Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

A discourse on creeds, and ecclesiastical machinery : delivered at...

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 511

I see, my neighbors, that you are disappointed. You came to this place with your curiosity highly excited to hear about a new religion: and it turns out that I am to tell you of but the old one. I have put a damper upon your raised expectations by announcing for my theme the old religion of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, is it not a new religion to many of you? The commandment that "ye love one another" was in point of fact an old one: and yet Jesus said: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." To those whom He addressed, it was new.

Do I stir the indignation of some of you by intimating that you are not accustomed to hear the religion of Jesus preached? "Every Sunday," say you. "In all the churches," say you. Well, if this is so, I confess that I am not so fortunate as you are. For very rarely do I hear it. You tell me that the clergymen of this neighborhood preach it. These are good men. I love and honor them : and I doubt not that they are all in

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the way to heaven. But if I understand them, it is not the religion of Jesus which they preach. They preach in favor of creeds and churches and a clerical order of men. So mistaken are they, as still to believe that Jesus came to establish all these; whereas He came to send them all down stream. Blind are they still to the fact, that when His religion shall have come to prevail over the whole earth, there will not one church creed be left; no, nor one clergyman; no, nor one church in the present and popular sense of the word.

A religious creed is proper. Every man should have one. But a church creed is improper.Fifty or a hundred people in Peterboro' or Cazenovia, however much alike in their views and spirit, should no more be required to adopt a common religious creed than to shorten or stretch out their bodies to a common length.

There is a sad misconception in regard to a church also. The common idea is, that to make a church people must come together and organize, much as in the case of a Mutual Insurance Company. This is the way a sectarian church is made. But Jesus no more thought of providing for a sectarian church than for a political party. In His eye the Christians of a place are the church of the place; and this, too, whether they know it or not, will it or not. They are such by force of their character: and votes can neither make nor unmake the fact.

As to the clerical order. Many clergymen are among the best of men. Nevertheless, such an order is wholly unauthorized and exceedingly pernicious. Their assumption of an exclusive right to teach religion makes the teachers conceited, dogmatic, arrogant, tyrannical; and their hearers lazy in mind and slavish in spirit.

The plea for a clerical order is, that men learned in religion are needed to teach it. This, however, is a pagan idea, that has come down to us. To be able to teach a pagan religion -to explain its mysteries, and superstitions, and absurdities-does indeed require much study of books and much cabalistic learn-

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ing. Somewhat so it is in the case of the Hebrew religion, also. But the religion taught by Jesus is not a letter but a life. So simple is it that the unlearned can both understand and teach it. Even fishermen He pronounced fit to preach His religion. Ay, little children can comprehend it. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou bast perfected praise," says Jesus. "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth," says He, "that thou bast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Wise and good men are the teachers in many theological seminaries. Emphatically true is this in the case of the one in our own county. Nevertheless, a theological seminary is a mistake. This it is because the current religion is a mistake. The true religion is too simple to make the training of a theological seminary necessary for those who teach it. We should allow the wisdom and goodness of God to assure us that the religion which He has given to the world must correspond in its simplicity with the simplicity of the masses.

Let it not be supposed from what I have said, that I object to the pastorship. Every church should have at least one pastor. He may or may not, however, have many of the gifts of a preacher.

Every true church of Christ is a simple democracy. Such practically were the primitive churches. Its ordinary assemblies should be mere conferences, in which all persons, male or female, are to feel entirely free to speak as the spirit moves them. In this wise are they capable, without having any other preachers than those of their own body, to edify the church, and to glorify God. No Christian should doubt his right to open his lips on such occasions. Faith in Christ is the war rant to speak for Christ. "I believed," says Paul, "and there fore have I spoken." But in addition to this means of grace and growth within themselves, the collective churches should have, and should liberally support, a powerful itinerant ministry: and this I can say without being inconsistent with what I

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have said of the simplicity of Christ's religion. The Pauls and Barnabases of modern times should travel among the churches, as did the Pauls and Bamabases of ancient times. The obscurest country church should be favored, as often as every month or two, with a discourse from a Finney, a Beecher, a Lucretia Mott, an Angelina Weld, a Chapin, a Parker, a Beriah Green, an Alonzo Potter, or an Abram Pryne.

