The peculiarity of the divine government of Israel, or as it is commonly called, the theocracy, consisted in general in two things. In a system of laws, which was immediately given to that people from heaven, and in the exercise of a peculiar providence in supporting and sanctioning that system by conferring national mercies and inflicting national judgments, often in an immediate and extraordinary way. Now why are not the difficulties which are started as to the application of the first of these urged also as to the application of the last? If we cannot apply what is said in the Old Testament concerning the duty of the rulers and nation of Israel respecting religion unto Christian nations and rulers, because the former were under a peculiar law, then we cannot apply what is said in the Old Testament respecting the judgments denounced against the nation and rulers of Israel unto Christian nations and rulers. because the Israelites as a people were under a peculiar providence which constituted a part of their theocracy. The same distinctions will remove the difficulty in both cases. We cannot discern any evidence of the Old Testament example of a church establishment being a ceremonial thing. Nor can we believe that any reader of the Old Testament, unbiased by system, in reading of the pious care of a David and a Solomon, a Hezekiah, a Josiah, and others, for the building, repairing, and purifying the house of God, could have reckoned this an exercise of kingly authority only fitted for the Old Testament period. There is something in it which recommends it to the best feelings of the heart as worthy of all times and countries. We are confirmed in this when we recollect that it was not only to be a figure of the church to come that the Almighty set apart that peculiar people, it was also to be a witness to the nations around for the one living and true God in opposition to their universal idolatry. We see that while the ceremonial worship was evidently ordained for one country and was therefore impracticable for other nations, being in fact as a sort of wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, Yet in the great features of their national policy, it was intended by God that other nations should observe and learn from Israel. Look at Deuteronomy 4, verses 7 and 8, Deuteronomy 28, verse 10, Deuteronomy 29, verse 24, and Deuteronomy 32, verse 27. If then the care of the Jewish princes about the affairs of religion had not been a duty to be imitated by others, it is certain that the polity of that nation, set up as God's witness to mankind was throughout its whole duration, fitted to confirm them in a great and prevalent error. The laws of all nations took cognizance of religion. Now we see that the manners and worship of the Jews in almost all circumstances were so framed as just to be contrast to the manners and worship of the heathen. Strange, if this was so great an error, I mean the principle of a national recognition of a deity that the most prominent part of the Israel constitution should have been fitted rather to perpetuate than correct it. What nation, looking on, but must have deemed this one of the very points in which Israel was an understanding people? How could they look at its religious character at all, without being impressed with the lesson that the acknowledgment of the true God is the first duty of states and the highest honor of princes? Why did they not learn of them more to profit? It does not fall to us here to explain. But we are sure it was in the plan of providence. Even while the typical institutions could not be adapted by them as nations, and the mystery was to be hid for ages, that the great principles of natural religion should be visible in the church and state of the peculiar people, and so far make the heathen inexcusable. Just then, as the reasons specified in the judicial law itself show that certain statutes above referred to were of moral and perpetual obligation, so do these reasons appear to us conclusive as proving that the precedent of a national establishment of the Church is available as a moral example. So much in reply to the objection by which it is attempted to neutralize the argument from Old Testament examples, namely that these examples are Jewish. But it may not be irrelevant to remind our readers that the Old Testament contains others besides Jewish examples. We have already specified an instance before the Mosaic economy in the case of Melchizedek. And now we beg leave simply to remark that several instances are on record of Gentile princes who, with marked approbation and distinguished success, employ their influence to promote the welfare of the Church. Cyrus, king of Persia, issued a decree respecting the rebuilding of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, and we are expressly informed that it was the Lord who stirred him up to do so. See Ezra 1.1-4. Darius afterwards published an edict to the same effect in Ezra 6.8-12. Another regal enactment of the same nature was passed by Artaxerxes in Ezra 7.12-20. These are examples of the force of which cannot be set aside on the score of being Jewish, and yet they were highly approved. Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, said the pious and patriotic Ezra, in grateful acknowledging of the divine goodness, who hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. Fourthly, from the examples just adverted to, it may be inferred to be agreeable to the light of nature or sound reason that nations should interest themselves in religion. The cases we have specified may be said to be extraordinary, but the fact that almost all nations, ancient as well as modern, barbarous as well as civilized, have incorporated with their constitutions laws respecting religion shows that these extraordinary impulses were in accordance with the dictates of nature. We wait not, however, to argue from this fact, but avail ourselves of it only as introductory to some observations on the intimate connection subsisting between religion and civil society. The church and the state, so far from being diametrically opposed, are intimately connected, capable of friendly cooperation, and fitted to exert the most happy mutual influence on each other. On the one hand, there is much that religion can do for a nation, and on the other hand, there is much that a nation can do for religion. Let us first of all see what religion can do for a nation. True religion, apart from the influence it is fitted to have on the inhabitants and rulers of a country individually, cannot but affect beneficially its civil institutions and interests. Whether the government be monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, or mixed, it is not difficult to see that religion must have a mighty effect in directing it towards the ends it is designed to subserve and guarding it against the evils to which it is incident. Religion alone can effectually guard the monarch against an