CHRISTIAN CITIZENS:--

      Omnipotent is the word of God. He spake, and a world was made. "Let there be light," he said, "and there was light." He uttered his voice; and from darkness light was born, from chaos order sprang, and from an inert mass of lifeless matter animated beings of ten thousand ranks and orders stood forth in life triumphant. [367]

      Thus came the universe from the command of God. But how gradual and progressive was the development of the wisdom, power and goodness of the Almighty Maker! Light was the first born; next, the aerial expanse called heaven; then the water heard his voice, and of the terraqueous globe this element first felt the impulse of the all-creating energy. It was congregated into its aerial and terrestrial chambers. Naked from the womb of waters the earth appeared. The new-born earth God clothed with verdure--with all the charms of vegetable beauty--and gave to its apparel a conservative principle, a reproducing power.

      Light was itself chaotic until the fourth day. No luminaries garnished the firmament until the week of creation was more than half expired. It was then that the sun, moon and stars were lighted up by the great Father of Lights. Until the earth was born of water, no sun beamed in heaven, no ray of celestial light shone upon its face. No life was in the earth until the sun beamed upon it: then were the waters peopled, and from them came forth the inhabitants of the air. In the domain of this wonderful element life was first conceived and exhibited.

      The race of earth-borns, creatures of a grosser habit, did not hear the voice of God until the sixth day. On that day they obeyed the command of God, and stepped forth into life. Then the Almighty changed his style. Till then his commands were all addressed in the third person. "Let there be" was the preamble, "and there was" was the conclusion. But now, "Let us make man;" and let us make him after a model. The only being made after a model was man. All other creatures were originals. If any creature approached him, in any one similitude, it was in anticipation. Man steps forth into life in the image of his Maker, and finds himself the youngest child of the universe, but the darling of his Father and his God. Here the chapter of creation closes, and man has the last period.

      Such was the value stamped on man by his Creator. A world is made and peopled for him; a palace reared and furnished and decorated [368] for his abode; the great Architect plans and executes the edifice, and then introduces to its richest apartment the favorite of the universe. It is here we are taught the science--it is here we learn the numbers which, when combined with wisdom, tell of how much account we are.

      On man, thus valued, dignified and honored by his Maker, a lordship is conferred. Over all that swims, that flies or that walks upon the earth, his dominion extends. The crown placed upon his head had attractions which angels saw, and charms which angels felt. Man thus placed in Eden, with his Eve from and by his side--having all its fruits and flowers and sweets and charms under his control, with the smallest reservation in favor of the absolute Sovereign of the universe; having, too, the whole earth, from Eden's flowery banks to both the poles, subject to his will--becomes the most enviable object in all the great empire of the universe. His fortune was not to make--it was only to keep. But, alas! to one destitute of experience, however exalted, how hard to guard, how difficult to retain, possessions gratuitously acquired!

      Man, the last, best work of God, environed with the riches and glory of a world built and furnished for him, is envied, and his ruin meditated, by the prince of apostates. He falls through his machinations. From God and Eden he falls at once, and involves with him the fortunes of a world.

      For his recovery, a remedial system is set on foot by his Creator; and such a system it is as was worthy of its author and of the admiration of an intelligent universe. To turn from the catastrophe of man to this recuperative system, is, of all transitions, the most grateful to the human mind. This is "a theme which never, never old, shall grow." Eternity itself, vast and unbounded as it is, can never do more than develop it. Time furnishes but the scaffolding for rearing this temple of science. It is in a temple yet to be built that this science is to be perfected, to be taught and to be learned.

      The knowledge of God is all the bliss which rational beings can propose to themselves. This knowledge, indeed, requires an acquaintance with all his works; for, as we learn men only by their works, we learn our Creator only by his works. But here we are only in the alphabet, and here we can never rise above it; and few, indeed, in this life acquire an accurate knowledge of the art of reading God. The primer which God has put into the hands of man in this primary school is divided into three chapters. The heads of these are creation, providence and redemption. It is God alone who, to the initiated, is seen in [369] every character, word and sentence in this elementary volume; and he who sees not God in every sentence of this primer, knows neither himself nor any thing else in the universe.

