Tale University Libra

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY;

OR, THE ELEMENTS OF

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY,

GROWING OUT OF THE
DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH, IN CONTRAST WITH
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS DESPOTISM, ORIGINATING IN
* THE HIGH PRETENSIONS OF PRELACY.

A DISCOURSE
DELIVERED IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, HONESDALE, PENN., ON THE
SABBATH EVENING SUCCEEDING THE DAY COMMEMMORAT1VE
OF OUR NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

BY HENRY A. ROWLAND.

NEW YORK: ,
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
No. 285 Broadway.
1850.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY

OR, THE ELEMENTS OF

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY,

GROWING OUT OF THE
DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH, IN CONTRAST WITH
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS DESPOTISM, ORIGINATING IN
THE HIGH PRETENSIONS OF PRELACY.

A DISCOURSE
DELIVERED IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, HONESDALE, PENN., ON THE
SABBATH EVENING SUCCEEDING THE DAY COMMEMMOEATIVE
OF OUR NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

BY HENRY A. ROWLAND.

NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
No. 285 Broadway.
1850.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

That all men are created free and equal, or, that the natural
state of mankind is one in which they enjoy equal rights and privi
leges, is a truth which none can overthrow, although they may
cavil at the terms in which it is expressed. But while nature
teaches the law of human equality, it is thought by many that
the Bible introduces a different principle. Kings and prelates
have gone to the Bible to find the divine right of government con
ferred on a particular class of men, and, through their false rea
sonings, have even brought the sacred oracles into disrepute as
sanctioning such a principle.
The object of this discourse is, to show that the Gospel contains
and inculcates the same elementary principles of liberty that nature
does ; and that it gives no sanction whatever to those exclusive
pretensions and oppressive dogmas which popery and prelacy assert,
and under the influence of which they have endeavored to bring
the world into subjection to their sway. It was originally designed
as part of a course of Lectures on the doctrine of justification by
Faith, and reserved as an appropriate theme for the Sabbath suc
ceeding the day of our National Independence. On account of
the prevalence of high and exclusive church pretensions, and the
pertinacity with which they are often urged upon the community,
I have endeavored, as the whole aim of my discourse, to set forth
in clear and forcible language the evils resulting from such pre
tensions, in contrast with the elementary principles of civil and
religious liberty originating in the doctrine of Justification by Faith.
I received, after preaching this discourse, a written request that
it might be repeated at my earliest convenience, and also two
requests for its publication ; one of them from members of the
Episcopal Church, who desired a " verbatim " copy. Wishing to
accommodate all so far as possible, I prepared the discourse by
rewriting it, making no alteration in its principles or reasonings,
and little in its phraseology, but introducing a more minute con
sideration of the influence of high church pretensions when com-

IV PREFATORY REMARKS.
bined with true spiritual religion, which I especially commend to
the attention of those who, because some converted persons are in
communion with these pretensions, having perhaps carried personal
religion with them into the Church which they upheld, instead of
having found it there, are unmindful of the corrupt and dangerous
principles associated with that piety.
It has been my earnest endeavor to set forth the elementary and
fundamental truths of the Gospel, and civil and religious liberty
growing out of them, and to defend them against the assumptions
of divine right and prelatical succession ; and to maintain the very
ground on which we stand as a Gospel Church, and claim to be
entitled to the rights and privileges of freemen in Christ Jesus.
In doing this, I have not impugneclthe standards of any Evan
gelical Church, or made on them an attack ; for these high preten
sions do not exist in these standards, but are superadded, are over
and above what is written in them, and no more essentially belong
to one Christian communion than another. But if the ministers
and members of one particular communion have seen fit to incorpo
rate these sentiments into their commonly expressed opinions, and
to preach and teach them, I am not answerable for this folly. In
setting forth the Christian doctrines of liberty, I am met by these
pretensions and threatened with instant annihilation, as to my min
isterial office, and the Gospel character of the Church in which I
stand. Mounted on a high horse, encased in a coat of mail, the
champion of these false pretensions threatens, as the only alterna
tive, instant destruction, or submission to his arrrogant claims. I
choose neither, preferring rather, in a Gospel way, and as a good
soldier of Jesus Christ, to try the metal of these pretensions by a
few apostolic thumps on the iron skull of this champion, confident
that he cannot stand a conflict with Gospel truth, but must be un
horsed and lose the armor wherein he trusted. Those who are
merely lookers on, and some of the Lord's foolish people also, who
are so tender-hearted that they cannot bear conflict even for that
truth which is the basis of their own immortal hopes, may regard it as
a severe operation to tear asunder the iron rivets of this coat of mail
and uncase the foe ; but let it be remembered, that this champion
is but a fiend who has embosomed himself in the confidence of many
who profess the religion of Jesus Christ, aiming to take the place
of the great Captain of our salvation ; and that it must be useful
to mankind, and beneficial to the cause of true religion and liberty
everywhere, to remove his helmet and display his true features to
the world. How I have succeeded in this attempt let every man
read and judge for himself.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

" And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
2 Cor. iii. : 17-
The Apostle does not say, that where the font of
baptismal regeneration, a mitred priesthood, cathe
dral pride and prelatical ambition are, there is lib
erty, for he knew better than to hazard such an
assertion ; but where the spirit of the Lord is, con
verting the soul, leading the sinner to Christ for
justification through faith, and associating all who
love our common Lord in a holy bond of spiritual
unity and Christian love, there is liberty. Liberty
is the offspring of pure, spiritual religion ; and none
have ever successfully combatted the despotisms of
the old world but those who have felt the love of
freedom, imparted through the sacred institutions
ofthe gospel.
There are two great principles in the world appli
cable to human government, originating opposite
systems, and which have an important bearing on
the welfare of man ; they are, despotism as en
throned in the high pretensions of divine right, and
liberty as developed in the practical influence of the

6 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
gospel to promote the happiness of man. These
principles, in their nature opposites, tend to oppo
site results. The one grows out of an unwarranta
ble claim to apostolic order and succession, regards
itself as divinely authorized, and terminates in the
associate evils of civil and religious oppression ; the
other originates in the pure religion of the gospel,
regards all power, both civil and religious, as emana
ting from the people, and terminates in the estab
lishment of equal laws and the diffusion of liberty
and happiness among mankind. The one is the fruit
of unhallowed lust, the other of pure and holy love ;
the one is the natural progeny of the mother of har
lots ; the other is the daughter of heaven, the child
of the merciful and blessed One.
The world still groans under the bondage into
which it has been introduced through the assumed
right of kings and prelates to control the temporal
and eternal destiny of man. But the day is coming,
when all these pretensions through which the am
bitious have endeavored to exalt themselves above
their fellows, to lord it over the human conscience,
shall be scattered to the four winds. Disguised as
may be the bitter pill prepared for the mouths of
American freemen, sanctified as may be this divine
right under the pretence of a regular descent in a
direct line of apostolic succession, yet it is the tyran
nical principle for which kings and popes have shed
oceans of blood, that they might immure, without
restraint, in their inquisitorial dungeons, the limbs
of freemen, manacled with brass and iron. Softened
as may be the asperities of this principle to suit re-

