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TWO SERMONS,

BY ¥. ¥. EELLS,

THE FATHERS AND THE CHILDREN.

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THE FATHERS AND THE CHILDREN.

TWO SERMONS,

PREACHED ON

FAST DAY, APRIL 6, 1848,

SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT, IS.

BY W. W. EELLS

BOSTON:
PRESS OP CROCKER AND BREWSTER,
47, Washington-street. 1848.

These Sermons are presented to the public, not hastily, but with deliberation,
and under a deep sense of duty. " Corruptions," says Cotton Mather, " will grow
upon this land, and they will gain by silence. It will be so invidious to speak of
them, that no one will dare do it, and the fate of Amyclac will be ours." In the
present attempt to break this hurtful silence, had it been thought necessary, all the
facts asserted, and the positions taken, might have been fortified by abundant public
testimony from men of note. The doctrinal defections set forth have been taken
from the notes of lectures delivered by a most popular professor of theology ; while
it is known, also, that the same views are wide extended.
While argument and investigation are courted, it is not too much to ask, that
every reader will have the candor to allow, that the writer may possess as warm a
love for the home of his fathers, as burns in the bosom of any son ofthe Puritans,
and may be as willing to do justice to its real virtues.

SERMON I

Matthew iii, 9.
And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to
our Father.
This is part of the rebuke of John the Baptist to the vain and
self-confident Scribes and Pharisees. It is in anticipation of the
objections, that they would raise against his call to repentance,
and especially against his addressing them as a " generation of
vipers." We are Abraham's seed, they would say, the children
of promise, — God's chosen people, — the heirs of the blessings.
We are the favored nation of Jehovah, which he brought out of
Egypt " with a high hand, and a stretched-out arm," — before
whom he separated the waters of the Red Sea, and of Jordan,
and scattered all our enemies. We are they to whom he gave
this goodly land of Canaan, and of whom he has said, that he
will be our God, and that all nations shall submit to us, and be
blessed in our king Messiah.
This was their trust. They boasted of the virtues of their
father Abraham, and of the favors of God to him ; they rested
upon the blessings promised to him, until, by a strange infatua
tion, and self-delusion, they came to consider themselves equal
to their fathers, and as if holding by a rightful claim upon all
the goodness of Jehovah.

But the prophet strikes at the root of their self-conceit. Could
they plead descent from Abraham ? So could the ten tribes,
who were yet cast away : so could Esau and Ishmael, who yet
inherited not the promises. He warns them that the blessings
went to the spiritual seed of Abraham, and not merely to the
descendants according to the flesh. And so they must exhibit
the character and the faith of Abraham, if they would share in
the favor of God, which he enjoyed. True indeed God would
fulfil all his promises to his servant of old ; not one should fail,
nor fall to the ground. Yet they all might nevertheless be cast
off, and God still redeem his promise ; yea of the very stones of
Jordan could he raise up children to the faith of Abraham, and
so heirs of the blessings. The Lord Jehovah, the most High
God, had not so tied himself to them, that for them he would
forsake the rules of his righteous kingdom. Rewards for the
obedient, and wrath for the evil, — this is his law. This was the
condition of the promises, and the entail could be kept up only
as it was commenced. If the promise is to children's children,
they too are to ' love him and keep his commandments.' The
promise shall indeed be fulfilled. If those, who are, as it were,
the elder brethren, like Esau, despise their birthright, they shall
lose both it, and the blessing ; and God will take others in their
stead, whom he will make ' willing in the day of his power.' It
is as God said to Eli, respecting his wicked sons : " I said in
deed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk
before me forever : but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me ;
for them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me
shall be lightly esteemed." And so Eli's sons should be sud
denly cut off for their wickedness. " And," saith the Lord, " I
will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that
which is in my heart, and in my mind ; and I will build him a
sure house, and he shall walk before mine anointed forever."
The warning conveyed to the Scribes and Pharisees, by these
words of John Baptist, is peculiarly appropriate to us as a peo
ple. We too, have 'been blessed with a parentage, illustrious
before the world for their faith in God, and their good works.
And God has made them conspicuous also in the abundance of

his blessings. In no other case has there been so striking an
analogy to the dealings of God with the children of Israel, in
bringing them out of Egypt, and establishing them in the land
of Canaan, as in the transporting of our fathers to these shores,
and in causing them to dwell in safety, enlarging their borders,
giving them the abundance of the land and of the sea, and be
stowing upon them the wealth of the nations. And is it not to
be feared that we resemble ancient Israel also in their forgetful
ness of the author of their mercies — the foundation of their bles
sings ? Is it not true now, as then, that when " Jeshurun waxed
fat, then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed
the Rock of his salvation ?" And while, like the Jews of old,
we cease not to boast " We have the Puritans to our fathers,"
and pride ourselves in their character, and their works, and
count ourselves the favorites of heaven on their account, and
look upon all the great mercies of God about us as secure
through them, and say in our hearts, " Our mountain stands
strong, and we shall never be moved," may it not be true after
all, that we have forsaken the principles of our fathers, and are
hastening to use up and to consume the blessing of God upon
the land, for the father's sake ? And if this be so, then is it
time for us to hush all our idle boasting, and to " remember
whence we have fallen, and repent, and do the first works, lest
God come quickly, and remove our candlestick out of his place,
if we repent not ; " — lest the light of our privileges be turned
away upon some other nation, and we grope in the darkness.
God deals with nations now as he has ever dealt with them.
He holds an account with them, apart from his reckoning with
the individuals which compose the nation ; — an account which is
righteously balanced in this world, in which alone nations exist.
And if he has given up his own peculiar people to be a hissing
and a bye-word, — the offscouring of the world, — afflicted, dis
tressed, persecuted, even to the ends of the earth ; if the blessed
Redeemer laid the heaviest woes upon Capernaum and Beth
saida, then may we also, who are likewise exalted to heaven in
the manifestations of God's goodness, expect with them to be
thrust down to hell, if this goodness is treated with neglect and

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contempt. Those principles of our fathers, which were connect
ed with the mercies of God towards them, and which were,
through him, the foundation of our present good, these alone
will uphold us in the possession of our present blessings ; and
upon these alone can we build any sure hopes of transmitting
what we have received, unimpaired to our posterity. It may be
that God will bear long with us, for the fathers' sake, — that he
will go on to multiply to do us good — outward good, — long after
we have cut off the entail by our sins. But while thus he testi
fies his faithfulness to the fathers, and shows us how great things
we might have expected if obedient, yet the day of reckoning
will come with those who forget him. In that day, the great
ness of his former favors will only measure the depth of our
abasement ; and sad and fearful will be the fate of this land,
when the mercy of Jehovah shall be wearied, and he shall put
on the robes of wrath, and shall sit in vengeance, to exercise
judgment upon the guilty.
It will be profitable to us, and in accordance with the spirit of
this day, which we observe in imitation of our fathers, to com
pare ourselves with them, before the Lord, their God and ours,
the only living and true Jehovah. Are we following them, as
they followed Christ ? Are we walking in the footsteps of their
faith ? Are we carrying out, in their spirit, the solemn and no
ble purposes, for which they became exiles from the dear land
of their nativity, and sought these desolate and distant shores ?
Are we so building upon their foundation, that we may justly
expect God to bless us, as he has blessed them, and may look
forward, with good hope, to see the stately edifice of which they
laid the corner-stone with strong faith in the day of great weak
ness, rising still in proportion and in beauty, to endure till the
final consummation of all things ? For they had a purpose,
clear and well defined. They were no " rabble rout," led by
the spirit of reckless adventure to foreign shores. They were no
ignorant speculators, nor visionary enthusiasts, carried away
captive by a dream. They were not merely the purblind in a
world of darkness, — seeing men as trees walking, when others
saw nothing. They did not come here to find scope to discover

