SERMON XVI.

[Preached at the Annual Thanksgiving, 1829.]

THE PILGRIM FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.

PSALM LXXVII. 5.

I HAVE CONSIDERED THE DAYS OF OLD, THE YEARS OF ANCIENT TIMES.

THE religious festival, this day celebrated, while it is devoted to holy gratitude, is a memorial of the piety of other times. The fathers of New England come up in remembrance, while we celebrate the praises of their God and our God. They instituted the custom, which has now brought us together in the house of prayer. They, great men of God, were earnest in their desires and efforts to connect themselves, and all that they enjoyed, with the bountiful Dispenser of all good. Hence, after the ingathering of the fruits of the earth, they set apart annually a day for thanksgiving and prayer. This relic of their piety has come down to our times. Do we come up hither with a spirit of piety as ardent and persevering, as they were wont to bring, on their annual festival, to the altar of God?

To enable us to give an intelligent answer to this inquiry, we must consider the days of old, the years of ancient times, as well as look into our own characters. You will permit me, therefore, to dwell upon the character

of our Puritan ancestors. It is true, that the first emigrants to this place were rather merchant adventurers than stern Puritans, fleeing from persecution, with the sole purpose of establishing an altar for their worship, a sanctuary, which neither kingly nor priestly power could pollute or suppress. But so commanding was the character of the Puritans, so manifestly were their enterprises blessed by God, so widely did their influence extend, and their posterity diffuse itself, that soon all New England boasted the honor of being called the Land of the Pilgrims. Shaded, indeed, as the spirit of the Pilgrims flowed more or less pure, are the different sections of this part of our country; yet we will claim the same name for the whole of it.

In the following discourse, I shall confine myself to a very few traits of the Puritan character. To do justice to the whole subject would require not a mere sermon, but a volume. I purpose to show that the men of other days, from whom we have descended, were lovers of civil and religious liberty; that they were enlightened men; religious men; men deserving renown; men commissioned by Providence to lay the foundations of a glorious empire, and to be the harbingers of civil, intellectual and religious freedom to the world.

The Puritans were lovers of civil liberty. It is true that when they arose, about the middle of the sixteenth century, civil liberty was but imperfectly understood. The divine right of kings and passive obedience were the popular doctrines of that day. Were those, of whom we speak, judged with regard to their views of civil government, by the enlightened doctrines of the present day, their notions of civil liberty would indeed be found extremely low. They felt a spirit stirring within them, which revolted at human tyranny; yet so thinly were the rays of light upon this subject scattered around them, that they knew not how to exert their long crippled and still untried powers of thought and of action. We call them lovers of civil

liberty, because this spirit was stirring their bosoms; because they felt it as the inspiration of God within them, and stood forth on the very verge of their supposed rights, prepared to vindicate them, or, if they must perish in the attempt, to leave their fallen bodies a rampart around them, and, as victims on the altar of freedom, to let their blood. cry to earth and heaven in vindication of her cause. Borne down by oppressive power, they firmly resisted its pressure. As new light was imparted, they enlarged their views of civil government, and gave consistency and permanence to their principles of civil right. Who were the men, that, through reproach, and peril, and death, resisted the arbitrary power of Elizabeth, and of the whole race of the Stuarts? They were the Puritans. Their doctrines were indeed but partially developed, and their movements often erratic and convulsive; but yet they were the best and the only efficient advocates of civil liberty in their times. It was their spirit, which guarded in every time. of peril, this precious treasure, and which came forth in full power to consummate the glorious revolution of 1688, by giving permanence to British freedom.

In our own country, where have been found the noblest champions of the cause of liberty? Among the Puritans. Those, who first landed in New England, had not become polluted, or infatuated, by the convulsions, which put power into the hands of the English Puritans. They came here freemen, determined to be free; but they came with sober and deep thoughts upon the subject. Hence in their plans of government, though their theories were imperfect, yet they guarded with an ever watchful jealousy against the encroachments of arbitrary power. When the time had come for this country, to burst the political bonds which connected them with the old world, the descendants of the Pilgrims were found prepared for the struggle. They did not wait to feel the full power of oppression. They saw the hand that would enslave them, ere its grasp

had reached them. So active was their love of liberty,

distance, while as yet it Their fears were awake. meet with heroic resolu

that they perceived the cloud at a was no bigger than a man's hand. They were instantly prepared to tion the threatening danger. It was hard by the very spot, where the Pilgrims' feet first pressed the American shore, that freedom's call was heard, a voice which sounded through our land, and called the sons of the Pilgrims, to struggle for their rights. The call was heard; it was obeyed; and we are a free people. It was the same spirit which had in early times given martyrdom and glory to many, who resisted the prerogative of the English crown, that in these latter days led this country to freedom. Wherever now, whether in the old world or the new, a spark of liberty is kindling, there are eyes turned towards the land of the Pilgrims for sympathy, encouragement and direction; and, would to God, there might be found in every land the same intellectual, moral, and religious power. Then our hope for universal freedom would not be, as it now is, almost despair.

The Puritans were lovers of religious liberty. What, you will ask, were they lovers of religious liberty, who in England were as ready to imprison, and burn Papists, as others were to inflict sufferings upon them? Were our Pilgrim fathers, who could banish their brethren, merely for differing in opinion on the mode of Baptism, or who could fasten to the tail of a cart unoffending Quakers, and whip them from town to town, were these lovers of religious liberty? We answer that they were strangers to religious toleration. In their day, the enlightened views on this subject, which now prevail, had not burst upon the human mind. No one then admitted, that a man had a civil right to entertain and profess whatever religious opinions he might adopt, if thereby he did not disturb the peace or interfere with the rights of others. All believed, that heresy might be, and ought to be, punished by the magis

trate, and the church was to determine in what this fearful crime consists. Our ancestors were men, and they partook of the prejudices of the age in which they lived. We claim for them no miraculous endowments of wisdom. What we say is, that they were, on the subject of religious liberty, in advance of their age; and that they yielded earlier than others to the promptings of the spirit, which led them on to emancipation from the bondage of ecclesiastical tyranny. I see this spirit in the intrepid man, who, in the presence of kingly power, spurned the honors of a bishopric, preferring poverty and disgrace, to consecrated vestments, which had been the badges of spiritual tyranny and idolatry. I see it in that venerable minister of Christ, who, in the presence of a court steeped in blood, when required to subscribe to a human formulary of faith, though imprisonment and death threatened him, took from his pocket a copy of the New Testament, and said: Here is my creed; I will subscribe to every thing contained in this book, but never to the articles, by which you would trammel my faith. Let such men alone, or persecute them, they will still advance. Thousands of such men were raised to action, and, by their desire of a purer form of worship, obtained in derision the glorious name of Puritans. Thousands of them drank deeply of the bitter cup of persecution. They abandoned their livings in the church. Prisons were made the witnesses of their fidelity to conscience, and their blood was poured out like water. Yet their numbers increased, and their cause advanced. They were purified in the furnace. Their minds received new light; and they gradually became, as they enlarged their views, the fearless and successful advocates of religious freedom. The flame was enkindled in their bosoms, though it was obscured by many errors, even before they received the name of Puritans. It has continued to gather brightness to the present moment. England has witnessed its steady progress, and the present