But I proceed to add to my reasons for declaring that the clergymen of this neighborhood do not preach the religion of Jesus. They do not preach it - for they preach that salvation turns on believing in the "doctrines." I am not blaming them for teaching the divinity of Christ, the atonement, an eternal hell, and the plenary inspiration of the Bible. What I blame them for is their teaching that they who do not understand and receive these doctrines must perish. I might admit that Jesus taught all these doctrines. But where did he teach that if a man does not understand and receive them, he shall perish? He taught that at the close of this earthly drama men are to be judged by their lives. The great decisive question then will be - not what were your doctrines, but what were your deeds. How did you acquit yourself in regard to those simple duties, opportunities for doing which crowd the whole pathway of both high and humble life, even from childhood to the grave? Did you feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger, and visit the sick and the prisoner? In perfect and beautiful consistency with these interrogatories is the Saviour's declaration: "By their fruits ye shall know them; " and also the Apostle's: " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this; to visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction."

False tests of character do our clerical neighbors apply in their trying of us by "the doctrines." In reference to good King Josiah, Jeremiah says :"He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord." Says Micah: "What doth the

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Lord require of thee but to do justly, and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" And how emphatically does Jesus make the life the test when He says: "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." It is honesty that he enjoins in these words. To be honest is to be a Christian. The most honest man on earth is the best Christian on earth. It is, indeed, the most comprehensive honesty that is here required. The spirit which dwelt in Jesus can alone inspire it: and strangers are we to that spirit until we are born again. Radical must be the change in our fallen and depraved nature, ere a thorough and gospel honesty can characterize us. I say fallen nature. Let me remark that I do not entertain the common views of this subject. Owing to ancestral violations of moral as well as physical and intellectual laws, we inherit a constitution morally as well as physically and intellectually impaired. This is all I mean by a fallen nature, adding thereto what we may ourselves have done to degrade it.

The clergymen of our neighborhood believe and inculcate that little can be done for a man until he has become thoroughly instructed in, and entirely converted to, that whole form of doctrine which they regard as vital. This step taken, and his next is to conform his life to the teaching. Now I admit that the creed exerts an influence upon the life: but it is not so great as that which the life exerts upon the creed. The creed should be left to grow out of the life, rather than the life out of the creed. Let a man set out to deal more justly and lovingly with all his fellow men, and he will soon find himself forming a creed, which corresponds with his improved course of life. As his life becomes increasingly pure and beautiful, so will his creed become increasingly sound and comprehensive. In saying that the life influences the creed more than the creed the life, I am justified by the Saviour's declaration: " If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine."It is mainly in doing right that we get a right creed.

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But it is said that Jesus requires faith, and makes it the condition of salvation. Faith in what? In the doctrines on which our clergymen harp habitually? I ask again, Where does he teach that the want of such faith is fatal? "However this may be," reply our clergymen, "He nevertheless makes faith in himself essential." I admit it. He says: "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." But just here comes up the great question, What is it to believe in Christ? Is it to believe in "the doctrines?" If so, then the millions of good men who had never heard of them, nor even of Christ, and the millions, too, of good men who, having heard of them, had nevertheless mistaken conceptions of them, have perished. But as sure as God is just and merciful, all good men, live and die they in whatever ignorance of the person of Christ or of "the doctrines," are saved. What, then, is it to believe in Christ? I answer, that such belief, in its very highest sense, is faith in justice, sincerity, mercy, love, and the other moral qualities of which man, be he in christendom or heathendom, has instinctive knowledge, and for his growth in which, be he in Christendom or heathendom, he is responsible. These are the qualities which make up that sum of truth which Jesus came into our world to live to honor, and die to magnify; and of which He declares himself to be the impersonation when He says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." This is the truth of which He spake when He said to Pilate : "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." I repeat, that to believe in Jesus in the very highest sense, is to believe in those virtues which were all clustered in His perfect character: and, moreover, it is to believe in them so cordially and so constantly as to make them our own, and to prove that they are our own by their blossoms and fruits in our lives. Our lives and our likeness to Christ are the precise measure of our faith in Christ.