truth, but to practise what they already knew. For they and
their associates were men of knowledge and of wisdom. Their
time marks an era in the world's history ; an era of deep think
ing, when the very secrets of the soul were explored, and all
hidden things were called to answer to the mighty questioner ;
an era of varied and extensive learning, to which we, with all
our vain boasting, must look back with reverence and with awe.
The greatest names of English scholars, and divines, are found
connected with those times ; and these men woke up, and nour
ished that power of thought in their enemies even, which was
basely used to vilify their memories. And these, persecuted,
harassed, distressed, in their own land, for the sake of principles
which they held dearer than life, voluntarily cast off all the ties
of kindred and of country, and here they came, guided by the
hand of him who led Abraham from Haran, and supported by
his arm, — here they came, with a high and solemn purpose. It
was one, which they counted worthy of all the sacrifices, which
they were called to make, — and which sustained them under all
their trials, — yea which caused them to wake the echoes among
the woods and hills of this untried and hostile land, " with their
hymns of lofty cheer."
These were our fathers ; and the foundation principle of all
their conduct was their belief in the Bible as the word of God.
This was to them the living fountain of all spiritual and moral
wisdom. This was the sunlight, that cheered their path, even
when it led through great and thick darkness; the lamp of
heaven, that sent its enlivening ray before their feet, and caused
them to know the place of their standing, and to go and to come
in safety. It was not in ignorance, nor in credulity, that they
received this word of God, — that, in all its teachings, it was as
if Jehovah spake to them, with an audible voice out of heaven.
They had heard all the oppositions of science falsely so called,
and all the babblings of shallow, earthborn philosophy. They
were not ignorant of the doubts, the calumnies, and the sneers,
which the wicked heart of man, and the malice of the evil one,
have raised against this volume of eternal truth. They had
probed all the reasonings, which some of their descendants fool-

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ishly rejoice in, as newly discovered wisdom, and had found
them but vanity and a lie. They had cast away, as the rubbish
of iniquity, what these their children gather up as hidden
treasure. And in full view of all that art, and learning, and
ingenuity, could devise against the truth, they still held firmly,
and wisely, and unwaveringly to this Book, as God's word,
which " holy men of old spake, and wrote, as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost :" — so they held it, that they were ready to
go to dungeons and to death, for the sake of what is here re
vealed. It was not to them the record of a revelation, made by
fallible men, and so full of mistakes and errors. They did not
so blaspheme the wisdom and the goodness of God. It was the
revelation itself ; all that the Lord our God saw necessary for us
to know, to guide us through time, and to a happy eternity,
written down by the pen of inspiration, supernaturally guided
and directed by Jehovah himself, so that every part comes to us,
and to all men, with the authority of a " Thus saith the Lord,"
and is incapable of addition, or emendation, or modification.
Here they could rest secure. Whatever were the opinions and
the thoughts of men, — whatever the suggestions of darkened and
depraved reason, — whatever the doctrines and the command
ments of human wisdom, — these concerned them not. They
went to the Lord Jehovah, and learned truth at his mouth.
They trusted in that word which " liveth and abideth forever,"
while all the glory of man's knowledge shall wither as the grass,
and shall fade as the flower of the field fadeth. They drank at
the fountain of eternal wisdom ; and it was their purpose that
these waters should pour down their pure streams of healing and
of life among their descendants to the remotest posterity.
Do we, their descendants, entertain and cherish this same
deep and solemn reverence for the revealed will of God ? Has
this Book, — the same now that it then was, — neither antiquated
nor superseded, but resting upon the same authority, and teach
ing the same truths, — truths which never fade nor grow old, but
are as suitable to one man as to another, — meant for all nations
and for all times, — has this Book the same place in the heart ;
the same binding power upon the conscience that it then had ?

Does it occupy the place with us, the children, that it did with
our fathers, and that they desired, and prayed, and endeavored,
that it should hold with us also ?
I know that, in answering this question, your minds will turn
naturally to the multitudes of those descendants of the puritans,
who deny the inspiration of the Scriptures ; and who have frit
tered away its holy teachings, each at his own will and pleasure,
until with most its authority is now no more than that of the
latest French novel. It is indeed a sad thing, that in the places
where our fathers worshipped the Lord Jehovah, the triune God,
— where drawn and taught by God the Holy Spirit, they came,
in deep humility and prostration of soul, before God the Father,
pleading only the merits of God the Son, who, as man, had suf
fered and obeyed in their stead, and whom, by faith, they beheld
there in the heavens, ever living to intercede for them ; — that,
in these earthly temples, consecrated by the prayers, and the
tears of those, who now reign in light with their conquering Sa
viour, their descendants now ignorantly worship an " unknown
God," whom neither they, nor their fathers have known. It is a
mournful thought, that these, who thus cast away the Bible, and
the God of the Bible, and lean to their own understandings ; —
who " wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived," are
yet, as well as we, the descendants of the holy men of old ; and
that they too, in the pride of their heart, cease not to boast,
" We have the Puritans to our fathers," — and falsely to justify
themselves by this, even when laboring to destroy the works of
their fathers. These are no interlopers, who have- come in in
after time to pervert and to destroy. They have gone out of
the bowels of the church of Christ. Nor will it do to compare
numbers with them, as the delusive practice of some is, and to
be satisfied because perhaps we are more numerous than they.
It is not certain that this is the case. It is not certain that the
numerical majority is not with those sects, whose very founda
tion is soul-destroying error, in opposition to the members of
those churches, which nominally hold to the faith of our fathers.
But however this may be, when we stand as a people before
God to answer to the trust committed to us by our fathers, it
2

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becomes us to remember, in shame and self-abasement, that these
are our brethren according to the flesh, and that their defection
is so much dead loss to the cause of truth. They are the chil
dren of the patriarchs, and they have departed from God, and
like Ephraim and Manassah, they have set up their own king,
and their own God, and have refused obedience to the Son of
David. But it is not my design to call your attention primarily to
these. Open, and manifest, and highhanded, as is their sin,
yet if the remnant be found faithful, we may hope that the merci
ful One, who would have spared Sodom, had there been ten
righteous persons in it, will spare us also, and bless us for the
sake of these, who yet hold fast to the covenant of their fathers.
The question is as to the present position of those who profess to
abide by the faith of the fathers, — to hold to the word of God,
as they held it. And where are they on this point ? — for to the
regard entertained for the word of God can the conduct of our
fathers be traced. And every departure from their practice, or
their belief, in all points where they are suitable examples to us,
can be resolved plainly and easily into a diminished esteem for
this blessed Book. They stood out distinctly before the world,
"known and read of all men," resting themselves upon the
volume of inspiration, as the only sure foundation stone upon
which to build any good thing, for time or for eternity. This
Book was to them the only fountain of wisdom, the streams
whereof were for the healing of the nations. If we are like
them, we shall stand with equal prominence before the world,
and the lines will now be manifest, equally broad, and clear, and
deep. Let us look at this more in detail.
He that receives the Bible recognizes in it the means, which
God has appointed to cure the moral evils of this world. The
natural alienation of the heart from God, and its enmity to him,
this is the root from which springs all evil. The Lord our God
has provided' the cure for this, — the means of reconciliation be
tween himself and guilty man. And that, which will eradicate
the disease, will remove all the symptoms of that disease. That,
which will tear up the root, will destroy all the poisonous

