The Crisis 7
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4. Importunate prayer for the divine favor will commend itself to all but atheists, as peculiarly seasonable in the present juncture of our affairs. If God is the ruler of the nations, let him have the honor due unto his name. Without neglecting a single means that human wisdom can devise for lessening the difficulties which exist, let us resort sincerely, and fervently, and collectively—to the source of illumination, and the fountain of grace. Amidst the innumerable expedients which one and another is suggesting, let a minister of the true God propose, that whatever else be adopted, the duty of prayer should be performed with fresh ardor. Have we any right, or any reason, to expect the divine blessing, except it be solicited? Let something by all parties be spared from invective, something from accusation, something from discussion—and given to prayer. It may be affirmed that those who rail most—pray the least.
If any prayers prevail—it will be those of the righteous. Let them, therefore, diligently employ themselves in this holy exercise. How great will be their joy, should their supplications succeed; and if not, they will have the comfort to reflect that they did all that was in their power to avert the judgments of the Almighty—so that in either case their prayers will bring peace to their own bosoms.
Especially let us pray for those who are at the helm of affairs, that in this time of storm and peril, they may have wisdom given them to steer the national bark into still water, and bring her safely to an anchor, without casting overboard any of those precious rights and privileges with which she is so richly freighted. Let us intercede that they may be permitted to adopt no measure which shall exasperate; where we would charitably hope it is their intention to heal. And if there are any who have little confidence in the existing administration, there is the more need for them to pray to God, whose wisdom can confound the mightiest, as it can assist the weakest minds.*
- A public prayer meeting, in which seven congregations unite, is held once a month in Birmingham, for the state of the nation. Instead of an address, which it would be difficult so to frame as to avoid all cause of offence; each minister reads a portion of Scripture before he prays.
Apart from the personal characters of rulers, which are fluctuating and variable, you will find the Apostles continually enjoin a respect to government, as government, as a permanent ordinance of God, susceptible of various modifications from human wisdom, but essential, under some form or other, to the existence of society. The wisdom of resting the duty of submission on this ground is obvious. The 'possession of office' forms a plain and palpable distinction, liable to no objection or dispute. Personal merits, on the contrary, are easily contested, so that if the obligation of obedience were founded on personal virtues, it would have no kind of force, nor retain any sort of hold on the conscience; the bonds of social order might be dissolved by an unguarded statement. If respect for for authority is destroyed, nothing would remain to ensure tranquility, but the servile fear of men. In the absence of those sentiments, as the mildest exertions of authority would be felt an injury, authority would soon cease to be mild; and princes would have no alternative but that of governing their subjects with the severe jealousy of a master over slaves ready to revolt—so narrow is the boundary which separates a licentious freedom from a ferocious tyranny.
We shall do well to guard against any system which would withdraw the duties we owe to our rulers and to society, from the jurisdiction of conscience.
Let the general duty of submission to civil authority, therefore, be engraved on our hearts, wrought into the very habit of our mind, and made a part of our elementary morality. Not that from anything here said, I would restrict the constitutional right of the people freely to discuss the measures of Government. "The privilege of censuring these with decency and moderation, is essential to a free constitution; a privilege which can never lose its value in the eyes of the public until it is licentiously abused. The temperate exercise of this privilege is a most useful restraint on those errors and excesses, to which the possession of power supplies a temptation. The free expression of the public voice is capable of overawing those who have nothing besides to apprehend, and the tribunal of public opinion is one, whose decisions it is not easy for men in the most elevated stations to despise. While, therefore, we maintain the privilege with jealous care, let us be equally careful not to abuse it."
6. We should be zealously active in the support of every proper measure for disseminating the principles of divine truth. If the 'foul spirit of infidelity' be abroad, let the 'friends of the gospel' follow her through all her dark and winding ways, opposing energy to energy, and contrivance to contrivance. Her element is darkness, her food is iniquity. Let us endeavor by every possible means to pour a blaze of 'scripture light' upon the land, and reform the vices which exist, and she will then retire like the wild beast of the forest from the light of heaven—to starve and perish in her den! Let those who profess to believe in the truth of Christianity, be more careful than ever to exhibit in their conduct the purity, the benevolence, the meekness, and humility of the gospel. Let everyone embody in his own character the internal evidence of Christianity, and prove that it is from heaven, by showing that it makes him heavenly. The sublimity, purity, and benevolence of its morality have ever been considered as the superscription of deity upon the gospel; let these be drawn out in living characters in our temper and conduct!
Infidelity is generated in the corruptions, blemishes and defects of inconsistent Christians, and fed from the same source. (A holy and venerable friend of mine being in London, felt compassion to call upon the infidel Carlile, before his trial, to reason and expostulate with him, and to deliver to him the warning voice. The blasphemer listened with calm and patient attention to the messenger of God, and on my friend's retiring said to him, "sir, if all the professed disciples of Jesus were such Christians as you, I and my party would very probably have thought differently of Christianity.")