I am well aware how contrary to the common view of it is

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this view of faith in Christ. As is generally held, right apprehensions - adoring, melting thoughts - of His person and personal character, constitute preeminently true faith in Christ. I would not undervalue such apprehensions and thoughts. He who has them not, even though the life and death of Christ are clearly before him, can give no satisfactory proof that he appreciates the truths which Christ came to teach and illustrate, and no satisfactory proof that he welcomes the duties which He came to enjoin. Nevertheless the Saviour does Himself admit that men may mistake Him and yet be safe. "Whosoever," says He, "speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him." That is, he shall not be safe who mistakes in regard to the spirit and essence - the soul and substance of religion. If men may err in regard to Christ and yet be forgiven, it nevertheless does not follow that they shall be forgiven, who live in the denial of those vital truths, which the spirit of God teaches in every heart.

I said that our clergymen make the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Bible essential to salvation ; and that in so doing they preach not the religion of Christ. But are they not also in error in respect to the fact of such inspiration?

The Bible is really the best book in the world ; though the present uses of it make it practically the worst. All other books put together are, not so much as the Bible is, the occasion of obstructing the progress of civilization, and of filling the world with ignorance and superstition. It is adapted as no other book is to enrich the mind and expand the soul. But misapprehended, misinterpreted, and perverted to the extent it is, no other book - nay, no number of books - does so much to darken the mind and shrivel the soul.

The clergy make the Bible supreme authority. But our reason is under God the final judge in all questions. The Bible, instead of being used but to enlighten reason, is made to override it. Nevertheless this book, like every other book, is to be regarded as the servant of reason, and not reason as the ser-

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vant of it. Reason must sit in judgment upon the Bible, as well as upon all things else: for it is the voice of God in the soul, and nothing must ever be allowed to be exalted above it. In reply to the folly which makes reason inferior or antagonistic to faith, we declare it to be the basis of all true faith and repugnant to no true faith. Reason, in a word, is religion: and the one duty of every man is to bring his passions and appetites and whole self into subjection to it. The most reasonable person in Peterboro' is the best Christian in Peterboro'. Most happily chosen is the word where Paul calls religion a reasonable service.

But it is said that reason is not competent to pass upon religious questions. Jesus, however, says it is. "Why judge ye not even of yourselves what is right ?" He came to throw men back upon their own consciousness of right and wrong, and to hold them to the deductions and confessions of their own reason. And does not Paul also teach the sufficiency of reason in the first chapter of Romans (19, 20, 21)?

It is true that the reason of most men is greatly perverted. It is true that in innumerable instances it is reduced to little better than a compound of passion and prejudice; or, to speak with perhaps more philosophical correctness, such a compound is allowed to take the place of reason. Nevertheless reason, poor guide though we may make it, is our only legitimate guide. It may lead us to ruin. Still we are not at liberty to give it up for any other leader: no, not for church, nor pope, nor Bible. If we have debased and corrupted our reason, we alone are responsible for the wrong, and we alone must bear the loss. What was due from us when we had a right reason is equally due from us when we have destroyed or supplanted it. We cannot cancel our obligations by our crimes.

Our acknowledgment of the absolute and supreme authority of the Bible is claimed on the ground of its inspiration. But where is the proof that it is inspired? Is it in the assertion to this end of the churches and clergy? Is it to be looked for in

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what are called external evidences - which by the way are to be searched after in that stream of ignorant and superstitious traditions, which has comedown to our age? Oh no! The proof of the inspiration is to be looked for alone in the pages of the Bible. If not found there. it can be found nowhere. Moreover, every man must, and upon his own responsibility, judge of the proof for himself.

