A SERMON TO THE CLERGY.

MATTHEW, XV., 19.-"But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

MY REVEREND BRETHREN :

In the observations, which this text suggests to me, and which I deem it my duty to set forth, and to address especially and chiefly to you, it is my intention to take for my guide the Gospel only, and in general only the express words of Christ himself. My design is to call attention to some come mands of His, from the observance of which, I think, not the world only, but even the Church has very widely departed; and this departure has been defended by appeals to authorities, which however great, must be admitted on all hands to be inferior to His. Heaven and earth may pass away, but not His words; and not only they shall not pass, but they may not be explained away; not made to take a new meaning, or lose the old by straining or perversion, corroborated by unsatisfactory citations of the acts or epistles of those who were sent forth to preach, and not to change the Gospel. Whoever studies the Scriptures with faith, must know that collision between their parts is impossible; and such a student will accept the Gospel as he finds it, and read the rest by its light. If, therefore, I sustain what I am about to say, by reference to the express words of the Gospel, then the only question that can be raised against me will be, whether I understand those words aright. I shall endeavor to quote none that can be misunderstood by any human being; and if any one of you should take the pains to study, and should feel a wish to confute my argument, let me beg him to meet me on this ground of Gospel, and say first of all, whether I quote rightly, and whether I understand what I quote. If he proves that I do not, I will hear him diligently, and thank him for correcting me; but if he cannot do this upon the Gospel itself, let him not overrule the Gospel by texts taken from other parts of Scripture. Let him not leave my position uncontroverted, and be content to entrench himself in another, which may be hostile to it. Let him not attempt to divide the house of many mansions, into two or more sectarian fortresses; it cannot be divided against itself. Its doctrine is not a Babel of many languages; it is a plain and simple and single Gospel, which he who runs may read; which the way-faring man need not err in, though a fool. Ingenious commentaries and forced interpretations are not wanted, then, even for fools; they are superfluous where they add nothing to the plain sense of Scripture; and if they do add anything, then they add also perdition to their inventors. I have that to say to you that is apposite to much that it is your habit and your interest to teach; I have listened patiently, but without conviction, through more years than the average of you, to your teachings—not here a little and there a little; but here and there oftentimes a great deal; but in vain. In the dim, half-light of the early dispensation such preaching ordained-line upon line, and precept upon precept; but the full truth was spoken briefly, and briefly enforced. He that hath ears to hear let him hear. Preaching the Gospel is one thing; but making sermons about the Gospel, wresting it from its sense, and endeavoring to distil

was

out of it authority for the traditions and institutions of men, is quite another. Preaching the Gospel to unbelievers was ordained, but to believers never. Preaching to those who believe is, in general, nothing but an enforcement by the preacher of his own particular views, or of his favorite traditions, varied with occasional moral lectures, which, so far as talking can do men good, are, doubtless, often useful. But modern preaching, even when it does good, is not the preaching of the Gospel. ITs preachers were active; but those of our days, (missionaries excepted,) are passive. The modern preacher remains in his pulpit, and is sought there by those who, from an impulse already received, gather to hear something, perhaps, less pure and true-certainly not more so, than the Scriptures they have in their closets. He is like a man who prepares a feast, and the expected guests all come, and all pay for their entertainment-and the blind and the lame, the destitute and the supporters, if such there be upon the highways, remain there; for there is no one to compel them to come in. The physician dispenses his ministrations to those who are already whole in faith, whatever they may be in practice; he keeps himself, and all whom he can influence, apart from that world which his mission should be to convert; he snuns the gatherings together of men, for any but avowedly religious purposes, and makes himself, in effect, like an idle reaper, remaining in the barn with the gathered harvest, and not like a laborer, in the field. The Apostles went forth in search of audience; they seized often in congregations of the devils gathering, and turned them to the Lord, with the words that were given them to say. They built no churches; they never inculcated the building them. The idea of a church, as a building, is not to be found in the New Testament. The Church, then, always signifies the community of those who believe in Christ, and on them union under Him is enjoined, not sectarianism, even though it should array itself under Paul and Apollos. No sects were formed under such names; it was reserved for fools, more daring than Apostles, to give their names in after ages to divisions of the fold. The servants of the Master blessed the whole Christian field; they knew there might and must be tares among the wheat; but they believed His word, that both should grow together until the harvest. We are fallen upon times of nicer discrimination, when the professing Christian gathers up the hem of his garment from the contact of the Christian who professes nothing; when portions of the grain are labeled for the sheaves before the reaping, and tares marked out for the fire by well-meaning, and oftentimes sincere, but vain, presumptuous and blasphemous men. Judge not; do you remember the words? They should be written in the eyes of every humble man who believes and is baptized, to meet those of the proud and theologically learned enforcer of human traditions, whose own conscience should suggest to him the deep and fearful continuation; that ye be not judged.

