A Letter to the Editor.
James Dodson
[from The Evangelical Witness, Vol. I., No. IX., April, 1823. p. 398-405.]
Being a Review of the Parties, which arose on the moral and religious consideration of the Yellow Fever, in New-York, in the Summer of 1822.
Dear Sir,
If the Title of this Epistle does not alarm you, I hope you will give it a patient perusal. Disposed to encourage free and profitable Witness-bearing, on moral and religious questions. I have heard much, and read much, on the subject of that alarming pestilence with which our fine city was visited in the last summer: and should you have no objections, it would gratify me to see my reflections printed in your Magazine.
The Yellow fever commenced about the middle of July: and was recognized, as a malignant disease, by the board of health, before the end of the month. It disappeared toward the close of October. During its prevalence the alarm was universal—a third of the population abandoned their ordinary residence, and the public business of the City was transferred to the village of Greenwich, or the upper part of Broadway, while the principal families were scattered over all the land. The infested district was fenced in by the civil authorities—the places of public worship were closed up—and in the middle of many of our once crowded streets, the long rank grass, interspersed with stalks of Indian Corn, and the Vines of the pumpkin and the melon, waved in the Wind. Silence reigned over the desolation.—Notwithstanding the rapid and the general abandonment of their business, and their abodes, by all classes, of the community, there occurred four hundred cases of this afflictive pestilence, and two hundred and thirty deaths, in spite of all the precautions of a very faithful and fearless board of Health, and of the vigilance and skill of a medical faculty, inferior, perhaps, in science and humanity, to none, in any city of the world.
The Pestilence has been a great Calamity, to the City of New-York. This assertion is not to be questioned. Every member of the Body politic suffered and doth suffer still.
The lapse of five months, although it may have sufficed to wipe off the tears of the Widow and the Orphan, is insufficient to extinguish the recollection of the losses incurred by the last summer’s visitation. The sick and the dying were not the only sufferers: for “blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” Some, I know, of the victims of the yellow fever died, under circumstances, upon which the humane cannot reflect without anguish.
It was on a sultry night, in August, when I passed the house in which lay on the bed of death a useful citizen. The windows of the apartment were left open, and the sash was thrown up to receive the air loaded with pestilence as it was, into a place where the malignant vapour was already concentered in deadly force. His family had, some time before retired to the country. His friends had left him in charge of a hired nurse. The house was deserted. The nurse had fled, abandoning the sick to the king of terrors, where no kindly voice rose upon his listening ear, no cooling draft reached his parched lips. There was no eye to pity, no hand to help. He struggled, he sighed, he died without a Witness; and before the Sun of another day arose, his putrid corpse was conveyed in the Hearse to the Potter’s field [i.e., the place for burying the poor, those without kin or means, or unidentified].
There yet lives an old citizen, a Widowed Husband and bereaved Father, who was himself in the infected district seized by the plague. He saw his wife dying by the same disease. Beginning to recover he removed from the place. The exertion had nearly cost him his life, and in the tenement which he for the time occupied, avoided by his neighbours, he witnessed the decease of his daughter by the malady which laid himself so low. Her corpse, feeble as he was, he must himself bear on his trembling shoulders, to that grave, which none but a parent’s heart dared to approach with the burden of death. With such cases within our knowledge, we may, surely, be permitted to consider this terrible disorder as a calamity. It’s evil is not limited to the sick and the dying. They have friends, who feel with them, and suffer in them. The cessation of employment, affects, injuriously, the labourer and the artist: the derangement of commerce affects the merchant and the monied institutions : the diminution of his rents, from certain districts, affects the Land lord; and the expenses of a state of exile will keep the poor and the rich in remembrance of the cause for abandoning their homes. The loss of reputation to our city, in regard to its healthfulness, is an impediment to its growth, and its commercial prosperity; and the increased taxation makes every member of the body politic feel that this city as such, has, in the course of the last summer, been visited with a great evil. It is in vain to deny this. It cannot be concealed and it ought not to be forgotten. It will not be forgotten, by any man of philanthropy, or prudent calculation. It is an evil to the commercial emporium of the State of New-York, and our intelligent Legislators will endeavour to prevent its recurrence, or mitigate its calamitous consequences. It is an evil which city authorities have always endeavoured to prevent ; and to which their attention must ever be directed as the Guardians of our property, our health, and our lives. It is an evil, which the Philosopher will be careful to explore, in its origin, and progress, and various relations to man and to the elements. It is an evil of which the physician will continue to be, as he has hitherto been, an inquisitive observer of its cause, and symptoms, and effects, and cure. Independently of every other consideration, the men of industry and property will be constrained, by their interest to feel anxiety on the subject; and even the Sons of Song, in despite of their levity, must sigh, at times, over the miseries produced by Yellow fever. The sound moralist must continue to consider it, in its various bearings; and certainly piety, in proportion to its intensity and intelligence, will seek to improve so marked a calamity as this, occurring to our citizens, in the all-pervading providence of God.
