arm of his power is now palsied: and, shorn of his locks, he is comparatively weak as another man.

The military despotism of France threatened once the liberties of the world. If ever there was a mighty man who might glory in his might, it was Bonaparte, when he drove upon Russia the most powerful force ever wielded by one man. But Russia, sustained by her armies and her climate, stood, while the stars in their courses fought against the invader.

6. Political wisdom, the boast and confidence of nations, is on many accounts unavailing to secure and perpetuate national prosperity. It aims only at secular results and not at moral purity, and must ever be attended with great uncertainty in regard to the effect of measures on the innumerable multitudes of minds that are to be influenced. So that political science, so called, is often but a series of ingenious conjectures. The younger Pitt formed two gigantic coalitions to check the power of Bonaparte, both of which were dashed, and ended in its augmentation. The dependance of great events on trivial circumstances which no human foresight can perceive, renders, often, the wisest plans abortive: while the agency of God in the government of the world may in a moment baffle and turn to foolishness the best-concerted schemes of man. Haman planned wisely for the destruction of Mordecai ; but the hand of God brought the mischief intended for another upon his own head. The brethren of Joseph planned wisely to prevent the accomplishment of his dreams; while, in the hand of God, the very things they did to hinder, secured their accomplishment.

The dominion of the passions, also, over reason and judgment, renders human foresight and policy a matter of uncertainty. Wisdom is no certain guarantee against passion. Nothing is more common than for a sudden gust of anger to shipwreck every hope of the most judicious calculation. Those whom God would destroy, he can give up to infatuation :--a state of mind in which passion guides the helm, and swells the sail, and drives furiously to destruction. Nations, like volcanoes, possess within themselves the materials of ruin and for God to take off his hand, and give them up, is certain destruction. These, however, are dangers incident chiefly to the connection of nations with each other, or to times of revolution and civil commotion. But even in seasons of tranquillity, there are evils in every community, which no human laws or municipal regulations can control. Laws cannot compel benevolent dispositions, or purify motives, or repress selfishness, or ambition, or avarice, or envy, or pride, or voluptuousness. They are restricted to the government of actions-and of these, to such only as can be commanded and enforced, or forbidden and punished-constituting but a small portion of the good or evil on which the prosperity or destruction of social enjoyment depends. And in the event of transgression, such actions only can be punished as are capable of proof. The law has no omniscient eye to detect, no almighty hand to arrest and punish transgression. Nothing but the government of God-its laws-its sanctions-its dispositions -and its universal and infallible administration-is adequate to the emergencies of this sin-destroyed world. The malady is in the heart; and nothing human can expel, or subdue, or stand before its power. Throw obstructions in its course, and its impatient floods accumulate, and press upon their barriers, till they undermine, or overwhelm, and sweep them away Bind with green withs or new cords the giant depravity of man, and they are sundered as flax touched by the fire.

Try by amuse

ment to divert the monster from his work of death, and you do but fill the cup of oblivion to all that is good, and raise in the house of mirth the syren song that allures but to destroy. Set in array, as Papal and Pagan lawgivers have done, the terrors of superstition, and, in the despotism which follows, you form a beast of seven heads and ten horns, whose infernal wisdom has amplified all antecedent modes of debasing and tormenting mankind. And if, to expel from the earth this anomaly of mischief, you send out a crusade of atheists and infidels, experience has evinced that their reign of terror so much surpasses other forms of wickedness and modes of torment, as to render popery and a military despotism comparative blessings. God, my hearers, the omniscient, the almighty God, can alone administer an efficacious moral government over nations—and he only by that Gospel which is "glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good-will to men."

We are now to show,

II. That the Gospel is able to conduct nations to eminent and abiding prosperity.

It was devised and bestowed upon mankind for this purpose-containing in its ample provisions the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come and it is, in all its moral tendencies, eminently adapted to the ends for which it was designed.

It addresses powerfully the most efficient springs of human action-hope and fear-the desire of good and the dread of evil. The rigor of law would exasperate and drive to desperation a world of sinners; while the Gospel-with the sword of justice and the sceptre of mercy-enters the world to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bound. It throws upon the hopes and fears of men an intensity of motive, in the mingled and balanced influence of justice and mercy, severity and kindness, affording the highest moral excitement which can possibly be applied to the human mind. The glories of heaven allure, and the terrors of the Lord alarm. The terms of pardon-filial sorrow for sin and affectionate reliance on Christ-preclude despondency and elevate hope; while all the spirit-stiring truths of the Gospel are secured from oblivion, and made permanent and plain in a written revelation-capable of translation into every language of man, and containing, in its ample provisions, an institution for the religious instruction of mankind, simple, cheap, and efficacious-reconciling the religious education of the world with the avocations of labor, by setting apart one day in seven for that end, und an order of men who shall be exclusively devoted to the work; securing in this way the continuance and repetition of that instruction upon which the moral purity of the world so eminently depends, and by which the Holy Spirit operates to restrain, to convince of sin, and to reconcile an alienated world to God.

