THE

Conducted by

B. B. EDWARDS.

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY PERKINS, MARVIN.

1837.

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This document was scanned from an original copy of the American Education Society’s Quarterly Register, which served as a digest of the diverse facets in American Education and its outflowing effects worldwide. The society was comprised of leading Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Princeton Alumni, and served to promote the work both in the U.S. and abroad for educating the people in the Reformation’s worldview of the Bible serving as the only infallible rule of life, which, of course, was the purpose for which these schools were founded.

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[1837] IMPORTANCE OF EMINENT PERSONAL PIETY. 150

THE importance of eminent personal piety might be shown in many ways. It is beneficial to health, and the general condition of the human body. It strengthens and enlarges the human mind. A good understanding have all they who do his commandments." it promotes benevolence of feeling and purity of manners. It greatly increases individual happiness in life arid in death. Those who are eminently pious, God guides by his counsel, and opens for them an abundant entrance into heaven. We wish, however, in this place, to show the importance of eminent piety, upon society at large, or upon the state of the country in which we live. We cannot be good without doing good. We cannot he decidedly pious, without inducing others to become so. In other words, a pure church is one of the greatest blessings to a country. Pious men are the salt of the earth, and the light of the world.

1. In the first place, eminent piety is important in its influence on a small community, like that of a town. A country or a large community is divided for the sake of convenience into towns. A town is a republic on a small scale. The great difficulty in managing the affairs of a town, arises from the selfishness of some of the inhabitants. They will not relinquish any personal advantage for the good of their neighbors. Hence proceed ill-will, contention, lawsuits, settled enmity. But eminent piety would be a corrective of all this. It enlarges and liberalizes the mind, teaches a man to love his neighbor as himself, arid to regard all men as his neighbors. It makes him kind and condescending. In other words, it is constantly diminishing his selfishness.

The support which is rendered to schools, and other important objects, the relations of one town with another, and the general character and influence of a town, all are greatly dependent on the state of religion in that town. Nothing will be a substitute for eminent piety. Wealth, respectability of connections, ancestors, schools, morality, are no safeguards without piety. This hallows and blesses all the rest. It sends its pure influence every where. Righteousness exalts a town as well as a nation; and a low state of religion is a reproach to any town as well as to any nation. It is well that the organization of a church is entirely distinct from that of a town, and the condition of membership in one, distinct from that of citizenship in the other. Nevertheless, their interests are the same. A large and spiritual church is the greatest blessing to a town. A well-managed, educated, moral, religious town, is an unspeakable benefit to a church. Their influence is mutual and strong, and ought to be, and can be decidedly salutary.

In the second place, the need of eminent piety grows out of the great extent of territory embraced in this country, and tire consequent danger of division and disunion. Our country stretches literally from sea to sea, and includes several varieties of climate. Products of soil arid articles of commerce are widely diverse; different ancestry, associations, local interests, neighbors, arid many other causes arid occasions of variance and ill-will. Notwithstanding, there is no indispensable necessity of civil war, or of secret enmity. Real religion, prevailing through the whole country, would be a sufficient safeguard. it would nourish kind arid

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liberal feelings, large and comprehensive views. The man, who comes under its influence, would break away from the shackles of ancestry, of aristocracy, of territorial division, and of every other thing which hinders the exercise of the most generous patriotism. There are no fetters in the gospel but those of love; no bounds but the outermost limits oh human existence. Wherever there is a being made in the image of God, there is our brother and sister and mother. The prevalence of such a spirit would cause our public men in all parts of the country, to unite on those points in politics and political economy, which arc known and settled. There are such points. The government has not gone on for forty or fifty years at random. There are fixed starting points, there are guiding principles. The word of God contains such principles. The book of Proverbs is full of them. The wisest rulers in every age have perceived them, and have tried to bring them into operation, but their efforts have been counteracted and opposed by the ignorance, caprice, passion, or malice of those with whom they were called to co-operate. The prevalence of such a spirit, would cause our public men to discover and arrange those principles or points, which are now unknown or unsettled. They would give themselves to patient attention and investigation. Their object in writing and in discussion, would be to elicit the truth. The great object of meeting

in congress or in a State legislature, would be to consider those topics harmoniously, which are not yet determined, but which are necessary for the adjustment of the interests of the whole country. It would lead men from all parts of the land, to dwell on the things in which they are agreed, rather than on those on which they differ. They would riot aggravate the misfortunes or disadvantages of the less favored parts of the country. They would act on the noble principle, that if one member suffers, all the members should suffer with it.

