Year: 1866

Politics In. the Pulpit Handled HIthoa


GIoUes.


To the Rere,ned Alfred Neriia, d. d.


My DEAR SIR: Your letter addressed Il


me through the Philadelphia EcensR1 BHl


Lettn disappoints me because did not ex


pect it to come in that way, and because


does not cover the subject in issue betweei
as. Buff am silent your friends will say
with some show of reason, that you have win
dicated Political Preaching" so triumph
antly that all opposition is confounded.
must, therefore, speak freely in reply II
doing so, | mean to say nothing incon .isten
with my great respect for your high charac
ter in the church and in the world. The adj
mirable style and temper of your own com
munication deserve to be initiated


fully concede the right you claim for cler
gymen to select their own themes and handle
them as they please. You say truly thai
neither lawyers nor physicians nor any Other
order of men have the .iesst authority to con
troll you in these particulars. But you viii
not deny that this is a privilege which may
be abused you expressedly admit that some
clergymen haze abused it, and bg doing SC
did more than any other class of men to cont
mence and continue the late rebellion. y
While, therefore, we can assert no power to
dictate your conduct, much less to force you,
we are surely not wrong when we eltreat you
to impose upon yourselves those restrictions
which reason and revelation have shown to
be necessary for the good of the church and
the safety of civil society


/ acknowledge that your commission is a
very broad one You must declare the
whole counsel of God, " to the end that sin
ners may be convinced and converts built up
in their most holy faith. Truth, justice,
Temperance, humility, mercy, peace, broth
erly kindness, charity-the whole circle of
the Christian virtues-must be assiduously
taught to your hearers and If any of them
be inclined to the opposite vices, you are to
denounce them without fear, by private ad-
monition, by open rebuke, or by a general
delivery of the law which condemns them.
You are not bound to pause In the perfor-
nance of this duty because 1t may offend a
powerful ruler or strong political party
Nor should you shrink from it when bad men,
for their own purposes, approve what you
do. Elevate the moral character, enlighten
the darkness, and purify the hearts of those
who are under your spiritual charge, at all
hazards for this Is the work which your
great Task-master has given you to do, and
he will admit no excuse for neglecting it.


But this is precisely what the political
preacher is not in the habit of doing He di-
rects the attention of his hearers away from
their own sins to the sins, real or imputed, of
other people. By teaching his congregation
that they are better than other men. he fills
their hearts with self-conceit, bigotry, spirit
ual pride, envy, hatred, malice and all un-
charitableness Instead of the exhortation,
which they need, to take the beam out of
their own eye, he incites them to pluck the
mote from their brothers. He does not tell
them what they shall do to be saved, but he
instructs them very carefully how they shall
act for the destruction Of others. He rouses
and encourages to the utmost of his ability,
those brutal passions which result in riot,
bloodshed, spoliation, civil war, and general
corruption of morals.


You commit grievous error In supposing
that politics and religion are SO mingled to-
gether that you cannot preach one without
introducing the other. Christ and his apostles
kept them perfectly separate. They am
nounced the great facts of the Gospel to each
individual whom they addressed. When
these were accepted the believer was told to
repent and be baptized for the remission of
his sins, and afterwards to regulate his own
life by the rules of pure and perfect NOR
atty. They expressed no preference for one
form of government over another, they pro-
voked no political revolutions, and they pro-
posed no legal reforms If they had done
so, they would have fatty contradicted the
declaration that Christ's Kingdom was rot
Of this world, and Christianity itself you'd
have died out in half century. But Trey
accepted the relations which we-e created by
human law and exhorted tneir disciples to
discharge faithfully the duties which arose
out of them. Though me laws which de-
fined the authority Ut husbands, parents,
masters and magistrates were as bad as hui
man pe-versity could make them, yet the
early Christians contented themselves with
teaching moderation in the exercise of legal
rJwer, and uniformly inculcated the virtues
of obedience and fidelity upon wives, chill
dren, slaves and subjects. They joined in no
clamors for or against any administration,
but simply testified against sin before the
only tribunal which Christ ever erected on
earth that is to say, the conscience of the
sinner himself The vice of political preach
ing was wholly unknown to the primitive
church.


1t is true that Paul counselled obedience
to the government of Nero !; and am aware
that modern clergymen interpret his words
as justification of the doctrine that support
of an existing administration Is 'part of their
allegiance to God" Several Synods and
other ecclesiastical bodies have solemnly re-
soIred somethingto that effect But they for
get that what Paul advised was simple sub
mission, not active assistance, to endorse his
atrocities merely because he was ''the admin
istration duly placed in power" They did
not go with him to the theater, applaud his
acting, or praise him in the churches when
he kidnapped their brethern, set FIRE to 2
city, or desolated a province. Nor did they
assist at his apotheosis after his death, OF
pronounce funeral sermons to show that he
was greater than Scipio, more virtuous than
Cato, and more eloquent than Cicero. Polit-
ical preachers would have done this, but
Paul and Peter did no such thing.


There is nothing in the Scriptures to jus
tify the church In applying Its discipline to
any rnanaher for nttansas nrnrel,r ,,olitical