Who can wonder at the great prevalence of infidelity in France, when the only view of Christianity which was there exhibited to the world, was in the form of lying Jesuits, lazy monks, haughty ecclesiastics, and a population who thought to atone for every vice by a few prayers in a language they did not understand—or a few acts of penance to a gilded or a painted image! We need not be surprised that the sarcasms of Voltaire should have been employed against the New Testament—when this was all he saw of its influence.
A corrupt religion is the parent of infidelity, and it is no marvel if such a daughter rise up to the destruction of such a hypocritical mother; or that in her mad fury she directs her efforts against the holy being, whose name the hypocrite had borrowed and belied! Infidels find it much easier to attack Christianity through the inconsistencies of its professed believers, than to make their advances direct against itself! It is much readier to sneer at the hypocrisy of the adherents of the Bible, than to disprove the reality of miracles. This is as unfair a method of proceeding as to impute to British jurisprudence the crimes tried at the Courthouse; or to impute to the British Constitution the seditious practices of rebels.
It is useless, however, to plead the unfairness of the proceeding, and the only way to meet it is to determine, that as infidels will judge of Christianity by the conduct of its professors, they shall see in them a fair, and full, and faithful exhibition of its influence. Let us go on with the spiritual education of the children of the laboring classes. I say the spiritual education, for depend upon it we mistake if we suppose it is enough merely to teach them to read and write. There is nothing in such a system to operate as with the power of a 'magical charm', in the transformation of character.
In addition to this, it is principle, principle that is needed. Let all our Sunday schools become what they ought to be, what it was originally intended they should be, and what many of them are—a scene of spiritual cultivation, where the vast wilderness of mind which is found in the lower classes shall be broken up, and by being sown with right principles, shall become as the garden of the Lord, and yield in rich abundance the fruits of righteousness, peace, and order. If we merely teach them to read and write, we only plough and harrow the soil, and then leave it for the enemy to sow with tares, or raise upon it a crop of poisonous weeds. Let our Sunday school teachers labor to the uttermost to produce devout impression, to implant religious conviction, to form the character to habits of piety, order and loyalty.
And let the respectable, and well educated, and senior parts of the community, come forward and lend a helping hand to this great work. We have the next generation of the laboring population at the present moment under our care, in the form of children and in the character of pupils, and if we let slip the opportunity, we shall deserve indeed to suffer for our folly. Let us be doubly zealous in the circulation of the Holy Scriptures. The word of God is a moral sun, whose flood of radiance poured upon those lower and baser flames, presumptuously kindled by a spark from the bottomless pit to outshine his splendor and supply his place, will ultimately extinguish them all. Thank God for such an institution as the Bible Society, which was never more necessary nor more seasonable than at the present day, and which is encircling the moral interests of the poor with a barrier more unscalable to the enemies of revelation, than the great wall of China is to the wandering Tartars of the desert. Let this mighty defense be kept up with unsparing expense and labor, and let every Christian who has a dollar to give, feel himself put in requisition to assist the work. I can easily conceive with what rage and despair the genius of scepticism must look up at this impassable barrier, while scowling along its base she "counts the towers, and marks well the bulwarks thereof."
Let us renew our efforts in the cause of Christian missions. Such efforts, while they destroy idolatry abroad, and bring down the blessing of God upon our country, are perpetuating, by their success, the evidence of Christianity arising from its prevalence. The religion of Jesus is the only system of theology that ever supplanted another by the mere power of persuasion. And this it did; it dissolved the colossal edifice of ancient idolatry with the spell of words, and laid prostrate in the dust, by the mere force of truth, systems dear to the taste, the prejudices, and the pride of millions; thus proving that the conversion of the heathen world was the act of the same omnipotence which brought the earth from chaos. Now as we employ the same means, our success, so far as it goes, is a continuance of this species of proof. Every converted Brahmin, Tahitian, and Hottentot, is a beam of evidence shining upon the gospel, which has thus become the power of God to his salvation. We may send the deist to the once polluted groves of Tahiti, where cannibalism, murder, and promiscuous fornication were so lately committed without shame, and without remorse—and after he has surveyed the change which Christianity has produced, bid him do so with his enchantments, if he can.
Be zealous then, my countrymen, for the Lord God Almighty. Gratitude, justice, duty, all demand it of you; and if these are not sufficient, I plead one other motive—personal interest requires it. When the claims of the Almighty are generally, devoutly, practically acknowledged, then will the scales of our national destiny vacillate no longer, but settle into quiescence, and preponderate on the side of our salvation; then may Britain repose her hopes on the mercy of God, and cherish the high expectation that she shall be preserved a great and happy nation, until the conflagration of the universe!
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