Farewell to the First Congregational Church in Norwalk, Conn. (bound with other addresses)

ing the very foundations of all security for,property or life. No other acts are so deadly to civil liberty. All history*shows, that a few short months of such misrule are enough to make a people tired of a government of law in form, but of the despotism of the mob in fact. The only remedy ever found, when such disorders could not be repressed, has been to hand over the liberties of the people into the keeping of a master. Anarchy is always, and of necessity, fol- lowed by despotism. If there be any crime that deserves to be pun- ished with death, for the mischief which it works, it is the crime of usurping the prerogative of law ; — joining with the mob, in the as- sumption of all the powers of lawgiver, judge, jury, accuser, witnesses, executioner. There is no greater foe to his country or to man, than the one who joins in a mob or abets it : — save perhaps the per- jured magistrate who forbears to do his utmost to put it down. No matter what the cause ; no matter how odious the conduct of them against whom the popular tumult is stirred ; such things must cease, or we need no other judgments of God to bring us to speedy ruin. Now, our duties in all these matters, are matters of religious con- cern. God requires them. If we fail in these, he will bring us to account in the day of judgment. It may be that some among us have thought this field of civil duties exempt from the supervision of the law of God. If so, oh fatal mistake ! Let us see to it that we have, in this department of duty, no accounts with God left un- settled till the judgment ; for " God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." SERMON CCLXII. BY REV. EDWIN HALL, TRUE rREzmoiKi. John viii. 36.— y «Se Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. There are those, who imagine that the religion of Christ is made up of little else than unwelcome and onerous restraints. " The truth shall make you free ?" They think, rather, that if Christianity be truth, it will bind them, and letter them, and make this pleasant earth in the pleasant light of the sun henc^orth a gloomy prison. If, for fear of worse evils, they think of turning to Christ before they die, they think of it as putting off their liberty, and taking up a yoke, which, for its own sake, they would never choose to bear. The Lord Jesus Christ, however, declj^es that his " yoke is easy" and his " burden is light." He declares that if we " know the truth, the truth shall make us free ;" and that " if the Son shall make us free, we shall be free indeed." He does not mean that he has no laws. He has laws, which are to be obeyed under the most dreadful of all penalties. His does not mean that his yoke is easy and his burden light, because he requires little and gives large indulgences. He requires much. He gives not the least indulgence to the least transgression of any one of all his commandments. He requires perfect obedience. The wonder with many is, how men can come fully under this holy government of Christ, and yet he free. The wonder is, how those who are completely subdued to this au- thority are said to be " called unto liberty ;" and to be brought into the " glorious liberty of the children of God." Now, how is this 1 Why are not our " Free-thinkers" as they vaunt themselves, the true freemen? Why are not the men who scoflf at all religion, the truly free ; and, what they claim to be, the best friends of liberty, having, of all things, the greatest horror of religious restraints, lest they should in time grow into a coalition of church and state, or into something else equally destructive of freedom ? In order to arrive at just views concerning these matters, we will I. Inquire into the proper idea op liberty ; and II. Show that the liberty wherewith Christ maketh FREE IS true freedom. 1. The proper idea of liberty. I once heard an aged man, who had kept a dram-shop unlawfully, inveigh with great bitterness against the law that punished him, and against the men who were instrumental in bringing him to justice. " I fought for liberty" exclaimed he ; " / have a right to do what I please.'^ " This is a free country." The notion appears to be becoming quite common, that, in a free country, every man ought to be allowed to do just what he pleases ; and that just so far as this liceilse is curtailed, freedom is taken away. Many seem to think there is no freedom unless men can be free from all obligation, human or divine. It is to be granted, that every man ought to be allowed to do what 42 THE NATIui^au f^^^^^^^... he pleases, provided he pleases not to do what is wrong in itself, or what injures his neighbor or the community. From doing what is in itself a moral wrong the laws of God ought to prohibit him ; from working mischief to his neighbor, to society, or to the state, the laws of man oqght to restrain him. These laws should be armed with penalties sufficient to coerce the lawless and the disobedient. This is freedom. Without this there is no freedom. If a company are on ship-board in the middle of the ocean, I sup- pose no one would be allowed to blow up the ship, or sink it, under the notion of having a right to do what he pleases. No one of that ship's company would think his freedom infringed upon, if debarred from setting the ship on fire ; or from throwing the provi- sions overboard ; or from drenching them with sea-water ; or from maiming his ship mates, or throwing them overboard ; or from fur- nishing strong drink to those who manage the ship, and who are known to be grossly addicted to intoxication. A man complain that his liberty is infringed upon, because he is debarred from doing these things ! No. If he has a