Controversy frequent and fierce, has appeared in our city publications, cotemporaneously with the epidemic of last year; and, it is not, as yet, lulled to repose. The means employed by the Board of Health are not universally admired; and among the members of that board there are diversities of opinion. In a political point of view, the several parties see through different optical instruments; and the physicians, as usual are at odds, on the subject. It will not, therefore, appear surprising, if on the moral question, respecting the calamity, there should also occur a variety of notions: for mankind, generally, are more apt to think alike on questions of bodily diseases than on the concerns of God’s moral government. Physics are better understood than Ethics or Theology.
There has been, however, a remarkable coincidence of sentiment, respecting the duty of Christians, at the time of the visitation, between the public functionaries in the Churches of the City, and the administration of its civil authorities. The ecclesiastical officers suggested the propriety of observing a day of humiliation and prayer to God, under the affliction, and the Corporation sanctioned the recommendation. The 11th of October was accordingly kept as a Fast.
These religious observances did not pass without animadversion. The public Newspapers offended, perhaps by the pointed remarks of some ministers, within and without the City, or disliking altogether the religious consideration of the subject, almost with one consent, opposed the idea of considering the yellow fever as a judgment inflicted upon us, in the Providence of God.
Some of the editors endeavoured to pour ridicule on the appointed Fast, although sanctioned by the conjoint recommendation of the ministers and the magistrates’ authorities : and some of their remarks went so far as to suggest, that the God of heaven had no control over the elements which entered into the formation or cure of the prevailing disease. They taught that the Heat which generated the cases, and the Black Frost which stops them, were to be minded more by the community, than the “Hearer of prayer,” who has them all at his command.
At a later period, similar sentiments have obtained a currency in the same vehicles of intelligence; and even in others from which better things ought to have been expected. “The Christian Herald and Seaman’s Magazine, published under the patronage of the Society for promoting the Gospel among Seamen, and edited by a member of the board of Directors,” has given publicity to an essay replete with antichristian notions.
Assuming, as a principle, that there is no work of special judgment, under the Gospel dispensation, the ordinary providence of Heaven, in the punishment of Sin is set aside ; and indeed all judgments, whether by the common operation of providence, or by miracle arc denied since the termination of what is unmeaningly denominated the Jewish Theocracy. However natural it might be to expect, that persons who do not receive the Holy Scriptures as inspired of God, should utter irreligious maxims, and, we do not know that any one of our City Editors of News papers makes a profession of religion, it is very unbecoming the Patrons of “the Seaman’s Magazine,” to inculcate, upon the minds of those who see God’s Wonders in the deep, the maxim, that the Lord of Christians has abdicated the throne of judgment, and has entirely ceased to govern the elements, ever since the era of Saul’s election to be King of Israel, or of the departure of the Sceptre from Judah.
These silly sentiments have, in several instances, been moulded into the form of a personal attack on the Rev. Mr. [Pascal N.] Strong, whose discourse on the pestilence you have already reviewed. If you will permit me to call the attention of your readers again to that publication, I will make it, and the papers which appeared in condemnation of its doctrines, the subject of some remarks.
Meantime, I would express my surprise at the editor of the National Advocate, for taking the part he did: on this Theological question. He is surely above ungenerous personalities : and as a descendant of Abraham he stands in a very different relation to the subject, from his brethren of the type, who are neither in the fellowship of the Synagogue, nor in the communion of the Christian Church. I cannot conceive why one of the House of Jacob should experience displeasure at hearing the Christians proclaiming “the Lord God of the Hebrews,” as Sovereign of the Universe, knowing all things, pervading all space, holding in his hand the issues of life and death, and wielding with an Omnipotent Arm, all the energies of Creation: for this is the God of the law and the prophets—He who spake from Sinai, and dwelt in Zion. “Before him went the pestilence.”