3. In the third place, there is an excessive worldly-mindedness in this country. It may be said with truth, that the besetting sun of the great body of our people is love of money. It is the master passion which is in danger of swallowing up every thing else. Other nations have other general characteristics. It is love of title, or rank, or equipage, or conquest, or political power, or literary honor; but with us it is a boundless selfishness, an insatiable cupidity, a restless desire to amass riches. It meets us wherever we go. The ways to employ and increase the wealth of the country, are the subjects of hourly conversation and of grave legislation. Now we do not mean that industry, commercial enterprise, arid the accumulation of wealth, are to be condemned. No man would wish to live in a community which was not prosperous. But the danger is that we shall go too far, and make that to be an object, which ought to be the only means for the attainment of something else. Are not many men in a prosperous commercial or agricultural community, in danger of prosecuting their worldly business to such extent as to abandon, or greatly neglect, infinitely more important interests ? A powerful weight should be thrown into the opposite scale. This universal passion should be counteracted. We are ruined, if we become too prosperous. It is not wealth which will save us. It is not the richest communities which are the most happy. Venice, and Genoa, and Spain, were once exuberantly rich but this did not prevent their decline. Affliction is as necessary for nations as it is for individuals. Uninterrupted prosperity hardens the heart, nourishes pride, destroys sensibility of conscience, and prepares the way for utter ruin. The only safeguard for a prosperous nation or a prosperous man is eminent piety ; nothing else will keep them humble. Nothing else will make them

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grateful. Rich men are sailing over a sea which is covered with wrecks. A rich and prosperous nation is often weaving its own winding sheet. The loftier its height the more signal its overthrow. Short was the time when that city which called herself "Perfect Beauty,’’ which sat as a sovereign of the seas, which said in her pride, ‘‘I am a God,’’ " I sit in the seat of God," short was the period, when all her glory had passed away, and Tyre was like the top of a rock, a place for fishermen to spread their nets. Now these things were written to teach us, that we might take warning. Perhaps no nation on earth is more liable to fall into those very sins which ruined Tyre, than our own. It was pride, arrogant presumption, overbearing haughtiness, a desire to amass riches so unappeasable, that she traded in the souls of men. Let our nation learn the solemn lesson which comes from the ruins of many a proud city, not to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God ; to be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate.

4. In the fourth place, our schools and literary institutions, without piety, will not save us. Our statesmen and orators, and some of our religious men, place too high a value on simple education. But human passions will not be restrained by mere knowledge. It may change the current of depravity, but it will not dry it up. It may diminish in a man, the love of mere sensual pleasure, but it will not lessen his pride, or vanity, or ambition. It will not bring him a whit nearer to the meekness and humility of the gospel. The universal education of the people of this country is not desirable, unless religious instruction can go along with it. We sometimes hear it stated that the inmates of our jails and prisons cannot read ; and the inference made is, that if they had been taught to read, they would not have been vicious. But the fact is, that their religious education had been also and equally neglected. The great majority of convicts either had no parents when they became vicious, or they had irreligious parents, who tempted them to sin. It is not the excellent parish schools of Scotland arid New England, which have preserved the people of these countries comparatively pure arid happy. It is the parish schools in connection with the parish churches. Our colleges cannot prosper for any considerable period, without being pervaded by a religious influence, either in the body of students themselves, or in the surrounding neighborhoods. The flame of human intellect must be fed from the great source of all intellect. The mind must not be cultivated at the expense of the conscience and the heart.

A notion is gaining ground among us, which inculcates a sort of self-education, distinct from religious influence. It is said that you can teach a child to feel that he has an immortal nature, that he has noble powers of intellect, and that reason has been given to him, by which to guide his appetites arid passions. Leaving out of view the simple truths of the gospel, you can make him a pure child of nature, taught by his own instincts and by the works of God, to love and adore the Author of nature. We do not deny that considerations like these do have some effect on a few persons, and perhaps on a few families. But we can never influence the mass of men with such sentiments as these. The great majority of people are engaged nearly all the time in manual labor, and they always will be. When they do think, they need the few simple plain truths of the gospel. Nothing else will reach them. We may talk to them without end about our fine theories, and when they go away they will forget it all. Besides, what is the use of Christianity, if we could do without it. The heathen have every thing else—conscience, reason, immortal minds,

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God speaking to them from his works on every side; why do they not attend to this self-education? The fact is, there is no dispensing with the gospel in education. If we do not teach our children a religious creed, they will get it somewhere else. Our community is full of religious creeds. If the minds of our children are not pre-occupied with good things, they will be with bad. They will have some kind of a religious belief. There is no such thing as keeping their minds like blank paper, on which they may record the religious belief which they have thought out themselves, when they come to years of maturity. We have no right to cut off religious instruction from other kinds of instruction, and there is no reason for doing it, if we had the right.

5. We have need of a much stronger sense of accountability to God than now exists. It is of immense importance to the temporal well-being of any community, that there should be spread through it a deep sense of responsibility to the Judge of the world. It is not too much to say, that it is impossible to hold society together without it. The little measure of quiet which the heathen nations enjoy, is drawn very much from the belief that some of their gods will punish sin in the future world. The individual, who makes it his aim to weaken a feeling of responsibility in the minds of the young men of our cities, would deserve a far heavier execration, than the man who should set a city on fire that he might have the pleasure of seeing it burn. In the one case property is destroyed; in the other case, that on which the value of property depends, on which society itself depends, and without which we might abolish all our courts and abrogate all our laws.

A proof of this assertion is found in the habit of profane swearing. We might with as much reason as the ancient prophet, utter the exclamation, because of swearing the land mourneth.