      This memorable occasion, fellow-citizens of the kingdom of God, calls for a few remarks on the past, the present and the future providence of God. Aided by the lights of the living oracles, we can look back to the birth of time, and forward to the funeral of nature, time and death. Looking back through the long vista of past ages, beyond the birth of the empires of antiquity, beyond the birth of kings and emperors and governments, we find a world without civil government. This is farther back than human records and chronology extend, but not farther than the records and chronology to which God has vouchsafed us access. In a world without civil government, the earth was filled with violence, and crime multiplied, until, in the judgment of God, the destruction of the whole race, with a single exception, became indispensable. As water first felt the creative energy of God, by its agency the first general judgment was inflicted. The anarchists were drowned; and in their death and burial the earth was washed from the pollutions of one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years.

      In the New World an avenger of crime, and especially of blood, is the first institution. The second chapter of the history of the Divine, government over men begins with the establishment of civil government. The inhabitants of the new world were filed off into small groups, called tribes, and the first effort to resist this arrangement was avenged by the confusion of human speech, which made dispersion unavoidable. Patriarchs and princes over these small detachments of human beings, called nations, wielded the sceptre for nearly a thousand years without any remarkable incident. Cities and towns and palaces were reared and ruined during the interval from the deluge till the erection of a religious nation. At that time tribes had grown up into nations, and nations began to form alliances, and thus empires began to be developed. As these increased, idolatry began to increase. The larger the groups of human beings, either in cities or empires, the more idolatrous they became. They refined in crime, until idolatry became the desolating sin of the second world, as violence was the damning sin of the antediluvian world.

      To save the second world from one general ruin, a religious nation was erected, upon all the institutions of which the Divinity was inscribed, and in such a way that nothing but the annihilation of that nation could annihilate the knowledge of the one only living and true God. This nation began in miracle, progressed in miracle, was [370] governed specially, or by miracle, and, though exiled from its possessions because of its crimes, miraculously exists still, a monument of the favor of God, and carrying with it everywhere a proof of the Divinity which no ingenuity, however perverse, can obliterate or deface. It held its possessions in the land allotted to it for nearly fifteen hundred years.

      Then opens a new era. A celestial King is born, and born to reign over the human race forever. The principles of his government, in their grand essentials, are new principles. This new institution, new once, and still new in contrast with the past and with the reigning earthly systems, is called, significantly, the Reign of Heaven. The King is heaven-born and divine. Heavenly and divine are the principles of his government; and though his subjects live a while on earth, his government is designed to give them a taste of, and a taste for, heavenly things.

      His government began in conquest, by conquest still increases, and will by conquests ultimately subdue all things to himself. On a white horse, with a single crown upon his head, with a bow and a full quiver, in the book of symbols he appears as going forth to war. But at the end of the long campaign he appears again, with many crowns upon his head, with all the kingdoms of the world in his train, and with the trophies of many battles, worshipped as the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

      The cardinal principle in his government is love. He subdues by no other sword than that of the Spirit. Other kings subdue men's persons and hold a sovereignty over their estates, but he seizes the hearts of men. To conquer enemies is his grand enterprise. Philosophy as well as religion teaches us that to conquer enemies is not the work of swords, or lances, or bows of steel. It is not to bind men's persons to a triumphal car, to incarcerate them in strongholds, or to make them surrender to superior bravery, prowess and strength. To conquer an enemy is to convert him into a friend. This is the noble, benevolent and heaven-conceived enterprise of God's only-begotten Son. To do this all arms and modes of warfare are impotent, save the arms and munitions of everlasting love. By vivid displays of God's philanthropy he approaches his enemies, and by the arguments with which this, eloquence is fraught he addresses a rebel world. Such is his mode of warfare; a system devised in heaven, and, like all of God's means, perfectly adapted to the high ends proposed.

      But, not to lose sight of the great outline of things begun, let us pause and survey the chapters we have scanned. In the first we saw [371] society without civil government; in the second, society with civil government without religious associations; in the third, society under a politico-religious government; and in the fourth chapter, a scheme begun which contemplates the government of men by religion without politics, by the efficacy of one principle alone. This is the chapter of chapters now in progress and full of the greatest and most astonishing incidents. We saw the rise, progress and issue of three states of society; but as yet we cannot distinctly see the issue of the present. Its progress we may survey and its tendency we may appreciate, but its full development and glorious issue are, perhaps, too far removed from our optics and from our experience to be clearly and distinctly apprehended.