The God of the Editors, is quite a different being. He has nothing to do with the yellow fever—with the causes, the origin, the progress, or the termination of disease. The heat and the cold, the rain and the drought, are independent of him. He meddles not in the death of the Fathers or the children, the old women or the maidens, the poor or the rich who were carried off by the pestilence. The Earths and the Gasses, the Acids and the Alkalies are not instruments of his will. He is present nowhere, accompanies no one in the infected district, in the town or in the country. He visits no one at the counter or the, market, in the Theatre or the exchange. He meets no one in the closet, or the street, in life, or in death, in heaven or in hell. He is an Indolent God, who lets creation play her pranks, and never executes justice or judgment on the Earth.
Their Rock is not as our ROCK, themselves being judges.
I am not to be misunderstood, as representing the pestilence to be a miracle, existing independently of second causes. It is in this respect, like every other calamity. It has its causes, its symptoms, and its remedies for prevention and cure, under that God who numbers the hairs of our heads: but like every other calamity, it also is inflicted, in the righteous judgments of him, without whom a hair of the head cannot perish. Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.
(To be continued.)
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
[from The Evangelical Witness, Vol. I., No. X., May, 1823. p. 461-472.]
Being a Review of the Parties, which arose on the moral and religious consideration of the Yellow Fever, in New-York, in the summer of 1822.
Continued from page 405.
In the Christian Herald of Dec. 7, 1822, there is an article entitled “Thoughts on the late fever” which I read with some surprise. Whatever course might have been pursued by some of the daily newspapers, in relation to that solemn visitation of God’s providence over our city, and whatever the common opinion of the gay, it was not to have been expected, from the previous character of the Herald, that anything should so soon appear in its pages, with the approbation of its editor, at variance with his notice of the calamity, in the number for the 16th of November, congratulating the public on their return, from an exile of some months, to their several homes. From that number, I quote the following excellent remarks:
“Of all news, that, of our return to our homes, and of the cessation of the pestilence, are most grateful. Those who have shared with us the alarm at the almost visible approach of the disease and death, to the abodes of our friends and our own, well know how to appreciate with us the blessings of a removal of those evils. Indeed, the whole of this dispensation of Providence, grievous as has been the calamity with which our city has been chastened, has been full of mercy. The hand of Providence does not less really exercise the control over every occurrence in the ordinary and regular successions of seed time and harvest, summer and winter, heat and cold, than over events strictly miraculous.” [Christian Herald, Vol. 9, No. 13, p. 408.]
These sentiments are judiciously thought and piously uttered. The yellow fever of last summer, is represented as the pestilence, and described as an “alarming and grievous calamity.” Admitting, as ought to have been the case, that it came upon our city, through the intervention of secondary causes, naturally adequate to its production, it is set forth as coming from God, the first cause, as truly as if it came to pass by miracle. Its infliction by the hand of Providence is acknowledged to be a chastisement to our city for iniquity; and we are invited to see the hand of God therein, while we look upon its removal as a blessing from heaven.
After such correct and Christian remarks, we were not prepared to expect, in the number of the 16th November, an essay, criminating the opinion, supposed to be common among the religious part of our citizens, that the calamity was “a judicial visitation” for our sins.[Christian Herald, Vol. 9, No. 14, Pages 421, 423.] Whatever might have been the offence given by a sermon, preached by one of the ministers of the Dutch Church, the Rev. Paschal N. Strong, there was no necessity in censuring him for aught he had spoken amiss, to assail the very just principle, which he asserted in common with the Herald itself. When I first read the “Thoughts on the yellow fever,” with the signature of L., I ascribed them to some inconsiderate and excited writer; and attributed their admission into the Magazine, to courtesy toward a friend who may otherwise have been a valuable correspondent. I laid them aside, of course, as an extempore composition, analogous to some of the occasional speeches ad captandum [for capturing; i.e., the emotions of a crowd] which entertain the democracy of our many public meetings. I have since discovered, in my social intercourse, that similar thoughts are prevalent. Clergymen of some standing in the church, have expressed a conviction of their truth; and the Herald itself, has referred to them, repeatedly, with approbation. Therefore, have I given them an attentive examination.
In the review of Mr. Strong’s sermon, which produced some public feeling when it was pronounced, and occasioned many severe invectives after it, was published, there is a reference to “the thoughts” of Mr. L. The review appeared in the number for the 7th of December. After several expressions of rather too much acrimony, for the title of the Magazine, it is written.
“With regard to the leading principle assumed in the sermon, that the late fever was judicially sent as a punishment, we refer to an article in our number for Dec. 7, 1822.”