I do myself believe that most of the writers of the Bible were inspired. All however that I mean by their inspiration is that special flowing of the divine mind into the human mind. of which they enjoy the most who walk the closest with God. Thus blessed were prophets and apostles. Subjects of this inspiration there are in every age. The sublime pages of Paul prove that he was largely inspired. But he is not infallible. He does not claim to be.

I believe in the Bible. That is I believe in its great unchangeable principles and everlasting truths, and in all of it which is in harmony with those principles and truths. If there are parts of it, which my reason shall ever teach me are not in such harmony, these I will reject. For these, to use a law phrase, are void for inconsistency, and are no part of the Bible.

In what I said of inspiration. I had no reference to the power to foretell future events. That events were foretold by some of the writers of the Bible I cannot doubt.

I said that reason has been over-ridden by the Bible. The vast evil consequences of it no human mind can measure. Why, for instance, is it that slavery is able to make so plausible and effective a defence of itself? It is because its defenders have been allowed to take it out of the jurisdiction of reason, and submit its claims to the Bible. So, too, war and polygamy, and the drinking of intoxicating liquors, and the wrongs suffered by woman, have done not a little to prolong their existence by fleeing from their prompt condemnation in the court of reason, to try what they can make for themselves

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out of certain cunning interpretations of the Bible. Alas, that it should ever be left to the decision of a book whether these naked and enormous crimes are or are not crimes! For what book is there that men cannot read in any and every way to suit their interests? The matchless crime of slavery is instantly condemned by not only the enlightened reason of manhood but the untutored instincts of childhood. How absurd then to submit its character to the decision of pages, and philology, and exegesis - to the decision which learning and ingenuity are as like to draw to the one side as to the other!

If men are so low in understanding as to need a Bible to teach them the moral character of the crimes I have enumerated, then they are too low in understanding to be helped by a Bible. Then may Bibles be made as well for donkeys and monkeys as for men.

Who is willing to be a slave? No one. And this proves that the reason of man and the whole nature of man universally condemn slavery. Hence does it prove that if there is anything in the Bible for slavery, the Bible is so far wrong.

Again, how speedy and certain the conclusion we are brought to by experience, observation, science, study of the laws of life and health, that intoxicating liquors are unfit for a beverage! And who but a very wicked or a very stupid man will appeal from that conclusion to the Bible or to any thing else?

Who, too, but such a man, will ever feel it necessary to go to the Bible to put polygamy on trial? Higher authority and more certain evidence than the Bible have we on this point, as well as on the point of rum-drinking. The census tables in all ages and all nations dispose of the question of polygamy. They prove the equal number of the sexes, and confirm the declaration of Jesus that God made us "male and female" only one woman for one man, and only one man for one woman. Whoever, therefore, gets a plurality of wives robs his brother; and whoever gets a plurality of husbands robs her sister; - just as the people who get two or three farms apiece

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have made themselves guilty of robbing the landless. By the way, our Government shrinks from putting down its foot upon polygamy where it is made a religious institution. But the province of government is to uphold the great natural rights of its subjects; - and none the less so where the violation of these rights is under the cover and in the name of religion. The very same obligation rests on government to suppress polygamy, that rests on it to suppress land-monopoly: the very same obligation to punish the robbing men of women as to punish the robbing men of land.

Again, let the Bible say what it will of war, who in the light of reason does not condemn it as madness and murder?

And what too, if as is held by many, Paul does teach that woman as compared with man is an inferior order of being? - who that receives such insane teaching is fit to have a wife or a daughter?