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. /
publican prejudices, yet is the Jesuit still revealed
under his disguise ; Satan, though clothed as an
angel of light, is the same fallen angel still ; and the
oppressive dogma is equally to be combatted , whether
as claiming the right to confer the boon of heaven
through the imposition of apostolic hands, or, as
God's vicegerent on earth, to control the civil and
religious destinies of the world, and to rule the na
tions with a rod of iron.
This oppressive principle, in its own nature repug
nant to liberty, is the corner-stone of despotism, on
which may be reared the most arrogant and oppres
sive claims which have hitherto cursed the world.
In opposition to the high pretensions growing out of
this principle, I purpose to set before you the ele
ments of civil and religious liberty, grounded in the
gospel doctrine of justification by faith, and devel
oped in the progress and spread of true spiritual
Christianity. The religion of the Bible is the religion of the free.
The great elements of true democracy lie embedded
in the sacred oracles. Our republican institutions
stand on the broad ground of Evangelical truth.
Superstition has reared an edifice and attempted to
found it on an immovable basis ; it has built the
palaces of bishops and of kings, and raised story
upon story of a superstructure designed, like the
tower of Babel, to reach heaven, surmounting it with
the cross, and the crushing weight of this enormous
pile has rested for centuries on the people, grinding
under it their blood and bones ; but the claim that
this edifice rests on the rock pf truth, is but mere

8 \ CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
pretense, and this mighty fabric, already tottering to
its foundations, must soon come down with over
whelming ruin on those who have trusted in it as a
refuge. There is no divine right secured to any man by
apostolic succession, to control the spiritual destiny
of his fellow men, or to declare who are, or who are
not, entitled to the privileges of Christians and the
institution of the Christian Church. There are no
human hands filled with spiritual gifts and author
ized to confer them, that by means of this authority
they may bring the bodies and souls of men into sub
jection to their power ; for Christ reigns and is spir
itually present in the midst of his Church, to confer
these gifts himself. He imparts them, not through
an external ministry, but through that spiritual
channel opened by faith to the hearts of his people —
that spiritual union to the great Redeemer himself,
which he has beautifully symbolized by the branch
and the vine.
Nor is there any divine authority communicated
to man, to lord it over the consciences and persons
of his fellows ; but all power, both in Church and
State, is in the people, and is to be called forth and
applied, in accordance with divine authority, for the
edification of the body of Christ, and for the exten
sion of the empire of peace and love. This principle
is fundamental to all true liberty ; and it emanates,
not from the pretensions of prelatical power, but
from the true religion of Jesus Christ, the great
doctrine of Justification as it is set forth in the
Q-Qspe],

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 9
Wherein consists the potency of this doctrine to
confer the boon of freedom on man ? What are the
elements of true liberty to which it gives rise ? How
do they originate, and what are their power and
value ? Suitably to respond to these inquiries, it
will be necessary for me to show what the gospel
doctrine of justification by faith is, and to develop
the elements of civil and religious liberty of which
it is the source.
What is this doctrine ? It is, that our salvation is
the purchase of the Saviour's death, and that, though
guilty, we are treated as innocent for the sake of the
Saviour in whom we believe. Our faith is accepted
in place of our own perfect righteousness, and we
are delivered, not for any good works of ours, or any
goodness imparted to us through grace, but for
Christ's sake alone, from the evil consequences of
sin, and introduced into the glorious liberty of the
children of God. This doctrine builds the sinner's
hope of salvation, not on human ministrations, but
on that faith in Christ which is accompanied by a
spiritual regeneration of the soul, in which the once
rebellious sinner cheerfully acknowledges Christ as
the sovereign of his heart. In the act of believing,
this regeneration occurs, and the soul spiritually
changed as to the supreme object of its affections, is
won over to God and received as an accepted, par
doned child . There are several points worthy to be
noticed in respect to this doctrine, all of which have an
important bearing on the subject under consideration.
I. In the doctrine of justification by faith, the
WHOLE HUMAN RACE ARE PRESENTED TO VIEW AS SINFUL

10 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
and condemned. Its testimony, in accordance with
that of the Bible is, that " all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God." Kings and princes, the
rich and learned, equally with the poor and ignorant,
are by nature sinful and excluded from the kingdom
of God. All, without distinction of person, stand on
the same grand level of the apostacy, belong to the
same revolted race, and are irrecoverably lost, with
out repentance. This truth, so abasing to the pride
of worldly distinction, is the ground on which the
doctrine of justification by faith is set forth to us in
the Gospel. It brings down the nobles of the earth,
who walk in their pride and are clothed with power, .
to an equality before God. It teaches that if kings
and emperors would be saved, they must bow their
knees at the throne of grace, in the confession of
their sins, like any poor beggar, and must yield
themselves up to the supremacy of Christ, as their
heavenly Master, to obey all his commands.
This is the first blow struck by the Gospel at des
potism. The master may claim it as his right to
oppress the slave who lifts his manacled arms to
heaven for relief ; but God teaches that both master
and slave shall stand side by side at his tribunal, and
be judged and awarded on just and equitable princi
ples ; and that the king and his subject, the tyrant
and the oppressed, shall have no favor on account of
any ascendency in this world in wealth and power,
but be judged by the same law, and have awarded
to them the same impartial justice.
II. Justification by faith includes the principle of
SALVATION BY THE MERITS OP ANOTHER.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 11
The rich, great, learned, and noble of the earth, if
saved, must enter the way of life through the same
straight and narrow gate. They must individually
confess their sins to God, humble themselves before
him, and accept of pardon and eternal life as a free
gift conferred for the merits of Christ alone. This
plan of mercy, which is the great plan revealed in
the Gospel, reduces all mankind to an equality be
fore God.
It is not the imposition of hands, the sprinkling of
water, or eating of bread, which brings the soul into
this justified state, but it is the spiritual acceptance
of Jesus Christ, and resting on him by faith alone, for
salvation. This is a spiritual act ; this union a spir
itual union ; it is the enthronement of Jesus as king
in the affections of the soul, and a trusting on him
day by day for spiritual life and guidance. Into this
spiritual relationship the Christian is introduced by
conversion. In thus coming to Christ by faith, he
comes under the influence of no principle of religious
despotism. The Christian family is a pure democ
racy. Hence springs the first and elementary prin
ciple of civil and religious liberty. As a child in a
father's house, the Christian stands related to his
fellow Christian at his side, and each bases his hope
of salvation on Christ.
Out of this spiritual union to the Saviour grows his
Church. This is composed of those who, as the re
cipients of mercy, are all equal, and who are intro
duced, through converting grace, into a common
brotherhood, and into the enjoyment of equal rights
and privileges. All these are bound by the relations

12 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
into which they are introduced, to regard each other
in love as members of the same family, children of a
common parent, friends of a common Saviour, and
entitled through grace to a common inheritance. All
have access to the same throne of mercy, have spi
ritual communion with the same Saviour, and have
fellowship with each other as entitled to equal con
sideration and regard. All belong to the true Church
who are by faith thus spiritually united to the Re
deemer. And as Christ designed to have a Church,
so he provided for its visible manifestation to the
world, and appointed certain ordinances peculiar to
the new dispensation, as the means of keeping him
self in spiritual remembrance, and of aiding the
growth of spiritual principles in the converted soul.
He also provided a ministry, to be set apart to this
office by his Church, and to receive their ministerial
endowment from him who is spiritually present with
his people always.
This is the scriptural view of religion, of the
Church, the ordinances, and the ministry. It pre
sents to view the hope of the Christian, as built on
Christ alone ; the Church, as a company of believers,
associated for the enjoyment of equal rights and privi
leges ; the ordinances, as aids to spiritual religion ;
and the ministry, as the servants of the Church ap
pointed by it, spiritually endowed by Christ, and
acting in the sphere of their appointment as embas
sadors of this Saviour, to guide sinners to him that
they may be saved.
All these vital elements of true religion on which
the Church is built, spring from the great doctrine