arbitrary abuse of his prerogative, tyrannical oppression, and rapacious aggrandizement. or can teach him to feel and to act as the father of his people, and thus at once enable him to promote their good and merit their affection and confidence. Religion alone can restrain the nobles of a land from seeking the supposed welfare of their own order at the expense of that of the humbler classes of society. Nor can anything but true religion ever prevent the claims of popular liberty and rights from degenerating into licentiousness and issuing a tumultuous anarchy. Religion is requisite to teach legislators to have respect in their enactments to the honor and decrees of the supreme lawgiver rather than to the unstable dictates of worldly expediency. In courts of law and justice, religion is well calculated to disengage civil enactments from that embarrassing ambiguity which goes far to defeat their end, to put a stop to the pernicious practice of pleading any cause, however bad. to place an effectual barrier to the taking of bribes which blind the eye even of the wise, and to inspire with a sacred regard at all times to moral rectitude and honesty. Religion is favorable to liberty. By checking selfishness, inspiring benevolence, and teaching a strict moral equality, it proves itself decidedly friendly to the rights of the people. While, by its opposition to injustice and oppression, it directly tends to suppress whatever is unfavorable to freedom. Without religion, nations may aim at freedom, but they can never attain it. And even, although they could, they would be unfit for enjoying it. For, to the end of time, will it hold true of communities as of individuals, that whom the Son makes free, they, and they only, are free indeed. It might even be shown that religion is fitted to operate favorably in regard to national wealth by securing industry, by restraining indulgences injurious to health, by hindering all profuse and foolish expenditure of public money, and by preventing to a great extent, and at all events ameliorating, the evils of pauperism which spreads like a leprosy over an immoral population. However despised and overlooked by worldly economists, the statement will be found to rest on the basis of immovable truth, that godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. It requires little penetration to see how religion is subservient to the peace of a nation. It is directly opposed to those false views of national honor which would associate the glory of a people with the pomp and circumstance of war. Martial music, glittering arms, mustering troops, and far-spreading conquest have about them a glare by which men are apt to be deceived. It should never be forgotten, however, that war is at the best a necessary evil, and it is separably connected with bloody carnage bereavement, territorial devastation, and a long train of horrible, nay, indescribable miseries. Religion directly tends to promote the blessings of peace. Securing peace with God, it inculcates peace between man and man. It puts a check to those ambitious designs and wicked passions which will be found on the one side or the other, or perhaps on both, to originate those wars which prove a scourge and a curse to mankind, while it teaches all to aim at bringing about that happy, predicted state of things, when men shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Religion can alone secure the true morality of a nation. Its sanctions are powerfully calculated to restrain those outbreakings of injustice and violence which the laws of civil society are designed to repress, and against which mere human enactments and punishments will be found but an ineffectual safeguard. Nor can anything but true religion present effectual barriers to that torrent of impiety and profligacy against which no penal laws can be directed. but which powerfully tends to sap the very foundations of national prosperity and to call down the curse of God upon a people. In short, without religion, no nation can feel itself secure. Ungodliness provokes the anger of the Lord. And like Israel of old, the nation that neglects religion and gives itself up to iniquity will not be able to stand before its enemies. it may truly be said of such, their defense is departed from them. For by doing so they incur the displeasure of him who is the only sure defense and refuge in the day of trouble. Warriors and statesmen may affect to despise all this, while they put their trust in human wisdom and prowess. But God can soon teach them that it is religion alone that can render a country invincible. that the prayers of the godly are more to be trusted than swords of steel. The sighs of true penitence assure safeguard in all the thunders of artillery. Religion is, in truth, the chief defense of nations. These remarks on the connection between true religion and the welfare of a civil community are supported alike by scripture, reason, and history. Proverbs 14 verse 34 says, Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. This sacred maxim is illustrated by all of history. The nation of Israel was most prosperous when it was most religious, under the pious reigns of David and Solomon. And when did it become an abomination and a hissing and a destruction? But when it departed from the Lord and filled up the cup of its iniquity by rejecting the Messiah. The same thing might be said of other nations of antiquity. The period of their greatest prosperity will be found to be that of the greatest prevalence of public virtue. It has been remarked that in proportion to the prevalence of truth, justice, benevolence, and industry were their glory and splendor, while their decline and final overthrow were marked by luxury, voluptuousness, envy, injustice, and vainglorious ambition. The nations which had been hurled down for the supremacy which they formerly possessed perished not from the want of resources, but of the courage and skill to use them. God had taken their hearts from them, and they fell into an evil snare. They bowed down unto the load of unrepented sin and submitted their necks to the conqueror. Persepolis, Greece, Rome, Constantinople, they were fuller of wealth and arms on the day that they opened their gates to the conqueror than when poor and few in numbers, but resolute in spirit, they first started in the career of victory. Had God restored to them the mind of their forefathers, they would soon have rolled back the battle from their gates. Difficulties and dangers which were bringing on their speedy doom would have disappeared as a dream. And with united hearts and hands they would have re-edified to more than their former height, their temples and their bulwarks. But sin, with the power of an avenging God, is the ruin of every people. He turns their wisdom into folly, and their strength he turns to weakness. All these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed. Because thou hearkenest