And in the number for March 15, 1823, there is a similar approbatory reference to the same effect, vindicating the maxim, that judicial visitations of calamity were restricted to the Jewish Theocracy, and inferring, that the late fever could not of course have been of that description. Of C. U., a writer, who, while on other accounts he severely censured the preacher alluded to, contested the principle above stated, it is said,
“He appears to us to evade the distinction between the Mosaic and Christian dispensation. We treated not of the principles, promises, and threatenings of the Bible at large, nor did our correspondent S., but of those pertaining to the government of the Jews, commonly denominated the Theocracy.” [Christian Herald, Vol. 9, No. 21, p. 667.]
It would seem from these quotations, as if “the Christian Herald and Seaman’s Magazine, published under the patronage of the society for promoting the gospel among the seaman, and edited by a member of the Board of Directors,” did make common cause with the writer who subscribes himself S. From November to March, the work gives editorial sanction to the sentiment, that temporal calamities, were never judicially inflicted, except under the Theocracy.
The “thoughts on the late fever,” to which I object, will appear from the writers own words, as quoted from the number for Dec. 7.
“Whether the late fever in this city is to be regarded as a judicial visitation of Providence, is a question about which there seems to be a great diversity of opinion. Many suppose, that this visitation was sent judicially. These views of the subject are attended with difficulties which, I apprehend, are insurmountable. I suppose that, in the administration of Providence under the mediatorial government, there is no such rule upon the subject, as there was under the Theocracy, when men were dealt with judicially. They are, I apprehend, mistaken, who imagine that any good effects result from the common opinion. This opinion has, no doubt, some transitory influence upon the fears of the sordid, the ignorant, the superstitious, and impenitent. It is mere panic. This fear and panic seem, so far as I know, to affect them rather as animals, than as natural and accountable creatures. Here they experience little else but mercy, being respited till the day of judgment, from the judicial consequences of sin. Those mercies and afflictions of this life, that flow in the ordinary course of things from the apostacy of the species do not discriminate. When the period of mercy, and forbearance terminates, retribution will succeed, and the wicked will be judicially punished.”
In making this quotation, 1 have it in view to give the author’s sentiments in his own words. Parts of sentences have been taken, and other parts omitted, for the sake of brevity and distinctness; but as no perversion is intended, none is admitted. It is not my design to put the writer in fault, for this would be of no service to me or to the public. I write with intent to correct opinions which appear to me at variance with truth. It is in the hope that no one will acknowledge such opinions, that I introduce them seriatim in the form of distinct assertions.
Here they are.
1st. The late fever is not a judicial visitation of Providence for the sins of the people.
2d. The ordinary dispensations of Providence, exclude the idea of judgments for iniquity.
3d. The mediatorial reign, under the gospel dispensation, is distinct from the Jewish Theocracy, for, in that Messiah did not rule.
4th. To the Mosaic Law, or Theocracy, temporal judgments for sin were peculiar ; and to believe other wise, has a bad moral tendency.
5th. Both mercies and afflictions flow from the apostacy of the species.
6. The wicked, experience in this life, little else than mercy ; for not until the last day, will men be judicially treated.
These several propositions, disguise them ever so much, must be considered as altogether false. Indeed, had they been always distinctly stated, and each viewed by itself, the deformity would have been discernible to all. They could not have passed muster in a crowd, and without particular inspection.
The leading principle, in error and in mischief, in all the writings and speeches against Mr. Strong, is that which distinguishes the Theocracy and mediatorial reign, and limits temporal judgments to the Jews. To that false principle, dished up by the purveyor of the Seaman’s Magazine for his messmates, I now solicit your attention. I shall be very explicit, first, in setting aside the distinction quo ad hoc [with respect to this], and secondly, in proving the fact, that temporal judgments are not limited to the Jewish Theocracy, or indeed to anything Jewish.
1st. The Jewish Theocracy is not distinguished from the mediatorial government, in any other sense, than as a part is distinguished from the whole; for Messiah is himself, the Lord God of Israel. Every judicious Christian must confess, not only that God in Christ did reign, during the dispensation of the Old Testament, as much as now; but also, that the actual administration of Providence was in the hand of God our Saviour, the Messiah. So taught the Prophets and Apostles. Isa. 45. 21, 25. There is no God else beside me, a just God and a Saviour—Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God—Unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear—Surely shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength—In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.