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 13
of justification by faith. All that is just and equal
in the administration of power, and merciful and
kind in the dispensation of love, originates in this
Gospel truth. There is no germ of civil and reli
gious despotism discoverable in the essential princi
ples of this religion. Government, in view of these
principles, is not a grinding oppression, but the off
spring of love. It is the government of brethren,
mutually established, harmoniously organized, at
the head of which is Christ ; and it is one in which
all come under the administration of wise and equal
laws. It commands no bayonets, constructs no in
quisitorial dungeons, drives no stakes, and gathers no
faggots ; for love does not require these engines of
cruelty to promote its ends ; but it brings all who
love our common Saviour into the relationship of
brethren coequal, into the same family, of which
God is the Father and Jesus Christ the elder brother.
III. In opposition to those human pretensions
which are oppressive in their influence on mankind,
justification by faith sets up the great doctrine of
EQUAL RIGHTS, AND OF A TRUE DEMOCRACY, AND WOULD
INTRODUCE MANKIND INTO the enjoyment of liberty
AND HAPPINESS.
It maintains that all who are united by faith --to
Jesus Christ, are true Christians, and will certainly
be saved ; and this it does in opposition to that sav
age pretension which excludes from the true Church
all but those who have received the impress of a par
ticular stamp, and who say " sibboleth," instead of
" shibboleth." 1. One pretension which justification by faith
2

14 christian liberty.
casts aside as worthless is, that there is a divine
ministerial right coursing down through the line
of an apostolic succession, the particular applica
tion of which to the persons of men, is essential
to their salvation.
The Gospel teaches that men are free and equal,
that they stand on common and equal ground, that,
as saved by grace, no one has a right to exalt him
self over his fellow, because all are the children of the
same household. It takes the broad and only tena
ble ground, that all who receive and rest on Christ
by faith, of whatever name, are true Christians, and
that these, associated together under the rules of the
Gospel, for the enjoyment of Christian privileges, are
a true Church. It sets up the regeneration of the
heart by the Holy Spirit, in opposition to a pretended
regeneration by the imposition of hands in baptism,
and it founds on this spiritual regeneration the spir
itual unity of all who love the Savior.
But the high pretensions of divine right through
apostolic succession, give rise to principles the ¦ re
verse of these which are so liberal and so accordant
with true freedom. The setting up of this divine
right aims a fatal blow at civil and religious liberty.
It limits the covenanted mercies of God to the few
over whom it exerts an influence, and excludes from
a ministerial character every other minister, however
owned in his labors by Christ, who does not yield to
its claims ; nor does it admit one to be a true Chris
tian, or a company of believers to be a true Church,
who do not submit themselves to a belief of this im
perious dogma ; and this pretension carried out to its

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 15
legitimate extent in application to others, sweeps
away the rights and privileges of all Christians of
every religious denomination, who are not its advo
cates. It introduces into society a principle incon
sistent with true freedom, because it aims to deprive
others of their inherent rights, and of the perfect en
joyment of their liberty. Admit this principle of a
divine right, and it must necessarily overtop all hu
man . institutions. The right of self-government,
founded on the great principle that all power ema
nates from the people, must necessarily yield to a
right that is divine.
View the consequences naturally arising from ad
herence to such a principle. I quote from authorities
which none can deny. Says the late Bishop Hobart,
of New York, in his Companion to the Altar, pages
202 and 204.
" When the Gospel is proclaimed, communion with
the Church by participation of its ordinances, at
the hands of the duly authorized priesthood, is the
indispensable condition of salvation. Separation
from the prescribed government, and regular priest
hood of the Church, when it proceeds from involun
tary and -unavoidable ignorance or error, we have
reason to trust, will not intercept from the humble,
the penitent, and obedient, the blessing of God's
favor. But when we humbly submit to that priest
hood which Christ and his Apostles have constituted ;
when, in the lively exercise of penitence and faith,
we partake of the ordinances administered by them,
we maintain our communion with that Church which
the Redeemer purchased with his blood," &c.

16 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
" But great is the guilt, and imminent the danger
of those who, possessing the means of arriving at the
knowledge of the truth, negligently or wilfully con
tinue in a state of separation from the authorized
ministry of the Church, and participate of ordinances
administered by an irregular and invalid authority.
Wilfully rending the peace and unity of the Church,
by separating from the ministrations of its author
ized priesthood ; obstinately contemning the means
which God, in his sovereign pleasure, hath pre
scribed for their salvation, they are guilty of rebel
lion against their Almighty Lawgiver and Judge ;
they expose themselves to the awful displeasure of
that Almighty Jehovah, who will not permit his in
stitutions to. be contemned, or his authority violated
with impunity."
Says the late Bishop Ravenscroft, of North Caro
lina, in his Doctrines of the Church Vindicated, pages
28, 31, 32 and 47.
" Episcopalians present these doctrines to their
hearers in the full persuasion that the Church, the
Ministry, and the Sacraments are distinctly and
truly appointments of God for the salvation of sin
ners, as faith of the Gospel, and that only as these
are united in the profession of religion, can the hope
thereby given to man be worthy of the name of assu
rance. "Episcopalians consider the grace and mercy oi
the Gospel as matters of strict covenant stipulation ;
as bound up with the authority to dispense them ;
as inseparable from that authority ; and only by
virtue of that authority, (with reverenee be it spo-

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 17
ken,) pledging the glorious source of all mercy and
grace to his creatures.
" The ministry of the Church is a substitution for
the Lord Jesus Christ in person, &c.
" When you baptize, do you not profess to bring
an alien into covenant with God, and seal him to
the day of redemption ? When you administer the
Lord's Supper, do you not negotiate afresh the par
don of the penitent, and replenish and confirm the
grace of worthy partakers ? When you visit the
sick and dying, are not the consolations of religion
at your disposal, according to the circumstances of
the case."
Here it is distinctly claimed, that the ministry of
the Church are the representatives of the Lord Jesus
Christ in person ; that grace is communicated at
their hands ; that this grace is indispensable to sal
vation ; and that the ministry of this pretended suc
cession are as essential to the salvation of the soul as
faith in Jesus Christ is.
Nor let it be thought that these pretensions are
peculiar. The English Tractarians boldly take the
ground, that, by virtue of their spiritual endowment,
bishops " are armed with the power of the Apostles,
to confer spiritual gifts in the Church, and in cases
of necessity, to wield their awful weapon of rejection
from the fold of Christ ;" and that they " rule the
whole church here below, as Christ, the true and
eternal sovereign, rules it above."
Says Dodwell, a distinguished writer of the seven
teenth century, a favorite author of these gentlemen
of high pretensions, " None but the bishops can unite
3*

18 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
us to the Father and the Son. Whence it follows
that whosoever is disunited from the visible com
munion of the bishops, must consequently be dis
united from the whole visible Catholic Church on
earth ; and not only so, but from the invisible com
munion of the Holy Angels and Saints in heaven,
and what is yet more, from Christ and God himself.
It is one of the most dreadful aggravations of the
condition of the damned, that they are banished from
the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power.
The same is their condition also, who are disunited
from the Church of Christ, by being disunited from
his visible representative."
These are but samples of those opinions which are
constantly affirmed and sanctioned by the highest
prelatical authority in this country and in England,
which are inwoven into a large mass of the visible
representatives of that communion, and to the con
stant reiteration of which, through the pulpit and
the press, the Protestant community in our land are
ever exposed. " In this state of things there will be,
there ought to be, controversy," said one of the no
blest, purest, most Christ-like and charitable of men,
now in glory, who once occupied a distinguished post
in the Church of Christ on earth.* And if his voice
could now reach us from the excellent glory, with a
higher appreciation of vital truth than he ever before
felt, it would express the same sentiment, " there
will be, there ought to be, controversy." Pretensions
so unscriptural, so subversive of the doctrine of jus-
* Rev. John Holt Rice, D.D.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 19
tification by faith and pure spiritual religion, ought
to be met and controverted ; for they are the corner
stone of civil and religious despotism.
Confer on me, by any process you please, the
acknowledged power to regenerate the soul in Bap
tism, and complete its salvation by any ministerial
rites I may perform, and you put into my hand the'
key to the kingdom of heaven, and with this key,
the power to lord it over the consciences and per
sons of men. I ask no more than that men should
believe in my exclusive possession of this power, to
bring the whole world in abject submission to my
feet. There is no religious despotism so great that
it may not be reared on this basis.
Some may advance but a little way, compara
tively, in the advocacy of these pretensions, and may
even acquire the character of liberal for not carrying
out their principles to an extreme ; others may go
much further. In the nature of this divine right
itself, there is nothing that is conservative. All the
conservative influences which bear upon it are from
without, and belong not to the system ; nor are they
essential to it. Who, then, becomes the arbiter in
this case, to fix the bounds of wisdom or expediency
beyond which this principle may not be carried ? If
its perfect development cannot be made in America
because of the restraining influences which surround
it, may it not be made' in Rome ? If one may here
build on it the exclusive claim to the ministry and to
the Church of Christ, and dog men into the adoption
of this principle by its bold, constant, and undisputed
assertion, why may not another, in circumstances

