NATIONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Christianity prescribes for citizenship, as well as for domestic or industrial life, and its ethics should be taught in the former department as freely as in either of the latter. To convert the pulpit into an instrument of political agitation is most certainly to invade its sacredness; and they who do so, seldom fail to reap in disappointment the fruits of their indiscretion. But to make it the means of instructing christians in the christianity of their political relatons, is simply to accomplish one of the ends for which it was intended. The same may be said of the religious press. The connection between true religion and sound politics is very intimate. The well-being of the one is the well-being of the other; the corruption of the one is the corruption of the other; the decay or the revival of the one is the decay or the revival of the other; and it is therefore proper that the public mind, in its political aspirations, should be brought under the influence of those principles which alone can rectify political opinion.

The word politics suggests the idea of a civil community; and a civil community suggests the idea of a civil government, without which, in one form or another, no civil community can possibly subsist Let us then inquire, first, what is the design of civil government? It is very obvious that government, as it now exists among men, was never intended for innocent beings; for, if innocence, with the virtues which necessarily spring from it, were still unimpaired, what would be the use of prisonhouses, with their bolts and bars, and all that array of coercive force, without which the governments of the earth are absolutely things of nought? Nay, what the use of locks and keys, and all the other apparatus of defence, by which we try to secure our dwellings from external violence? In a state of innocence, these things would be worse than superfluous. There can be no doubt, that even innocent men, living together in this world, would have required organization; but their organization would have been suited to their innocence, and altogether a different thing from that which we now behold. These things must be taken into account if we are to form a just conception of civil government as we have it; and they go farther to modify our views of it than at first sight we are apt to suppose. They tell us that such a government is not essential to our social existence, but superinduced upon it to meet a contingency; that it was made, not for the orderly, but for the disorderly; not for the innocent, but for the guilty; not for the

sinless, but for the depraved. And hence its symbol is the sword the instrument of death-an instrument to be wielded, as the defence of the peaceable from the violence of the unruly may, in righteousness, require.

If this be the nature of civil government, it will aid us not a little in perceiving its design. That design is obviously to mitigate the social miseries of man; to lay restraints upon social outrage; to secure to the industries and well disposed, the quiet possession of their life and property, and to afford, at least, some degree of peaceful opportunity for the diffusion of that restorative, by which alone the apostate children of men can be brought back to the God that made them. This is the Scriptural account of the matter; it is expressly written, "the powers that be are ordained of God." The civil ruler "is the minister of God to thee for good;" and "whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God."

Now, although these passages do not teach that God has set his seal to any one form of government; yet they do teach, that civil government (whether in heathen or christian lands, and whether they be good or bad, perfect or imperfect men by whom it is administered), is not a mere invention of man, but a Divine institution; and that, being so, it ought to be administered on the one hand, and obeyed on the other, in accordance with those laws of eternal righteousness which God has given to regulate our individual and social deportment.

These hints on the design of civil government may, in some measure, prepare us for looking at the question, what is required for the accomplishment of this design?

And here, prior to the question, what kind of government is in itself the best, there is another question, namely-what kind of government is best suited to this or that community? For the government which would prove a blessing to one community might prove no blessing to another; and this, not because it is bad in itself, but because by them it cannot be appreciated. Hence the reason why God has neither prescribed any one form of government, nor any one measure of stringency, or relaxation, to be uniformly adhered to. These are things which the purest patriotism is compelled to modify according to circumstances; and were it to refuse to be schooled by circumstances, it would soon find itself to be utterly helpless. Hence the manifest folly of setting up a claim of natural right to this or that form of government, or to this or that amount of influence and control over the measures of an existing government. That communities of men have rights in relation to these things is beyond all question, and rights, too, which are very sacred; but it is absurd to call them natural. For civil government itself, which, as we have seen, is just