11
branches. The Bible, with its institutions, the Church of be
lievers, the Sabbath, and the sanctuary, — all those ordinances,
which honor the Bible as their Supreme law, and so honor him
whose word it is, — this it is, that is set for our healing and our
strength. It is not merely a better way, nor the best way. It
is the only way. It is his way, who has said, " I am the Lord,
and my glory will I not give to another."
He "has set this as our* rule of safety ; and where God has
stooped down to interfere in the affairs of this world, he will be
honored in what he does. He claims it as his own work to re
deem and purify a sinful world. He has set in motion his own
agency to accomplish this work. Upon this alone will he. pour
out the blessings of success. Yea he will utterly confound and
destroy all the devices of man, that in any way seem to take this
work out of his hands. Of this we may rest assured, that, if not
in this world, yet in the world to come, when all the things of
time shall be brought to light, the means of God's appointment
shall have all the glory of all the good, that is accomplished
upon this earth. The preaching of the gospel, this it is, that
will save men temporally as well as spiritually. The Church of
the living God, with its sacred ordinances, this is his agency to
bring this saving gospel home to the hearts of men. The holy
Sabbath, this is God's time to preach this gospel, — to study it, —
to bring it to bear in power upon the soul. Any rival means,
any opposing agency, and any other employment of his holy day,
is an insult thrown against the Lord Jehovah. It is saying, that
we are wiser than he. It is virtually pronouncing the instru
ments of his appointment insufficient to their end. However
fair and specious may be its seeming foundation, any institution
designed to remove the moral evils of man, which does, not
plainly and distinctly convey all honor to the word of God, and
to the Church of God, and does not sanctify his Sabbaths to
their destined end, has its root in the soil of infidelity, — of : hos*
tility to Jehovah ; and sooner or later it will bear its poisohoiis
fruits ; — while in every stage of its progress it taints the atmos.
phere with evil.

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This plain, undeniable, common sense view of the simple fact,
that God has taken upon himself the cure of the moral evils of
this world, conducts us at once to the practice of our fathers,
and to the foundation of their greatness. The Bible was the
beginning and end of all their wisdom. Receiving it to the
end for which it was given, they not only rested upon it secure
ly for themselves, but they sought diligently to lay the same sup
port under the souls of all about them. It was the basis of all
their plans of education. For this did they establish schools and
colleges, that the life giving word of God might be taught in all
its varied wisdom ; — that the deep doctrines might be sought
out, and understood, and be ground in to the moral being of
their children. In the commands of Jehovah to the Israelites
respecting his law, they recognized the rule of their duty. They
sought to obey the injunction to " lay up these words in their
hearts, to bind them as signs on their hands, and as frontlets
over the eyes, — to write them on the posts of their doors and
of their gates, and to teach them diligently to their children,
while sitting- in the house, and while walking by the way, —
when lying down, and when rising up." They sought to sanc
tify everything, " by the word of God and by prayer." They
did not think, that the Sabbath, and the family circle, rich in
instruction as were these at that time, afforded means sufficient
to teach the words of heavenly wisdom, while all other times and
appliances were to be given to secular studies. They struck
their tents, and threw themselves upon the care of God, that
they might honor him fully. They came away from all, even
from their brethren, that they might lay the Bible under all
things, and everywhere ; — that the beams of divine wisdom
might fall upon the first opening of the infant mind, and might
continue to pour in the constant streams of light, through all
the expansions of intellect, and of grace, until the sanctified
spirit should be called home to glory in the present vision of the
Redeemer. It was, moreover, as a Church, that they felt their responsi
bility to God for the training of these young immortals. It was
as a Church, that they sought to discharge this responsible duty.

13
And if they set this as a part of the office of the magistrate, it
was because the Church and the State were one. They asked
no other power to come between them and their God. They
suffered no foreign authority to usurp their right to teach their
little ones, and to prescribe how much or how little of God's
word, their strength and their salvation, they should impart to
those upon whom would soon devolve their burdens. They
found that there was profit in every word of God, and in all the
blessed doctrines of grace. They heard the Holy Spirit declar
ing that all " things revealed belonged to them and to their
children ;" — and who were they, that they should fight against
God, and give but a part, where he had given all ? All, — all,
that they held dear to themselves, — the Bible in the utmost
freedom of use, and the Catechism, as a commentary upon the
Bible, — all that strengthens the soul in heavenly wisdom, they
put into the common, e very-day education of their little ones ;
and thus obeying the commands of God, it was their highest
aim, even in the times of great distress, to train these up, in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord.
And how is it now ? Alas, every line in the commendation of
our fathers is a burning sentence of condemnation against our
selves. Every line should be as a barbed arrow, piercing to our
consciences. That Church, which they planted in prayer, and
watered with tears, and cultivated with assiduous toil, now casts
off its tender fruit to ripen on the unwholesome soil of the world.
Like an unnatural mother, she exposes her offspring, almost
without care or protection, to every evil influence. Yea the
professed people of God are upholding and strengthening by all
their might the engines of infidelity and irreligion. The Church
has suffered that duty, which she alone can properly discharge,
to fall into the hands of the State. And as the State knows no
religion, but that which is common to all its component parts, so
it can teach no religion. And that education, which leaves out
the religious element, is essentially an ungodly, an irreligious,
an infidel education. It virtually depreciates the value of that
which is omitted, and it leaves the depraved heart, unrestrained,
to follow out its native hatred of God. When we are dealing in

14
the great matter of education, with creatures of a sinful nature,
prone to go astray, the failure to teach diligently the fear of
God, is a real teaching of disregard to him, of that neglect of
him, and forgetfulness, against which he has set his curse.
The Bible is indeed allowed to be inside the walls of the
school-room ; but this is only to delude the unwary. It is there
only upon sufferance. It is not in the place of honor, but of dis
grace. It is under strict surveillance. Its voice is hushed, its
mouth muzzled. It must confine itself to dim, indistinct, inar
ticulate, utterings. It is held in as much suspicion, as if it were '
the worst book in creation. And this God's word, the word of
him that made us, the word which alone is wisdom here on
earth, — written plain, and easy to be understood, ready to teach
knowledge even to babes ; — this, by which alone the young can
secure their hearts, by which alone they may be warned against
the deceits of the world, and be armed against the power of
Satan ; — this word which alone shows us the way of life, and de
clares the will of God, is not permitted to yield instruction in
the seats of learning, to one of these little immortals, whom God
has committed to his Church, with the imperative command to
train them for eternal glory ! And we are deceived and lulled
to sleep, by the specious cry, that there is no sectarianism in our
schools, and that others are put upon the same footing with us
in this matter. If this were true, it would not avail us in the
sight of God. He has not left this optional with us, but has ex
pressly commanded us to teach our children " all the words of
this law." If we cannot do this in one way, then we must seek
some other way, and some way more effectual, than the loose in
struction of one hour on the Sabbath morning, when all the rest
of the week is spent without God. Do it we must, or God will
hold us guilty as individuals at the judgment of the great day.
He will hold us guilty as a people, and will punish us, as he
punishes the nations that forget God.
But it is not true, that there is no sectarianism in our schools.
There are really but two classes in the community- on this point ;
— those who receive the Bible as God's word, and those who do
not thus receive it. All the classes of those who call the Church

15
to yield in this matter, whatever may be their pretensions, are
yet one in this, that they discard the Bible, as the sole and only
light from heaven. They surrender nothing to us, — for all their
religion is a negation, — but we give up every thing to them.
Every doctrine of the Bible, every distinct utterance of the sin
of man, the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, the regeneration of
the Holy Spirit, the just judgment of Jehovah against all un
righteousness, — this is what they call upon us to yield. And
when all this is gone, we have come down to the very platform
on which they stand. They have nothing to yield in return.
The school thus constituted teaches all that they consider re
ligion. And for six days out of seven, we set the authority of
God at defiance, and send our children to be instructed in a for
getfulness of all his blessed word. We, the children of the Pu
ritans, and in this very matter of education, boasting, that " we
have the Puritans to our fathers," — we commit the instruction
of our children to the State, which knows not the God of our
fathers. In this we are as far from them, as the Pharisees
were from Abraham. And if we would not call down the judg
ment of heaven upon ourselves, we must turn back again. If it
be necessary, that this disregard of God, and of his holy word,
should pervade all the plans of State education, then let the
State pursue the course of its duty to provide for the exigencies
of the State. But let the Church awake to her higher duty of
training her children for God, and for immortality. Let her
take her little ones into her own hands, and feed them herself
from the word of God ; and let her no longer cast them out as
lambs among wolves, where there is all the more danger, since
the wolves are in sheep's clothing.
But the evil of our departure from the principles of our
fathers, which has its beginning here in the instruction of the
young, has not here its end. It spreads abroad, and developes
its pernicious results in all things. When the Church had thus
taken her little ones by the hand, and led them to the temple of
God, and instructed them in divine things, then was she ever
present, and powerful, as a tender mother to guide and to guard
them. She had gained their honor and their love. And by

