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

How wide the final divergency shall be from an apparently small misdirection in the beginning, no one can tell. The great principles of truth or of error send out their influences far and wide, and yield increas- ing harvests from generation to generation. Error is like sin, apparently of small moment in the beginning, but when it is finished, it bringeth forth death. Thus it proved in the first corruptions of Christianity. At first a ceremony — a ritual — an image — a garment, — a relic, — introduced at first with a pious design to foster devotion, — used next as a merit, a good work, a means of expiating sin, or of propitiating the divine favor : presently the great truth of justification by faith is lost ; men resort to justification by rituals and priestly interventions. Dependent on priests for salvation, tlxey are bound in the chains of a spiritual despotism. Intellectual vigor, courage, moral purity and strength, enterprise and energy, decay. They become slaves. Look at Italy ; look at Asia Mi- nor ; look at Northern Africa, once lined with happy churches. The broad lines of history show the consequences, even in this life, of de- parting from the truth. Over the regions once so happy, there bondage and wretchedness have prevailed from age to age ; and the land has poured its successive generations into the world of everlasting despair. On the other hand, mark how the great truth of justification by faith freed the nations who received it, from servitude, and put them forward in the career of enterprise and prosperity. The moment that this truth flashed upon the mind of Martin Luther, the power of the papacy over his mind was gone forever. That truth, as it flashed upon the minds of men, brought light and freedom together. Privileged now to come to God through the One Mediator above, they felt themselves responsible to God in matters of conscience, and not to man. Eesponsibility brought with it the consciousness of rights. The conflict with corrup- tion and despotism could not but come. Men waked up from their long slumber of a thousand years ; learning revived ; sciences, arts, 20 commerce, revived. At this day how easy it is to trace in the condi- tion and character of Christian na;tions, the regions where the doc- trine of Justification hy Faith prevails, and where the doctrine of justi- fication by the priesthood and the church. Lool^ at England ; look around you ; then turn your eyes to Spain, to Italy, to Austria. Look at guilty, miserahle France ; she cannot have freedom from the double rule of despots and priests, till the doctrine of justification by Faith shall bring the souls of the people under a sense of responsibility to God, and give them the security for virtue and order, without which, men must ever flee to the shelter of some despotism. Talk of giving freedom to Europe without first imbuing the minds of the people with Gospel truth ! The thing is impossible. Give them all that they can demand of republican or democratic freedom, and they must relapse again into bondage. It is with reason that Rome and the despots of the earth hate Protestantism — another name for the truth. Rome judges right, that it is necessary for her to suppress the Word of God, and to quench the light of truth, wherever it rises, in rivers of blood. The apostle John did but foresee the course of actual history when he said : " And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse," who " hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, " King of kings, AND LojtD OF LORDS." The same Blessed Master, who said, " The truth shall make you free," said, also, " Sanctify them through thy truth." Men must be slain by the law. Their righteousness must become as filthy rags. They must flee from condemnation and ruin to the atoning sacrifice of Christ, or they will never take the first step in the way of holiness. A true reli- gious experience 'always awakens a sense of wants and relations which the great Evangelical truths alone can fill. The " sanctification of the Spirit" is in the Bible joined with the " belief of the truth." When the Holy Spirit works in the soul, he works an experience in accordance with these truths, and never against them. The dreamy sentimentalism which many, who have never seen the deadly evil of sin, mistake for reli- gious affection, is any thing rather than true piety. Is it possible that he can have true piety, who hates the doctrine of the cross, rejects the testimony which God hath given of his Son, and counts the blood of the 21 covenant an unholy thing ? Can he be esteemed a believer, who rejects, in detail, with loathing and scorn, all the essential and precious truths of the Gospel 1 On the contrary, the Savior himself declares that such an one shall die in his sins. Such an one is nothing else than an unbeliever. There is no ei-ror of the day more false and ruinous than that -which allows men to fancy that they can have true piety, and yet reject and hate the truth. There is but one way of life. When men enter not in by the doOr, but climb up some other way, let no one think that they can be saved. The Savior said, expressly, " I am the way, the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the Father but by me." The great doctrines of the cross, though a stumbling block or foolishness in the view of the carnal mind, are nevertheless indispensable to a true conversion to