not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his statutes and his commandments, which he commanded thee, because thou servest not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and gladness of heart for the abundance of all things, therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things. and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he hath destroyed thee." Such being the close connection between religion and the best interests of civil society, passing strange were it indeed if nations were not at liberty, they were not under obligations to interest themselves about religion. It will be difficult to show that there is any one thing which can contribute more directly or extensively to the true prosperity of a kingdom than religion. And yet we are asked to believe that this one thing a kingdom must do nothing to introduce, to support, or to diffuse. Every nation is surely bound to use all lawful means of advancing its prosperity. And are we to be told that the means which, above all others, tends most powerfully to this end is one of which it is unlawful for a nation to avail itself? True, the direct and immediate end of civil government is not the maintenance of religion, but the promotion of order, peace, and justice. Yet, religion being a means, an eminent means, to the attainment of this end, no government having the opportunity can neglect to improve it without incurring the guilt of neglecting its own true welfare. As religion can do much for a nation, so a nation has in its power to do something, may we not say much also, for religion. It is admitted to be a difficult matter, accurately and minutely to define the line and extent of the magistrate's power, Circa Sacra. We have before remarked that the Church of Christ is strictly independent of the state. Civil rulers, we repeat, have no right to dictate to her her creed, to institute her ordinances, to appoint her office bearers, to control her government or discipline, in short, to interfere in any one way with either her constitution or her administration. All this we firmly maintain. Yet there are many things which, it appears to us, a Christian nation, through the medium of its rulers, has in its power to do for the true religion. The civil magistrate can extend protection to the church in the profession of her creed, in the exercise of her worship, in the administration of her ordinances, in the enjoyment of her privileges, and in the possession of her undoubted rights and liberties. These are all capable of being outwardly assailed But having in herself no power of defense from external attack, she is entitled to look for this through the collateral ordinance of civil government, which possesses the power required and is under obligation to exert it for this end. Thus much is unquestionably supposed in those who are described as the shields of the earth in scripture, being spoken of also in scripture as nursing fathers to the church, a character which they could ill sustain without throwing the strong arm of protection over their tender charge, as well as in the circumstance of its being specified as one end, why Christians should pray for those in authority. Quote, that they may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, says scripture. This, we believe, will be readily admitted. But what we contend for is not a vague, passive toleration of the true religion, in common with all manner of false and heretical systems, but an active, formal, authoritative protection of the true religion, to which the others have no right, and which consequently they ought not to receive. The nation is capable, also, through its functionaries of giving a judicial or legal recognition to the true religion. The confession of the church's faith may be adopted and ratified by the state, without the state being at all chargeable with the iniquity of dictating to the church what shall be her creed. The authoritative sanction of the magistrate can add nothing, indeed, to the evidence or weight or obligation or authority of the truths to which it is appended, nothing of the kind. Nevertheless, such an act of legal recognition or ratification serves the end, not merely of pledging the nation's honor to the defense of these truths, but of constituting an open, public, national profession of the true religion. A nation, being a moral subject of Messiah, is as much bound to make a profession of religion as any private individual, whatever. Can that be a Christian nation? which makes no profession of the religion of Christ? And how can such a profession be nationally made, but in some such way as we have supposed, namely, by the functionaries of the nation in their official capacity, giving their authoritative sanction to the Church's creed? It is vain to plead here the difficulty civil rulers must feel in arriving at the knowledge of what is the truth. But this difficulty is not greater on their part than on that of the Church or of private individuals, who it is never once supposed should be exempted on this score from the obligation to profess the truth. The volume of Revelation cannot be what its name supposes if its meaning is incapable of being ascertained. And, if ascertainable at all, it is as much so by one as by another. who possesses the means and chooses to make use of them for arriving at a knowledge of its contents. Infallible accuracy, it is true, is incapable of being attained by the magistrate. But here again, he is only on a level with the ecclesiastical functionary and the private Christian, neither of whom can pretend to infallibility any more than the magistrate. nor is perfect accuracy in either case at all necessary, all that is required being that they make a proper use of the means with which they are furnished of arriving at correct views of religion, and that they pronounce according to the best of their judgment. It will be admitted that the civil magistrate may warrantably legislate on subjects connected with the advancement of the arts and the sciences. Does this suppose him to be accurately acquainted with all of these? Or would it be sustained as a sufficient excuse for his not interfering in such matters that he is not an artisan or a philosopher? We apprehend not. And why, we ask, should he be precluded from legislating on behalf of religion on the ground of incompetency to judge in such matters? Has not the magistrate more easy access to the source of information on the subject of religion than to that on the arts and sciences? Besides, the subject being one in which he must be understood to be far more deeply interested than the others. It is quite a mistake to say that the magistrate's giving his countenance to one set of religious opinions of preference to others involves the essence of persecution. This arises from supposing that when the government of a country expresses its approbation of a certain doctrinal creed and form of worship, it must forthwith enjoin on all its subjects