Lest what I have now said might be construed into the admission that these crimes are countenanced by the Bible, I take this occasion to affirm that no one of them finds the least shelter in the principles of that blessed book. Neither the superstitious regard for the Bible and the superstitious assumptions in its behalf on the one hand; nor the assaults which atheism, skepticism, and an ungodly rationalism make upon it on the other, can ever shake the confidence which he reposes in it, who, in the light of a true and therefore reverent reason, has studied the claims of this volume to acceptance, honor, love, and obedience.

I arraigned our clergymen for holding that the doctrine of an eternal hell must be believed in, in order to salvation. For be the doctrine true or false, I cannot think that we shall be either saved or lost by any views we may entertain of it. I now arraign them for their undoubting faith in it. No warrant have they either to preach or to entertain a faith in it, which is free from all doubts.

I confess - perhaps to my shame and condemnation - that

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I do not feel a deep and abiding interest in the next stage of our being. Far less concerned am I to know what is the future state, than to know and do the duties of the present.

I believe in future punishment. It is a reasonable doctrine. It is philosophically and necessarily true. Everywhere our character must determine our condition. Every man on dying must go to his own place - to the place for which his character fits him. The death of his body can no more affect his character than the breaking of his spectacles or cane. His body, no more than his spectacles or cane, is a part of himself. That his character will surely remain eternally unchanged I deny that any one has the right to affirm. Jude teaches that persons can fall from heaven. Why then may they not rise from hell? For aught we can certainly know, there may be room in the life to come for repentance as well as apostacy. In one sense of "everlasting punishment " I am an undoubted believer in it; for I cannot doubt that the punishment of the sinner will be as everlasting as his sin.

Whilst I confess that I have no certain apprehensions of the kind, or degree, or continuance of either future punishment or future enjoyment, I nevertheless confidently maintain, that enough knowledge for me and for all men on this point, is that in the life to come "it shall be well" with the righteous and "ill" with the wicked; and that the "Judge of all the earth will do right," as well there as here. Whilst earth is our home, let us discharge with alacrity and delight the duties of earth. In that way, and in that way only, shall we be fitted for Heaven. In that way, and in that way only, shall we get to Heaven.

I spoke of the future as a place. I had, perhaps, better call it a state. That there are millions of heavens and millions of hells - that they are, in short, as numerous as are the differences in moral character - better answers my conception.

I blamed the clergy for holding that they must perish who subscribe not to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. For be

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the doctrine true or false, there is no right to attribute such consequences to its rejection. I also blame them for refusing to admit even the smallest doubt of the truth of the doctrine. In the mind of every man who allows his reason free play, there is certainly room for such a doubt. But whether Christ is God or man I leave to be discussed by those who have a taste for speculative discussions. It suffices me to see in Him the infallible teacher of religious truth, the perfect representative, and the fullest and most winning expression of His Father. I welcome Him as "God manifest in the flesh." My largest conceptions of wisdom, justice, love, are more than realized in Him ; and it is my^, largest conceptions of these and other attributes of Diety, that make up the Deity I love and honor. Surely, if Lady Guion may say, "The providences of God are God," I may say, The attributes of God are God.

The mission of Christ to the world was to give all needed extension to the acquaintance of man with God. The heavens above and the earth beneath, the instructive course of providence, and the more instructive teachings of the Spirit, were insufficient to this end without the manifestation of God in Christ. Is it said that his mission was to die for the world? I answer that His death was incidental to His faithful exhibition of His Father's character. It was because He was like God that He was crucified.

The one thing else for which I blamed our clergymen, was their making faith in the doctrine of the atonement essential to salvation. But are they not also blameworthy for making themselves so perfectly and stubbornly certain of the truth of the doctrine?

I am not disposed to controvert the doctrine. In my eye there is none of that absurdity in it, which is so freely imputed to it. For aught I see, it might have been decreed in the councils of heaven, that a being of Christ's superior dignity must die for man, in order that the claims of the law be satisfied; in order that God "might be just, and the justifier " of man.