      But, to aid us in looking forward, let us again look back. Christianity, or the New Institution, was set up under a Jewish government. Under that government it existed for a time; thence it passed under a Pagan government; next under a Papal government; and now, in this portion of the earth, it has come under a political government.

      Under a circumscribed Jewish government it began. With this it did not, could not, coalesce. Over that government it ultimately triumphed. The principles of that government and of the government of Jesus Christ were at variance, and therefore one or the other must be destroyed. The Jewish government fell, and fell chiefly through its opposition to Christianity.

      It next passed under a Pagan government. The conflict soon began, and the Pagan government fell. Christianity triumphed. But let it be distinctly marked that Christianity set itself in no other way against either the Jewish or Pagan government, than as its principles tended to bestow upon mankind a happiness from which that government debarred them; and therefore the religion of Jesus--though passive in that conflict, and though imperial Rome, armed with all political power, and allied with all the superstitions of past ages, was active in opposing it--prevailed and broke in pieces the Pagan power which resisted it.

      Papal Rome rises out of the ruins of Pagan Rome. Christianity is then subjected to a more insidious and a more unconquerable government. This government, by its largesses to Christianity, and by its paganized Christian institutes, held its dominion longer over the institution of Jesus than ever did, or than ever can, any government openly opposed to its principles. But even over this Christianity is triumphing, and so far has triumphed that the New World has set up twenty-four governments, and is setting up others, upon principles at [372] variance with those of all the Papal and Pagan governments of the Old World. So far, then, Christianity has triumphed and is triumphing over Papal Rome.

      Citizens of the reign of heaven, let us for a moment turn our eyes to that government under which Christianity exists in this most favored of all lands, in this wide and capacious and still-extending empire. Tired and jaded with the conflicts of Papal Rome, grieved and incensed at the infractions of the rights of conscience and the rights of men and at all the tyrannies of conflicting sectarian institutions, our ancestors sought a city of refuge, a hiding-place from the storm, in this newly-discovered section of the patrimony of Japheth. God, more than four thousand years ago, promised to Japheth an enlargement of his territory, when he gave him the broken and indented patrimony of Europe. Here he found it; and our fathers, taught in the schools of Papal and sectarian proscription, imagined that a government without any religion, a government purely deistical, skeptical or political, was the summum bonum--the very maximum of social bliss. They went as far as mortals, stung by the fiery dragon, could go, to devise a government without a single religious institution. They succeeded not only in declaring but in sustaining their independence in the eyes of all the sons of pride, and in rearing for themselves and their children political institutions which have hitherto secured, and will, we hope, continue, to secure, till Christianity conquers the world, the greatest amount of political and temporal happiness hitherto enjoyed by any people. This government proposes only to guard the temporal and worldly rights of men. It regards this world as the only appropriate object of its supervision and protection. It permits every man to be of no religion, or of any religion he pleases. It has no partialities for the Jew, the Christian, the Turk or the Indian. Such is its creed. Here the affairs of another world are left to themselves. The government says to all the rival sectarian interests, "FAIR PLAY AND THE RIGHTS of MEN!" It will not help by its statutes, nor retard by its proscriptions, any religion, or sect of religionists, now on the theatre. This is all that Christianity asks, or can ask, until she conquers the world. Whenever a sect calls for the governmental arm to help her--to hold her up--she proclaims herself overmatched by her competitors, and declares her consciousness that on the ground of reason and evidence she is unable to stand.

      The present government aims at being purely political, and therefore can secure only man's political rights and promote his political happiness. This is all that worldly men wish; and it is all that a sectarians [373] profession of religion can reasonably or justly require. He is a tyrant in principle, and would be one in practice, who asks for exclusive privileges. None but tyrants and knaves have ever sought pre-eminence by law or by force.

      But still we are far from considering that a political government can ever fill up the measure of human, of social, of rational enjoyment. And all confess that were men truly religions political government would be unnecessary. So far this is a concession in favor of our grand position, that Jesus Christ will yet govern the world by religion only, and that by the operation of one single principle. Then shall they literally "beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and learn war no more." Christianity rightly understood, cordially embraced and fully carried out in practice, will as certainly subvert all political government, the very best as well as the very worst, as did the Jewish institution and people subvert and supplant the seven nations which once occupied the land of Canaan.

