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from the pope. They cherished the reformation so far as it consisted in rebellion against Rome; they damped, persecuted and suppressed it, so far as it tended to diffuse light and liberty among the people. They had penetration enough to see, that the spirit of the age, which had burst the chains of ecclesiastical bondage, could not consent to remain quiet under the bondage of civil tyranny. They, therefore, became the persecutors of the reformed, and reforming churches. The civil wars, persecutions, parties, and factions, which arose in the countries where the reformation prevailed; alienated christians from each other, and left among the different sects a spirit of alienation and hostility, which prevails to this day. Parties which have wholly abandoned the faith of their fathers, continue to cher-ish their deadly resentment; the family estate has been squandered and lost, but the family feud is as fierce as

ever.

The spirit of reformation has entirely expired in Europe; or at least, if it is any where found, it barely continues to breathe.

My object in all these remarks, is to call your attention to the nature of the spirit of the reformation; to the means by which that spirit was changed, and to the attributes of the spirit of the present age. The spirit of the reformation displayed a lofty intellect in subordination to the christian faith; it was a spirit breathed into man by the holy scriptures. The original reformers were enlightened by the scriptures, and according to the measure of their light, were desirous of reducing the faith, manners, worship, government and discipline of the church to the simple scriptural standard. They were for reducing the pope to the rank of a simple

presbyter; they were for lowering down the fathers and doctors and councils to the level of mere human authority.

The Bible alone was authority with them. If this spirit had been permitted to operate freely and without restraint, it is apparent to every reflecting man, that it would first have reformed the church, and next the state; that it would have taught justice, mercy and moderation to kings, as well as to priests; that it would have produced rational liberty, under the full restraint of moral law, and subordination. It is certain, that the pomp and tyranny, the follies and the mummeries, the perfidies and oppressions of the crown and the mitre, would have been stripped off and abolished; but the dignity and energy of moral rank and office, in church and state, would have been enhanced and established for ever. Such a revolution, however devoutly wished for by a few high and purified spirits, was alarming to secular statesmen and carnal churchmen; and common hostility united against it the influence of both.

Kings, joining with them the principal part of the christian priesthood, and both exerting their utmost powers, they cast a mighty dam across the majestic current of reformation; arrested its progress; and forced it to scoop out for itself new channels. Treating the Bible as an imperfect institute, not competent to serve the church as a rule of faith and manners, they sat down and drafted new politico-religious formularies, which all men within their respective dominions, were required to believe, under pain of death in this world, and damnation in the next. They rummaged all the lumber and rubbish of ancient superstition, for rites

and ceremonies, to give christianity a cover for her nakedness, that she might appear abroad with decency; they stooped to the minutest things, they prescribed every thing. All men must believe alike, and worship alike; all men must be, not the creatures which God made them, but the monsters which man had determined to make them. No room was left for variety of talents and education, no indulgence was granted to scrupulous consciences, no toleration to any thing which did not bow to the golden images which men, bloated up with a vain opinion of their own divinity, had set up for the worship of their fellow mortals.

If any chose to refuse submission, under plea of conscience towards God, he was treated as an infidel and traitor; and when the sophistry of priests failed to convince, the logic of kings silenced him for ever. In such criss the whole machinery of government was put into operation; the secret spy watched over the altar of domestic devotion; the constable planted himself in the church to watch the gospel minister; the military were on the alert to arrest, the jail door stood open night and day to receive its victims, the gibbet was never taken down, the fire for the auto de fe, as if fed as by the hands of vestals, never went out; judges were in readiness to condemn; perjury was evidence; confession was extorted by torture, silence was guilt. And thus all protestant nations were, I will not say stained, but steeped in blood unrighteously shed. I do not condescend to notice the blood shed in actual wars; it is a comparatively trifling evil to die on the field of battle, where the last beat of the heart, is the beat of freedom.

Why do I mention these things? Why not suffer the veil of oblivion to rest upon scenes so disgraceful to our race, so disgraceful to religion? For this reason, and for this reason alone, my brethren, do I mention them; that they were the causes which have produced the tremendous desolating spirit of the age we live in.

We are sufficiently acquainted with human nature to know, that if men are not permitted to worship God according to their conscience, they will not worship him at all; we are equally certain, that when men are chusing their religion, if life, security, and social honours stand on the one side, and degradation, persecution and death on the other, few will fail to make the election, which will secure the enjoyments of the present world. Besides, we are not unaware of the numerous and powerful means which an established priesthood possess, to bias all minds, and particularly the youthful mind, towards the religion which supports and dignifies themselves.

In all the nations of Europe, the civil establishment of religion, bringing with it persecution, in one form or other, damped the ardour of religious investigation. Men thought they might as well adopt without inquiry, what they foresaw they would be compelled to adopt at any rate. They, no doubt, were fully acquainted with the casuistry which teaches, that if a religion be in itself right, the adoption of it cannot be wrong; but if the religion should be wrong, since we must embrace it at last, it will be less criminal to do so, in a state of ignorance, than after inquiry into its errors, shall have rendered its adoption an act of wilful guilt. The bulk of mankind, therefore, gave up reli

gious inquiry, professed the religion of their country, and turned their thoughts towards other and safer investigations.

Knowledge is sweet to the mind, as Solomon tells us ; and the human intellect once aroused into activity, can never consent to slumber; it will, it must, have action. Hemmed in one direction, it will force its way in some other. With Bacon, it exclaims, aut viam inveniam aut faciam, I will find the road, or make one. The intellect of Europe, repulsed from religious inquiry, poured itself all abroad in every other direction. Military science, navigation, anatomy, physiology, astronomy, botany, geology, chemistry; all the arts, all the sciences; politics and metaphysics; all the subjects of natural knowledge, have felt the supremacy, and subduing power, of the intellect of man, housed though it be in a frail tabernacle of clay. How prodigious is the science of this age! And yet how little of religion is in it! There is hardly a sprinkling of sacrificial salt left, to entitle our science to be laid on the altar, as an offering to the God who stamped his own image on this intellectual being. Even among clergymen, a large portion of those, who are distinguished by superior genius and erudition, are contending for the laurels of secular honour, on the field of secular science; while they suffer themselves to remain profoundly and contemptibly ignorant of the religion revealed in their Bible. They know every thing, but that which they ought to know; and are defective in nothing but their own professional duties.

Were I to personify the spirit of this age, I would say, that it is a highly intellectual spirit, destitute of moral attributes. An intelligence which grasps all

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