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But although I make no opposition to the doctrine, nor even object to being numbered with those who subscribe to it, I nevertheless cannot feel, as do many, that it is true beyond all possible question. Moreover, I cannot see why I should love and honor Christ any the less, if it shall turn out that the law, instead of being satisfied by the righteousness of Christ, is satisfied by the righteousness which His spirit has wrought in them who love Him. That Christ lived, and suffered, and died for men, is abundant reason for their giving Him all possible love and honor, without their stopping to calculate what they have gained by Him. Moreover, it is the privilege of every good man to know that the claims of the law against himself are satisfied. The fact that he is good - that he loves God and man - is the highest possible proof he can have that they are satisfied. Paul closes his enumeration of virtues with the declaration : "Against such there is no law." No more can there be law against him who is adorned with these virtues. Admitting the doctrine of the atonement to be certainly and entirely true, nevertheless the importance of our understanding and believing it is greatly overrated. But the importance of our believing that Jesus lived, and suffered, and died for man, is in no danger of being overrated: for, thus believing and understanding, our hearts are drawn out in love to Him, and to the truth, and to our fellow-men, and to our Father. This is the needed effect upon us of the Advent. But on what precise principles it is, and whether by any of the supposed expedients or technicalities that our accounts in the books of heaven are balanced, is a matter we may safely leave among "the secret things which belong unto the Lord our God."

Again, I cannot, because Paul seems to inculcate the doctrine of the Atonement, feel entirely certain that it is true. He says but little of it except in his letter to the Jews: and in what he says of it to them, he is perhaps more swayed by his and their common education than by any revelations or inspirations. We must not forget that the Jewish education was full of aton-

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ing sacrifices. From early childhood the Jew was taught to believe that the animal killed in sacrifice atoned for the sins of an individual or a family. How natural then was it for Paul to speak to his countrymen of Jesus, who did indeed die for the world, as One who had atoned for the sins of the world ! Thus natural was it for John to say, as he looked upon Jesus "Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away, the sin of the world!" He virtually said: "Behold not the literal lamb which taketh away the sin of but an individual or a family but behold the figurative lamb-the lamb of God-which taketh away the sin of the world!" If the atonement of Christ is but a mere fancy, it is nevertheless not strange that a Jew should entertain it. So fully possessed was he of the idea of atonement, that it must have been very easy for him to fancy a sufferer for another to be an atoning sufferer.

I do not forget that the animal sacrifices are what is most relied on to prove the truth of the doctrine of the atonement. Those sacrifices do indeed seem to be meet offerings to a cruel, bloody, pagan God. Moreover, according to Paul (Heb. 10:6) Jesus testified that His Father had "had no pleasure" in them; and according to Jeremiah (7:22) God Himself declared that He "commanded them" not. Still it must be confessed that there is a vast amount of evidence in the Bible that God did command these sacrifices. If, however, we must yield to this evidence, it nevertheless remains to be proved that they are types of the sacrifice in which the Lord Jesus offered up Himself May not a man be good and yet doubt the sufficiency of the proof to this end? One thing more under this head. Instead of the vulgar view of the atonement, may not Christ be regarded as in effect an atoning sacrifice, because He saves men from the penalty of the law, by the converting influences which flow out upon them from his life and death ?

But I will weary, you no further with words about "the doctrines." My neighbors, we are all aware that a low place in the ecclesiastical world is assigned to Peterboro'. For many,

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many years, we have been giving great offence to the clergy, and the churches. And yet, I must think, that this little village - probably the only spot in the State to which the Antislavery Society that was mobbed out of Utica nearly a quarter of a century ago could retreat in safety - is, in respect to a sound and rational religion, greatly in advance of almost every other place in the land. Our families, with certainly very few exceptions, dwell together in peace and love; and in this there is no little proof that the religion of Jesus prevails among us. No little proof also of this is there in the fact, that a great many years have passed away since intoxicating drinks were openly sold among us: and no little proof too in the fact that the filthy vice of snuffing, chewing, and smoking tobacco, is held by a large share of our people to be disgraceful and sinful. And where I ask most emphatically is there a place in all our broad land so free as this from the spirit of caste? Whose table is there here to which a black man is not as welcome as a white one? When I heard the other day that our respectable youth of white faces and black faces had mingled together freely in a public dance, I confess (although I am not the advocate of public as I am of private dances) that I felt proud of my village. Where else in our country has the religion of Jesus achieved a conquest so beautiful, so decisive, and so much needed? Ignorant and unsound as we are held to be in regard to ^"the doctrines," nevertheless are we not quite as far advanced in humanity and practical Christianity as the places where every hair's breadth of the most orthodox interpretation of doctrines is contended for.