      The admirers of American liberty and American institutions have no cause to regret such an event, no cause to fear it. It will be but the removing of a tent to build a temple--the falling of a cottage after the family are removed into a castle. Not by might, nor by sword, but by the Spirit of the Lord will the political institutions of our government be laid aside. The sun itself and the systems of worlds which revolve round it we can well dispense with when we arrive in the palace of the universe, where GOD is the Sun, the Light and the Glory. So our best political institutions we can part with without a tear or a sigh, when Jesus reigns on earth, and has placed a throne in every heart and built a temple in every family.

      The fourth of July, 1776, was a memorable day, a day to be remembered as was the Jewish Passover--a day to be regarded with grateful acknowledgments by every American citizen, by every philanthropist in all the nations of the world. The light which shines from our political institutions will penetrate even the dungeons of European despots, for the genius of our Government is the genius of universal emancipation! Nothing can resist the political influence of a great nation, enjoying great political advantages, if she walk worthy of them. The example which our Government gives is necessarily terrible to the crowned heads of Europe, and exhilarating to all who look for the redemption of man from political degradation.

      But there is the superlative as well as the comparative degree. A more illustrious day is yet in prospect--a day when it shall be said, "Rejoice over her, you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged [374] you on her!"--a day on which an angel shall proclaim, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord!"--a day on which it shall be sung, "The kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, is given to the people of the Most High, and all people shall serve and obey him!" This will be a day of gladness only to be surpassed by the joys of the resurrection.

      The American Revolution is but the precursor of a revolution of infinitely more importance to mankind. It was a great, a happy and a triumphant revolution. But time and space limit and circumscribe all its blessings to mankind. It will long, perhaps always, be accounted an illustrious and happy era in the history of man. Many thanksgivings and praises have reached unto heaven because of this great deliverance. The incense of gratitude, perfumed with the praises of saints, has long risen from myriads of hearts, and will continue to rise until the cloud shall cover the whole earth, and the glory of the Lord be reflected upon all the nations of the earth.

      The praises of a Washington, a Franklin and a Jefferson will long resound through the hills and valleys of this spacious country, and will, in proportion as men are prepared to taste the blessings to result from the next revolution, continually increase. Posterity will only mingle their regrets that, like Moses, all their political leaders died short of the promised land--that, while they guided the tribes almost to Canaan, they fell in the wilderness, without tasting the sweets of the good inheritance.

      A more glorious work is reserved for this generation--a work of as much greater moment, compared with the Revolution of '76, as immortality is to the present span of human life--the emancipation of the human mind from the shackles of superstition, and the introduction of human beings into the full fruition of the reign of heaven. To liberate the minds of men from sectarian tyrannies--to deliver them from the melancholy thraldom of relentless systems, is a work fraught with greater blessings, a work of a nobler daring and loftier enterprise, than the substitution of a representative democracy for an absolute or limited monarchy. This revolution, taken in all its influences, will make men free indeed. A political revolution can only make men politically free to task themselves, and to exact from themselves a service which few of the despots of more barbarous climes inflict upon their veriest slaves.

      Talk not of a liberty which only makes men greater slaves. Under the monarchies of the Old World men are more free from themselves [375] than under the free government of these United States. The reason is, under this free government the citizens have the opportunity and the liberty of improving and bettering their circumstances to such an extent as to engross all their energies, to call forth all their powers: hence, upon themselves they impose such tasks and inflict such toils and privations as few of the monarchs of the East would be so cruel as to impose upon their subjects. Here in this land of liberty we see all men striving for power. The accomplishment of one or more projects does not diminish their labor or their enterprise. Quite the reverse: the more successful, the more eager to commence again. And how often, how very often, do we see men dying under the whip of their own cupidity, in full harness pulling up the hill of their own ambition, when death kindly interposes, takes the burden off their galled shoulders, and strips them for the shroud! Yet, they boast of being free! Free!--yes, to make slaves of themselves! If the Son of God had made them free, they would not thus toil till the last pulsation of their hearts.

      Men love independence; and of this we boast. Yet there is not a perfect consistency in our assumptions upon this subject. We have heard men boast of their independence, when the tailor, the cordwainer, the merchant and the physician were continually called upon for their services. We have heard our citizens boast of their national independence, when almost every article of their apparel, even to the buttons on their wrists, was of foreign growth and manufacture. And, what is still more inconsistent, we have heard our fellow-citizens boast of political independence, and seen them content to import their creed from Scotland, to yield to a system manufactured in Geneva, and at the same time slavishly serving divers lusts, and living under the dominion of the fiercest passions and most grovelling propensities of human nature.