God. They are still " The power of God and the wisdom of God." " Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Those who cover up or neutralize these doctrines, uader the impression that the gospel may be more palatable without them, and therefore more efficacious, are doing a work of fearful mischief to the souls of those who hear them. Those who give to such corrupted doctrines the countenanee of their fellowship, are purchasing peace at the cost of disobedience to their Lord, and of aiding to deceive and ruin the souls for whom Christ died. The wood, hay, stubble, that have been built into the Church by such teaching, encumbers the Church, introduces further error and declension, and after having wrought incalculable mis- chiefs, is" to be eventually burned up. So lax a course of dealing with the truth does not prevail long, before a species of religion prevails which is careless and confident, destitute of holy sobriety and prayer- fulness, and which is always found unprincipled in the day of trial. The few years of experience that I have had in the ministry have taught me, long since, never to entertain any high hopes of the professed Christian, nor to repose any especial confidence in that man, whose piety is not characterized by, and based upon, a love of the truth. Nothing is more precious than the truth ; no duty is more sacred than that of standing in its defence. He who corrupts it, poisons the very fountains of life. Poisoning the wells, and streams, and fountains— ^poisoning the air we breathe, is nothing. That does not bring eternal death. But what 22 misery on earth ; what ruin in eternity, do they not cause, who corrupt the truth as it is in Jesus ! There is no other work so horrible in which talents and genius may be employed. This was the way in which Satan was a murderer from the beginning ; he taught men not to abide in the truth. Abet such a work of evil ? Then there is no evil work in which a Christian, or a Christian minister, may not innocently join ! Alas ! for the souls fascinated by genius, and by polished blandishments, to come within the power of instructions that cause to err from the truth ! Alas ! for the young and experienced ; drawn by such fascinations, and encouraged by the countenance of the wise and honorable — nay, by the countenance of ministers of Christ — to put themselves under the power of a religion which turns their dying souls away from the cross of Christ, and instructs them to regard that bleeding sacrifice in the aspect in which God presents it to our faith, as an unholy thing ! But let us draw instruction from some authentic precedents in the word of God. To avoid the offence of the cross, and persuaded by certain teachers come down from Judea, some of the Galatian brethren had begun to yield a conformity to Jewish rituals. Why not 1 Why make any diffi- culty about so small a matter ? See how many of your brethren are yielding. Even Peter has yielded, and Barnabas has yielded, and will you, Paul, take this " unseemly position" of appearing to know better than your brethren ; and perhaps " drive the wedge of division" for a mere matter of doctrine or opinion on which men so honestly differ ? But Paul sees that a doctrine of the word of God is no matter of opinion ; it is either taught in the word of God, or it is not ; the only question possible is a question of fact. Paul sees that these "walk not according to the truth of the Gospel ;" and he not only withstands Peter to his face, he will withstand an angel, and count him accursed, if found guilty of betraying a fundamental truth. The error touches the doctrine of Justification ; and whatever touches that,, touches the vitals of Chris- tianity. " O foolish Galatians ! who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth ?" " That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith." " Christ hath re- deemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for ms." " Be- hold I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit 23 yo% nothing." " Christ is become of no effect unto you ; whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallm from grace." " I marvel that ye are so soon removed from the grace of Christ to another gospel; which is not another ; hut there he some that pervert the gospel of Christ." " But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him he accursed. As vre said before, so say I now again. If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed !" " Ye did run well ; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth ?" " This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." A little error, touching a fundamental principle, corrupts the whole scheme of the gospel. So a little leaven always works when it touches a fundamental of Christianity. .Say that the Bible is not the word of God, but only con- tains the word of God 1 Your feet find no resting-place till you have reached the very depths of infidelity. " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Nothing is unimportant. No stone can be removed from the arch without endangering the whole. Deny the Divinity or the Humanity of Christ, and you have no atonement. Deny the fallen state of man, his utter corruption, condemnation and helplessness, and the very ground of the Gospel is gone. Deny the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atoning Sacrifice, Justification by Christ's obedience and blood, and the whole fabric is destroyed.