the government of the sword, that is, of law, sustained by inviolable penalties, has not its seat in the constitution of our nature. It belongs not to man as a human being, but is made for man as a fallen being, whose depravity is so aggressive, that he cannot live in groups or communities, except under a system of positive and penal authority. Man, in his original constitution, is essentially a moral agent. The moral principle lies deeply imbedded in his nature. You are sure, therefore, to find some form of this moral nature wherever human beings are to be found. It is moral obliquity, and not physical disability, therefore, that entails upon man his manifold social and political miseries. And hence without the moral sedative of a regenerated nature, man can never have rest, whether personal, domestic, civic or national, whatever may be the form of government under which he exists; while with this he may enjoy quietness, contentment and peace, under any form of government. As depravity is the bane of human happiness, the antidote, and the only antidote, is the power of true religion, working in the hearts of individuals, and so leavening the population as to dispose them to recognize, first, the claims of the great Creator, and then the claims of their fellow creatures. There is no room for debating here, even among political men, who have patience to examine the interior of our nature. No, it is a settled point-a point established by all experience that where there is no piety to God, there can be no abiding principle of justice or kindness to man. For although individuals may be found who, in the conventional sense, do justice and practice kindness, without being devout, yet nations of men have always been found to be just and kind only in so far as they were actuated by the fear of the Lord. But in order to serve its purpose in politics, the disposition to social equity which piety generates and sustains, must be in the high as well as in the low, and in the low as well as in the high; for, where there is not a moral harmony between rulers and citizens, politcal harmony is out of the question. "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of the Lord;" but he that is ruled among men must also be just, obeying in the fear of the Lord. And the most plausible of all the pretexts a ruler can have for short-coming in his duty to those over whom he rules, is just the fact, when fact it is, that they are coming short in their duty to the laws as administered by him.

So much, then, for the pre-requisite; and let us now inquire where this pre-requisite is to be found? It is not to be found in fallen humanity, although human nature, as the creature of God, ought to be its native home. Nor is it to be found in the self-directed researches of moralists; for although they have generally hit upon sound principles, and wrought these princi

ples into salutary precepts, yet their precepts are but form without substance, or body without soul. Nor is it to be found in the contrivances of statesmen, for their contrivances, with few exceptions, are but the produce of a shifting expediency; or, it may be, of nefarious design. In short, it is nowhere to be found but in the religion of the Bible-in the religion of Christ in the Gospel, and in the religion of the Bible taken up, as God has been pleased to lay it down-not merly as a system of dogmas, or of dry and rigid institutes, compacted into national statute, and thus turned into a tool of State-craft; but as an instrument of tuition, of sovereign tuition, of internal tuition, of efficacious tuition, coming from heaven, and wrought by heaven into the hearts and lives of men. This is the the thing wanted, and the only thing wanted to give health to the political constitution, by first giving health to the moral constitution. This is the grand rectifier of man; first of man as an individual, and then of man in all the relations which bind him to his fellow-man; in his domestic relations, in his relation of neighborhood, in his business relations, in his civic relations, and in his relation to the country, large or small, to which, in providence, he happens to belong. Just let a man be a christian, a genuine christian, a man imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ, and if he be a statesman, he will be a righteous statesman; if he be a judge, he will be a righteous judge; and if he be no more than a private citizen, he will fill his place as a righteous citizen.

But let it never be forgotten that if christianity is the grand requisite in civil government,-its salt, its leaven, its cement, its police in the heart, and its best defence,-it must be pure, and it must be free.

1. It must be pure. The religion of Jesus Christ flows directly from heaven. It is a well of living water, which God has opened for dying men. And if it is to prove medicinal to men in their hearts, or in their families, in their cities, or in their nations, it must be drawn from its own fountain, and it must be drunk as it is drawn. This is a very obvious rule. It is a thing self-evident. If we wish a medicine to cure our bodies, we must take it as it is. And if we wish christianity to cure our minds, individual or collective, we must take it as it is. There is, however, a fact which meets us here, and which in the view of certain thinkers goes far to negative the christian remedy, although, in reality, it leaves the specific and incomparable efficacy of this remedy altogether unaffected. What is that fact? It is that, with few exceptions, civil government has wrought as ill, or nearly as ill, under christianity as under heathenism. To some extent this is not to be denied. History declares it. And how is this fact to be accounted for? On