20 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
more favorable to its full development, set up his
spiritual throne,, construct his dungeons, plant his
stake, and forge his chains, to compel men to save
their souls in the way he proposes, because his is of
divine right the true and only way? Which is
worse, to have one's body impaled on a stake, or his
spiritual and eternal hopes impaled on the point of a
merciless pretension ; to be immured in a dungeon,
or to be driven to make a dungeon of his mind ; to
be shut out from the sympathies and affections of the
world, or to shut up his affections in a cold and self
ish denial of Christian charity to others ?
But some may say, this implication does not be
long to us. We would not be uncharitable. We do
not wish to unchurch others, if we could help it.
We are no advocates of Popery. All that we wish
is for you to admit that we stand in true apostolic
order and succession, and are not schismatical, but
are the only true Church. And ought you not, will
you not, for the avoidance of those dreadful schisms
which prevail around us, consent to admit this little
point ? Admit this point, do you say ? You might
as reasonably ask us to admit that Satan is the eter
nal God. Is it a small thing to admit a principle
which bears with it consequences inevitably sub
versive of the religion of Jesus Christ ; to set up a
fulcrum on which tyrants may rest the lever of their
power ; and to establish the foundations of an op
pressive despotism in the world ? Is it a small
thing, on this admission, to be compelled to deny
the courtesies of Christians to those whom Christ
receives as his ministers and his people, and to risk

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 21
the spiritual and eternal destruction of millions of
our race by leading them into the adoption of princi
ples whose only tendency is to build them up in
formalism, but not to convert and save the soul?
If, then, you cannot admit this divine right, it is
asked, why take ground against it ? I reply, be
cause it is an Ishmaelite in the camp of Israel, put
ting forth its hand against every man. It comes
into the assembly of God's people of different reli
gious communions, true believers in Christ, living in
mutual charity and pressing on in the way to heav
en, and denies the Christian character of them all,
whether Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Con-
gregationalists, or Christians of any other name. It
casts them all into the Red Sea, to feed the sharks
with Pharaoh and his Egyptians, while it stands and
sings Te Deum on the shore. It makes its attacks
on the ministry and churches of all other religious
denominations, and of the whole Christian world. It
hunts them down as unworthy pretenders, aiming to
break the Christian neck of every man it cannot
convert to its opinions, and around which, in the
fury of the chase, it may be able to cast its fatal
lasso. " To unchurch with a dash of the pen," says a dis
tinguished author,* " all the non-Episcopal denomina
tions under heaven; and cast their members indis
criminately, into a condition worse than that of the
very heathen, is, to say the least of it, a most dreadful
excommunication ; and if not clearly enjoined by the
* Rev. John Mason, D.D.

22 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
authority of God, as criminal as it is dreadful. That
all those glorious churches which have flourished in
Geneva, Holland, France, Scotland, England, Ireland,
&c, since the Reformation ; and all of which have
spread and are spreading through this vast continent
— that those heroes of the truth who, though they
bowed not to their mitre, rescued millions from the
man of sin, lighted up the lamp of genuine religion,
and left it burning with a pure and steady flame to
the generation following, — that all those faithful
ministers and those private Christians, who, though
not of the hierarchy, adorned the doctrine of God
their Saviour, living in faith, dying in faith ; scores,
hundreds, thousands of them going away to their
Father's house, under the strong consolations of the
Holy Ghost, with anticipated heaven in their hearts,
and its hallelujahs on their lips, that all, all were
without the pale of the visible Church ; were desti
tute of covenanted grace, and left the world without
any chance for eternal life, but that unpledged, un-
promised mercy which their accusers charitably hope
may be extended to such as labor under involuntary
a unavoidable error, and this merely because they
renounced Episcopacy, — are positions of such deep
toned horror, as may well make our hair stand up >
'like quills upon the fretful porcupine,' and freeze
the warm blood at the fountain."
The divine right, thus sustained, leads to error.
It induces many to make shipwreck of their spiritual
hopes, by trusting in forms, and rights, and Church
authority and imposition of hands, instead of trusting
in Christ. It is not a mere harmless opinion, but a

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 23
fatal heresy. For if, through the reiterated avowal of
these pretensions, and the unexplained formularies in
authority in a Church, men are led to think that
baptism is all the regeneration the soul needs to fit it
for heaven, it is an error which must prove the spiritu
al destruction of all who embrace it. There is no
Elisha in the universe who can heal this mess of pot
tage, or make this iron swim.
Carry out the pretensions of those who claim to be
the only true ministers of Christ, on account of their
imagined apostolical succession to its legitimate re
sults, and popery, with despotism, civil and religious,
in all their forms, are the consequence. There is no
stopping place short of Rome. The tendencies are all
that way. Conservatism is not a principle inherent
in the system, but only a temporary policy, and is
ever ready to yield to circumstances. Let a man
once get up into the old lumbering chariot of these
pretensions, to ride with bishops, archbishops, cardi
nals, and popes, and Satan will be sure to mount the
box as charioteer, and drive the whole of them to the
Vatican. No explanation need be given on this point. The
world have seen and they know, that numerous instances
of defection to Romanism have been multiplying of
late, both in England and America. Men of the
highest distinction and station in the church, having
assumed the principle of divine right grounded on
apostolical succession, young men from many of our
best families, and our institutions of learning trained
up under these prelatical influences, have advanced
from one degree of pretension to another till they have

24 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
sought and found an asylum for their conscientious
stupidity in the close proximity of their lips to the
great toe of the Roman pontiff.
The assertion of this divine prerogative is an offence
against the religious liberty of every christian man.
It may seem harmless in this country, under the re
strictions encountered by public sentiment here, but
it resembles a young tiger in a cage. It contains
the essential elements of popery, — the foe of all true
republicanism. The people have no power over which
this divine right does not assert a supremacy. God
has constituted a class of men, is the doctrine it ad
vances, which are above the people, a spiritual class,
a divine aristocracy, dependent as links of a chain
on the religious despots of past generations, with no
dependence on the people ; and has committed to
them the spiritual and eternal interests of the race.
These create the Church. The people have no voice
in the matter ; none in the reception of members to
their communion ; none in the exclusion of them. This
divine power to create and uncreate the Church is
all lodged in the hands of a divinely constituted
priesthood. According to the lowest construction of this pre
rogative, these men are the only true ministers of
Christ ; they only have the right to dispense Gospel
salvation. Their hands only are to administer the
bread of life. The world are to believe their preten
sions on peril of being left without a true Church or
a ministry, till the day of final conflagration ; and
they are guilty of voluntary error, and therefore wor
thy of being given over to destruction, who when they

