Imatges de pàgina
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Chap. iii. 21. with me in MY Chap. v. 12.

ceive power and

"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit THRONE," &c.

"WORTHY is the Lamb, that was slain, to restrength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." Chap. vii. 17. "The Lamb who is in the MIDST OF THE

THRONE."

Chap. xvii. 14.

(Κύριος κυρίων καὶ of lords."

"The Lamb shall overcome them, for He is βασιλεὺς βασιλέων King of kings and Lord

Chap. xix. 13-16. "He, whose name is called (ó hópos rov Oco) the Word of God, and whom the armies in heaven followed; is afterward called King of kings and Lord of lords." Chap xxii. 3. "The throne of God and the Lamb, shall be in it; and hisservants shall serve him." Here God and the Lamb are represented as holding the same throne, and his, refers equally to the Father and the Son.

Chap. xxii. 12, 13. "Behold I come quickly. And my reward is with me, to give to every man as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the First and the Last."

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Every humble disciple, therefore, instead of accounting Jesus a created being, may say, "In the Lord, have I righteousness and strength." My Saviour is THE ROOT and THE OFFSPRING of David;" THE HEAD of all principality and pow er;" THE "PRINCE of the kings of the earth;" "HEAD over all things to the Church;" and nothing can wrest me out of his hands! "Even so, come, LORD JESUS!"

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE..

Toleration, like many other virtues is much talked about, and little practised; and perhaps least practiced, by those whose professions are the loudest. It is no uncommon thing at the present day to hear a man rail against railing. In communicating a few ideas upon the subject of intolerance, I will endeavor to avoid an intolerant spirit, though I may not succeed better than some of my neighbors have done.

1. The religious community is divided into various denominations, all assuming the name of Christians, and professing conscientious zeal for the promotion of their Christian views. Now it often happens that husband and wife are divided in religious sentiments. They cannot conscientiously worship together. So far as religious freedom is concerned, it is no matter which is right or which is wrong. If the wife be not permitted to worship God as her conscience demands, her liberty of conscience is destroyed. She is persecuted. It is intolerance, and that the most inexcusable and oppressive. What is meant by religious liberty; mere

ly that men may worship God as their consciences dictate, and that women have no right of conscience? It is a Mohammedan doctrine that women have no souls, and from the habits of some husbands, it might be inferred that it is a Christian doctrine also. It is to be feared, that in the free and professedly tolerant state of Massachusetts, the cry of religious oppression has ascended from many a persecuted wife to the ear of God. If a man compel his wife to attend a form of worship in which she cannot unite; or if he attempt to harrass and obstruct her in that form of worship which she deems proper, he is exercising an intolerance as relentless, as that which erected the Spanish Inquisition, and kindled the fires of Smithfield. Could we read the domestic history of religion, for the last twenty years, in this state, it is to be feared that there would be developements, which would show that the persecuting spirit of Papacy is not dead. There is many a lady in our state, now groaning under religious bondage. She has no recognized religious rights. She is the bond-slave of her husband and is compelled in servile subjection to follow him to the temple he frequents, be it ever so obnoxious to her own conscience, and repugnant to her own feelings. Can that mind be liberalized by learning; can that heart be subdued by piety, which under all the light of the present day, can perpetrate such outrages against the religious liberty of a fellow immortal? Here is the genuine spirit of religious intolerance, in its most hateful and oppressive form. The man who will not tolerate religious liberty in his family, wants but the power to crush the spirit of free enquiry in the state. He who will make the companion of his life the miserable victim of religious persecution, would surely feel less reluctance, to wield this oppressive power over the consciences of others. Toleration, like charity, should begin at home. He who is the tyrant of his family, would be a tyrant in the senate chamber, or on the throne. We may talk loudly of free enquiry, and religious liberty; and flatter ourselves that our own minds have burst the shackles of superstition, but the proof lies in the action, not in the profession. Hume, who certainly was a shrewd observer of human nature, remarks that those sects who boast the most of toleration, generally have the least of it. And any man who denies his wife that religious liberty he would himself enjoy, is as un-Christian in his conduct, as he is illiberal, ungentlemanly and brutal.

2. There is such a thing as parental intolerance. He who will persecute his wife will persecute his child. The relation between parent and child is such, that it is the parent's duty for many years, to ensure the strict obedience of the child. He is to instruct his child in religion, and is to enforce, if necessary, his attendance upon all those means of instruction, which the parent thinks proper. The manners and the morals of the child are committed to the parent's care, until the child shall be capable of judging for itself. But when that child shall have attained such a degree of

maturity, as to be capable of forming a correct judgment;—when that child adopts its religious belief, sensible of its accountability to God, then further restraint is persecution. It is precisely the same spirit which led to the "act of uniformity" and the "test act," and all the outrages of the "court of High commission." Is it not possible that in the enlightened state of Massachusetts, some parents may be found, who are doing violence to their children's consciences-who are depriving them of their religious freedom? Here is opportunity for the exercise of intolerance, which the laws of the state cannot reach. Each family is in itself an independant empire, of which, the Father is the law-giver and the monarch. He has power to oppress his wife. He has power to oppress his children. And the arm of the state cannot be thrust in. And the cry of oppression may not come out. The tear may flow in secret, and the prayer be unheard but by God. Yes! in the elegant parlors of the opulent of our own land, there may be the unhappy victims of an intolerance, as relentless in its spirit, as that which forces a shriek of agony from the sufferer in the dungeons of Goa. That father deserves not the name of a man, who will tyrannize over the free spirit of his child. He can lay no claim to be the friend of civil or religious liberty, who is the spiritual tyrant of his family-who resolves that his mind and his religion shall be the mind and the religion of one and all-who sits at his own fire-side in the Papal chair, and there rules with the intolerant spirit of the court of Rome. He who truly loves religious liberty, will love to feel that his family is free, and he never will thunder parental anathemas against the son or the daughter, who exercises this inalienable right of every immortal being.

