Conclusion.
James Dodson
The hope, brethren, of a general emancipation, supports and animates the benevolent exertions of the Christian Philanthropist. Party will indeed rejoice, in any event that may have an auspicious bearing up on the desired elevation of a favourite leader to power. Selfishness will rejoice, in whatsoever tends to promote its private gratification, should it be at the expense of a nation’s independence and honour. But vital religion refers every event to the meridian line, the work of Jesus Christ for the salvation of men; and estimates the value of such events in proportion to their tendency in bringing about peace upon earth and good will towards men of all kindreds and languages.
The Christian spirit is of a diffusive, an active, an enlarged benevolence. It seeks first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness; and never ceases to pray to Jehovah, thy kingdom come. It seeks the overthrow of all false principles, of all immoral power, of all tyranny, and of all irreligion. Infidelity, hypocrisy, corruption in matters of religion, are alike objects of its aversion. Knowledge, virtue, liberty, righteousness, these are the objects of pious regard; and, in proportion to the prevalence of true religion in the heart, will man be desirous to see these blessings extended throughout the nations. That they shall, in time, be so extended, HE hath promised who is able also to perform. The promise is, however, accompanied with a threatening to those nations that know not God, and obey not the gospel. Thus saith the LORD GOD, Remove the diadem and lake off the crown—I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall he no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. [Ezek. xxi. 26. 27.]
It is this overturning which astonishes the nations, and makes the people afraid. We have seen much of it come to pass, in the last twenty years; and more remains still to be accomplished. Terrified at the work of judgment according to the threatening, many who have plead the promise, have ceased from their prayers. There was a time when the Churches were earnest, in their supplications, for the downfall of antichrist—when all protestant ministers and people were united in seeking the overthrow of the man of sin, and of all the pillars of his throne. That time, alas! is now no more. A temporizing policy, a superficial faith, an accommodating morality have succeeded, in destroying a taste for able evangelical discussion; in diminishing the ardour of devotion; and in conciliating, for the sake of carnal pleasure and gain, the affections of the ministers and members of the Churches towards the great corruption of religion in the world effected by the superstitious establishments of the European nations. There are very few, I repeat the remark with fear and sorrow, I repeat it with gloomy anticipations, as it respects those churches themselves, there are very few who publicly pray for the downfall of antichrist. And yet this is the principal object which the Lord has in view, in dashing the potsherds of the earth against the potsherds of the earth.
To this object, the hopes of the church were long directed from afar. Modern wars, in the great scheme of Providence, are destined to realize these hopes. By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation. [Psalm lxv. 5.] Of that grand scheme, the contest, in which our own country is engaged, is a part. Therefore do I declare in Zion that it is the work of the Lord our God. I hope with respect to us, the contest will be short—that our country will escape the trial, without injury to its republican institutions; without diminution of its honour or power; without dismemberment; and without curtailing the rights of its citizens. But it is in the old world the principal scenes of this tragedy are exposed to view. The nations of Europe are, it is true, now at peace with one another. The awful storm is, at once, unexpectedly and surprisingly hushed. There is a calm. The troubled ocean is still. It will not long continue in this state. Against these nations there is wrath from him that sits on high. Ignorance may flatter itself that the era of the repose of nations is arrived. Crafty men encourage the delusion for the sake of personal gain and party purposes. If they should not live to retract, some of you will live to bear testimony to the delusion which they have attempted to practice. In vain has it been asserted that, by the fall of Napoleon Buonaparte, the peace of Europe is secured. That man is indeed fallen. Events which astonish us, have come to pass in a few months. While in the height of his power he was not an object of our love or of our fear. Circumscribed, by the waves which encircle the island of Elba, he is now neither the butt of our reproach nor the object of our contempt. We are not in the habit of bowing to the rising sun, nor of meanly trampling upon men who are stripped of authority. Mind, he possessed in a higher degree than usually falls to the lot of princes of royal blood. For talent, activity, and decision of character, courage in the field, and intelligence in the cabinet, Buonaparte had few equals in any age. His religion and morality were ever such, as we view with disapprobation. They were those, of unsanctified men, of mere politicians. He was betrayed. He fell; and France is fallen with him. The Bourbons are restored. The Pope has reassumed his mitre. The Inquisition has seized the instruments of torture in its gloomy caverns. In the restoration of the Germanic empire, the last head of the beast is more conspicuously revealed to view; and in the adjustment of the balance of power among the antichristian nations, the ten horns may again be more distinctly displayed before the last vial is poured out by the angel of destruction.
The end, however, is not yet. The peace of Europe cannot be permanent. A day of retribution cometh. The scourge, which God employed in the punishment of guilty communities, is indeed laid aside; but although Napoleon should never again attract the attention of the civilized world, instruments, of equal anguish to offending nations, will be employed by Him who hath pledged his word for their entire overthrow. We never considered the events, which proceeded from the French revolution, in any other light than as judgments from the Lord upon the antichristian earth. They were not the saints of the Most High, but the votaries of the man of sin, that suffered in the recent wars. Perhaps there was not one single witness for the cause of the Lord, who suffered martyrdom during the whole French revolution. If any real Christian perished in the strife, he was not condemned to seal with his blood the testimony which he held, but fell like others in the indiscriminate calamities of the political earthquake. It is against the thrones of the ancient dynasties that the blood of the martyrs is calling for vengeance: and so far as the United States, in the present war with Great Britain, contend for liberty and righteousness, they are co-operating with the martyrs, in opposing that nation which is now the principal support of the man of sin.