16
the same heavenly wisdom, by which she had led them in their
tender years, was she prepared to be their refuge, and their
defence in all the days of their lives. To her did they look in
the hour of temptation, and of peril. They were nourished un
der the hallowing influences of the sanctuary and the Sabbath.
They felt that these were of God, and not of man, and that the
blessing of God was in them. They knew in their hearts that
the God of the Bible is the true Jehovah, and that they were
his creatures. They knew all the terrors of his law, and all the
riches of his grace. When the ambassador of Jehovah stood
before them to proclaim his wrath against sin, and his mercy to
the penitent believer in Jesus, they heard God speak, and not
man. They were well learned in all this blessed book, and they
looked behind the messenger to him that sent the message ; and
if they repented not, they trembled. Instructed conscience ut
tered her warning voice, and amid all temptations, in all the
allurements of vice, and in the scenes of iniquity, the mighty
Jehovah was before them, and they could not shut him out.
And he that spake God's word to them, had an ally within
them, which they could not avoid, nor flee from. This fear of
God, and not any mere promise to their fellow-men, was their
safeguard against evil.
And recognizing in every thing the great truth of man's de
pravity, and his entire dependence upon divine aid for all power
to do good, our fathers sent all, that were struggling with
temptation, that would strive for virtue, and would resist evil,
to the Lord Jehovah as their refuge, to the ordinances of the
Church as their safety and their strength. This was their wis
dom, that they strengthened themselves in the strength of Je
hovah. They leaned not upon human means, and rejoiced not
in human devices ; but went at once to the arm of heaven, and
carried the weak and helpless there, that they might give to
God all the glory of the work, which he alone can perform.
They waged no silly crusades, in their own strength, against
single sins, but they sought to plant in every breast a deep fear
of the holy God, — to make each man feel that the eye of Jeho
vah was ever upon him. They sought to strengthen every man,

17
that he might go alone, might depend upon no arm but that of
the Almighty, — drawing strength from no associations, but those
appointed of God, and most of all from the Church, and its
ordinances of grace. All the moral influence needed in this
world for any good work, they found, where God has placed it,
in the Church, bearing the word of God, enjoying his present
blessing, and the promise of final success. And the end at
which they aimed was, that by this means, each man might be
come strong for himself, — strong in the knowledge of God,
strong in the sense of his own individual responsibilities, and
strong that he honored the Lord, by seeking all aid in weakness
from the volume of his word, and from the ordinances of his in
stitution. And when they thus brought men to the sanctuary,
to save them from the lesser evil, they were likewise setting
them in the way of the greatest good, even the forgiveness of
their sins, and their eternal salvation. Thus did our fathers,
in all things, honor the Church as the divinely appointed chan
nel of every moral good, the only sure instrumentality by which
to renovate the world.
But we, the descendants of the Puritans of this day, have
sadly forsaken this the strong ground of our fathers. Having
deserted the Bible, as the only proper basis of education, we
have thrown away the moral power of the Church also. For
saking the principles of our fathers in the one case, it was al
most matter of necessity, that we should forsake them in the
other abo. In a great part this power of the Church has fallen
into forgetfulness, because we have not taught the young in the
fear, and in the knowledge of God. But alas, we have gone
beyond this to do evil.
To those who hold not the binding authority of every word of
the Lord Jehovah, who feel not the need of divine grace to
every work of good, and depend not upon the Holy Spirit to
aid them in every labor of love ; who cast away the promise of
the Redeemer to be ever with his Church, to pour success upon
all the ordinances of his institution, — what they may call the
Church is of no more weight than any other association of men.
It is powerless to any benevolent work, because it has no defi-
3

18
nite object. It has no peculiar claims, because it has no prom
ised blessings. Whatever purpose, therefore^ they deem it *wise,
or expedient, or desirable, to carry out, it must have a specific
organization of its own. And disregarding all _, other points of
difference, agreement on this one specific point is all that can be
required of its members. Of course a motley horde is soon col
lected, and equally of course the most noisy and factious soon
gain the ascendancy. And' upon whatever fair ground they
commence,-r-with whatever seeming or real reverence for the
word of God, they invariably follow one road to a rejection of
the Bible, and a contempt of the Church of Christ. It cannot
be Otherwise. Their very foundation is this* that the Church,
with its means of grace, is incapable of doing" its ¦appointed work
of destroying sin with all its evils, and of effecting a moral re
generation of tie world. They1 begin by supplementing the
Church, by undertaking to do the work of the Redeemer, and
of the Holy Spirit, in this one point, better- than the all-wise
Jehovah can do it. And soon,, this one object swells and mag
nifies before their distorted vision, until all other sins are lost
sight of, and their standard on this single point of propriety or
duty becomes the measure of a perfect character before God
and man. And casting off all subjection to any law, human or
divine, they thrust their crude, and blasphemous, and God-
defying notions, upon the community, with all the power of ma
lignant -denunciation. '
These associations, with all their evils, which are too apparent
to need more than a mere allusion, are what the wisdom of man
has substituted for the wisdom of GW. Instead of arraigning
each man before his God, and teaching him what God requires
of him, and laying upon his conscience his individual responsi
bility to his Judge, and strengthening him, by all the might of
heaven's word, to go alone, to be a man, — he is called to be but
a reed# in a bundle of reeds, to throw his conscience into the
common stock, to think and to act with his leaders, and td jus
tify himself with God, yea, and against God. " And the Church-
is set aside, as an obsolete idea,— a decrepid and tottering or
ganization that has outlived its time,— an almanac out of date.

19
Heaven and hell, — the terrors of the wrath of God, — the grace
and mercy of the, ¦ gos,pel, — all the interests of immortality, and
of eternity, are cast on one side, and are forgotten. The soul;
of man, that which must live forever, — that which will go on for
ever in joy, or forever, in woe, — which .will, one day reckon of
itself more misery, or more happiness, than this world has seen,!
from the beginning to , the end of time, — the care for this souly
that it should be' washed in the bipod of Christ, and be sanctified
by his Spirit, and be prepared for , eternal blessedness— this
enters not into their, thoughts. These, men care not, so they
accomplish one item : of doubtful, , petty, earthly good, though
they have cast ten souls down to an eternal hell, in their way to
obtain it. The Sabbath is profaned by their unholy assem
blages, and the pulpit is polluted by the advocacy of their
claims. By their influence, multitudes are drawn, or driven,
from the Church of Christ,— from all the, means of grace,; and
the streets are thronged with Sabbath-breaking defiers of the
holy Jehovah. And,;what alone induces the mention of these
men here is, that they derive most of their power to do evil,
from the aid and countenance, to a greater or less degree, given
them by professed members of the Church of Christ.
This then is what we are doing,— we who boast with the Jews,
that "we have Abraham, to our father!" , Here in this land^
consecrated to the Triune God, and where God has blessed; us
above all nations of the. earth,— hag blessed us for the fathers'
sake,— here are we, casting down' his word from, the place to
which God has appointed it, and where our fathers put it, as
the only ground-work of morality, and of stability, in, the com
munity, to be taught at all times and . to .all, but especially to
the young. Disregard to the Bible in the school has bred a
sad neglect of it at home, and an indifference to it in, the
Church, and upon the Sabbath. There is none too much time
in all our lives to learn its lessons of heavenly wisdom., The
little that can be, learned on the Sabbath, by those who study
it at no other time, will not be enough to leaven the morals of
the community, and protect us from the judgments of heaven.
And it is a sad, but undeniable truth, and one well worthy of