3. The history of intolerance conclusively shows us, that no religious sect, can be safely trusted with exclusive power. And here there is occasion for the guardians of our civil and religious liberties, to keep ever a wakeful and a vigilant eye. If our officers of state; if our law-givers and judges, are selected from any one denomination, then is that denomination elevated to state partiality, and the bribe of civil office, is held out as the lure to conversion. To make any party of religionists the subjects of state favoritism, is intolerance to all the rest. Suppose an opposing denomination wishes to have a society incorporated, or to obtain a charter for a Theological or Literary Institution, its right may be denied, and its petition thrown back with scorn. The government degenerates into a sectarian cabal. And suppose the denomination, which has thus grasped the power of the state, should wish to pervert the literary institution of the state, into the nursery of its own sentiments-Nay, more!-suppose it should have the hardihood to contemplate uniting a theological school of its own, with this Institution of the state, and thus to take the money of the people to educate sectarian preachers of its own faith, who is then to resist this high handed religious usurpation?

Let the offices of government be placed in the hands of any one religious denomination, and this may be done, and before the people dream of their danger all the power of the state be arrayed in support of an established religion. It would be possible. for such a state of things to become so confirmed, that the judges of our courts should unblushingly become religious partizans, furiously declaiming in popular assemblies, and enlisting their passions and their prejudices, in subjects which are daily coming before them for sober judgment, and which deeply affect the property and the happiness of their fellow citizens. Other churches may thus be deprived of their rights; other Christians be thus the subjects of persecution, and the sceptre of intolerance be swayed over the whole length and breadth of the land. There is no religious denomination which can be exclusively trusted with the civil power. The friends of civil and religious liberty will do well to look more earnestly at this. Usurpation is generally gradual and silent and secret in its advances. The balance of power should with care be preserved. Then will all classes be protected, and all interests receive proportionate attention.

The true spirit of toleration appears to me to be this: In all our intercourse with our fellow men, we must remember that they have rights of conscience as well as ourselves, and those rights must ever be respected. Let us not, however, deceive ourselves by thinking that indifference is liberality or candor; on the contrary it is guilt and shame. Toleration does not demand of you the belief that all the errorists with which the earth is filled, are right. It commands you to treat them with kindness, and not deprive them of their just dues. If you have not confidence in your own professed opinions, it is hypocrisy. If you believe that certain feelings and actions are essential to prepare men to meet God in judgment, it is a crime of the deepest dye, not to make vigorous exertions to warn men of their danger, and to induce them thus to think and act. Untiring efforts and ceaseless prayers should be given for the redemption of man's immortal spirit. But this should be done in that spirit of humility and meekness and benevolence, which our blessed Saviour both taught and exemplified. A

REMARKS ON THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE FRIENDS AND ENEMIES OF COLONIZATION,

It not unfrequently happens, in those controversies which unfortunately often divide even god and wise men into opposite and angry parties, that in the zeal of each to convince or confound the other, the great principles which lie at the bottom of the whole question in dispute, are utterly lost sight of. This is a fact, which,

it would seem, must have been observed by every one, who has candidly reflected on the controversy between Colonizationists and anti-Colonizationists—if we must use these formidable words -a controversy that has now become so rife and keen in almost every part of New England. Much is said on both sides, indeed, about justice and common sense, actual principles and inalienable rights; and much, no doubt, that is really worthy of attention; but we must be allowed to say, that to us the views generally presented of this whole subject, appear both superficial and confused. There has been a mingling together of questions, and a misapplication of principles acknowledged by all, to be just and important, by which the disputants have too frequently darkened counsel with words-we will not say-without knowledge; but, at least, without a definite apprehension of the main points in the controversy.

It is admitted on all sides, that Slavery is a deplorable evil, and that it is immeasurably important the evil should be removed as speedily as possible. Now the great question which swallows up all others connected with the subject, is, How shall this be effected? And in what manner is this question met by the enemies of Colonization? All men, they affirm, are by nature equally free and independent; and hence no man has a right to hold his fellow in bondage; consequently, the slave-holder is guilty of vio lating the principles of natural justice; and, therefore, the readiest, and indeed the only way of bringing him to his senses, and to wash his hands of the guilt, is to denounce him as a felon, and cry out against the schemes of the Colonization Society. The consistency of the several members of this logical catena, will undoubtedly, be as apparent to our readers as ourselves. In these propositions, however, with the exception of the last-for we choose to call them propositions, rather than terms of a proposition-few even of the warmest friends of Colonization would find much to which they would very strenuously object. That all men are by nature equally entitled to freedom, and that no man can justly usurp authority over another, so as to deprive him of his freedom, excepting extraordinary cases, we take to be unquestionable truths. And these are the principles which are claimed as lying at the foundation of the entire fabric of self-styled antiSlavery. Very good principles, it is true, in the abstract. But what is their application? Do they prove that the evil of slavery can be removed by no other means than denunciation and abuse? To this question they have no relevancy whatever. All they demonstrate is, the guilt of the slave-holder.

But let us look, for a few moments, at this last point, the guilt of the slave-holder. Possibly we may discover some principles universally acknowledged and acted on, which, when set off against those on which that guilt is predicated, may serve, in some degree, to limit their application, and to place the slave-holder in a some

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