      Conscience makes slaves as well as cowards of multitudes who boast of being free. No person who is under the fear of death ever can be free. They who are afraid of the consequences of death are all their lifetime in bondage. To escape from this vassalage is worthy of the greatest struggle which man could make. This, however, is the first boon which Christianity tenders to all who put themselves under its influence. It proclaims a jubilee to the soul--it opens the prison-doors, and sets the captives free. The King of Saints holds not one of his voluntary subjects under a vassalage so cruel. The corruptions of antichristian systems are admirably adapted to increase and cherish this fear, which tends to bondage; but to those who embrace and bow to the real [376] gospel, there is bestowed a full deliverance, and a gracious exemption from this most grievous bondage of the soul.

      But when I name the true gospel, the proclamation of God's philanthropy, the declaration of the independence of the kingdom of Jesus, I am constrained to remind you, my fellow-citizens of the Christian kingdom, that this is the mighty instrument by which this world is to be revolutionized--this is the sword of the Eternal Spirit--this is that weapon which is mighty, through God, to the demolition of all the strongholds of the man of sin, as well as of that strong one that rules and reigns in the hearts of the children of disobedience. By it alone, proclaimed and proved and sustained in the lives of its advocates, were the Jewish and Pagan institutions of former ages supplanted by the Christian, and that great change in society effected which is still blessing the earth with the influences of peace and good will. By its influences the leopard and the kid, the lion and the lamb, have in innumerable instances been made most friendly associates and companions. It imparts courage to the timid, strength to the infirm, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb. It gives peace to the conscience, rest to the soul, ardor to the affections, and animation to the hopes of men. It is God's wisdom and his power, because it is his philanthropy drawn to the life, and exhibited by the strongest argument in the universe--the death of his only Son.

      To introduce the last and most beneficial change in society, it is only necessary to let the gospel, in its own plainness, simplicity and force, speak to men. Divest it of all the appendages of human philosophy, falsely so called, and of all the traditions and dogmas of men; and in its power it will pass from heart to heart, from house to house, from city to city, until it bless the whole earth. See how fraternal it is. Since it began to be proclaimed, and sustained by the ancient order of things, see what changes it has made, and what effects it has produced, and with what rapidity it has spread over the country. More new churches have been formed within twelve months, where the primitive gospel has been proclaimed with clearness end power, than the twelve preceding years can count under the humanized gospel of the sects.

      While the mere politicians of the land and the children of the flesh are rejoicing together around their festive boards, and in toasts and songs boasting of their heroes and themselves, we ought to glory in the Lord, rejoice in the God of our salvation, and sing a loftier song and of purer joy than they. And while with them we remember with gratitude the achievements of the patriots of the land, we ought to rejoice [377] with joy unspeakable and full of glory in recollecting the Christian Chief, and his holy apostles, who has made us free indeed, and given us the rank and dignity, not of citizens of earthly states, but of heaven. Yes: he is worthy of all gratitude, and of all adoration, who has made all the citizens of his kingdom not citizens only, but citizen-kings and priests to God.

      While they extol the bloody battles of the warrior, as "every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood," let us not forget the victories of Him who did not lift up his voice in the streets--who did not use so much as a broken reed, nor consume a single torch, until he made his laws victorious. In that spirit of mildness, meekness and unostentatious heroism, let us fight the good fight of faith, and, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, let us all be found faithful at our posts.

      We may not rejoice once, but always. We may have our feasts of gratitude and love, and with the saints of olden times we may shout for joy. We may say, with Isaiah, "Sing, O heavens! and be joyful, O earth! and break forth into singing, O mountains! for the Lord has comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. Sing unto the Lord, for he has done excellent things! Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion! for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee." And with Habakkuk let us say, "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be on the vine; though the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no food; though the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls yet we will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of our salvation." "Let the heavens rejoice; let the earth be glad; let the sea roar; let the fields be joyful; let all the trees of the forest rejoice; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, because he comes to bless his people. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominions bless the Lord, O my soul!" [378]

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