20
our most serious consideration, that the present generation of
youth is rising up, with little reverence for the word of God,
and in comparative ignorance of the very first principles of
religion. And following out this course, we are throwing away God's
holy day after his word, and we are setting up antagonist bodies
to his Church. We are blindly so acting as to destroy her
moral power, and to complete her overthrow, if the blessing of
God were not in her, so as to render her indestructible. And
good men have been, and are doing this. There is the evil.
" It is not an enemy that hath done this ;" — but " the Saviour
is wounded in the house of his friends."
And now what are we to do ? Something must be done, and
that speedily. Can we do any thing better than to confess our
sins before God, and turn back to the principles of our fathers ?
Can we do better than to commence again to honor " the
Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth ?" Can the Church do any thing else than to forsake all
entangling alliances with the world, and stand on her own
ground, — there where her divine Head has placed her ? Let
her rise up high above all these deceitful connections, and,
with the Bible in her hand, educate her own youth, in the
knowledge of the Lord, — hold out to all men this sure refuge
and support against all temptations, — teach the weak, and err
ing, and fallen, to look to the grace of God in Christ Jesus for
help and for deliverance ; and thus lead them to seek their eter
nal, as well as their temporal welfare.
Yea, let us return to the old paths. Let us honor the word
of God, and the Church, and the Sabbath, and the sanctuary.
Let the pulpits of this land of the Puritans sound out, in the
full, clear, decided tones of former times, the doctrines that
were strength to the soul of the Puritans, and God will again
turn and bless us. Then the times of yore will be brought
back again, and there shall be men in the land, — giants, — men
of power, — " every one as the Son of a king," — men able to
go alone, and, in the strength of Jehovah, to encounter, and
resist, all the arts and allurements of the adversary.

21
It is full time for us to pause, and to consider our course.
Boastmg of our fathers, while we follow not in their footsteps,
as they followed Christ, will answer no longer. We have al
ready run so near to destruction, that we can look over into the
horrid, appalling, fathomless abyss, that lies below. No half
way work will save us. Back in deep humility, — way back to
the fathers, — to their Bible, — to their Sabbath, — to their sanc
tuary, and to their God ; or our destiny is written, and we are
lost.

SERMON II.

Matthew iii, 9.
And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to
our Father.
We have already considered the great difference between our
practice, and that of our fathers. It now remains to compare
our principles with theirs. Our business is with opinions, not
with men ; and in a matter of so great moment, I shall endeavor
to use great plainness of speech, while I hope also to speak the
truth in love.
It is matter of logical inference, that there must be the
same broad line of distinction running down to the very depths
of our belief, and setting us as wide asunder from our fathers,
in all that we receive for doctrinal truth, as we are in our prac
tice. Did we draw from God's word the same system of doc
trines, which they found there, and did this enter into our souls
with all the vivid, life-inspiring reality, that it bore to them, we
could no more act, as we do act towards the Bible, the Church,
the Sabbath, and the sanctuary, than we could indulge in tri
fling and in profaneness, in the manifest presence of Jehovah,
and before his bar of judgment. Men throw not away the word
of God, until by degrees they have attenuated its doctrines, and
enervated its authority, and dimmed its glory. They must

23
weaken its bonds upon the conscience and the heart, — they
must cease to tremble at the terror of a " Thus saith the Lord,"
— they must explain away the power of the message, and bring
down the doctrines of the Bible to the level of human reason,
setting them upon the same footing with the doctrines of men,
before they will be ready to hold the Bible loosely, to disregard
it, or to cast it away. This is the course of error, to explain,
modify, soften, that it may finally destroy.
Thus, notwithstanding all the self-conceited, and ignorant
boasting, that we hear, — for ignorant it must be, if it is not
something worse, even a wicked device to deceive, — notwith
standing the cry of puritan theology, from pulpits, and tracts,
and pamphlets, and newspapers, and more aspiring periodicals,
it is evident from our practice, that there is very little of true
puritan theology amongst uS.
But we may leave these reasonings, and come to facts. In
the first place, it is an undeniable fact,1 that very little doctrinal
preaching of any kind is found in the pulpits of the present
day, in this land of the Puritans. A sickly sentimentalism, —
a morality scarcely more refined than that of Plato, which will
indeed condescend to take its theme, and sometimes an illustra
tion from the Bible, — the discussion of abstract topics of specu
lation, — the advocacy of some scheme' of real benevolence, or
of the multitude, whose name is' legion, of counterfeit schemes
of good, but which are really the devices of the author of evil
to destroy the souls of men, — or at most,1 the indefinite and in
direct preaching about the gospel, the delicate and distant allu
sion to some of the plainer first principles of truth, — this is the
provision now too generally set before the sons of thoSe, who
desired to be fed, and were fed, and sustained, and strength
ened, upon the strong meat of the gospel of grace. This is a
truth — an awful truth. And many an humble Christian has
mourned over it, when he has gone to the sanctuary, and found
no Saviour there ; ¦ and out of a heart burdened with grief, has
groaned with Mary, " They have taken away my Lord, and I
know not where they have laid him."

24
And in the second place, the popular theology of the day, —
that which is held to an alarming extent, and is increasing al
most unrebuked, and which bids fair soon to be universal, —
is a direct contradiction, in every important point, to the the
ology, and the doctrine, of our fathers. And while I go on to
show the truth of this assertion, I desire you to bear in mind,
that the whole discussion is of a matter of common honesty.
Men may hold what doctrines they please, unaccountable to me,
or to you, — accountable to God only. But let those who claim
the Puritans to their fathers, hold fast to the principles of the
Puritans. Let them bring to us the doctrines of the Puritans ;
or let them at least have the honesty to hush their false and
deceitful boasting in this respect. And if they have really made
such wonderful improvements upon the system of the fathers,
let them stand out openly, and claim, and receive, the merit
of their inventions. But alas ! they manifest clearly the source
whence their boasted improvements come. "He that doeth
truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest
that they are wrought in God." But " every one that doeth
evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved." It is no new thing for foul and soul-
destroying error to hide itself under a smooth appearance, and
even to claim to be the very truth which it aims to destroy.
This has always been its history. He that handles the word of
God deceitfully, has always been, and will always be, deceitful
towards his fellow men.
It is among the first principles or axioms of thought, that this
word of God contains fixed and certain truths, independent of
time or circumstance, " the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever," as is the God whose word it is. And to him who will
reflect for a moment upon the design of this revelation, it must
be equally certain and incontrovertible, that these truths would
stand out as plain to our ancestors, being such men as they
were, as to us : and generally, that the humble, pious, mind,
seeking by fervent prayer the teaching of the Holy Spirit, will
know most of the word of God. Modern learning may throw
more light upon some detached passages of this word, but all