particle of common sense he will see that his liberty consists in these laws, which do not so much re- strain him as defend him, and secure to him freedom to preserve his life, and to use it in the pursuit of happiness. It would be proper for that ship's company to make additional laws concerning their general policy : — for example, — that none should use fire carelessly ; that in a savage port none should leave the ship, or engage in tre^ffic, save under certain regulations ; and these regulations do but enlarge and secure freedom, provided they are wise and good. None but a vil- lain could desire a liberty to do the things which such regulations forbid. To none other would they be any restraint. " The law is not made for a righteous man." It is no restraint or embarrassment to him. The law is made "/or the lawless and disobedient^' If any num- ber should be disposed to do what such regulations forbid, then law is needed ; and its arm, should be strong.. If there may be no law ; or, if the law may not be enforced, then there is no longer liberty, nor is life itself desirable. That fated ship would be but a floating hell ; and the sooner some explosion rends it to atoms, or some con- flagration consumes it, or some tempest hurls it to the bottom of the ocean, the greater the mercy to its wretched inhabitants. There is no liberty — there is no living without law. Every community is in the condition of that ship upon the ocean ; save only that, in a community upon land, there is no tornado, nor conflagration to prove the last refuge from anarchy. There is no deep to open her mouth in mercy and put an end at once to the LA«>wi:t f j^jiiUijUfV/XU* 43 community and its miseries. Here law is doubly important ; and if there may not be law, there must be despotism or lingering ruin. If any sober man were to form a plan of a community, ordered under the fullest regard to liberty, he would not allow treason, or murder, or theft, or perjury, or arson, or kidnapping, or forgery. Why not 7 If he has fought for liberty, and means To he free, why not allow people to do as they please in such matters ? It would destroy free- dom. Allow every man to do as he pleases in the simple matter of punishing those who fnjure or insult him, as he thinks they deserve, and there is no freedom. No one has any longer any liberty to speak his opinion, or to utter or publish most wholesome and necessary truths. No one can be safe in pursuing his own righteous bnsiness, or in seeking his own happiness. The absence of law destroys his freedom. Law gives him his rights ; law secures them,. Law gives him, his liberty ; law secures it. He has no rights, he has no liberty, without law. Let reason answer, whether he who de- mands the liberty of doing what he pleases, without the restraints of law, is a friend of liberty. The old man, who had " fought for liberty," did not consider how the law which forbade him to keep a tippling house, defended him and the rest of the community from pauper taxes, and from the mis- chiefs of a general licentiousness. He did not consider to how many families such a law was even more necessary than one to protect them from violence or murder. He did not consider, that, but for such a law, there might soon be no libcrtjr; that a corrupt people might soon sell him and his children, and his whole country into the hands of despots : — or worse, that general licentiousness and depra- vation of principle would take away the liberty of travelling the high ways in safety ; of working in the fields in security ; or even of lying down in bed at night without the danger of being murdered and burnt up before morning. The old man had " fought for liber- ty," and surely, had he thought a little further, his patriot soul would have been ready to enter the field once more, to contend for the liberty of law. Sure, he would not have taken part with the ene- mies of his country in the revolution, and why should he now 1 The people of this country, for the very purpose of enlarging and enjoying their liberties, have framed for themselves laws. We have laws against blasphemy and profane swearing ; laws against printing or distributing obscene books ; — against purchasing them, or introducing them into schools or families ; laws against lewdness j laws against lotteries, or selling lottery tickets ; laws against horse- f&cing, or abetting the same ; laws against gaming ; against selling 4A THE NATIONAL. fbe:ach£;k. playing cards, or havirtg them in possession for sale ; laws against taverners keeping any implements used in gaming '. laws against ma- king or using any circus of any description ; laws against mounte- .. banks and tumblers, and against suffering such persons to exhibit their tricks in our houses; — in fine, the people of this land have found it indispensable to the possession and enjoyment of liberty, to have regulations of law on all subjects touching wrongs against persons or their property ; on all subjects touching tSe public poli- CI/ or the public morals. Who is it that pleads that all these laws should be swept away, under the notion of enlarging our liberties ? What honest man and good citizen, feels his liberties infringed upon by these laws ? Who but villains want a liberty to do the things which these laws forbid ? The principle illustrated by these views, is this : — that wise and necessary laws are not inconsistent with liberty, but essential to it : that liberty to do in a community, what every one may please to do, without any restraint of law, is an absurdity ; that both righteous- ness and mercy demand that wise and just laws be armed with penal- ties amply sufficient to coerce the wicked. Such a government of law is the only perfect, and the only possible freedom.