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 25
have a divinely appointed minister at their side to
tell them what to believe, do not humbly yield them
selves up to the priesthood of the Church, the repre
sentatives of Christ in person. None are safe whose
names are not inscribed on their baptismal register ;
all are in peril who do not bend and touch the hem
of their garments. These are the pretensions of
prelacy, and which it urges upon the world, to lead
men blindfolded under the shadow of the mitre.
It is not the heighth to which these pretensions are
borne, it is the nature of the pretensions themselves
which oppugns the christian liberties of the world.
This divine right aims to coerce every man's opinions.
It allows no latitude of choice or expediency, admits
no conscientious scruple, prays for no christians out
of it own pale, acknowledges in them no fellowship,
extends to them no charity. It stands by itself like
a polar bear on an iceberg, cold, calculating, selfish,
audacious, merciless, floating with wind and tide,
and seeking only the undisturbed enjoyment of its
own glory. It conforms itself to any shape for popu
larity . In Austria it becomes a despot, in America
a republican, and in England a high church tory.
In Rome, it will charge bayonet against the rising
liberties of the people : and in this land of the free,
it will shout itself hoarse in praise of freedom. It is
despotism sanctified under the robes of the Church ;
the bigots hope, the despairing freeman's grave.
This it is, which has extended its iron rule into
Church and State, and driven men to madness under
oppression, — incarcerated them ii? a dungeon and
3

26 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
bound them to the stake. The foes of liberty have
always been found on its side. But those who have
resisted oppiession, and shed their blood in defense
of equal rights, have drawn their principles from the
Gospel, which unfolds true Christianity as based in a
vital union to Christ by faith. This sets up the com
pany of true believers as the true Church. It admits
a latitude of opinion as consistent with true spiritual
religion. It brings down the questions of form and
order to a very small insignificance, compared with
that faith which justifies and saves the soul. It in
spires true liberty. It lays a broad foundation, and
on the rock of eternal truth builds the hopes of the
world. The men who fled from persecution to this
country, and who fought the battles of our liberties,
were men who received the great truths of the Gos
pel as the guide of their lives. The men of high
church pretensions were all on the other side, for
these pretensions are naturally allied to despotism.
" No bishop, no king," exclaimed the pusillanimous
James, when he saw the tendencies to republican
liberty, incorporated in the principles of the Presby
terian faith, grounded in the doctrine of justification
and -true spiritual religion.
On the ground of this divine right, men assume a
control to which they are not entitled. When a Ro
mish priest steps into a mob, and by his look and
voice hushes its discordant elements, what is it that
produces these mighty results ? On what principle
does he command and they obey ? It is, that, in his
person, as a divinely appointed minister, he is the
representative of God on earth ; and if the rabble do

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 27
not instantly disperse, they are led to believe that
they peril their salvation. Poor, ignorant men, to
fancy such august power lodged in any mortal. And
yet it is the same principle on which the Roman Pon
tiff commands a million of bayonets, to re-establish
himself in his domain, and to do his work of paternal
love among his subjects.
Do you ask if such a principle, so at variance with
true liberty, is to be discovered in the midst of us ?
We reply that it is at work everywhere. It is the
very principle applied to sustain the pretensions of
the prelatical minister and church, to be the only
true minister and Church of Christ, out of the multi
tude of schismatical pretenders who have the audacity
to worship by their side.
It is a monstrous error to think, that in principle,
there is any essential difference between the divine
right set up in any communion, on which the claim
is founded of being the only true Church, and the
higher developments of this divine right, in its more
arrogant pretensions. It is no relief to this evil, nor
of advantage to the cause of Christ, that a Church is
low in its pretensions, is evangelical in doctrine, and
that its minister and members adhere to spiritual
religion, and do not go the lengths of this exclusive-
ness which has been set forth, so long that Church
continues to sustain the great principle of divine
right, out of which grow all these evils. One may
be led by the piety and devotedness of some exem
plary minister, to join a communion esteemed evan
gelical, thinking there can be no great difference in
churches, which, in respect to spiritual religion seem

28 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
so much alike. But no sooner is one introduced into
such a communion, than he finds himself associated
necessarily with high church acquaintances. The
formularies of baptism teach him baptismal regenera
tion. Ministers and prelates of the Church inculcate
it. The high pretensions growing out of a divine
right, are taught in tracts and sabbath school books,
and religious newspapers which constantly meet his
eye. The highest authorities of the Church to which
he belongs, are in aid of the same pretensions. These
exert their influence ; if not on himself, yet on his
unconverted children. He comes almost by a natural
necessity in the circumstance of the case, to use the
dialect of the Church, to claim that his is the only
true Church, and to advance from one degree of pre
tension to another, till at length all the great errors
of prelacy and perhaps of popery, have become em
bosomed in his family. Children of parents who have
entered the realms of glory from other communions,
and have died with alleluias to the Lamb upon their
lips, have thus been led to give their influence to sus
tain a system which would have excluded their
parents on earth, from any christian privileges, and
even from the hope of a blessed immortality. Instances
unnumbered are discoverable where, in this way, the
most evangelical churches, based on this divine
right, or in communion with it, have become the
nursing mothers to the worst errors of popery. Such
churches and ministers exert a more pernicious, on the
cause of vital religion, than the more open advocates
of high pretensions, because their influence tends to
sanctify a principle of vital error, and of wide spread

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 29
ruin, and is rendered so seductive to unthinking
minds, because of the piety with which it is associated.
There is but one way to be saved from the conse
quences which have been stated, and that is, for all
who believe in spiritual religion, as distinct from the
divine right flowing from apostolical succession and
baptismal regeneration, to turnback from their present
system of exclusiveness, remodel their formularies,
step off from the ground of apostolic succession as
essential to salvation, to the constitution of a true
Christian Church ; and while retaining their own
modes of worship, to place themselves on the ground
of christian fellowship, and an interchange of chris
tian courtesies with ministers of other communions ;
and to do this inthe full belief that those who hold the
essential principles of true spiritual religion are re
quired by christian duty, thus to treat each other as
christians. Thus only, can ground be taken, whichwill
be safe, and afford a sure protection against the morti
fying defections to popery, which have been felt to be
scandalous by those, who, if I may use the illus
tration, from their souls abhor the Roman vulture,
and yet are continually brooding the eggs from which
it is hatched.
So long as the doctrines of divine right and an ex
clusive church and ministry are embedded in the sys
tem which they uphold, all the conservative influences
which may be exerted, will not prevent multitudes
from advancing in their pretensions, till the " Eter
nal City" shall come into view as the object of their
aspirations, the centre of their religious hopes. For
so intoxicating is the power derived from this divine
3*

30 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
right, that there is constant danger that ere he him
self is aware, the moderate drinker will become an
inebriate. Nothing but total abstinence from this
intolerant principle, will save the piety and preserve
the spiritual purity ofthe Church.
Is it said, that separate from this divine right, there
can be no Episcopal communion? This may easily
be shown to be an error. I quote the high authority
of Archbishop Whately of Dublin, in confirmation of
what I affirm. In his sermon at the consecration of
the new Bishop of Meath, preached a few years since,
he boldly took the very ground on which I stand, and
which I have now set forth. Speaking of those who
set up these high views of church order, and who
maintain that those who do not adopt them, are not
included inthe Christian Church, he said, that "those
views seemed to him extremely dangerous. The per
sons holding these sentiments, removed the founda
tions of the church from the rock upon which they
rested and placed them in the sand. Such were not
the views held by those who framed the article of our
Church, for they say that the visible church is a com
pany of faithful men, in which the pure word of God
is preached and the sacraments administered accord
ing to Christ's ordinance, in all those things, that of
necessity require the same. They clearly recognized
the claim of every christian community, who hold the
great fundamental doctrines of the gospel, and ad
minister the ordinances instituted by Christ, to be
called a Church of Christ. They claimed no sacra
mental virtue for the ordinances which they adminis
tered, on account of possessing the apostolical chain