25
the discoveries of modern science or of modern philosophy, can
not alter nor amend one single plain doctrine of the Spirit of
inspiration. All other differences fade away when we bring
man into the presence of his Maker. And the word, which de
clares our condition, and prescribes the remedy, must be the
same to all, and must be within the comprehension of all. If
then our fathers had the truth, any essential change, or modifi
cation, on our part, is an attempt not only to be wiser than they
were, but to be wiser than God.
I will point out only the more prominent points of difference.
But these will suffice to show that all is changed ; yea, even
from the character of Jehovah himself, — all things in heaven
and earth are moved from their old foundations, by these
" daubers with untempered mortar." In the views of the Puri
tans, which I shall set forth, they were associated with the great
body of the reformers, and with the best, and holiest, and wisest,
of men, in every age of the Church. And on the other hand,
the doctrines that are now brought forward to supersede these,
and for which we are called to unlearn all the wisdom of our
fathers, and to cast away, as an absurd and antiquated thing,
all that they held dear ; — all that golden, glorious, chain, let
down out of heaven upon earth, upon which they rested their
souls for time and for eternity ; — these doctrines, in their new
gilding and varnish, boasting that they are the very acme of all
understanding, the last, and most astounding, developement of
all wisdom, are not only old errors re-vamped, — errors and fol
lies, rebuked and dissipated by the light of divine truth in every
age, but they have always been found in evil company, and
their abettors, like all " evil men and seducers, have waxed
worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."
I will commence with the doctrine of the Bible in regard to
the state of man. Our ancestors found there this plain and
simple account of man as a sinner. The Lord, our Creator,
entered into covenant with Adam, our common father, not only
for himself, but for all his race. He, the root from which we
sprung, stood as the legal representative of all. He was put
upon trial, not for himself alone, but for all his posterity. If he

26
abide by the command of the Lord, and perform the stipulation
of the covenant, then by his obedience are we all confirmed in
holiness, and receive a title to the promised rewards. If he
fail and fall, then do we not only fail of the reward, but we fall
with him, and come under the same penalty which he has in
curred, and are brought into the same relation towards the law
of God, that he occupies. His act is not ours, in any such
physical and impossible sense, as that we were with him, and
joined with him, in the matter of the action. But on the
well known principle of legal representation, we are bound by
the results of Adam's act, just as much as if each individual
of the human family had been present there in the garden,
and had stretched forth the hand with Adam, to take the for
bidden fruit. That act of Adam, the representative of the
race, changed the relation of the race to God, and by conse
quence changed the character of the race. And so "by one
man's disobedience many were made sinners." Adam's con
demnation passed as much upon you and me, whom he repre
sented, as upon himself. Thus God judicially withholds from
us that image of himself, in which he created Adam, and we are
the children of fallen Adam, born in his image, and bearing
that image, just so soon as we are his children. Thus are we
" by nature the children of wrath," born sinners, and under con
demnation. The curse is upon the race, and all of the race
come into existence under the curse.
Here then are three points. 1. The imputation of Adam's
sin ; the holding of us legally bound by the result of his act, as
our representative. 2. The want of original righteousness.
God judicially withholds from us his plastic hand of holiness,
as the penalty of our guilt, reckoned in Adam. 3. The conse
quent corruption of our whole nature. That which is not holy
is sinful. Our Creator justly requires us to be holy and pure, —
to be endowed with all those qualities which should fit us to
dwell with him in glory. And where this holy character is
stamped upon no part of our nature, there all is corrupt and
sinful.

27
This is Original Sin. And here it all hangs upon the fact,
that Adam was our federal head and representative. He in
volved us in guilt, that is, liability to punishment. And as the
penalty, God does not bestow upon us original righteousness,
and so we are sinners, partaking of a corrupt nature, born in
sin. Here all is plain. God is glorified, and our condition is
accounted for. " By one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin, and so death has passed upon all men, for that all
have sinned." Death, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, com
prehending not only the final award to the impenitent, but all
sorrow and suffering, the loss of God's favor, and the loss of
our spirit of love to him, came by the one offence of this one
man. The holy God lays no evil upon his intelligent creatures,
but as they are sinners. And when all suffer from the earliest
infancy, then we know that all are sinners,— are reckoned and
treated as such, by the holy and just God. And from this un
holy nature, disposition, temper of heart, as a fountain, flow out
all the streams of sinful thought and of sinful action. This
original sin is the fruitful soil in which spring up all actual
transgressions. And when we look abroad upon a sinful race
of whom all are gone astray, we trace this back, not to accident,
nor to the arbitrary will of God, but to his just judgment upon
the sin of our first parent and representative. All the system
of our fathers' theology is built upon this foundation stone, the
imputation of the guilt of Adam's first sin to his posterity. Re
move this, and the whole edifice crumbles to the dust. This
alone vindicates the character of the holy Jehovah. This alone
explains the present^condition of the human race. This alone
admits all the glory of the plan of redemption, through the im
puted righteousness of our Substitute and Surety, the Lord
Jesus Christ.
But the adherents and advocates of this new system of anti
quated error, and falsehood, commence their work by striking
away this foundation stone. By their definition of sin, they
sweep off at once, the whole doctrine of original sin. " Sin,"
they say, " is voluntary action in view of known law." Sin is
altogether action. The very idea of a sinful disposition, a de-

28
praved nature, a sinful propensity, is scouted and ridiculed as
an absurdity. Sin is the voluntary action of an intelligent agent,
knowing and understanding the law which he violates, and it
is this alone. Moral qualities can be predicated only of actions.
There is no sinful heart, no " carnal mind that is enmity against
God," all the outgoings of which are sinful, and only sinful.
A man's actions do not point us to the state of his heart, and
so serve as evidences of his nature and disposition. They form
his character. And beyond them, there is nothing but a will,
uncontrolled, and " semi-omnipotent ;" that can do good as well
as evil. And man is a sinner, not because he is wholly averse
in heart from God, nor from the inborn depravity of his heart,
which is not subject to the law of "God, neither indeed can be,
but simply that when he has full power to choose and to refuse,
" all his voluntary preferences are sinful." " Man is a walking
animal, though he does not walk all the time ; and so is man a
sinner, because whenever he can act, he„acts sinfully." This is
the whole of total depravity ; it reaches only to the preferences,
the actions. It is not the being holy, that God demands of us,
but the acting holy. It is not the being sinful, that he con
demns, but the acting sinfully. And by just inference from
their definition, where there is no knowledge of the law, there
is no sin. They disregard the distinction between sin, as the
character of man, when compared with the holy, and unvary
ing law of God ; and the degree of guilt, or desert of punish
ment, which may be modified by circumstances. With them,
it is not the pure, and holy, and immovable, standard of heav
en's holiness, with which we are compared, and by which our
character is determined. Time, place, and circumstance, de
cide this; — and the possession or exhibition of evil passions,
which bring down the wrath of God on one creature, may be un
noticed and disregarded in another. We are judged, not by
the law of God, but by our knowledge of that law ; and the
rule is as various as are the conditions of men. And if this be
true, where is the unchangeable rectitude of the one, living,
and true, God ?

29
Besides this, the representative character of Adam is utterly
denied, and derided. They allow nothing in the nature of a
covenant with God, except in the loosest sense, for Adam him
self. He stood and fell for himself, and we stand and fall for
ourselves, having the same perfect ability to obey the law of
God, that he had. Nothing from his first sin reaches us as a
penalty. That was simply the beginning of sin in this world ;
and in consequence of this fact, and so in consequence remotely
of this first sin, it is certain, that we will make ourselves sin
ners. We are endowed with the same powers with Adam ;
and differ from him personally only in this, that he possessed
by nature, a tendency to holiness, which tendency was not holy,
and we possess a tendency to sin, which tendency is not sinful.
And relatively we differ from him, in that we are placed under
disadvantageous circumstances, and such as render it certain
that our first moral act will be sinful. But this tendency has no
penal character. And these circumstances have no legal re
lation to the sin of Adam ; indeed they have no connection
with it, except the purely accidental one, that this was the
first sin in a world, where the prevalence of sin has induced
physical and moral evils, which place us in such a position, that
with full power to do good or evil, we are certain to begin by
sinning. They ridicule any imputation of the sin of Adam, or any
thing like inherent sinfulness, or hereditary depravity. They
claim, that there can be no such thing as a sinful disposition ;
and that the tendencies in man, which lead to sinful action,
must of necessity be without any moral quality. They deny
that any thing can be sin, or can be deserving of punishment,
but voluntary and intelligent action, where there is the percep
tion of the contrary good, and the full power to choose it.
They hold clearly that ability and obligation are always com
mensurate. Of course then, such a thing as original sin, an
unholy nature, a nature under the condemnation and curse of
the law of God, is an absurdity. The very idea furnishes them
with matter for profane revilings. They will retain the term,
"original sin," as they do also other orthodox words and