The Scriptures confirm the views we have given of the adaptation and power of the Gospel to reclaim and bless mankind. It is described as the power of God and the wisdom of God; as the highest possible exhibition of his goodness-the riches of the goodness of God-the brightness of his glory-as the exhibition of all the power of motive which is possible—rendering, when the Gospel fails, reformation hopeless.

Already has the Gospel given good evidence of its power, and an earnest of its future achievements. No other moral cause has made so great and

t

so benign an impression upon this dark and miserable world. Commencing in the ministry of a single individual, and sustained by the enterprise of twelve disciples, it urged its silent career, amid flames, and tortures, and death, until, at the close of the third century, it triumphed.

The effect produced upon the laws and institutions of the Roman empire by Christianity is the greatest which was ever effected without violence. Partial as was the spread of Christianity-imperfect as was the knowledge of it—and limited as was its efficacy upon the heart-and transient as was its lustre so soon eclipsed by superstition and the return of barbarian ignorance, yet, to this day, is the difference great and manifest between the worst portions of Christendom and the total darkness that rests on all the earth beside. The hideous spectacles of Pagan impurity and cruelty have given place to monuments of Christian love. And if this partial, momentary experiment produced such changes, what may not be expected when the religion of the Gospel shall pervade every palace, and cottage, and heart on the globe?

We have another evidence of the life-giving power of the Gospel at the Reformation. Gradually it had been sequestered, until, under the abused name of Christianity, a system of idolatry had been reared up, as impure almost and as fierce and cruel as Paganism itself. But no sooner did the Bible reappear, in the translations made and scattered by the reformers, and the system of evangelical instruction, so long suspended, go into operation, than half Europe burst her chains, and experienced a moral resurrection.

Other instances are now multiplying upon us of the civilizing and purifying power of the Gospel, among heathen nations, and those too the most debased. In South Africa, among the Hotentots, the purities and charities of civilized life are rising up under evangelical culture. At Sierra Leone, also, orderly, decent, and happy settlements are formed, and churches too are established, giving evidence of elevated piety-composed of beings rescued a few years since from the chains, and darkness, and moral corruption of slave-ships.

The change at the Sandwich Islands, also, is as unquestionable as it is wonderful and joyful. A nation has been born in a day. A reverse of secular and moral condition has been achieved, greater, and more entire and benign, on the whole population, than was ever before witnessed on earth in so short a time.

But we need not go abroad for monuments of the benign influence of the Gospel upon the temporal condition of man. Our pilgrim fathers came hither that they might enjoy religious liberty, and make a fair experiment of what the Gospel could do to bless mankind. And the religious, civil, and social prosperity of New England is the result. The poor we have ever with us but among them who are the virtuous poor? Precisely those who venerate the Sabbath, and attend statedly upon the worship of God. While the vicious poor will be found, among those whose religious education has been neglected, and upon whom the Bible, and the Sabbath, and the Gospel have exerted little influence and if you traverse the whole land, those portions most distinguished for Bibles and a devout attention upon Gospel ordinances, will be found proportionably distinguished by whatsoever things are pure, and lovely, and of good report.

The reforming influence of the Gospel, as developed in Sabbath Schools, also gives triumphant testimony to its power. The Recorder of London stated, at a public meeting, that of two thousand children educated in Sao,

bath Schools, only seven who had been in them over fourteen days had ever been brought before him for crime; and that too among a class of citizens peculiarly degraded.

These fruits of the Bible are in perfect accordance with its predictions. I need not repeat them at large. They are many and express. It is predicted that God will destroy the face. of the covering cast over all people, and the veil spread over all uations-that his knowledge shall cover the earth as the waters the sea-that all shall know him from the greatest to the least -and the people be all righteous-that wars shall cease-that benevolence shall supplant selfishness and ferocity-and that the earth, exuberant in its supplies, shall nevertheless be filled with purity and joy.