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 31
of succession, which if one link be broken, the whole
is destroyed." Their ministers, " were merely suc
cessors to the apostles, in being ministers of a regu
larly constituted church, and in observing the ordi
nances of the Gospel. Successors in any other sense,
the apostles had none. They did not regard those
who did not belong to their Church as excluded from
the Church of Christ."
Here, then, it is admitted in the strongest terms,
and by high prelatical authority, that the Episcopal
Church, as established by the reformers, was wholly
separate from these high pretensions, and that it opened
its heart of charitv to other christians around them.
And now, ought I to be charged with committing an
aggravated offence against the communion -of a par
ticular Church, in attacking those high prelatical
pretensions, which, it is here admitted, have no
necessary association with Episcopacy, any more than
with Presbyterianism; and the tendency of which it
is avowed, are to remove the Church from off the rock
and to place it in the sand ? Is it that men are so igno
rant of the religion of the Bible, and of the reformers,
that when an honest attempt is made to strike down
these arrogant pretensions, and a vivid picture is
drawn of their evils, they are so ready to take the
coat, fit it to their own shoulders, and to complain as
under the infliction of a blow ? If it be true that the
garment prepared really fits them, because they them
selves indulge these high pretensions, and love their
advocacy, then the cries of the wounded will never
disquiet1 me. Ishall continue, as occasion offers, to
preach the truth against all such arrogant preten-

32 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. .
sions, come from what quarter they may, knowing
that in so doing, I am defending from the grossest
spiritual corruptions, the blessed Gospel of my Lord.
But, if they themselves disclaim these pretensions,
they have no right to impugn me for setting them
aside. Let them then act according to this disclaimer,
by opening their pulpits to an interchange of minis
terial courtesy, and standing aloof from all those
influences which would corrupt and destroy the soul,
arising out of these unscriptural pretensions. The
world will then believe, when they see the fruits of a
different system ripening on the tree, that they have
turned back from their errors to stand with us in the
purity, simplicity, and genuine liberty of the Gos
pel. 2. Another pretension which the doctrine of justifi
cation by faith oppugns as hostile to freedom is, that
SALVATION FLOWS NATURALLY AND DIRECTLY FROM THE
FORMS AND ORDINANCES AND COMMUNION OF A PARTICULAR
church, and is to ,be found only there. •
It is the dogma of the Church of Rome, that there
is no salvation out of its pale. Not because others
may not be pious, but because they do not sustain
the anomalous pretensions of that Church. The same
error substantially creeps down through all the arte
ries of Romanism, as they course through the entire
system of the prelacy. I refer to quotations already
made in proof of this. The idea is everywhere abun
dantly inculcated under the prelacy, that union to a
particular church is the indispensable condition of
salvation ; and that there is no other church and no
other ministry which have a right to bear the name.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 33
But justification by faith inculcates a widely differ
ent doctrine. It includes all who are united by faith
to Christ in the Gospel pale as true Christians, to what
ever religious denomination they may belong. Hence
there arises a conflict between the liberty growing out
of this doctrine and guaranteed to various religious de
nominations by our wise laws, and the pretensions
which would cast aside. those Christians as having no
title to the appellation, and would set up its own
peculiar disciples as the anointed, the true Church.
There is no immediate danger to be apprehended
from such assumptions where other Christians are
numerous, and able to give a right direction to public
sentiment ; but what security have the liberties of the
world against their despotic influence, in other cir
cumstances. Let the bloody fields of oppressed Hun
gary respond ; let the groans of innumerable captives
in the dungeons of Austria tell. All the tendencies
of such pretensions are to intolerance, to the over
throw of the great democratic doctrine of equal rights
and that all power emanates from the people.
But the doctrine of justification by faith, includes
a conservatism which tends to restrain despotic power ;
it is the principle of religious toleration, a true regard
for others opinions, an acknowledgment of others as
Christians, and of other churches based on that faith
in Christ which they all enjoy, and which must for
ever prohibit the uncourteous exclusion of them from
an equal standing in church and state, and from the
protection of equal laws.
3. Another pretension, hostile to civil and religious
freedom which the doctrine of justification by faith

34 . CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
annihilates is, the right of coercion in matters of
conscience. The great conflict of Protestantism
against popery, or of civil liberty against oppression,
has been for the unrestricted right of every man to
worship God according to the dictates of his con
science. The language inspired by the religion of
Jesus Christ is, as is set forth in our confession of
faith : " God alone is the Lord ofthe conscience and
hath leftit free from the doctrines and commandments
of men, which are in any thing "contrary to his word^,
or beside it in matters of faith and worship."
But the advocates of prelatical pretensions have
ever set themselves, when they safely could, to en
force their opinions on the conscience, and to reduce
men to a tame submission. History furnishes on this
subject an instructive lesson. We can look back
upon the past and ask who it was who supported the
infamous courts of high commission, and the Star
Chamber which warred to the , death against the
liberties of our fathers in the old world, and drove
them to seek an asylum in this wilderness of America ?
' ' Who were the staunch advocates of all the arbitrary
measures of the house of Stuart ? Who opposed
the glorious revolution of 1668, and who were the
enemies of ourown more glorious revolution in 1776 ?"
Not the puritans. Not those who received the great
doctrine of justification by faith, the followers of
Knox, of Luther, and of Calvin. No. These were
all arrayed on the side of liberty, they girded on their
armor and fought her battles. It was the advocates
of high prelatical pretensions which swayed the civil
arm to execute the mandates of a spiritual despotism,

christian liberty. 35
that the human conscience mightbe subjected to their
sway. These oppressions were enacted under the
shadow of the mitre. All the liberty now enjoyed in
the old world, has cost the shedding of patriotic blood,
and has been gained only on the field of battle.
There was no fostering arm of prelacy thrown around
the infant liberty, as a nursing mother, to protect it.
That cruel arm would have crushed it as between
plates of mail. But it lived, notwithstanding the
machinations of its enemies, though sometimes hidden
from the merciless midwives of the prelacy, as was
Moses in his ark of bulrushes. It lived to become
known, respected, feared. And it will continue to
grow and thrive fast, by the oracles of God, and to
make itself ready for the great battle day of freedom,
against the united despotisms of the world.
4. Another pretension swept away by the pure re
ligion of Jesus Christ is the divine right of man
to rule his fellow. Prelatical pretensions uphold
the kingly throne. They set forth as of divine right
the power of the tyrant over his subjects, of the mas
ter over his slaves.
But the great doctrine of justification by faith, sets
up the opposite as the true principle of all govern
ment, — that all power emanates from the people, and
that the people in any land and among every nation
have an inherent and inalienable right to institute
that government which in their view, shall best con
duce to the promotion of their own happiness. For
if by this great doctrine all men stand on an equality
before God. and as spiritually regenerated, become the
children of the same family, coequal in natural rights

