SERMON. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.-1. Peter, iii. 15. Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.-Proverbs xiv. 34. The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever.-Revelation xi. 15. As Christianity was designed by its Divine Author to subsist until the end of time, it was indispensable, that it should be capable of adapting itself to all states of society, and to every condition of mankind. We have the Divine assurance that it shall eventually become universal, but without such flexibility in accommodat ing itself to all the situations in which men can be placed, this must have been impracticable. There is no possible form of individual or social life, which it is not fitted to meliorate and adorn. It not only extends to the more transient connexions to which the business of life gives rise, but embraces and prescribes the duties springing from the great and more permanent relations of rulers and subjects, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants; and enforces the obligation of these high classes of our duties by the sanctions of a judgment to come. We find by exam ining its history, that, in rude ages, its influence has softened the savage and civilized the barbarian; while in polished ages and communities, it has accomplished the no less important end, of communicating and preserving the moral and religious principle, which, among a cultivated people, is in peculiar danger of being extinguished amid the refinements, the gaiety, and the frivolous amusements incident to such a state of society. The relation which the prevailing system of religion in various countries and in successive ages, has sustained to civil government, is one of the most interesting branches of the history of mankind. According to the structure of the Hebrew Polity, the religious and political systems were most intimately, if not indissolubly combined and in the Mosaic Law, we find religious observances, political ordinances, rules of medicine, prescriptions of agriculture, and even precepts of domestic economy, brought into the most intimate association. The Hebrew Hierarchy was a literary and political, as well as a religious order of men. In the Grecian States and in the Roman Empire, the same individual united in his own person, the emblems of priest of their divinities and the ensigns of civil and political authority. Christianity, while it was undermining, and until it had overthrown the ancient Polity of the Jews on the one hand; and the Polytheism of the Roman Empire on the other; was extended by the zeal and enterprize of its early preachers, sustained by the presence of its Divine Author* and accompanied by the evidence of the miracles which they were commissioned to perform. It is not strange, therefore, that when, under the Emperor Constantine, Christianity came into the place of the ancient superstition, it should have been taken under the protection, and made a part of the constitution of the Imperial government. It was the prediction of ancient prophecy, that, in the last days, kings should become nursing fathers and queens nursing mothers to the Churcht;-and what was more natural than to understand this prophecy as meaning a strict and intimate union of the Church, with the civil government of the Empire. Ancient usage, with all the influence which a reverence for antiquity is accustomed to inspire, was on the side of such a union. We may well believe, then, that Christianity was first associated with civil government, * Matthew xxviii. 20. + Isaiah xlix. 23. Lowth says of this prophecy: "It was remarkably fulfilled, when Constantine and other Christian princes and princesses, showed favour to the Church." without any intention on the part of civil governors to make it the odious engine of State which it afterwards became. And if the Roman Emperors had been satisfied to receive and to continue the new religion without distinction of sects, as the broad ground of all the great institutions of the Empire, it is impossible to shew or to believe, that such a measure would not have been both wise and salutary. The misfortune was, that there soon came to be a legal preference of one form of Christianity over all others. Mankind are not easily inclined to change any institution which has taken deep root in the structure of society, and the principle of the union of one form of Christianity with the imperial authority under the Roman Emperors, had acquired too many titles to veneration to be relinquished, when the new kingdoms were founded which rose upon the ruins of the Roman Empire. This principle has always pervaded and still pervades the structure of European society, and the necessity of retaining it is still deeply seated in the convictions of the inhabitants of the Eastern continent. The same principle was transferred to these shores when they were settled by European colonists. In Massachusetts and some other Northern colonies, no man could be a citizen of the Commonwealth, unless he were a member of the Church as there established by authority of law.* In Virginia and some of the more Southern colonies, the Church of England was established by law.t In this State, legal provision was made for the establishment of religious worship according to the Church of England, for the erecting of churches and the maintenance of clergymen; and it was * In 1631, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay passed an order, "that for the time to come, none should be admitted to the freedom of the body politic, but such as were Church-members""-1 Story's Commentaries, 39, 73. + 1 Tucker's Blackstone, p. 376.- Under the crowns of France and Spain, Roman Catholicism was the religion of Louisiana exclusive of all others. As late as 1797, the instructions of Governor Gayoso to the commandants for the regulation of the province, speak thus :-"Art. 8. The commandants will take particular care, that no Protestant Preacher, or one of any sect other than the Catholic, shall introduce himself into the province. The least neglect in this respect, will be a subject of great reprehension.”—Documents annexed to Judge Peck's trial, p. 585. declared, that "in a well grounded Commonwealth, matters concerning religion and the honour of God, ought in the first place, [i. e. in preference to all others,] to be taken into consideration."* It is the testimony of history, however, that ever since the time of Constantine, such an union of the ecclesiastical with the civil authority, has given rise to flagrant abuses and gross corruptions. By a series of gradual, but well contrived usurpations, a Bishop of the Church claiming to be the successor of the Chief of the Apostles and the Vicar of Christ, had been seen for centuries, to rule the nations of Christendom with the sceptre of despotism. The argument against the use of an institution arising from its abuse, is not valid, unless, when, after sufficient experience, there is the best reason to conclude, that we cannot enjoy the use without the accompanying evils flowing from the abuse of it. Such perhaps is the case in regard to the union between any particular form of Christianity and civil government. It is an historical truth established by the experience of many centuries, that whenever Christianity has in this way been incorporated with the civil power, the lustre of her brightness has been dimmed by the alliance. The settlers of this country were familiar with these facts, and they gradually came to a sound practical conclusion on the subject. No nation on earth, perhaps, ever had opportunities so favorable to introduce changes in their institutions as the American people; and by the time of the Revolution, a conviction of the impolicy of a further union of Church and State according to the ancient mode, had so far prevailed, that nearly all the States in framing their new constitutions of government, either silently or by direct enactment, discontinued the ancient connexion. A question of great interest here comes up for discussion. In thus discontinuing the connexion between Church and Commonwealth ;-did the people of these States intend to renounce all connexion with the Christian religion? Or did they only intend |