I have only to add, that all other systems of moral influence depend sim- ́ ply upon their own unaided strength; while the Gospel is attended by the special presence of God and the power of his Holy Spirit-giving to it an efficacy infinitely beyond that of simple argument or eloquence. Thus attended, the Gospel wrought its wonders of mercy on the day of Pentecost, and during the first ages of Christianity. Thus attended, it has, in these latter days and these ends of the earth, often, in the course of a few weeks or months, changed the entire aspect of a neighborhood or town-introducing a moral elevation that gladdens angels. And thus attended, this same Gospel is capable of breaking every chain of oppression, and renovating a ruined world. Who then, that loves his country-that loves mankind-would, by example or otherwise, hinder the progress of this Gospel? and not rejoice rather in every effort made for extending its blessed influence?

SERMON LV.

PROPRIETY AND IMPORTANCE OF EFFORTS TO EVANGELIZE THE NATION.

JEREMIAH, ix. 23, 24.

IF, as has been shown in the preceding discourse, the Gospel only is able to conduct nations to abiding prosperity, then,

NOTHING IS TO BE FEARED, BUT MUCH IS TO BE HOPED FOR, FROM THE EFFORTS OF PATRIOTS AND CHRISTJANS TO EVANGELIZE THE NATION.

ages.

Infidels and profligate men affect great trepidation, lest the efforts made to spread the Gospel should lead to combinations dangerous to our liberties, and rear up another hierarchy, and bring back priestcraft and the dark But do they really believe any such thing? Do they fear any such thing? Do they not know, that wherever the Gospel and its institutions have been most revered, men have been most intelligent, most free from superstition, and most incapable of ecclesiastical domination? Do they not know, that superstition and priestcraft have in all climes and ages increased, just in proportion as the moral energy of the Gospel has declined? It is the testimony of history, that principles of civil and religious liberty have always accompanied evangelical religion, and made their most desperate resistance to arbitrary power and achieved their most glorious victories under its auspices. And it is equally true, that there never was a religion

but that of the Gospel, which did not darken and debase the mind, and lend its influence to despotism and to a corrupt and abominable priesthood.

The ascendancy of that terrible form of nominal Christianity, which arose in the dark ages, and whose persecutions have kept the heavens gleaming with their fires, and the earth flowing with blood, was the result of a long declension of evangelical light, and has held, and still holds, indissoluble alliance with ignorance of the pure Gospel, and passive obedience to despotic power.

But are those among us, who affect so much apprehension of danger from clerical influence, aware of the invidious imputation which they

thus cast upon their countrymen ? Are they as ignorant as the people *of the dark ages? Do they need conservators to prevent their giving up their money, and their civil and religious rights, into the hands of the clergy? Are our citizens so far gone, that they have no guardians between them and destruction, but the volunteer aid of those keen-sighted, kindhearted gentlemen, who have discovered that the Bible is a cunningly devised fable, and that after death it shall be as well with the wicked as with the righteous? What possible danger to liberty can arise from clerical influence, exerted by enlightened men upon a virtuous community? There is an influence inseparable from talent, piety, and fidelity in the pastoral office, which none but wicked men fear, and which can never be prevented, but by such general ignorance and profligacy as will render good men odious, and ruin the nation. A new kind of conspiracy, indeed, against civil liberty must that be, which proposes, by the dissemination of Bibles, and the preaching of the Gospel, to enslave the country!-The very means by which the Reformers emancipated half Europe, and by which to this day all the civil liberty which exists in the world has been preserved! An unparalleled deliverance, too, from priestcraft and popery must that be, which shall be achieved by undermining the public confidence in evangelical ministers, stopping the circulation of Bibles and tracts, and abolishing missionary societies and sabbath schools!-thus leaving the land in darkness, and open to the invasion of Papal missionaries, and the influence of those ample revenues which "his Holiness so unsparingly consecrates to the establishment of his dominion in North America. *

Are those enemies of revelation who clamour so loudly against the means which achieved the reformation, and which alone can prevent the spread of popery in our country, in the pay of his Holiness? Has the secret servicemoney reached its destination, and does the mystery of iniquity already begin to work? We make no pretensions to prophecy, and we do not need that gift to foresee, that if Popery shall ever gain in this land an ascendancy dangerous to our liberties, it will be accomplished only through the aid of infidels, and the virulent haters of evangelical religion, and those multitudes to whom evangelical instruction is not extended.

Already has the loud tone of execration against popery been turned from "his Holiness" and his American emissaries, to that class of Protestants who in Europe broke down his dominion, and in this country are raising the only effectual barriers against his usurpation.

Is it darkness, then, or is it light, which they so much fear, who cry out against charities which are destined to evangelize the nation and the world?

It is understood that "his Holiness" has sent over at least twenty-seven Missionaries, and one hundred thousand dollars to aid in this good work the past year.