We do not know that there is any reason to believe that this vice is at all diminishing. It is painful in the extreme for a person of any religious sensibility, to pass through some of the streets of our cities. Yet it does little good to talk against it, or to enact laws against it. We cannot reach it with enactments, or with speeches, or tracts. We must bring before the whole community, the fact that there is to be a particular judgment; that there is a righteous God, omniscient, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, who does not hold them guiltless who take his name in vain. By all means in our power, we must impress every class in society with the certain expectation, that that man’s perdition slumbers not who tramples under foot his Maker’s name. We can extend this belief where there is no Christian principle. That God is a righteous and an avenging Governor of the world, is a truth which he has written on the conscience of every man. We need to wake it to intenser life. The manner in which the names and agency of fallen spirits is frequently mentioned, is another indication of an unfavorable kind. They are spoken of with levity, as though they were a harmless sort of beings, or with a lurking skepticism about their real existence. This habit is sometimes countenanced by professing Christians, certainly with great inconsiderateness and impropriety. The Bible plainly reveals the fact that there are hosts of evil spirits, of great strength, cunning, and malice, whose only object is mischief, and of whose influence we are in constant danger. If we deny their existence, we must on the same principles deny the existence of good angels, or even of the Bible itself. Because we do not know the manner in which the devil can influence us, we have no reason to doubt the reality of it. We

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do not know the manner in which the Holy Spirit operates on our minds, shall we, therefore, doubt his existence

6. There is need of augmentation in the piety of Christians in order to convince unbelievers of the truth of Christianity. No new miracles are wanted, no clearer fulfilment of prophecy, no more perfect harmony between the different parts of the Bible, no other historical proof. All these things are clear as the light of day. Not a book in the world has one half the evidence, of its being what it professes to be, as the Bible. Every objection has been met a thousand times, every slander has been refuted, every cavil has been silenced. But notwithstanding all this, great numbers of our countrymen remain unbelievers. Irrational as the thing is, they continue to reject that only religion by which they can be saved. On any other subject, which is accompanied with a tenth part of the evidence which blazes around the sacred volume, they would consider it to be a disgrace to their understandings to continue in doubt and impenitence. Let, therefore, the light of evidence, be thrown upon them, strong and clear, from the lives of Christians. Show them what Christianity really is. Ye who are enlightened with light from above, reflect it all around you. If you have been guilty of any conduct, which will not bear the eye of your fellow man, be guilty of it no more. Utterly avoid all deceit, dishonesty, equivocation, taking advantage of the ignorance of others, every thing which the most scrupulous integrity would condemn.

Every member of the church of Christ, should recollect that he is the representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in his character is to embody his religion. The churches are greatly deficient in this respect. How often is their religion blasphemed, because they do not come up to their standard. Their deficiencies are taken for a true representation of Christianity. There are more than a million of professing Christians in this country. What might they not do, if they followed near their great Leader? What might they not do, if they really felt that they were the salt of the earth, the light of the world, cities set on a hill. Here is need for fasting and prayer. On this point the most bitter tears of repentance should be shed. The Christian’s own happiness is greatly diminished he is preparing for him]self a doubtful death-bed, and a doubtful eternity he is depriving his country and the world of a most happy influence, because he is not that in practical holiness which he ought to be.

The main reason why Christians are so much divided in this country, is want of eminent piety. A man, who lives entirely devoted to God lives in a purer atmosphere than other men. Holiness is as inconsistent with hatred to man as it is with hatred to God. From the nature of our civil institutions, from the boundless freedom of inquiry which exists on almost all subjects, from the number of rival religious denominations, some of them differing in so slight a degree as to produce from that very fact, occasions of strife and enmity, from all these circumstances, and from many more which might be named, there is great danger of endless controversy and bad passion, and bitter animosity among the different sects. The grand corrective of all these things is eminent holiness. Bring a man near to the Saviour, and he will bring near to himself all whom the Saviour loves. Fill the human soul with love to Christ, and there will be no room for angry passions. If it be necessary for any Christians to contend in controversy with their fellow Christians, let them first engage in a special season of prayer for them, and then contend for what they think to be the truth, as they imagine holy angels would.

When shall the whole church of Christ in this country, move on as the

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Macedonian phalanx did—compact, unbroken, one spirit, and but one reigning in the dense mass—fidelity to their leader.

We stand on commanding ground. The Christians of other countries are looking to us, as the patriots of other countries look to the patriots of this. Destitute of eminent piety, we cannot fulfil the great duties which are assigned to us we cannot answer the end of our existence in this part of the world, and in this age. Why have we this prominent station in the centre of North America, in a temperate latitude, under pure and healthful skies? Why are we placed in connection with so many half-civilized and savage tribes in other parts of the continent? Why such a spirit of adventure and foreign enterprise in our merchants and seamen? Why such facilities for carrying the lights of learning and Christianity to all other nations ? Why all this, but that God intended us to be the almoners of his bounty, the dispensers of his grace, the blessed bearers of his salvation to countless multitudes of our perishing fellow men. He intended that if we were disposed to set a noble example of public justice, of regard for the rights of others, of large-hearted benevolence, he would take care that our opportunities should be equal to our disposition.