conformity in their opinions and practice, and authoritatively require the subjects to believe as the rulers believe. But does this follow? The legislature does not in any sense dictate to the subject what its religion shall be. It only determines what system of religious belief shall be taught with the aid and countenance of the state. No means but what are moral are employed to bring the public mind into conformity with that of the rulers. Every man is left, as far as civil authority or legal coercion is concerned, to choose or reject as he sees fit. The conscience of every individual is left free and unfettered. No one has the slightest ground on which to set up the cry of persecution. The magistrate can, furthermore, interpose the sanction of the law with regard to the time set apart by God to the stated services of religion. We refer here to the institution of the Sabbath. To be sure, and grounds altogether distinct from the sanctions of civil authority, all who have the volume of revelation are bound to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And there can be no proper sanctification of the Lord's day in which there is not respect had to the paramount authority of God. But without the interference of the magistrate, it is impossible that Christians, however well disposed, could generally at least have it in their power to obey in this matter the law of heaven. And it is surely a duty which nations as such owe to Messiah to take order, that there shall be a national observance of the day set apart for celebrating the resurrection from the dead of their prince, even if him who died for our sins was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. To the peaceful, orderly, and profitable enjoyment of the Sabbath by those who are disposed to observe it, it is important that the outward observance be general. There is no way by which this can be secured but by the intervention of civil authority in joining a universal cessation throughout the land of the business and amusements of other days. But for such interference, it must be obvious, such is the ungodliness of many, and such the spirit of competition among worldly men, that every species of occupation and diversion would go forward on the Lord's day with the same eagerness and publicity as on the other days of the week. There might be some who would suspend their ordinary pursuits, and retiring into the sanctuary of their dwellings, there pursue their pious meditations and studies. but the bustle that reigned without would effectually prevent their retirement from partaking of the nature of a holy quiet, while their less scrupulous neighbors would, meanwhile, get the advantage of them in the gains of their worldly calling. There might be, and there would be, numbers who, in spite of the sacrifices they were required to make and the scoffs with which they were sure to be assailed, would still go up to the house of God and seek the advantages and the delights of the solemn assembly. But as they went and as they came, not to speak of the disturbance to which even the acts of public worship should be exposed, how should their pious feelings be hurt and every serious and edifying reflection be dissipated by the sounds and the sights of busy secularity which should everywhere meet their senses? It is vain to tell us that the magistrate cannot enforce the spiritual observance of the Sabbath, and that the Sabbath is not kept as it ought, if kept only outwardly. This is a dribbling evasion of our argument. We know that the magistrate cannot enforce the spiritual observance of the Sabbath, and we do not ask him to do so. We know that secular authority can reach only to what is external. We know that it is the prerogative of God to touch, as it is His only to judge the heart. But does not this hold true in other matters besides the observance of the Sabbath? Matters, too, in which magistratical interference is admitted to be lawful. Might it not as well be pleaded that the magistrate should not make laws for the protection of human life? because he cannot restrain man from cherishing deadly hatred toward his brother man? Or laws for the protection of property because he cannot secure moral honesty? Or laws against perjury because he cannot impart them in a sacred regard for the truth? As that he may not legislate on the subject of the Sabbath because he cannot secure its spiritual observance. Although he cannot do this, we contend that it is still competent for him to interpose the solemn voice of law and the strong arm of power in order to secure to the nation a season of rest from public business and public amusements. And that, too, on distinctly religious grounds. And we ask him to do what he can. Some, who deny to the magistrate all power or whatever in matters of religion nevertheless, admit the propriety of magistratical interference in regard to the Sabbath. But for consistency's sake they are compelled to maintain that the civil enactment of a day of weekly rest proceeds on secular grounds entirely. It is from the common consent which is understood to be given it by the people of the nation, or because of its being necessary for the protection of property, or as a day of mere secular rest. It is on some such grounds as these that the magistrate is to be understood as warranted to interfere. There must be no respect of the authority of God. No respect to the spiritual ends of the sabbatical institution, it must be brought down entirely from the high and sacred ground of religion and placed on the low basis of a worldly motive. None of these inferior grounds, however, will be found sufficient to furnish a platform broad enough, even were it firm enough, for the structure of a national Sabbath. The ground of a common consent will not serve the purpose inasmuch as it is preposterous to expect that Jews and infidels would ever agree to such an arrangement, which should lay them under a restraint to which they did not feel themselves compelled by their consciences to submit, and their submission to which would consequently tend to involve them in the disgrace of hypocrisy. Neither will the protection of property serve the purpose. For might not the Jew in this case complain of being compelled to suspend his lawful employment on the first day of the week, in obedience to the law of the land, after having felt constrained to cease from working on the seventh day, in obedience to the dictates of his conscience? Nay, if the Sabbath is recognized as property, and only to protect it as such, although no man may take another's property, what should hinder a man, as has been acutely argued, from giving his property away? He who chooses to give up his time to his master may not surely be hindered, nor the master hindered from accepting of it. But after all, the low ground of property can only at the best secure a cessation from business, while it leaves the sanctity of the Lord's holy day open to desecration