36 christian liberty.
and entitled to equal privileges, what is this but
another name for the elementary principles of all
true republicanism ? The religion of the gospel is
a religion for the free ; and this it is which has
given the impulse to liberty throughout the world.
Go where there is no Bible, and what else can the
eye of the philanthropist behold, but an enthroned
despotism ? Go where the Bible is tortured into sus
taining the pretensions of the prelacy, and there is no
true liberty there. No ! Liberty can never thrive
on such a soil, where every thing is settled by au
thority and not by reason, by divine right, and not
by popular concurrence.
If we survey the nations of the world in days that
are past, we shall perceive the same combinations
arising out of prelacy that our eyes have recently
beheld among the despotisms of Europe, for the com
plete extinction of liberal principles. Who have stood
foremost against these combinations and raised a bul
wark for the defense of freedom ? Holland, whose
sons were deeply embuedwith the principles of justi
fication by faith, Calvinistic Holland, Lutheran Ger
many, Puritan England. It was Cromwell, the Inde
pendent, the Calvinist ; Cromwell, contemned by the
prelacy, the despised, the patriotic, the brave, the
fearless Cromwell, the most wise, liberal, righteous
ruler that ever stood at the English helm of State, who
fought the battles of liberty and took higher ground
in religious toleration, than any sovereign of that
realm, either before or since ; this love of liberty in
him grew out of his religious faith, and overturned
all the arrogant pretensions of the prelacy. Croker,

christian liberty. 37
in his review of Mackintosh, in the London Quar
terly, thinks that none but a few " republican zeal
ots," esteem Cromwell for his principles ; which
distinctly shows which way the wind raised by the
high pretensions of prelacy would sweep, and what
liberal institutions it would demolish, since republi
cans only esteem Cromwell, that dreadful foe to op
pression, whether by kings or prelates.
When he had passed away, and oppression had
grown rank through the re-establishment of prelatical
and kingly power under Charles and James, Holland
came to the rescue, and William landed on the Eng
lish shores and ascended the throne, establishing
those very principles of toleration, so far as it was in
his power, which Cromwell had set up.
When, in later times, it was attempted to trans
plant the prelatical oppressions of the old world to
this, and the throne attempted to assert its supremacy
over the liberties of these colonies, a conflict ensued.
Puritan New England raised the standard, and her
sons flocked around it ; while prelacy still clung de
spairingly to the regal throne, and crouched itself sub
missively at the feet of the British lion. The patriot
Washington was indeed reared in the communion of
the Episcopal Church, then the prevailing church in
Virginia ; but he was far from acknowledging these
high prelatical pretensions, and would have felt him
self degraded by having them ascribed to him. So,
also, would the Rev. William White, who afterward
became bishop, and who was faithful found, among
the faithful few, on the side of our liberties.
A man of Catholic spirit, he loathed these preten-
4

38 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
sions as much as others glory in them. But of the
high church clergy of Virginia, and in other parts of
our Union, who can point out a man that was not a
tory ; and in England, these high pretensioned pre
latical gentlemen, were all of them adverse to the
cause of Liberty. Can any one falsify the facts of
history ? Are not these truths emblazoned to the
world on the historic page ?
The natural, the legitimate influence of the spi
ritual religion of Jesus, as grounded on the doctrine
of justifying faith is, to sweep away these preten
sions, and to advance human liberty and human hap
piness, peace on earth and good will to men.
Glorious will be the day when, not " the sun of
Austerlitz," but the sun of Righteousness shall rise
on the friends of freedom, confederated in martial
array, to defend the cause of human liberty against
the combined oppression of the. tyrants of the world.
Not a prelatist will be numbered in their ranks.
These will swarm around the Roman Pontiff, who,
surmounted by the triple crown, will elevate the host
before the kneeling minions of despotism and urge
them on to victory. But victory will not then perch
on their banners. The spirits of the glorious com
peers of Kossuth, will then sit heavy on their souls.
The spirits of Huss and Zwingle, and of the victims
who fell by treachery on St. Bartholomew's day, and
of the thousands who have breathed their last in the
dungeons of the inquisition and at the stake, will
cheer on the friends of freedom, and shed dismay on
the ranks of their opponents ; and when the sun of
that day shall set, the white banner of liberty shall

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 39
be seen waving its massive folds over that blood
stained field, while the victors, clustered in security
around their watch-fires, shall resign themselves to a
peaceful repose.
1. The first thought suggested by this subject is,
that the Christian Church is the living temple of
Freedom. Not, however, as it is corrupted through
the pride and ambition of a graceless hierarchy ; for
these corruptions may blight the purest, most liberal,
charitable and blessed of all institutions ; but as it is
set forth in the sacred oracles. Based on that faith
which justifies and saves the soul, the Church becomes
the source of true liberty to the world. By a spiritual
union to Christ, it creates in men a bond of mutual
fellowship. It brings them into the relationship of
brethren where no one has any lawful precedence
but by common consent, and where all stand in the
enjoyment of equal rights. It advances the great
principle of true republicanism, that all power ema
nates from the people, and it beats down every
opposing principle whenever brought into conflict.
They who receive this doctrine in its legitimate ap
plication to civil government, are true republicans ;
or, if under constraint to sustain a different regimen,
they are nevertheless lovers of freedom and the advo
cates of religious toleration.
We are often obliged to notice the anomaly, that
zealous advocates of republican principles in govern
ment, are sometimes found in church connections
with the highest sticklers for divine right. These
inconsistencies require explanation.
The doctrine of justification revealed inthe Gospel,

40 christian liberty.
confers on no man the hope of salvation but through
his personal acceptance by faith of Jesus Christ, and
his personal experience of true spiritual conversion.
The religion of Jesus Christ includes a faith for him
to believe, and a work for him to do. But your semi-
infidel, your dancing, drinking, play-house going men
of the world, feel that they have as much as they can
do to take charge of their worldly cares and pleasures,
or, if politicians, to take care of the affairs of the state
and country, without troubling themselves very much
about religion ; and if they can only get into a com
fortable church which requires of them no self-sacri
fice, if they can only find a religion where the impo
sition of hands in baptism can regenerate them, and
their church relations save them, if they can only
discover a church where the whole responsibility of
salvation will be taken off themselves, it is just what
they desire. Good, easy souls, they would not be
shut up to the necessitv of repentance and faith in
Jesus Christ for salvation, and to the strictness of
Presbyterian Church discipline, not they. Hence,
they are willing to encounter the inconsistency of
being democrats in politics and aristocrats in reli
gion ; of advocating popular rights in civil govern
ment and priestly rule in the Church ; of having one "
set of principles for the service of their country, and
another for the service of their God.
A casual observation will satisfy any man of the
truthfulness of this suggestion. It is because men,
from their habits of life and their devotion to the
world, do not wish to trouble themselves about per
sonal religion, that they rush into those church con-

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 41
nections where the smallest amount of respect for
religion, and attention to its forms, will stand them
as good a stead in view of heaven, they are led to be
lieve, as the most devoted piety in other churches
around them. And often when grown old in the ser
vice of the world and worn out with its pleasures,
they think of death, they not unfrequently rush into
communion with some church that requires less per
sonal religion for this purpose than any other, in the
hope that the virtues of apostolic hands will make up
for their past deficiencies, and raise them at last to a
glorious seat in paradise.
These apparent anomalies are easily explicable on
the ground of popular ignorance or depravity. The
love of popular liberty is not, in the case supposed,
destroyed by these high church pretensions, because
every thing connected with religion sits on those who
indulge them so lightly. They do not reason, or
think, or care enough about it to perceive the incon
sistency of maintaining two opposite sets of principles
at a time, like a man attempting to roll two wheel
barrows. Should religion ever happen to take an impressive
hold on their feelings and awaken their convictions
and fears, the natural development ' of it, in their
case, would be in the form of superstition. Having
no spiritual regeneration, no true faith in the Re
deemer, they would be led to trust wholly in the
forms and rites of the Church ; to fast religiously
during Lent, to " wear sackcloth with Dr. Pusey,"
or to go over with the Bishop of Exeter to Rome,
4*

