sources of anguish, bitter anguish, which none other among the damned ever can have. They must be emphatically the reproach and the scorn of the universe.

Does the eye of any impenitent sinner fall upon this page, and run over these fearful, monitory words? O, let him beware, lest all the evil, and more than all that has here been described, fall speedily upon him! Let him be wise, and take warning while he may. The door of mercy is still open. The call of mercy is yet sounding in his ears. Let him yield then to the motives of the Gospel, and the strivings of the Spirit, and press into the kingdom of Christ, before the doors of this kingdom are closed upon him, and he is lost for ever.

ART. VII.—ON SPECIAL EFFORTS BY THE CHURCH TO SUBVERT THE UNHALLOWED INSTITUTIONS OF THE WORLD.

By ELEAZAR LORD, Esq. New-York.

THE tendency of the Christian religion, by the sanctification of individuals, and by the public influence of its doctrines and ordinances, to reform the errours and vices of the surrounding world, is universally admitted. Whether the correction of those evils, however, is to be regarded as a direct and immediate object of Christianity, in any such sense as to render it proper that the influence of religion and the associated and public exertions of ministers and Christians should be specially directed against them, in distinction from their exertions in the ordinary use of the means of grace, and the usual methods of propagating the Gospel for the conversion and salvation of men, is a question of great interest, the consideration of which will, it is presumed, be deemed appropriate at the present time.

From the nature of the subject, it will be proper, in the first place, briefly to refer to the state of things at the period when the Gospel was originally published, and to the example of our Lord and his apostles.

I. At that period, the political, religious and social institutions and customs of the world, were wholly opposite to

the design and spirit of the Gospel. Every thing in the condition of society, and in the moral and religious opinions and practices of the people, needed reformation. In Judea and the neighbouring countries, the universal corruption was restrained by military despotism. The light of true religion, even among the Jews, was nearly extinguished; they had rendered the commands of God of no effect by their traditions, and had sunk into a state of obstinate prejudice, blindness and hardness of heart; and throughout the Roman empire, and the rest of the world, the most atrocious wickedness prevailed, and was in many cases sanctioned by public authority.

Among the more prominent public evils which prevailed in the Gentile nations, it is obvious to notice, in particular, the system of pagan idolatry, with its impious and degrading rites; despotic forms of government; the system of slavery; the forms of public amusement, including gladiatorial spectacles, and bacchanalian orgies, and the customs of polygamy and of general licentiousness.

II. Such was the state of the world when the Son of God was manifested. By his example, preaching and vicarious death, and by the instrumentality of his inspired apostles, the system of Christianity, on which depended the reformation of men, and ultimately the entire subversion of Satan's kingdom, was founded and published.

In the view of human weakness and fanaticism, it would have been expected that this pure system, so totally opposed to all evil, would strike directly at those institutions and customs of society by which mankind were held in the bondage of corruption; that it would denounce and proscribe those customs in the abstract, and organize its followers against them, in a war of aggression and extermination. But Christianity is love, addressing itself to the moral feelings and voluntary affections of men; and such a course would have been every way inconsistent with its nature and design.

It was not the nature or purpose of Christianity, to force reformation upon men, or to authorize, on the part of its disciples, any such attack upon the public, organized and general customs of communities, or classes of mankind, as would naturally provoke their combined opposition, involve in one form or another the use of carnal weapons, and end in a violent conflict of the bad passions of both

parties. Even Judaism, corrupted and perverted as it had become, was not at once proscribed. The pure and spiritual germ of Christianity was planted in the synagogue, amidst the thorns and briars of Pharisaic and Sadducean pride, hypocrisy, prejudice and unbelief. No violent onset was made against the Mosaic ritual. The ceremonial ob

servances were long tolerated in the Jewish converts, and the apostles themselves occasionally complied with them, that they might not shock the rooted prejudices of Jews, or the feeble faith of recent converts, and thereby hinder the appropriate influence of the Gospel. Thus was it shown that the wisdom which is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy; and that the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