There is a wide-spread revival of religion in our country. Of what religion time alone can surely tell. It is not Christianity, if it shall allow the rich to stand aloof from the poor, and the people of one complexion to refuse to associate with the people of another. It is not Christianity, if it is like the current religion. For the terms which this religion keeps with slavery, and with the murderous prejudice

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against the colored races, proves it to be a spurious and satanic religion. Why, the very first lesson in the school of Christ is to know our brother and sister, and to see Christ in every man, woman, and child, be they rich or poor, white, red, or black. The religion which does not go to bind together all human hearts is not the religion of the Saviour. A poor opinion of this revival shall I have if there shall still be as much opposition as ever to negro suffrage, and as great unwillingness as ever to mingle complexions in the school and church, and as great readiness as ever to cast votes for Pro-Slavery men.

Another delightful evidence to my mind that the spirit of Christ has wrought great and blessed changes in Peterboro' is to be found in the breaking up of our sectarian churches, and in the general and growing dislike to sectarianism. God hasten the day when, here and elsewhere, there shall no longer be Christians who shall not be deeply ashamed to be called Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, or to pass under any other religious party name!

But were I to go on and speak all the praises of Peterboro', I should still be obliged to confess that she is very far from perfect; that there is still much in her to be reformed; and that she greatly needs the priceless blessing of a revival of true religion. Never will our village be what it should be, until love shall reign in all our families and all our hearts; until an altar to God shall be erected in all our homes, and holiness to the Lord be inscribed upon all our business and all our amusements.

My hearers, the great struggle between the religion of authority and the religion of reason has begun. It did not begin with Martin Luther and the early Protestants. They were still creed-bound, and their enslavement to the Bible differed not essentially from enslavement to the church. This struggle is chiefly the growth of the last half-century; and in America nothing has contributed to it so much as the Temperance and Anti-slavery reforms - since nothing so much as these has awakened a sense of human dignity and human rights, and

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called for a common sense and practical religion. The Protestants are wont to disparage the Catholics. Nevertheless, the mass of the Protestants are with the Catholics in favor of a religion of authority, and against the religion of reason. At this point they are essentially alike. For what submission is there to the Catholic church which is more degrading or dwarfing than that which Protestants are so inexorably required to yield to the ecclesiastical interpretations of the Bible?

We are living in an age of great progress - great progress in the material, mental, and moral world. Every thing is going forward and improving, except ecclesiastical religion. That remains stereotyped and unchangeable. But we thank God for the abounding evidence that it will ere long give place to another and better religion. Already are there dawnings of that glad day when the superstitions and absurdities, which have so long debased and tormented men, shall have passed away forever ; and when Christianity, in all her reasonableness and righteousness, shall overspread the whole earth.

Alas, how little has been accomplished by these superstitions and absurdities for the glory of God and the good of man? War, slavery, land-monopoly, polygamy, drunkenness, the wrongs of women still remain. The religion of reason - that religion which says to man, "Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" had long ago done away with these evils, and turned this sin-smitten, priest-ridden, superstition-bound world into a paradise.