by every form of amusement, provided only that those who contribute to the entertainment of others take care to let it be understood that they are not pursuing a trade. By day, the streets and avenues of the city and the places of public resort may be frequented by crowds trying their skills in athletic exercises, conducting in due form their manly sports, witnessing feats of jugglery, listening amid shouts of obstreperous merriment to some low buffoon, or perhaps feasting on the deadly combat of noble animals brought together for the purpose of gratifying a refined taste by tearing each other to pieces. And the evening of the day of holy rest may be spent in the fascinating dissipations of the concert, the ball, the assembly, the masquerade, or any other form of fashionable extravagance which those who are lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God, may demand. Such are the consequences that must inevitably spring from maintaining that civil authority can be interposed on behalf of the Sabbath on no higher ground than that it is the common property of the inhabitants of a nation. But is it so that the day of the Lord is to be regarded and spoken of as only a species of human property? We absolutely deny, says Professor Willis, with becoming indignation, that the fourth commandment is one concerning property. No, not even properly speaking, is it in part so. Except as connected with the end of serving God, the Sabbath is given to no man as his own. It is not merely time which no man may exact from another. It is time which no man may alienate to himself. It is neither the servants nor the masters except as to be devoted by both to the highest ends of their being. Property. Why, there is another command for that, whether in truth it be money or time that is in question. It will not do. Go where we may to seek our warrant for a law on that principle. Let us not go to that sacred statute whose foremost words proclaim its sublimer objects. Thou shalt remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Such words repel us, as in a sort profaning holy ground is doing a kind of sacrilege when we would, either in the name of an individual or a society, grasp at that part of the commandment which may more immediately serve our worldly interests. and separating it from the rest and calling it our own would avow that with God's part of it we have nothing to do. We know this right would not be pleaded for the individual. But if society can only thus approach the sacred statute, we would say in the name of religion and consistency, let the commandment alone. This is desecrating it. It is bringing it down from its lawfully altitude. It is erasing from it his image and superscription who challenges it as his own. The time of the laborer is his property. And so to this it must come in seeking to acquit a nation of the duty of recognizing the whole divine law as its rule? You have to set up instead as supreme the will of man? Man will not obey such a law long, however well he loves to wield such a power. Man armed, even the ruler armed with such a power, will soon wield it either too little or too much. Public sentiment forming upon such a standard will speedily manifest the opposition of the natural will of man to the will of his Maker. The pious, the timid, will soon find enough to do to hold on in their veneration of religion and its ordinances, unseduced by the example or undismayed by the scorn of others. Farewell to the national Sabbath! Farewell, as to most, to the Sabbath itself, when the law shall avow no higher reasons than these. Farewell the holy quiet of that morn which was wont to be disturbed only by the ringing of the church bell or the tread of the passenger repairing to the house of prayer. First blessing of our country, first friend of the poor, first among our cherished recollections when in a land of strangers. Instead of the peasant and the laborer conducting their well-ordered households to the sanctuary of God, we shall see the parties of pleasure mustering for their sports. Jew pursuing his traffic with his brother Jew, and the company of worshippers crossed in their path by the crowds repairing to the factory, where they offered alternative of working on that day, or another being found to do the work, shall have proved too powerful for the juvenile laborer, and carried it over all the sacredness and authority of a parent's example in precinct. Or shall have tempted even the willing child against his mind, and for the very parent's sake not to forfeit the means of dependence, perhaps for both. Nor is it the pious and the timid alone who would have reason in the issue to mourn the adoption of such a political theory. The irreligious themselves, brought within the mercy of human covetousness, would exclaim ere long, Let us fall into the hands of God, but let us not fall into the hands of men. If again the ground assumed as that on which legislation is to proceed is merely that the Sabbath is a day of secular rest, of cessation from ordinary worldly employment, it will be found that neither will this ground serve. For apart from the authority of God and the religious purposes for which He has instituted the Sabbath, what right has any government on earth to interdict its subjects from labor for any length of time whatever, provided they themselves are willing to work? Admitting it to have such a right, how is it to fix on a seventh part of time, as the due proportion which the season of rest is to bear to that of labor? This difficulty superseded might not the second, the third, or any other day of the week serve the end of the secular rest as perfectly as the first? Nay, if civil legislation is to have no higher end in view than to secure secular rest, the magistrate can have no higher respect for the interests of his moral subjects in this matter than that which he has for beasts of burden. Cattle are capable of sharing in all the advantages of secular rest. We're far from thinking it beneath the dignity of a Christian nation to enact laws in favor of the inferior animals. The great lawgiver himself has not thought it beneath his dignity to do so. But howl-scorn do we hold it to maintain that God's minister for good when using his authority to enforce the observance that the Sabbath is to be regarded as having no higher respect to the interests of his moral subjects than to those of the brutal tribes. We enter our solemn protest against this attempt to degrade man by confounding him with the beasts that perish by placing him on a level with the ox and the ass. It thus appears that if we depart from the high vantage ground of the moral law, if we abandon the authority of God himself, if we lay aside all respect to the religious ends of the divine institution of the Sabbath and descend to the low motives of political expediency, We shall find that the magistrate must be completely in the dark in attempting to legislate at all on such a