42 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
And here is the precise difficulty with respect to
those unconverted men comprising the large majority
of the ministers of the English establishment. Not
knowing anything by personal experience of true
spiritual religion, having received no change of heart,
but only baptism, and having entered -the ministry
of the church merely as a profession and for a living,
they know no other religion but prelatical pretension
and Popish rites ; and hence, when a decision of the
higher ecclesiastical authority crosses their path which
seems to put spiritual regeneration on an equal foot
ing as to privilege, with baptism, evangelical religion,
with prelatical rites, they are ready to plume them
selves for a flight to Rome. And amid the convul
sions which now agitate the old hive, there is too
much reason to fear, that when those who assume
these high pretensions shall have swarmed from the
establishment, there will be very little of it left. Out
of fourteen thousand of its ministers, not over thir
teen hundred, it is said, make any pretensions to be
evangelical. Certain it is, that the high pretensioned
bishops would not have applied to Parliament for a
law to call a spiritual convocation to settle points of
doctrine, if they had not been well assured of being
sustained by a large majority of their Church. And
when the multitude shall have gone to Rome, of
which there is very little danger so long as the purse
is left behind, there is reason to believe that this
minority, built up in the spiritual doctrines of the
Gospel, will return back to the principles now lost
sight of, to a purer faith and a purer administration,

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 43
a more Christian charity than have ever yet charac
terized any of the prelatical establishments of the
Old World.
In spite of many inconsistencies which meet the
eye, there is still ample ground for setting forth the
Gospel church as the living temple of liberty. There
may be errors in the adherents of the true doctrines
of the Gospel, but yet, all who love the Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity, are introduced into the freedom
of the children of God. The operations of the Holy
Spirit on the hearts of men conduce to liberty. Let
the Bible, then, go forth to the people as the book of
freedom. Let the Sabbath School exert its influence,
to train up the youth of our land in the knowledge of
the sacred oracles. Let the pulpit speak out the plain
truth of the Gospel, untramelled by fear, and, with
a holy boldness, advocate the great doctrines of Jesus
Christ and the principles of true liberty ; and thus
may we hope that the freedom of our republican in
stitutions will be perpetuated to the remotest genera
tion. 2. The appropriate remembrance of the day of
our national independence suggests the remem
brance of the rock whence we were hewn and the
hole of the pit whence we were digged. The sug
gestions offered in this discourse are, to this end, not
inappropriate. The causes of our fathers' flight to
this country, and of the glorious struggle for liberty
which ensued, are discoverable in the oppressive na
ture of those arrogant pretensions which have been
considered. Let every man reflect that the liberties
we enjoy did not spring up of chance, nor are they

44 christian liberty.
the growth of a day. They originated with men
who read the Bible and found no prelacy there ; with
men who knew by their own experience the convert
ing grace of God, and the power of spiritual religion.
And they cost these men a struggle. They were the
purchase of their blood.
We enjoy the boon which they secured for us. We
rejoice in the liberties which they gained. Well does
it become us to celebrate the day of our national in
dependence and to acknowledge the kind hand of
God, in the enjoyment of the rich blessings of our
freedom. 3. Here we may perceive what is the true ground
which, as Christians and citizens, we should occupy.
As Christians, we are to regard in christian charity
those who differ from us, who yet love the Lord Jesus
Christ, and are united to him by faith. We should
treat them as entitled to equal Christian consideration
with ourselves, and ever cherish toward them a spirit
of love. But we are not required to love them better
than ourselves. We are not required to acknowledge
their arrogant pretensions to being the only true
Church and ourselves merely Christian pretenders.
We are not required by the highest Gospel charity to
bastardize ourselves for the sake of pleasing them.
It were too much to ask of us ; nor does the rule of
Christ require it at our hands. We cheerfully accord
to them the same character as a Church of Christ
which we claim for ourselves, and christian charity
cannot reasonably demand more. We place them
with us on an equal platform, and give them an
equal standing. Qn this ground, we offer them the

christian liberty. 45
hand of christian fellowship ; and to interchange
with them christian courtesies, in common with all
who love the Saviour.
But we are not bound to countenance their fatal
errors, or to refrain from lifting our voice against
them. It is as much the duty of the Christian min
ister to point out such errors, as it is to preach the
truth ; indeed, it is impossible to present the truth
but in contrast with its opposite.
When we have shown, as in the case before us,
that these high pretensions tend to overthrow the
fundamental doctrine of the Gospel, justification by
faith, and the civil and religious liberty which grows
out of it, and that such pretensions directly conflict
with the charities of the Gospel and with the spirit
of Christ, we have done all that is needed to disprove
them. We have shown the Gospel itself arrayed
against them, and of necessity Christ its author. In
view of the great doctrine of justification by faith,
its relations to our salvation, and the momentous
value of a union by faith to the Saviour, these preten
sions resemble bubbles which children create for their
own amusement. They may awaken the admiration
of the thoughtless when blown up and set afloat by
those who venerate bubbles, because so ancient in
their origin, but they are utterly unworthy the no
tice of men who feel sensible of their sins, and of their
need of the cleansing blood of Christ to save them ; of
men who are looking forward to eternity and reflect with
serious earnestness that unless born again, of the Holy
Spirit, and renewed in the temper of their minds,
they cannot enter the kingdom of God. Oh, who in

46 CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.
the hour of death, if he understood the Gospel, would
be willing to rest his hope upon a bubble ?
We ought, as Christians, not to imitate such fol
lies, but to stand firm on the great principles of the
religion of Jesus Christ ; and while we do so, to main
tain the essential elements of this religion at every
hazard. If any choose to set up pretensions which
aim to destroy my christian liberties and overthrow
my religious hopes, I must, as a duty which I owe
to myself, to society, and to the great interests of the
Church of Christ, resist those pretensions to the utmost
of my power. I cannot, will not, tamely submit to
surrender my Bible and my Christian liberties, while
I stand as a freeman on the soil of my native land,
and hear, reverberating, among these hills and val
leys, the thunders of our national Jubilee, and the
shouts of the free. I accord the same liberty to
others which I claim to enjoy myself. There is a
right inherent in liberty ; it is the right of self-pro
tection against every oppression devised by human
pride. And when any one in the insolence of a thirst
for power, shall attempt to subject the office which I
hold as a minister of Christ, and the Church to which
I belong, to the annihilating influence of any unscrip
tural pretension, I shall feel it to be my duty to take
the ground of open and fearless resistance. With the
Bible in my hand, I will maintain and defend the
liberties which I enjoy, and never will I relinquish
the conflict till these merciless pretensions which
have oppressed the world, have brought nations into
servitude and shed seas of blood, shall be driven back
to that pit from whence they emanate, and the an-

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. 47
gel's song of " peace on earth and good will to men,"
shall echo and be re-echoed, till every slave on earth
shall lift his broken manacles to heaven, and shout
the day of his freedom come.
Here, then, let us stand firm in the religion of Jesus
Christ, and, firm in the great principles of liberty
which this religion inculcates. Let us, as citizens
of this free country, acknowledge the blessings which
the sacred Scriptures have conferred upon us, while
we do everything in our power to give them the
widest possible extension.
Above all, let us endeavor personally to know what
true spiritual religion is, by our own experience, and
ever to be found walking in consistency with our du
ties to God and our fellow men. Thus shall we ful
fil the part allotted to us on earth, and be prepared
for an exchange of this for a brighter and better
world, where, as true Christians, we shall assemble
as children in our Father's house, and be introduced
into the happiness which this freedom is fitted to
impart, ascribing all the glory of our deliverance
from the bondage and curse of sin, to Him who
broke our fetters, and led us forth as Redeemed from
the dungeons of our thraldom, into the glorious light
and liberty of his own Eternal Home.

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