30
phrases. Some of these teachers of falsehood have solemnly
professed their adherence to the form of sound doctrine, and
they must for a while at least cover over their defections. And
so until they have perverted the Church down to their own
standard, they must use these fair-seeming words to deceive,
while they " modify " the doctrines out of existence.
And when these men are pressed with the facts of suffering
and of death, as proofs of sin, they boldly fly in the face of the
word of God, and of the character of him, who is holy, and
just, and good, and deny the connection. They revile the just
One by their declaration, that he inflicts suffering without re
gard to sin, and that under his righteous rule the holy may
suffer, as well as the unholy. And when God himself cursed
the ground for man's sin, and man through the ground, and
laid bodily suffering upon woman, who was first in the transgres
sion, they, in their philosophy, wiser than God, deny outright,
that sin has any penalty except after death, and in the awards
of the final judgment. And moreover they dishonor the Lord
Jehovah, by charging, that without any regard to the sin of
Adam, he creates men with a tendency to sin, and under such
circumstances of disadvantage, that their first actions will be in
variably sinful.
Here then is the gain of this boasted scheme. It is, that the
evils, moral and physical, which our fathers found from the
Bible, were derived upon us, from the just judgment of God
against us, as constituted sinners by the sin of our head and
representative, are all thrown back upon 'the mere sovereignty
of God, or upon his want of power. We suffer and sin simply
because he chose, that we should suffer and sin. Or, it was be
cause, " he was not able to prevent sin in the best possible moral
system." Which scheme best agrees with the Bible, and is
most to the glory of God, and most consonant with our every
day experience and observation, is open to the determination of
every candid mind.
Now these notions of the disease shape and modify all no
tions of the remedy. This is why the doctrine of original sin
becomes so all important. The balm of Gilead has power pro-

31
portioned to the evils, which it is to cure ; and he that modifies
the disease, will also most certainly trifle away the efficacy of
the remedy.
This was the faith of our fathers, in regard to the remedy,
which God has provided. The eye of God, merciful as well
as just, comprehended the whole race as sinners, sinful in their
nature, and sinful in their practice. The holy law, set before
men, not only as a rule of duty, but as the measure by which
they were to receive a gracious reward, was broken, and all
were under its condemnation. It only remained for the Law
giver to vindicate his own holiness, and to exact the merited
penalty. But God had thoughts of mercy towards us ; and
yet, that mercy may be compatible with justice, some one must
take our place, and meet, and answer, all the demands of the
law. That one can be no creature. It must be no other than
the Son of God, — who is not under the law, — " who is God
over all, blessed forevermore." He must descend from his
eternal throne, and take the place of our representative ; —
not the place in which Adam first stood, but the very place
before the law, to which he had fallen, and we had fallen in
him. If our second representative is to restore what the first
took away, he must suffer that penalty of a violated law, which
the sin of this first man brought upon us. If he will obtain
for us the blessings of obedience, which Adam failed to secure,
he must obey for us, in our stead, the holy law of the Father,
which promises the reward. He alone, that is above all law,
as the prescribed means to a reward, can thus interfere to act
for others. And his meritorious work and suffering may be
justly imputed to the advantage of these, whom he represents.
Here then, justice is satisfied, — mercy is full and free, and the
sinner is saved from wrath, and receives the inheritance of
glory. This is the gospel remedy for sinners. The merciful Jeho
vah looked down out of heaven upon a world lying in wicked
ness, a lost and ruined world. Out of all nations, and through
all time, he chose a great multitude, that no man can number,
of old, and of young, and these he gave to his Son, in the

32
covenant of redemption. For these, the Son became man, and
paid the price of his own precious blood. The penalty of their
sins was laid upon him, yea, the wrath of the Lawgiver, and the
curse of the law, and he bore, and suffered, it all. This is the
atonement ; not that mercy is exercised at the expense of jus
tice ; — not that God has forgotten his word, and cast away his
law ; but that all the terrors of the law were laid upon the
shoulders of the God-man, and that he drank our cup of wrath
to the very dregs.
And this same Mighty One, standing in our stead, and in
corporated with his own people, as the head is incorporated
with the body, obeyed the law for us, and for us fulfilled all
righteousness. All that he did in the flesh was for us. He
needed not, as we do, to purchase for himself a title to blessed
ness ; for he sat, in his own right, upon the throne of the
Father. And thus his obedience, as well as his suffering, was
for his people. And this is his reward, " that he should give
eternal life to as many as he would." We have no more claim
upon God than before ; but our almighty Saviour has. What
is but his just right from the Father, according to their eter
nal covenant, is the most free and sovereign grace to us.
And now he stands before the throne of grace to intercede for
us. The names of all his people are graven upon the palms
of his hands ; and, as the good Shepherd, he calleth them all
by name, and shows the purchase in his own blood. And here
on earth, by all the ordinances of the gospel, he invites every
man to look to him and live. This gospel, which is efficient to
save the elect, is sufficient for all men, and is adapted to the
wants of every son of Adam. It is freely and sincerely offered
to all the children of men. " He that believeth shall be
saved." " God can now be just and yet justify the believer
in Jesus." And to all who believe on him, who go to him for
salvation, his righteousness, both of suffering and of obedience
is imputed ; not transfused, but reckoned before the law, as if
it were theirs. And they are owned of God, and admitted
into his family, not because they are righteous, but because
Christ, their head, is righteous. So, also, in the case of in-

33
fants, who are constituted sinners, by the imputed sin of the
first Adam, this glorious* doctrine of justification shows us how
they may be saved, by the 'imputed righteousness of the second
Adam, though they have never lived to hear the message of
mercy. They did- not choose him, but he chose them. And
their voices are heard in the courts of heaven, giving glory to.
the Lamb, who has bought them by his blood.
This is a holy gospel ; — a gospel worthy of a holy God.
This is the only gospel, that will do any good to man " dead
in trespasses and in sins." ' And thus only can we draw near
to Jehovah, in confidence, and in full assurance of faith, when
we can turn away from ourselves,' and look only to the per
fect righteousness of our Surety and Redeemer, and can rest
upon that, as our plea before the God of holiness, and the God
of grace. ' y
But alas !— -we are the children of the Puritans, who rested
upon this mighty Saviour, and were strong in the Lord, and
in the strength of his salvation ; — and we boast, that we have
them to our fathers, but we have cast away the strongholds
of their faith. I but echo the cry of these new system mon
gers, when I say, that this doctrine of atonement, and this
doctrine of justification, are almost wholly unknown, among
the descendants of the Puritans, in this the land of their
prayers. And not only so, but men in high places in the
Church seem to find a malignant pleasure, first, in carricatur-
ing these doctrines, and then in holding them up to derision
and to contempt. All the plain declarations of holy writ, —
all the blessed words of Paul and of Isaiah— respecting the
suretyship of Christ, they turn to metaphors and figures of
speech. With them, justice had nothing to do with the suf
ferings of Christ ; and these had no reference to the Lawgiver,
by way of appeasing or averting his wrath. The penalty of
the 'law was not laid upon the Lord Jesus; — it stands yet
unmet, and in full force ; yea, against Abraham, and the be
loved disciple, in the kingdom of heaven. They deny also the
sovereignty of grace, and hold, that " in an important sense
5

