his living temple, the
church. Let us "purify our hearts by faith," and the
churches by restoring what our Saviour hath placed
there. Let us labor to drive out of every organiza
tion in this land and world, calling itself a " church
of Christ," the inventions that men have pushed into
them, in the name and interest of religion.
And oh ! let us then believe Christ's very words,
"I will dwell in them, and walk in them!" "and we,"
Father and Son ! " will come unto him and make our
abode with him" (John xiv. 23). Let us thus make
room for Christ in his own house. For he comes

29

not in the atmosphere above our heads, but in our
hearts — in his truth — in his ordinances. Let us be
"pure in heart," and we shall "see God." So we shall
become partakers of the divine nature, (2 Peter i. 4),
and can sing without' waiting for death or heaven :
" Oh, glorious hour ! Oh, blest abode !
I shall be near and like my God."
Even a profane poet reading the story of Eden could
see that such was our normal and proper condition,
when
" God walked with man, joint tenant of the shade.''
But oh, how much more glorious the true, living,
Christian conception that, in the words of Solomon,
"God will indeed dwell with man!"
" Angels descend with songs to men ;
And God shall dwell on earth again."
Amen.

0339