If I have given, in these discourses, any encouragement to the prosecution of this war, with valour, with unanimity, and with energy, I have done my duty. The faithful ministers of Christ give, with divine approbation, the golden vials full of the last plagues, into the hands of the angels of war and of death; that they may be poured out upon the dominions of the man of sin. In common with others, I have a right to declare my sentiments; and in doing so, in a tone of respect for those who differ from me, I hope that the mere fact, of these sentiments being on the side of my country, and its government, in this contest, is not a reason for condemning them unheard, or of displeasure at me for giving them utterance.
I have spoken upon this subject, as a WHIG—as the friend of religion and liberty—as a consistent Presbyterian, averse from arbitrary power. Our fathers, my dear hearers, were of that stamp. Our brethren in the Reformed Church, (for I have spoken their sentiments concerning all the great moral principles which I have discussed,) are now, and have been from the dawn of the reformation, Whigs from conscience.[1] The Puritans, the Presbyterians, the Martyrs, supported the same principles, in their faithful opposition to the throne, and the prelacy of tyrannical England. The monuments of their faith and their sufferings, are still to be seen by the traveler, in every part of that guilty land; and their blood, like that of Abel, still calls for vengeance upon the successors of the persecutors, the advocates of the crown and the mitre—the BRITISH TORIES.
The spirit of true religion is friendly to civil liberty. It has appeared to be so in every country. Some of the most faithful ministers, among the reformers, with patriotic ardour contended, even with the sword, in defense of their civil and religious liberties. ULRIC ZUINGLE, the morning-star of the reformation, fell in battle at Zurich, 1530, [Mosheim, Vol. IV. page 353.] at the commencement of the strife against arbitrary power; and towards the close of the struggle which terminated in the overthrow of the purest of the churches, RICHARD CAMERON fell at Airsmoss, 1680, while defending, as a Christian hero, the religion and liberties of his country, against the tyranny of the bishops, and the royal house of Stuart.[2]
So far as I, too, may still retain any portion of the spirit of my native land, where [William] Wallace fought, where [George] Buchanan wrote, where [John] Knox preached the gospel of God, where the Martyrs, down from Patrick Hamilton to James Renwick, left their flesh to rest in hope of deliverance—that spirit is opposed to the impious misrule of a corrupt hierarchy and immoral power. If I have caught the spirit of this, the country of my choice, it is in favour of liberty. If I claim a place among consistent Protestants, I must testify against all the acts of antichristian power. If I follow the steps which are died by the blood of the Martyrs, I must raise my voice against the thrones which shed that blood. If the Bible is my system of religion, and of social order, I must disclaim attachment to those powers that are hostile to evangelical doctrine, and to the rights of the church of God. If, in so doing, I have offended any of my hearers, it is without intending it; for I watch for your souls, and desire to promote your welfare and your happiness.
I have, however, in these discourses, which I now bring to a close, proved the right, which Christian ministers possess, of applying the Christian doctrine to man in his social as well as in his individual capacity: and have given sufficient evidence, in the exercise of this right, that true religion is favourable to the improvement and freedom of mankind. The moral character of both the belligerents, this republic and the British monarchy, has been weighed in the sacred balance, and the preference given to our own country. I have shown, both the lawfulness of waging war, and the causes which justify the application of force by nation to another. I have vindicated the cause of America against a jealous and powerful rival. I have exhibited, from obvious considerations, and the predictions of the word of God, the designs of Providence in permitting this country to be involved in the bloody contest. In doing this, my Christian brethren, it has been far from my thoughts to give offence to any, even the least, of the saints. I appeal to the tenor of my ministry, to you who habitually wait upon it, and to the heart-searching God, whom I serve in the gospel of his Son, that I do not practice upon a spirit of contempt for the feelings of my fellow-men, although I am accustomed to speak without the fear of man, what I believe to be seasonable truth.
I have indeed spoken what I felt it my duty to speak, without respect of persons. Time will determine whether I have erred or not: And I leave the consequences, as it respects myself and all that is dear to me—as it respects the cause of America in the present contest, to GOD MY REDEEMER, to whom be glory for ever and ever.—AMEN.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The origin of the political and distinctive names, WHIG and TORY, deserves to be known. It is an Index to the correct application of them.
“This year (1679,) is remarkable for being the epoch of the well known epithets of WHIG and TORY, by which this island has been so long divided. The court party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the fanatical conventiclers in Scotland,” (so it suited an atheist tory, for David Hume was no democrat, to stigmatize the most pious people of the age.) “who were known by the name of Whigs. The country party found a resemblance between the courtiers and the Popish banditti, in Ireland, to whom the appellation of Tory was affixed.” Hume’s Charles II. Chap. IV.
“They were for confining the royal prerogative within the limits of the law, for which reason their adversaries charged them with republican principles, and gave them the reproachful name of WHIGS; a name first given to the most rigid covenanters. The TORIES went into all the arbitrary court measures, and adopted into our religion, a Mahometan principle, under the name of Passive Obedience, and Non-resistance; which, since the times of that impostor, who first broached it, has been the means to enslave a great part of the world.” Neal’s Hist. Puritans, Vol. IV. p. 578.
“The name of WHIG took its rise in the reign of Charles II. and was bestowed on the best patriots then in the kingdom. True and genuine Whigism, therefore, consists in a zealous attachment to the liberties of mankind.” Old Whig.
[2] There, said Robert Murray, who cut off the head and hands of Mr. Cameron, and presented them to the king’s council, “There are the head and hands, that lived praying and preaching, and died praying and fighting.” The tyrannical council, in the refinement of cruelty, ordered them to he shown to his worthy Father, now in prison for the same cause. He was asked if he knew them. The good man took them in his hands, kissed them, and said, “I know them, they are my son’s, my dear son’s: Good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me or mine.”
Crookshank’s Ecc. Hist. Vol. II. p. 99.