For there is one fold and one shepherd only; and he who confesses Christ before men hath entered into that fold, and it were a fearful thing to attempt to thrust him out of it. He who separates himself from heathenism and infidelity, who utters, "before men" the decisive words, "I believe," is no further, by men, on that matter, to be judged or questioned. How he believes, let God judge, who sees his heart; but man can only know the tree by its fruits; and, consequently, in matters not practical, in questions of pure doctrine, man blasphemes if he judges his

neighbor at all. When Christ was asked by the rich young man what was needful to salvation, he enumerated in his reply those duties only which man owes to his fellow-man. He did not cite the first and second command against idolatry; nor the third, against irreverence; nor the fourth, to observe the Sabbath; but he enjoined, as sufficient, a strict observance of all the others, which treat of the duties of man to man. Perhaps the first, second, and third commandments may be considered as implied in the prefatory remark, that there is none good but God; but the fourth is alogether omitted. Without this, then, it seems from the close of the conversation, a man might be perfect; it was a ceremonial observance a part of the ceremonial law; and not one of those moral duties on which salvation especially depends. It is your custom to enu merate the observance of Sunday, according to your traditions, among moral duties, thus making the word of God of none effect. It is your custom to give this duty, (if it be one,) omitted by Christ in a list of duties necessary to salvation, and perfection, perhaps a place more prominent, if not higher, than most of those He includes. It is your custom to make it a sort of test and criterion-and to judge, and even to condemn men by it; to represent, what you call Sabbath-breaking, as the mother of all vices-and, by implication, the worst of all vices; and many of you style every man a Sabbath-breaker, who does not leave his house and his closet on a Sunday to come and sit under your ministrations. How earnest you are upon this point, every congregation can bear witness; how unanimous you are, it is wonderful to observe, when we reflect that you thus agree in seeing in the Gospel what is not, and never was there. Christ, who came to save sinners, and to teach them what was necessary to salvation, taught them everything but this. He who made language, formed the ear and the heart, gave forth, in words of divine authority, a guide to the perfect way forever, and omitted nothing. What He has not said, preach, if you please, as your own tradition; but pause, and tremble, and turn pale, when you find yourselves preaching it for doctrine. For, even if the Sabbath had been continued ; if it had been saved from the wreck of the ceremonial law, and imposed on Christendom forever, still tradition would be found to have much to answer for. The command given out from fire on Sinai, was to keep the seventh day holy. We know that day was Saturday; and we have changed it by our tradition. The word of God, that one word, "seventh," is become of no effect; we keep the first day, presuming, though He gave reasons for sanctifying the seventh, that His reasons were as nought, and might be set at nought or superseded. We have profaned His own day, confessedly, for centuries; and we offer Him another with the sanction of tradition, with a daring indifference to which the custom of centuries, when we think on it, will hardly reconcile us. One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. For themselves men may judge, but not for God; if they set apart a day for Him, and by His command, they must set apart that day which He has chosen. But if they make a Sabbath for man, for the use and benefit of man, and by human authority, then let the commandment not be preached for doctrine; for this is to worship God in vain.

No man who wishes well to the human race-who knows what their toils and sufferings are, their strength and weakness, and what medicines are healing for their souls-will deny or doubt the blessed efficacy of Sab