That this only God, who ruled the House of Israel, is the Messiah, is evident enough from the words of the prophet himself, and is put beyond a doubt by the apostle, in quoting them. Rom. 14. 10, 11. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written—As I live saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. The same apostle adds, Phil. 2. 10, 11, That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We have here two very good and sufficient witnesses, declaring in the same terms, the mediatorial government over Jew and Gentile, to the very ends of the earth. The mediatorial reign and the Theocracy, accordingly identify. We are at this moment under the Theocracy; and the Jewish Theocracy differs nothing in regard to the person or attributes of the Ruler. He is the same yesterday today and forever. It is surely a bad inference, that, because the same Lord, did certainly inflict temporal judgments in one province of his empire, he must never inflict them on any other province; that since he punished the Jews judicially, he must trouble Christians at random. The distinction made in the Christian Herald, is, therefore, both unholy and untrue.
There is, indeed, a very great difference between the two dispensations of the Covenant of Grace, the Old Testament and the New; but the Providence of God is as extensive, as minute, and as just as ever. The salvation of sinners is the same; God is the same, sin is the same, Holiness is the same now, as formerly; and the Covenant is immutable: but the dispensation of old respected the Redeemer to come, and the present dispensation, respects an accomplished redemption. A child may answer the questions respecting the different administrations.[Larger Cat. Ques. 34 and 35.]
There is, besides this, a difference between the political state of Israel under the judicial law, and the state of other nations throughout the world. Inspired statutes, literally adapted to the Hebrew Commonwealth, constituted the political code. There is, also, a difference between the divine revelation and the miraculous infliction of calamities for transgression, and the knowledge which we have of such pains by ordinary means; but all our miseries are alike judgments from Heaven for the sins of men.—They are all equally foreknown, though not alike foretold: they are equally the work of God’s Providence, though effected in a different manner, and by different instruments. The warning to sinners, and the improvement to the saints, are the same in both cases.
I am now to shew that,
2d. Temporal judgments are not peculiar to the Jewish Theocracy.
This is the grand topic of discussion in regard to the late fever in the city. Error in regard to it, has placed many Christians on the infidel side of the question, and has caused them to swell for a time the current of profane opposition to the doctrines delivered on the subject, by a minister of Christ. If the writers for the “Christian Herald” have any personal ill will to the Rev. Mr. Strong, it were well not to employ it by attempting to enlist in the prejudice, the Seamen of the Port. At all events, the sense of the Christian community should be expressed, against the libertine sentiments of Mr. L., on the subject of divine judgments.
The judicial infliction of temporal calamity, for, the sins of men, belongs to God’s moral government of the world in every age ; and the principle is not to be compromitted, even for the sake of putting down a young man, who ventures to proclaim aloud the truth, while his fathers are feeling with trembling hand he public pulse. It is a New Testament angel who said, Rev. XVI, 7th, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.—God’s judgments are, indeed, administered in wisdom and in truth, and in long forbearance, in full accord with mercy; for the divine attributes harmonize in the mediator; but yet he is a novice, in matters of piety, who would limit them to the Mosaic economy. Let me examine this abominable sentiment, in accommodation to the general ignorance, in such plain terms as to leave no cloak for the delusion.
If the divine judgments are peculiar to the Jewish Theocracy, then are they limited by its extent. The utmost extent, however, given to the Theocracy, by the patrons of this doctrine, is, in respect of subjects, the House of Israel, and in respect of duration, the time intervening between the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, and the crucifixion of the Son of man. If the Lord has not threatened or inflicted temporal punishment for iniquity, beyond these limits, then does the doctrine stand, otherwise, it falls to the ground. Fall then, it must, for three obvious considerations.
1st. Divine judgments were not limited to the Commonwealth of Israel in the time of the Theocracy; for the Gentiles suffered as often and as intensely as did the Hebrews. Of the adversaries of Israel, they say, Isa. 63. 29, Thou never barest rule over them; they were not called by thy name; yet they suffered the judgments of God. The Prophets demanded them in a thousand instances, and the Lord inflicted his wrath. Let Midian, Moab, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia, and those of Tyre—let Edom, and Ashur bear witness to this truth. And if the history of those nations during many centuries, does not afford sufficient facts in illustration, ask the Prophets and they will tell thee concerning Babylon and Egypt, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome, all beyond the pale of the Jewish Theocracy. Those great states furnish instances enough of every species of divine judgments, and of every conceivable mode of putting them into execution. Many of these judgments on the heathen, were in answer to the prayers of the saints. Some were foretold, and executed by miracle; and others were wrought in the ordinary operation of second causes. The defeat of the Sennacherib’s army, 2d Chron. 32, 20, 21, was in answer to the petitions of Hezekiah and Isaiah.