subject. There is nothing for him, in short, but to take his stand on the high platform of the fourth commandment. Let him have respect in all his enactments on this subject to the best interests of the strangers within his gates. Let him take as his model the lawfully patriotism of the governor of old, who, when his heart was grieved at the complicated Sabbath desecration he beheld, contended with the nobles of Judah and said, What evil thing is this that ye do and profane the Sabbath day? If ye do so again, I will lay hands on you. The interposition of civil authority may be of service in the way of restraining many things injurious to religion. This is confessedly a point of great delicacy, and to define the full extent to which the magistrate is entitled or bound to go in this department must be acknowledged to be a matter of no ordinary difficulty. On the general point, however, there is no difficulty at all, because it is not easy in every case to describe exactly the limits of magistratical interference in the way of restraint. To conclude that the magistrate should not interfere in this way at all is no better reasoning than it would be to maintain that a father should have no manner of discipline in his family because he may feel at a loss in certain cases to determine to what extent he should carry the restraints of parental authority. That restraint of some kind belongs to the civil ruler must be admitted. Romans says he is a revenger to execute wrath on him that doeth evil. Elsewhere in scripture we read, A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them. A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes. Governors are sent for the punishment of evildoers. Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Now that the restraint of evils which affect the interest of religion should come within the province of the magistrate might be inferred from the tendency of religion to benefit civil society, which of course supposes a tendency in your religion to injure it, the scriptures confirm this view. They furnish us with examples of pious kings whose authoritative and judicial suppression of blasphemy, idolatry, and Sabbath profanation are spoken of with manifest commendation, while others, for the neglect of this, are reproved. Take the case of King Asa, for instance. And Asa, in 2 Chronicles, we're reading chapter 14, verses 2 through 5. And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. For he took away the altars of the strange gods in the high places, and broke down the images, and cut down the groves, and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers, and to do the law and the commandment. Also he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places, and the images, and the kingdom was quiet before him. The well-known words of Job show the conviction that was entertained by that individual apart altogether from the judicial institutes of the Jews, that idolatry was a fit object of civil restraint. Quoting Job, If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the God that is above. That's Job chapter 31, verses 26 and 28, through 28. Gross blasphemy, profane swearing, open idolatry, and desecration of the Lord's day are legitimate objects of magistratical interference, not merely as things hurtful to the Commonwealth and offensive to a majority of the members of society, but as injurious to religion and highly displeasing to the Almighty. It is altogether out of the question to suppose that the minister of God, in using his influence to put a stop to such iniquities, is to lay aside all regard to the glory of God and to restrict himself to a low motive of political expediency. The thing is impossible. What is it that renders it politically expedient to restrain such evils, but that they are calculated to bring evil upon the community? And how is it that they bring evil upon the community, but by incurring the displeasure of God, and provoking him to visit them with providential abuse? It is, as offenses against religion, and on religious as well as political grounds, therefore, that the magistrate can alone interpose in cases of this kind. The manner in which the offenses are to be met, and the degree of restraint which it may be necessary to exercise in particular cases, are matters in which great prudence and discretion will be required. Whether it may be proper to inflict civil pains or to interpose only civil disabilities, or perhaps to exercise forbearance, must depend upon the nature and degree of the offenses, and the determination of these points must be left to the judgment of the framers and executors of the Constitution and laws. Wisdom is profitable to direct. It is vain to say in reply to all this that civil interference cannot promote inward reverence of God's name, or the spirituality of His worship, or the internal sanctification of His holy day. We know that it cannot. But it is not these things we are speaking of. We are speaking of overt acts of profanity, impiety, and immorality. And although the authority of the civil magistrate cannot promote the former, it is fully within its power to restrain the latter, and by doing so to confer no mean benefit both on society at large and on the church. Nor will it do to plead in opposition to what we have here advanced, that it interferes with liberty of conscience. The conscience has no inherent absolute rights. All the liberty it possesses is conferred upon it by God. And it is utterly absurd to suppose that any man possesses from God a right to blaspheme his name, to worship an idol, or to profane his sacred day. As well might a man claim a right to murder, to commit adultery, or to steal, if only his conscience might permit him or prompt him to perpetrate such atrocities. Were civil authority interposed for the purpose of enforcing on men the profession of certain principles, or the observance of certain forms of worship, or of compelling them to wait on public ordinances on the Sabbath, There might be some ground for complaint on the score of violating the right of conscience, but the restraint of gross and open acts of irreligion and ungodliness is quite a different thing and can afford no legitimate ground for such an objection. A nation may promote the interests of religion by contributing pecuniary support for the erection of places of worship. For the maintenance of ministers and providing the elements requisite in the administration of at least one of the ordinances, the Church must have emoluments. Now a nation as such not only may but ought to interest itself in providing these supplies. That there was a legal provision for similar purposes under the law will be admitted, but In what it consisted, we wait not now to inquire, neither do we wait to discuss whether a nation ought to interfere in this matter by direct legal assessment or only by giving encouragement to voluntary liberality. All that we insist upon is the obligation of a nation to