Christianity the only true liberty. restricted, perhaps, is his ruling passion; and his last earthly consolation is to bequeath the passion, with its object to those, who are to fill that place on the earth, which he must make empty. Now, my brethren, consider truly. Are not all persons of any character here described in á pitiable state of servitude? Is not their reason, the endowment which places man above other animals, in subjection to the animal principle? Do they, or can they, apply the facul ties of the understanding, or even the physical. powers of the body, to those purposes, for which the Almighty gave them?the purposes, which revelation commands, and reason itself directs?the purposes, which their own consciences cannot but approve? If they do not, say not they are free. Do they not acknowledge that their intellectual is the far superior part of their nature, given to preside over the whole; to temper and controul their affections, and direct their active powers? And can that being be free, whose nobler and celestial part is restrained from performing its proper func tions, through subservience to the earthy and ignoble? c 2 Christianity the only true liberty. ignoble? If you converse with them, indeed, upon their condition; they may tell you they are free; they may be as indignant as the Jews were, at being accounted slaves. They may say, they do as they please, they speak as they please, they think as they please. Is it their pleasure, then, always to subserve a vicious passion, which must in the end deprive them of all pleasure? If they be free, how is it that they so constantly act and think in subjection to sin, which, their reason tells them, cannot make them happy?-which; their religion assures them, will be everlasting ruin? Why do they not walk, as the children of light, exhibiting the character of rational and free agents in the ways of righteousness and salvation? Can any free and sane person walk forward with his eyes open to an eternity of suffering before him? No-They are in bondage more than the ass that is driven, or the African that toils under a task-master. Sin is their taskmaster, and they must do his work; unless they will acknowledge their subjection, fearless of offending their tyrant; and reckless of any pain that he can inflict seek their emanci Christianity the only true liberty. pation in Him, who is ever ready to give rest to the weary and heavy laden? But, let us direct our attention awhile to the chiefs and Lords of the earth, and note whether they be less in a state of mental servitude than the multitudes that are under their command. From the earliest records we learn that no degree of power, no extent of dominion can quiet the spirit of military and regal ambition. Here we contemplate the dark and terrible prospects of the man, who, standing on the summit of human greatness, has exhibited in the dominion of passion over reason, the destructive ferocity of the tiger, with the malignant subtilty of the serpent. In such a character what an unhappy instance do we behold of the subjugation of reason?—of the triumph of the evil principle in the human mind? Conquest pointed his way, and he appeared as clothed in the wrath of omnipotence, bearing on the ensigns of war both the scourge and document to princes and people. Yet, in all his fortunes and achievements we may trace the haughty, unconscious slave of guilty desires, c3 Christianity the only true liberty. desires, which oppress the mind, that engenders or feeds them, with despotism more awful and lamentable than that suffered by the nations destined to his tyranny. Let us direct our attention for one moment to the great usurper, whose success in our times has afflicted Europe, and astonished the world. For righteous, although unknown purposes he was permitted to triumph in yielding to the evil impulse. But the supreme arbiter of kings in his good season, turned the desolation upon the host of the destroyer, and smote to the ground both the horse and its rider. At his first reverse, like the presumptuous Assyrian of old, he fled back by the way that he came, terrified and discomfitted, not indeed by the sword of the enemy, but by the invisible hand of an interposing providence. After exemplifying a second time the uncertainty of earthly greatness, he has at length fallen, we may hope to rise no more, to a state of degradation and humility where his ambitious spirit is impotent and harmless. Adversity, *Preached in 1818. Christianity the only true liberty. Adversity, as the minister of the Almighty, correcting and humanizing the heart, teaches us to know ourselves. Although a severe mistress, she is an excellent nurse of that liberty, which is truly valuable to man, in reference to both his present and future existence. Taking off the veil that success and pleasure cast upon the mental eye, she enables it to behold the transient glories of mortality in the clear light of truth. Dissipating the delusion, by which the imagination is captivated, or the reason subdued, she often raises us from the chains of passion to the freedom and dignity of moral agents. How far this happy result may be exemplified in the late oppressor of the continent:. whether adverse fortune will teach him wisdom, and collect the better energies of his mind to break the bonds of ambition; or more confound his moral judgment of his own actions, and more enslave his reason? whether he has been checked in mercy to suffering Europe to deliver it from war and oppression; or, in the progress of designs inscrutable to human intelligence, to harden the oppressor by vindictive c 4 |