To have required of the Jews an instant renunciation of their system, would have been wholly ineffectual, except in the production of violence and wrath, unless enforced by other than moral causes; and had an outward renunciation been compelled, nothing worth gaining would have been accomplished. No moral good would have been secured. Nothing suitable to the appropriate design of the Gospel would have been effected, nothing depending on, or consonant with, the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, by whose agency alone, in the production of moral results, Christianity is rendered effectually beneficial to mankind. Neither the spiritual nor the temporal condition of the Jews would have been improved. Their minds and hearts would have remained as they were before, or have been more blinded and hardened. All that was proper to Christianity in the case, was done, by exhibiting its light and love, and applying its moral influence by preaching and example. Through the use of these means, the prejudices of the Jews were gradually removed, their minds enlightened, and their opinions changed. From this example it is evident, that it was the design of Christianity to supersede those institutions and customs which were inconsistent with it, by introducing and establishing others. It begun, not by pulling down the fabric of society, but by laying the foundation of a spiritual kingdom, of holy living, and of heavenly hopes in the hearts of its converts.

A similar course was accordingly pursued with respect

to other perverse customs and erroneous systems of theory and practice. Such customs and practices existed by the common consent, were interwoven with the policy, and deeply rooted in the passions of their depraved supporters. They were regarded as essential parts of the social system, and sooner than yield to any public attack upon them, the people, in their blindness and depravity, would probably have sacrificed their lives. Doubtless He who possessed all power in heaven and in earth could have compelled an immediate abandonment of those customs; but it must have been on principles, and for ends quite different from those for which the Gospel was preached, and the kingdom of Heaven set up in the world. Probably a renunciation of those customs by the people, before they had generally received and obeyed the Gospel, and been renewed in the spirit of their minds, would only have changed the forms of their depraved conduct, and turned the streams of corruption into other channels. But Christianity aimed at far higher and more valuable ends. Had the correction of such evils, by direct efforts, been the object of the Gospel, and the duty of ministers and Christians, it would of course have been incumbent on them at once, to have formally denounced and assailed, not only Judaism and idolatry, but all the despotic institutions of government, and the odious customs of the surrounding world; in which case it is easy to see that Christianity must have been diverted from the higher objects for which it was established, involved in interminable conflict, deprived of some of its noblest characteristics and happiest fruits, and exposed to imminent danger from excited passions and resisted prejudices. Instead of showing to the world, in an unequivocal and convincing manner, the difference between the followers of Christ and his opposers; instead of causing an exhibition of the fruits of the Spirit in its converts, in contrast with the wickedness and misery of the impenitent around them; it would have spent itself in a war of passion, in a contest with wicked men upon their own principles, and would probably soon have been driven from the earth.

III. Christianity, instead of being addressed to communities, and instead of assailing their errours and sins, in the abstract, or as public and cherished usages, involving the selfish interests, the fixed prejudices, and the base passions of their adherents, is addressed to individual man. Instead

of proposing to reclaim the world by a formal controversy with its evil customs, it proposes, as its direct object, to reclaim and save the souls of those who obey it. Instead of wasting its force in refined abstractions, and vague generalities, or directing its influence specially against the external forms of wickedness, it deals directly with the hearts and consciences of individuals, and brings all its energy and power to bear upon them in their personal characters, relations, and obligations. It appeals to man as a guilty moral agent, whose condition in this life, be the state of society around him ever so corrupt, and be the injustice and the suffering to which he is subject ever so great, is tolerable compared with that which awaits him as an impenitent sinner. Its author came into the world to save sinners. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. It contemplates the sinner as guilty and ruined in himself, and surrounded by the corruptions and abominations of the world, and proposes to redeem him from sin and condemnation, to translate him from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Christ, to purify his heart, the fountain of his actions, to secure his holy obedience, and to fit him for the heavenly state. Such, with respect to man, is its direct and specific object, and to this end its means and influences are to be applied.

In thus addressing and dealing with individuals, it requires them to abstain not only from particular vices and immoral customs, but from all sin, in thought, word, and deed, in heart and life, and even from the appearance of evil. The perfect efficacy of its provisions is exhibited in the case of every one who cordially obeys it, however obscure, depressed, or miserable he may be in respect to outward temporal circumstances. Its direct and essential results do not depend on the extent of its public influence, in relation to the customs of the world. It aims to subvert those customs, by changing the hearts of individuals, and rectifying their views and affections primarily towards God, and thus bringing them under the influence of far higher obligations and more powerful motives, than those which relate merely to their temporal condition. Its tendency to restrain the practices of wicked men, is founded in its transforming and saving influence upon individual Christians; and where that influence is not perceived, where its pure and convincing VOL. I.

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