An angel of God, destroyed by miracle the invading forces; and his own sons put the tyrant to death in the house of God. In all these transactions, there is nothing peculiar to the Mosaic ritual, given to the Jews.
2d. The judgments are not restricted to the Theocracy; for they belonged to God’s moral government, before the organization of the House of Israel, into a body politic at Horeb. Lamech acknowledged to his wives, Adab and Zillah, the principle which I now assert; and Jehovah executed vengeance on the guilty. A judicial mark was set upon Cain for the murder of Abel. Almost the whole world was destroyed by the Flood, for the iniquity of man. Sodom and Gomorrah, were punished by fire from Heaven. Lot’s wife, was judicially petrified. Pharaoh and Abimelech, suffered for their injurious treatment of Abraham. All the elements were arrayed against the people of Egypt; both the first born of Ham, and their mighty captains, fell for their iniquities.
With all this, and much more of the same kind in the Bible, will the people of New-York, and especially the gentlemen of the Herald, continue to teach that all iniquity on earth must go unpunished until the resurrection, and that temporal judgments are peculiar to the law of Moses? Surely, “until this day, remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament.”
3d. Judgments are threatened and executed under the New Testament.
It is not uncommon with the ignorant to consider the Old Testament as revengeful, and the New Testament as mercifully unjust. Grace is, in a great degree excluded from the former, and justice from the latter. The account which the Bible gives, is very different. The New Testament narrative, covers but a very short space—not the twentieth part of the time referred to in the book of Genesis. The prophetic part extends to all future ages of the world; and both the history and the prophecy confirm the doctrine, that judgments are as certain and as severe under the present, as under the former dispensation. At times they are foretold; at times they are executed by miracle; and they uniformly enter into the texture of the Lord’s moral government of individuals and communities, both civil and ecclesiastical.—A very few references, will suffice in proof of these assertions.
Punishment was judicially declared by the Apostle Peter, upon Ananias and Sapphira for their iniquity; and it was executed speedily and by miracle, Acts 5. These people were professors of religion. The angel of the Lord, under the Mediator’s reign, smote Herod unto death, because he gave not God the glory, Acts 12. 23. He was a Prince and a persecutor. Elymas, the sorcerer, was judicially inflicted with blindness, after the Apostle Paul declared his sin. These are individual cases; and ought to serve as a warning to everyone. The Churches of Asia were severally threatened by the Lord, according to their iniquities. The disciple whom Jesus loved, announced the threatening; and history bears testimony to its execution. Many professors in Corinth, suffered judicially for their abuse of the Lord’s supper, debility, sickness and death; and all under the gospel dispensation, 1st Cor. 11. 30. These are specimens of ecclesiastical judgments. The dreadful judgments of anarchy, war, famine and pestilence, were inflicted on the Jewish nation. They were predicted by Jesus Christ; and the terrible catastrophe is on record for the perusal of the reviewers of Mr. Strong, in the Herald. If they are still unbelievers on the subject, let them return to the Gentiles, and they will find, that, under the New Testament, cities and nations are punished for their irreligion. ‘Come and see’ the Seals opened by Messiah; listen to the Trumpets of wo, blown by his servants; contemplate the ministers of the Redeemer’s vengeance, pouring out the vials full of the wrath of God; consider the convulsion of the elements, in the storms of thunder, and hail, and fire; the consequent earthquakes, and the blood of Armageddon; and then tell me that the Saviour never inflicts temporal judgments. Read Rev. 6. 8, 11, and 18. 5, 8, and then tell me that the ministers of the gospel may not teach, that judgments shall ever, even in part, be executed on the earth. As for myself, 1 had rather belong to the society, Rev. 15. 3—“Saying, great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, Thou King of Saints—for thy judgments are made manifest.”
I now, my dear sir, draw this letter to a close. If I have not trespassed already on your patience, and the limits of your Magazine, I may give you, hereafter, another communication, relative to the opposition provoked in the city of New-York, against the sermon of Mr. Strong. I have written now, in behalf of principle, and not from personal attachment. If I write again, I shall follow the same rule. Carus mihi, et Carior Veritas [Dear to me, and the dearer truth]. That gentleman, whatever may be the faults of his discourse, either in point of composition or detail of facts, has introduced no new principle of Christian morals into the code. The principle at which his opponents strike, has ever been held by the most able divines, and is always welcome to the people of God. It is none other than what was taught by the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ himself, being the chief corner stone.
Yours, respectfully,