baths. The day of rest, the day of release from the heavy harness of the week, the day when the grass may grow in the worn paths, and the bowed head looked upwards and see the blue sky and think of Heaven; it is a blessing beyond price; it is a hint received from Heaven by good men on earth; a golden privilege, but not an iron law. Men retire from their ploughs and their anvils, their ships and their merchandise, to live an uninterrupted day in the enjoyment of domestic affections. They cultivate those intimacies which, in these days of division of labor, are so much severed by the duties of the week; the parent and child learn to know each other, and in kindly, cheerful, and unreserved intercourse, the relish of a dinner of herbs where love is, may make itself known to the humblest mortal. And though God may not be talked of in formal words, yet, in the cultivation of human charities He may be worshipped aright; suffusing eyes may thank Him without hymns, and a pure example may serve Him without sermons. But for those who are otherwise inclined, the church is open. We are not to neglect assembling ourselves together, and this is one mode of doing so, which gratifies, edifies, and benefits many. In this manner, doubtless, as in many others, he that observeth the day observeth it unto the Lord; but let him not molest, on account of Sabbaths, either those who do not observe it, or those who observe it differently. To this sin of molestation, Reverend Brethren, you, of all other mortals, are most prone, as by your calling and situations you are most exposed. Your vanity is strongly enlisted on the side of attendance at church; your interests are also bound up in your success and popularity, and the fullness of your audiences; and you have need to think deeply, to analyze your motives carefully, and to be scrupulously cautious not to say more than is given you to say on a subject where these temptations surround you. Say nothing for which you cannot quote instantly your clear warrant from Scripture; not in texts wrested from their meaning, not in collections from different portions of Scripture, of fragments which must be curiously jointed together and argued on, to sustain a meaning; but in direct, positive injunction, such as the wayfaring mau, wise or foolish, may instantly apprehend. Turn not God's worship into vanity, by urging as his commandment the commandments of men, though they may be good. Remember that that thing is forbidden; remember it first, last, and always; for the besetting sin of your order is that presumption which grows upon the habit of teaching. That presumption has placed the traditions of the Church on a level with the commands of God, and has taught and does teach both together for doctrine. Examples, perhaps piously set by good men at first in practice, then recommended for imitation, then urged and enforced as duties, have come at last to be preached as solemn obligations, as parts of God's revelation; and if we cannot find them there, we must disbelieve our eyes and senses, and believe on the assertion of the clergy, that there they are. Several instances of this might be cited, but none stronger, perhaps, than this one I have chosen, of the institution of the Christian Sabbath. We know that the Jewish Sabbath was for the Jews, and for them only. We know that it was expressly declared to be a sign between Jehovah and the children of Israel forever; and we know that no hint in the New Testament, much less any express command of the Gospel, enforces its observance upon Christians. We have seen that Christ omitted it among things necessary to salvation and to perfection, and we know that, besides all these consi

derations, Sunday is not that Sabbath, and has not, by any authority but that of tradition, been substituted for it. This tradition revives what Christ had set aside, and declares that the observance of Sabbaths is indispensable to salvation, though He declared it was not, by his omission to state it among the things that were. It pretends to revive the Sabbath ordained by Jehovah; it avails itself of all the commands of the Old Testament to observe that day; it cheats the ear and understanding of its hearers, by imposing its own day upon them for that one; but it passes over with absolute indifference God's reasons for sanctifying the seventh. He esteemed one day above another, but man annuls his choice, and for this purpose declares every day to be alike. Man desecrates the seventh day, pretending still to believe that God has sanctified it, and he consecrates the first instead, by the authority of his tradition. He denounces those who do not receive this tradition as tares in the Christian field; he marks them out to the odium of men, and he threatens them with the vengeance of God. The weak, the ignorant, and the inert, among his hearers, all those who cannot, and those who will not search the Scriptures for themselves, believe and tremble; while others, who know that this doctrine is of men, judge the preacher as the tree is to be judged, by his fruits, and a great portion of his influence is destroyed. For if he can thus preach one doctrine without warrant, behold, already he worships God in vain, and how can we believe his report on other points? Alas, my brethren, this question, asked easily and often, growe daily more difficult to answer. Your order, by neglecting the commands and the example of the Founder of Christianity, have brought much evil upon themselves and upon their flocks; have sown the seeds of many doubts, and given occasion to the irreverent for many mockeries. You are behind the age, you who ought to be before it. You are ignorant of its tendencies, you who ought to lead, or at least to modify and guide them. You herd together, and with those who flatter you, instead of going out like HIM into the highways to associate freely with publicans and sinners. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, but you keep an affected state, as if you denied yourselves the pleasures of the world. He came to the marriage feast and contributed to its hilarity; He made himself all things to all men, and frowned not, as you pretend to do, upon their social amusements, nor made his yoke heavy, as you often make yours, by unnecessary prohibitions. How can you be all things to all men, which is one method of saving some, if you do not know mankind? And how can you know them if you only meet them in formal assemblages for set purposes, which are performed like an exercise, and are so, and are called so. Your lives are a prolonged infancy-all sorts of guardianship are put over your worldly interests and daily walks, that no experience may make you correct your school-boy notions of the world, You take up too early in life a garb and a profession which shuts that experience out; you assume a certain set of opinions, and a solemn obligation never to change or abandon them, at an age, in general, when no man's opinions can be matare; and you employ yourselves thenceforward not in seeking after truth, but in proving that you possess it already, and in teaching that all your dogmas and commandments, and all that you believe ought to be in Scripture, may in fact be found there by all who search aright. No one contradicts you, and many flatter you, and you flatter yourselves and each other, and while you are thus employed apart,