interfere in some way or another. We observe that there was once an ample legal provision for religion, which was collected according to law, and could not be withheld by anyone without violating the commandment of God, incurring the divine displeasure, and subjecting to civil coercion. See Numbers 18.26 1 Samuel 8.15 2 Chronicles 31.4-5 Nehemiah chapter 10 verse 32 and Nehemiah 13 beginning with verse 10. Now why should not something of the same kind exist in New Testament times? Has God forbidden it? Show us the prohibition. God has, it is true, ordained that they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel and he that is taught in the word should communicate to him that teacheth in all good things. But is the teacher to go forth only among such as are able and willing to pay? Is he not also to go forth among those who have yet no relish for his spiritual communications, and who consequently cannot be expected to contribute for what they have yet to learn to appreciate? How is he to subsist till his labors have been blessed for the conversion of a number sufficient to support him? And supposing the teacher supported, how is the place of worship to be provided? By the voluntary contributions, do you say, of such as have already felt the power of divine truth? Not to say that most of these have enough to do with themselves does not this suppose religion to have been formally introduced and to have taken root to some extent in the land, thus shifting the difficulty only a step farther back, where it meets us again with all its force. It is insisted upon that it is a privilege, as well as a duty, for the people to support religion themselves, and that legal support goes to deprive them of this privilege. Sure we are that the Apostle Paul had no such transcendent view of Christian privilege. For so far from thinking that he had done wrong in preaching the gospel freely to the Corinthians, he boldly vindicates his conduct in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 7 and 9 Have I committed an offense in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely? When I was present with you and wanted, I was chargeable to no man. In all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so I will keep myself. Is it still contended that the scripture rule is that those who receive the benefit of the gospel shall contribute to the support of the gospel? Be it so. And does the nation derive no benefit from the existence of religious institutions in the land? If, after all, taking refuge in a word, it is insisted upon that the support of religion must be voluntary, we ask what should hinder it to be both legal and voluntary too? May not a thing be legal and voluntary at the same time? Everything that is legal is not necessarily compulsory, as everything that is voluntary is not necessarily optional. We do many things voluntarily every day, which is not optional with us as far as law and obligation are concerned, whether we shall do them or not. A legal assessment for the support of religion, it is easy to see, may be rendered compulsory by those who ought to pay it voluntarily and cheerfully refusing to do so. But on whom in this case is the evil of compulsion to be charged? Why dwell, however, on such points as these? To what object, we ask, can the resources of a nation be, not only more harmlessly, but more profitably applied than the maintenance and diffusion of that religion which exalteth a nation, and which is at once the glory and safety of a land? Shall countless sums be lavished on wars and prisons and penitentiaries and all the machinery of legal, judicial, and police establishments for the detection and punishment of crime? And shall not a single farthing be given from the public purse for the support of those religious institutions, the due administration of which is calculated to effect the suppression of crime of every name, and thus not only to advance the comfort of the community, but to save the expenditure of the national funds? Do not the predictions which refer to the diffusion of Christ's kingdom in New Testament times make mention expressly of the pecuniary contributions of persons in authority in their official character? The kings of Tarshish and of the Isles shall bring presents. The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. He shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba. The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. They shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. Surely the isles will wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because He hath glorified thee. In a footnote worthy of reading, the author says in the second edition, the author inserts here the following passage from the Honorable and Reverend Baptist Knowles letter to Lord Melbourne, page 34. A body of faithful Christian ministers, whether in the establishment or out of it, are the means of diffusing religion throughout the land. By thus implanting in men's minds the fear and love of God, they dry up the sources of crime, diminish the cost of jails, of convict ships and penal settlements, sweeten social life, discount men's fraud, condemn oppression, and lay solidly the foundation of all national prosperity. A grant, therefore, for the erection of new churches by increasing the number of such ministers would lessen the labors of police, support the magistracy, uphold the laws, and tend to perpetuate sobriety, good order, industry, wealth, and contentment in the whole nation. If that grant refused, the legislature will consign a dense population to religious ignorance with a full and certain knowledge that by the operation of its own laws, by the force of circumstances which it itself has created, they are prevented from being otherwise instructed. It will then doom them to the influence of gin and Sunday newspapers, of vice and ungodliness, of revolutionary orators and furious demagogues. It will provide policemen to apprehend them, jails to shut them up, ships to transport them, and soldiers to shoot and saber them when necessary. But it will give them no instructors. It will raise the most costly apparatus to punish them if criminal, but will not devote a farthing to render them virtuous. Thus do we see the benefit which a nation as such has in its power to confer on the Church. This may deem a sufficient answer to those who would represent all national interference with religion as calculated only to injure it. To say that it is capable of being abused is only what may be said of the very best things that exist. That it has never been abused we have no design to maintain. But that such interposition of the civil power as we have supposed must necessarily tend to secularize and corrupt the religion of Christ, we cannot admit. Many, we are firmly persuaded, practice deceit upon themselves here by confounding the state and the world with one another. The world of the ungodly, which is the kingdom of