It is often said that we, who are busy in reducing religion to reason, are busy, at least in effect, to overthrow it. But to bring religion into identity with reason is not to degrade but to exalt it. And again, it is not we who endanger religion, but they who reduce it to a superstition. There is indeed danger that men will break loose from the bible. But this danger springs mainly from the fact that rapidly increasing multitudes will no longer consent to bow their necks to a religion of authority and receive the Bible because it is the Bible rather than

CREEDS AND ECCLESIASTICAL MACHINERY. 19

because their reason has endorsed it. If this book shall be cast aside as a superstition, it will be because its friends are unwilling that reason and reason only shall pass upon it and interpret it. The truth is that the civilization of Christendom is fast outgrowing the religion of Christendom; and this is because reason is allowed to infuse itself more and more freely into civilization, whilst it is still driven away from the precincts of religion. Nowhere, probably, are the people more ready than they are in Italy to reject the current Christianity. And this because nowhere is the current Christianity more emphatically a bundle of superstitions, and because nowhere is it more industriously and superstitiously urged upon the superstition of the people. As an additional reason, nowhere else are the people opening their eyes faster to the religious impositions practiced upon themselves. In a word, Italy has outgrown her religion. Her limbs have become too big for her garments. Italian civilization is far in advance of Italian Christianity.

My hearers, who among you will to-day espouse this religion of reason - this manly and common sense religion of the lips and life of Jesus? You had been told by great sticklers for doctrines, that a very accommodating religion would be presented to you on this occasion - a sort of heaven-made-easy religion. I beg you to make trial of the religion which I have now presented to you. Try to bring your entire self under the reign of reason; and then you will know that your task is not an easy one. Then you will know that only he who is born again is adequate to it. Then you will know that only he who has been imbued with the spirit of Christ, and has chosen Christ for his master and saviour, is capable of submitting his whole being to the demands of reason. Let me not however be misunderstood. Notwithstanding what I have just said, this religion which I commend to you is not a hard one. It is hard to get. But when once gotten it is easy. When by the grace and help of God the yoke of Christ is once upon your neck, you will find it easy, and His burden light.

20 CREEDS AND ECCLESIASTICAL MACHINERY.

We who inculcate this religion of reason must lay our account with great opposition, not to say virulent persecution. Because we cannot "frame to pronounce" the Shibboleth of the churches and clergy we are called infidels. It is the bad fashion of the age - it has been the bad fashion of every age - to apply doctrinal tests of character, instead of judging men "by their fruits." But never is it reasonable or Christian to go back of the life to judge of the character. To do so is to be guilty of wicked intolerance. If we regard our neighbor's doctrines as unsound, and are nevertheless constrained to acknowledge his pure and loving and beautiful and reverent life, then instead of condemning him for his unsound doctrines, we are to do him double honor for that goodness of his heart, which maintains itself in the face of the errors of his understanding: and, what is more, we are to thank God for consenting to dwell by His spirit in a heart which is coupled with a wrong head.

I close with reminding my fellow-laborers, that, as we are now embarked in the most difficult of all reforms, we are under especial need of remembering Him whose name is "Strength." Dismayed and overcome we surely shall be, unless our hearts go out constantly for His support. When, a quarter of a century ago, we had to encounter a very strong anti-temperance and pro-slavery public sentiment, we had fainted unless we had made the Lord God our help. But then the churches were divided and the clergy also. No very small share of them were with us. Far different is it now, when we have to breast the well nigh entirely undivided forces of both churches and clergy, and all that appalling public sentiment which such forces are able to generate. In our determination to resist the mad intolerance which judges character by those ever-harped-on doctrines about which, even among the best of men, there will ever be as many minds as there are differences of temperament and education, and in our determination to acknowledge no other test of character than the life, we may be sure that

CREEDS AND ECCLESIASTICAL MACHINERY. 21

we shall not fail to provoke such an array against ourselves as will be utterly overwhelming, if we put not our trust in the living God. Brave, then, let us be to meet the frowns of our fellows: but all the while let us be meek and humble, in the consciousness that our bravery will die and our cause be defeated, unless we keep our hearts in contact with the Divine heart, and draw from thence the courage and strength which that great heart can alone supply.

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