34
God is bound to save some of mankind." And the cross of
Christ is a governmental expedient to prevent the evils of gra
tuitous forgiveness ; — a device, in some way, to make it con
sistent for God to " evade " his own law, and to bestow favor
upon those who " comply with such conditions as the interests
pf the universe demand." They set mercy against justice.
And they send the soul, overburdened with the sense of guilt,
and overwhelmed with a view of the awful holiness of Jehovah,
tip to this God, with the plea of his own faith and repentance, to
ask for mercy at the expense of justice ; — to ask the Holy One,
that he will cast away his holiness, and justice, and truth, and
receive them into favor.
And it is forgiveness merely, that they bid man hope for, or
seek. The idea, that the obedience of the Lord Jesus had
any thing to do with our salvation, — was any part of his mer
diatorial work, they hold in the utmost abhorrence, and cover
with bitter revilings. They therefore know nothing of full jus
tification. They show no way, in which a man may obtain the
perfect righteousness, which the law demands ; but when he
thinks, that God has connived at his sinfulness, and forgiven
his i transgressions, then they set before him no further good in
Christ. .For all else, he must rest upon the merits of his own
works of righteousness. Have these men ever conceived of the
holiness, of the Lord our God ? Have they ever known the
terrors of ,, his law? Has the Holy Spirit ever arraigned them
before the bar of judgment, and flashed the lightnings of Sinai
in their faces, and made them cry out, "Woe is me?" God
forbid, that I should judge their hearts ; but if they had ever
been taught, by God's teaching, the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
I see not how they could be willing to rest their souls upon such
a gospel as this.
And, finally, as to the application of the remedy, the differ
ence is as great, as in regard to the disease, and the remedy
itself. ' Our fathers had no narrow and contracted philosophy
to fetter their minds, and trammel their faith. And so ;th,ey
went, in all the simplicity of true wisdom, to the word of God

35
for instruction. There they learned, that man is " dead in
sin," and can be quickened, and brought to spiritual life, only
by the invincible operations of the Spirit of God. The same
power, that created man at the first, must now re-create him in
holiness ; — the same almighty energy, that waked Lazarus from
the dead, must call dead sinners to a life of righteousness."
And as we receive this our natural life directly from the hand
of God, so, in regeneration, we must be born anew of the Holy
Spirit. An entirely new principle of action must be wrought
within us, which we simply receive, and to which we contribute
nothing. And this they expressed in the phrase, " man is
passive in regeneration ;" — does not work, in the simple act of
changing his heart, but is wrought upon. Not that they re
jected, or undervalued, the means of grace. No men prized
these more than they did. Few men indeed so much insist
upon these instruments of God's appointment, or consider them'
of so great importance. This cavil comes with a poor grace
from their degenerate descendants. But beyond all the use of
means, they found, from God's word, that God himself must
unstop the deaf ear, and must open the closed heart. They
found, that, by a direct and immediate act of the Holy Spirit,
the eyes of the understanding must be opened, to perceive the
disease of sin, and the remedy of grace. And by this same
power, must the affections be inclined, and enabled to exercise
a godly sorrow for sin ; and, by a living and appropriating faith,
to lay hold on the offered righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. These dead sinners must be called out of their tombs,
and be made alive before God. They must be " created anew
in Christ Jesus." And this is the work of God, and of God
alone. Not even to his own ordinances will he give the glory
of this new creation. Here is hope, and comfort, for the sin-
burdened penitent, who feels and dreads the treachery of his
own evil heart. If this be the work of God, it can be done.
If it be his own work to renew his heart, he may well despair.
But all this glorious truth is a fable and a dream to these
wise men, — wise in old folly. They set up the dictates of

36
their false philosophy to vacate the plain declarations of the
word of Jehovah. . By their theories, they deny to God the
power to create a being holy. Adam was not created holy, but
only with such tendencies, of themselves possessing no moral
character, that he made himself holy. And for the same rea
son, the Lord God cannot renew, and re-create the soul in ho
liness. At best, he can only„go far off among these undefined,
and neutral, tendencies, and there work to procure the result of
holiness. And. this result is of man, not of God.
And more, they hold to no sinful disposition, that needs to
be changed, or that 'is capable of it. It is action only, that
needs renovation. . " Regeneration is a change from sinful ac
tion to holy action." ' Ajftd -this man, who is thus to change, is
not dead in sins. He is as fully able to keep all the law of God,
as Adam was. " He has not only power to do, but power to
will to do all, that God requires of him." They claim, that it
would be unjust for God to. demand that,, which is not, in the •
fullest sense, in man's., power. The only inability is simply the
will not. It depends solely upon man's will, in the most re
stricted sense of that word, to do good, or to do evil. There is
no sinful heart, or disposition, back of the will, that controls
and characterizes all its actings ; and that, in the natural man,
makes it impossible to please God. But man has only to say,
with a strong determination, " I will repent, and believe, and
serve God," and the result is as certain as when he says,
" I will walk, or I will sit." An6. nothing but the will of man
thus put forth, not even the power of Jehovah, can bring him
to holiness. All the work of the Spirit of God therefore is
reduced to mere persuasion, to the application of motives to
the will of man. He may bring the truth home with power
upon the understanding, and upon the conscience, but he can
not change the heart. And indeed there is no heart to be
changed. After all the work of the Spirit, it remains in the
power of man to yield, or to refuse, as he pleases. So that the
glory of the. change is all his own. It is not God, that makes
men to differ. It is their own work. Happy indeed is it for

37
these men, and for us all, that the grace of God is better than
all their philosophy.
And as their scheme leaves no hope for infants, that is made
an exception. The figment of another kind of regeneration .
is evoked for them ; a regeneration, not from sin, but prospec
tive, looking to the fact, that if they had lived^to moral action,
they would have been sinners. While others, unable to com
prehend this nonsense, boldly claim, that infants go to heaven
on their own merits ; or that they pass to some intermediate
state, there to develope a character. But they tell us not how
they can be interested in him, who came "to save sinners;"
nor how they can join in the song of the redeemed above.
Here I will pause, not that the catalogue of falsehood and of
folly is exhausted, but that enough has been said, to show, that
all the foundations of Puritan theology are overthrown, by these,
who vainly boast, that the Puritans are their fathers. These
are the doctrines, that are taught by professors of theology ;
that are preached from the pulpit, in this land of the pilgrims.
And the evil is wide spread, and is fast extending itself.
This is an undeniable truth. Attempts have been made
to deny it. But in spite of all modifications, and explanations,
and certificates, and loud professions of love to the catechism,
• and to the- old ways of our fathers, the end was worse than the
beginning. Every attempt to put away the charge, only made
it the more glaring. And this will continue to- be the result of
all such efforts.
There is a designing, and crafty, working in the dark.
There are not a few of those, whose mouths cease not to boast
of the Puritans, who are yet bending all their energies to root
out all trace of those glorious doctrines of salvation, which the
Puritans loved. And good men are at ease, and refuse to be
alarmed. They set outward peace as the greatest blessing,
and will not contend, even for the blessed word of God. If
the Church remain in her present supineness and indifference,
these arts of evil will succeed. And the final result is already
pictured before our eyes, in the polluted and polluting schemes

38
of Fourrierism, and its kindred societies, whose motive power is
lodged in the bottomless pit. To these schemes the extreme
end of the descending column has already reached. And noth
ing, but the strong gospel of our fathers, their Bible, their Sab
bath, their sanctuary, and their God, can save us all from that
fathomless abyss. We need not look abroad for reasons to fast
and pray. Here they are, greater than any where else. May
God give grace to all true sons of the - Puritans, to join to
gether ; to separate themselves from the evil ; and in every
way to honor their God. Amen.

Note. — It is but proper for me to say, in regard to a Sermon
by Rev. Dr. Dana, which has appeared while these Discourses
were in press, that any similarity, which may exist, has arisen
solely from a coincidence of views and feelings respecting the
topics discussed. From the first conception to their appearance
before the public, our efforts have been in the fullest sense inde
pendent of each other. And I cannot but be strengthened in
my opinions, by such corroborative testimony to their truth.