Satan, is confounded with civil society, which is the moral ordinance of God. And because all connection of the church with the former cannot but injure her, it is concluded that so must all connection with the latter. But merely to name the distinction between the state and the world is all that is necessary to detect the fallacy. Civil society and the Church of Christ, being both ordinances of God, can have no necessary tendency to corrupt each other, but must be capable of dwelling together in friendly cooperation and of exerting a mutually beneficial influence. And, as for the case of Constantine, so frequently and so vauntingly brought forward in support of the opposite opinion, who does not know that the corruptions which were brought to light at the period in question had been long before an operation? and that the more flagrant of them proceeded from the excesses of that very principle which is contended for in opposition to all legal recognition of religion. But it may be asked, does not such a connection as that contended for tend to confound church and state, to blend and confusion things that are essentially distinct? By no means. Our argument not only is consistent with, but necessarily supposes an essential distinction between the two. But distinction does not necessarily imply hostility. Things may be diverse without being adverse. That civil society and ecclesiastical society differ, we admit. They differ in their immediate origin, objects, and ends, in their form of administration, in the light in which they regard their subjects, and in the character of the effects they respectively produce. But they are not on this account necessarily opposed to each other. On the contrary, there are many things in which they agree. They agree in their original author, God, in the rule and standard of their administration, the word of God, in their ultimate end, the glory of God, and in their subjection to the Messiah. They are therefore capable of existing in close combination without being confounded. The church and the state were always distinct. Yet we know that once they existed together in perfect harmony without confusion, so that the objection in question is at variance as much with fact as with the very nature of the respective societies themselves. In a footnote, it is not true, though it has been often recklessly affirmed by the opponents of establishment, that under the former economy the church and the state were blended together. A most obvious distinction was marked between them. The church was not the nation, nor was the nation the church. Each had distinct rulers, courts, subjects, penalties, and duration. Moses and his successors were the rulers in the state, Aaron and his successors rulers in the church. The church had her courts of the synagogue and ecclesiastical Sanhedrin, the state those of the gate and the civil Sanhedrin. The ceremonial laws were those of the church, the judicial those of the state. Civil and religious privileges were not necessarily extended to the same persons. Proselytes might be members of the church, without participating in the privileges of the state. Whilst, on the other hand, scandalous offenders against the ceremonial and the moral law, permitted to enjoy civil rights, were nevertheless debarred from the fellowship of the church. A distinction was marked, too, in respect of penalties. Those of the church were purely ecclesiastical, as casting out of the synagogue. Those of the state extended to fine and even to death. In short, the distinction between a Jewish church and state is obviously marked in their respective duration. The latter ended when it became a province of Rome. The former subsisted and retained its ecclesiastical character down to the destruction of the Temple and the scattering abroad of the Jewish people among all nations." That's a quotation from Macrae's Defense of Civil Establishments, page 53. Returning to Symington. Fifthly, to say that the Church and the State, that national society and true religion, are capable of existing together in harmonious cooperation and of producing a mutually advantageous effect on each other is, however, not saying all that may be said on this subject. We may go farther and affirm that injurious consequences of the most frightful kind would spring from insisting on their being entirely separated. The amount of pernicious consequences that should in this way ensue it is impossible fully to depict. Society must, of course, in this case, forego all the advantages which, as we before observed, may be derived to it from religion, and religion all the advantages which may be derived to it from the countenance, encouragement, and support of the civil power. Not only must religion struggle unbefriended and unaided in its benevolent attempts to pervade the great mass of society with its principles and to diffuse its light among the poor and the illiterate, but civil society must become essentially and avowedly infidel. If the nation must have nothing to do with religion, then in the constitution of the country there can be no acknowledgment of God, no recognition of the Bible. Electors may in this case feel themselves at full liberty in the choice of their rulers to throw aside all respect for religion and allow themselves to be wholly swayed by the all-powerful influence of party politics. The rulers even must be set free from the trammels of an oath, which is a religious matter, and exempted from all obligation to recognize God in their official enactments. Every allusion to divine providence may be justly characterized as cant and humbug. There must be no prayers in the National Assemblies. There must be no appeal to the divine law in the Senate House. The judge on the bench must be precluded from referring the unhappy culprit whom he condemns to the solemnities of a judgment to come, or even recommending him to betake to the blood of atonement for the salvation of his soul. The Sabbath of the Lord may be employed with impunity in every kind of business and sport. And the nation, although as we have seen a moral subject of Messiah, must be debarred from ever expressing its allegiance to its King. Continued on tape number 8. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. You are welcome to make copies and give them to those in need. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. It is likely that the sermon or book that you just listened to is also available on cassette or video, or as a printed book or booklet. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos, at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com We can also be reached by email at swrb.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N, Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Calvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart, from his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since he condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.