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

Perhaps it may be descending too low, to mention here the abomina- tions of Mormonism ; a system too absurd for argument, too vile in its fruits to leave any room for mistake as to its infernal origin ; — or of So- cialism, rejecting the doctrine of the Bible concerning the native depra- vity of man ; laying the blame of human wickedness upon the organize^ tion of society as it is sanctioned and guarded in the law of God ; and proposing to regenerate society and man by abrogating in detail all the provisions of that law. Thus, the commandment " Thou shalt not steal," is based upoli the recognition of the rights of property. The new society abrogates those rights, and dispenses with the commandment. Property is no longer sacred, and theft is now an impossible crime. The new so- ciety renounces marriage, and so dispenses with the Seventh Command- ment. AH guilt by adultery, fornication, or uncleanness, is by this im- possible. The commandment of God, and the institution sanctioned by that commandment, the new society has set aside and annulled. The family relation is removed to make way for a phalanx ; there is no more any room or ground for the Fifth Commandment. What matters it now whether they also deny God, after they have broken up his institu- tions, and trampled under their feet the whole code of laws by which those institutions were guarded ? What is this system, with all its vaunted philanthropy, but a compound of lewdness and villainy ; pur- posely accommodating itself to the vile passions of fellen man, and aim- ing to set theni all free from any conscience or recognition of the perfecst law of God 1 To what demonstrable absurdities, under the name of Phi- losophy, will not human nature descend? The Phrenologists, the Mes- merizers, the Spiritual Rappers ! — ^was ever an age before so shamed with the credence of absurdities at once so monstrous and so puerile 1 But all this is in accordance with the Savior's yord : " I am oome in my Far ther's name, and ye receive me not ; if another shall come in his own oaihe, him will ye receive." Men who believe neither Moses nor the Prophets, nor regard the testimony of God, — how readily do they re- jeive the pretended revelations of the wretched creature who prates about " The Univercoelum" and " The Superior State" ! And now Philosophy, having reiected the Gospel, and done what she ten to fear up systems conttadiotory to the Word of God, strikes boldly at the foundations of all faith and all knowledge. She alleges that there is no certainty, there can be no truth. The universe without us may not exi'st, and we ourselves may be but an idea. God is, for anght we can know, but an idea which man creates ; and the Bible may be no more ! Or if there be anything real, then Everything is God, and God is Every- thing ; while the highest style and personation of the divine, is man ; and as such ma;n should learn to respect and venerate himself! From the lowest depths of universal skepticism, Philo'sophy rises to the utmost heights of Christianity. She is a Believer, a profound Believir^ of the viery highest type and tone of piety. She believes in Progress. She has penetrated into the Very shrines of Esoteric Christianity ; what it is she cannot tell ; none can understand her till they attain her spirit- uality, and look forth from her " stand-point." By quietistic oontem.' plation, by the intuitions of a sublimer spirituality, she has descended to " The point of relationship between the form of the truth and its interior formless nature." And now the Bible is not the word of God, but only contains that word. Intuitive consciousness is to judge when its narra- tives are myths, and when its dogmas are untrue. Apostles sometimes reasoned unsoundly, and often came to false cOnclusidna ; but they did well for their age, and may serve to help us on to a higher and purer in- spiration. Moses and the Prophets did well for their day ; but the pre- sent is an age of progress, when piety and intuitional inspiration are go- ing ahead ! Perhaps a new and greater Christ is to arise ; and many things which have been right and true to us, may lose their character even of truth and righteousness, and be laid aside for a Gospel of superior light and purity ! And now Philosophy descends once more fronithe clouds to find truth in a new discovered use of the word of God. The Bible ? Oh ! yes, it is as good as can be ; as good as the nature of the case allows. But it re- veals no certain truth ; and can never be made a standard of doctrine. Its sublimest revelations, and its plainest declarations, are but " repre- sentations," " paintings," the '' Machina Dei," for producing impressions ; the truth of which lies not in the objective, but in the subjective; not in the 'BibU, as though we were to search the Scriptures to find truth there ; but in the impressions wrought in our own minds. "Call what you re- 8 ceive the reality." Look into the images impressed on your own mind for truth. " Christian Theology," say these Philosophers, (I use their own words,) " Christian Theology is therefore the speculative, or logical exposition" — not of the Word of God, oh no ! — ^but " of Christian con- sciousness, considered as containing the Divine." And as Christian con- sciousness, they say further, is " No constant quantity but fluctuates with the fidelity of the man, and the spiritual temperament of his life ; is al- ways in a mixed, and never in a pure state, mixed with lies, sensualities, and all manner of undivinities," — " this being the true state of the case, out of which the science of Divine Truth is to come, and which it is to represent, what is that science like to be ?" Yea, well is the question put, " What is that science like to be ?" They say further, that creeds are " Impostures of precision." " What we call our Christianity is only a product of the organizing force of human dogmatism." No truth can be known or believed as a prepositional truth ; consequently there is no error that can be rejected and condemned. Orthodoxy and Sabellianism have no ground for dispute. Unitarianism and Orthodoxy " have their root in the same vicious assumption." " Seeing thus, how at-one-ment, atonement, and the mass, all lie about the Christian truth,"- why should we dispute with Unitarians or Papists, "for the particle of truth" which either of us holds in distinction from the others 1 Why not " come back in shame and sorrow, and receive enough of God's truth to enlarge our consciousness, universalize our feelings, and make us brethren" 1 And now Philosophy, having set all truth and all faith afloat in the ocean of chaos, and having confounded all distinction of truth and error, interposes another obstacle to toy certain knowledge or statement of truth, in the uncertainty of language. Language is incapable of declar- ing any truth on moral or religious matters ; Or to define it so clearly as to distinguish certainly between truth and error, even where the mind which wishes to make' the communication has clear conceptions, and desires ever so much to convey them to other minds. The Bible is a revelation in language ; and therefore can teach no moral or religious truth with certainty ! Whither will Philosophy go ? What is her aim in all these labors % To unsettle all faith ? To teach us to believe nothing? no: you may believe anything, and language is certain and definite enough to 9 declare anything, save Evangelical Truth. All these lines of ciroum- vallation and contravallation are drawn, and all these machines and catapults are arrayed, against the fortress of Evangelical Truth. Their aim is to lead men to discountenance and discard the received doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, Justification by Faith, •the Fallen State and Depraved Character of man, and the need of Ee- newal hy the Holy Ghost ; doctrines which the pious followers of Christ of all ages have received as the most undoubted truths, the fundamental principles of Christianity; without which, Christianity is not, but is rejected and destroyed. In the mean time we may believe, if we will only believe that Christ did not die a vicarious sacrifice to atone fbr our sins ; and that through him we have not redemption in his blood. We may believe, provided we will believe that no such sacrifice was needed, or was possible ; and that the very idea of it confounds or destroys " all moral distinctions," and casts a " double ignominy" on God ! Lan- guage is clear and precise enough to tell what the evangelical doctrines are when they are to be rejected ; but not clear and precise enough to tell what they are when they are to be believed! Faith may rear up her systems and set forth her formulas, provided she will set forth another Gospel. Alas, how fallen man hates the truth, and loves darkness rather than light ! It was so of old. " That which may be known of God," was manifest among them, for God had " showed it unto them." " The in- visible things of him" were clearly seen in the creation, " even his eter- nal power and Godhead," " being understood by the things that were made ;" so that they were " without excu^.'' Why then did they turn to idolatry 1 Did reason — did an enligRtened understanding lead them there ? Oh, no, it was first wickedness of heart, and then philosophy. They know God, but glorify him not as God, neither are thankful, but become vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart is darkened. They retire from the broad expanse of the heavens, and from the sun shining in the nlidst of the firmament ; loving darkness, they hide them- selves in caverns, and rejoice in the surpassing light of a taper. They " kindle a fire," and " compass themselves about with sparks ;" they " walk in the light of their fire, and in the sparks that they have kindled." ^'■Professing themselves wise they become fools." Doubtless they railed against the truth, as " insignificant" and " absurd." Whether they rea- 10 soned about " the objective and the subjectiT&," or about " Intuitional consciousness" or hotj is now unknown. But " holding the truth in un- righteousness," to what quarter Would they turn for instruction, save to their own darkened understandings ? They " chianged the glory of A& incorruptiblie God into an image made like tb corru|)tible man, to four- footed beasts and ofeeping things." Why these rather than God 1 Oh, these were not holy ! These could not hate or punish the workers of iniquity 1 Here is the origin of all these schemes that depart from God iaiid his truth: in wickedness of heart, framing to itself a philosophy, and rejecting the word of the Lord. So our first parents were ruined ; Satan came to them with hi^ philosophy. " Yea, hath God said, Yb shall not eat of every tree of the Garden f'-^" Ye shall not surely die : for God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be openedj and ye shall be as gods." Th'ey believed the tempter rather than God ; and oh, the sin and death that followed that dreadful error ! So in the corruption after the flood. No sooner had they changed the truth of God into a life, than, down they went (God gave them up) headlong into the filthy and abominable crimes which one can scarce read even in the Bible without a blush. One would have thought, when the Gofepel was giren to men, that mien taught of God would never be in danger of turn- ing from ftiat to philosophy. But the Holy Ghost saw fit to put the warning on record : — " As )fe have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so WALK IN HIM ; BOOTED AND BUILT XTP IN HIM, AND ESTABLISHED