Are we, as disciples of Christ, citizens of a kingdom not of this
world, a religious community, to be distracted, disconcerted, and
thrown into confusion? or, are we drawn to a common center, by an
attraction so heavenly, commanding, and binding, that no side-influence
can divert us from our course? The Lord is about to test us, prove us,
and show whether we are true, sincere, and men of integrity to the
great principles which we profess, and have been inculcating, or will
turn traitor to them, despise them, and trample them under our feet. We
have been preaching union upon the Bible, and the Bible alone, to our
neighbors; but, the time has come to test us practically, and compel us
to apply our philosophy in an instance of the greatest moment, and best
calculated, of all others, to show its power—its moral and spiritual
efficacy among ourselves.
What course shall we take, then, during the coming campaign? Shall
preachers of the gospel of Christ enter the pulpit, with exciting
political news in their heads and hearts, and make Kansas-Nebraska, and
anti-Kansas-Nebraska, Slavery and anti-Slavery speeches? Shall their
themes be the Constitution, Liberty, Popular Sovereignty, North, South,
Fillmore, Buchanan, Fremont, American, Democratic and Republican. Shall
these be the themes that consecrate the house of God during the coming
months, while thousands are perishing for the word of God, and dying in
their sins? We say, and would if we had a voice louder than the seven
thunders of the Apocalypse, and more immutable than the oath of the
angel of God, standing with one foot upon the land, and the other upon
the sea, say, _no_, by NO MEANS, for the following reasons:
_First._ Jesus and his apostles, in all their official acts, never
attempted to correct the political institutions of the country, no
matter how corrupt they were, but left them, and those who made them,
to take care of their own responsibilities. We must follow their
precedent, or we are not the disciples of Christ.
_Second._ Our Lord and his apostles, in all their official procedure,
never made a decision, or gave even an opinion, upon the merits or
demerits of any form of civil government, republican, monarchical,
either limited or absolute. They left all these matters to take their
course, and lifted their thoughts above them to a spiritual kingdom,
that shall endure when time shall be no more. We must do as they did,
or forfeit our claim to be one with them.
_Third._ The Lord and his apostles never made a decision, or gave an
opinion, on any system of slavery, though slavery existed, in some form
or other, in every country where they preached and wrote, in all their
official career. We must humble ourselves to the same limits.
_Fourth._ We have the infallible directions of the Spirit of God, to
believers, connected with slavery, both masters and servants, and these
directions we must give, when we speak on the subject at all, or depart
from the faith, because we are opposed to it. Every man who does not
do this, manifestly repudiates the practice and teachings of the holy
apostles.
_Fifth._ Jesus and his apostles did not found slavery of any kind, and
neither our Lord nor his religion can be responsible for any system of
slavery or its results, no matter how good or how bad. Slavery is an
institution of the world, as all other political institutions are, and
neither the kingdom of God nor its subjects are responsible for its
results.
_Sixth._ Our Lord and his apostles never formed an issue between the
kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. How utterly preposterous
and absurd it is, to the mind of one who has noticed, that our Lord
never made an issue between his kingdom, or his religion, and any civil
government or kingdom of the world, to see some misguided creature
trying to form a direct issue between the kingdom of God and whatever
political institution he may chance to fall out with and trying to set
the citizens in the kingdom of Christ in battle array with the citizens
of the civil government! Such a man has no use for a church only as a
kind of battering-ram to beat down some sinful institution that he
has just perceived is to ruin the nation. He would have the kingdom
of God a convenient engine, properly adjusted and poised, himself
commander-in-chief, so that he can now bring it to bear upon Masons,
then upon Odd Fellows, anon upon Sons of Temperance, then upon Slavery,
or any other monster that may rise. But the man who stands upon an
eminence lofty enough to discern the kingdom of God, beholds an
institution with an aim transcendently higher than deciding upon the
rights and wrongs of the political governments of the world, amending,
correcting, and perfecting them; the superlatively noble, grand, and
beneficent object of translating _individuals_, whether high or low,
rich or poor, bond or free, whether their political institutions are
good or bad, out of darkness into light, and out of the kingdom of
Satan into the kingdom of God, and in their few remaining days here,
no matter what their earthly condition, prepare them for guests of the
redeemed hosts who have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb, in the house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens.
_Seventh._ Christianity is _the thing_ to be promoted, and not to be
used as a mere _instrumentality_, by men who care nothing about _it_,
and who are doing but little to advance _it_, to promote some object of
their _own worldly ambition_. We must promote Christianity _itself_,
and not employ it as a mere means to promote something else.
“Well, sir, what would you have a christian do in regard to rulers and
civil governments?” says one. When acting as a citizen in the kingdom
of God, or in the house of God, “Pray for kings and all that are in
authority, that we may lead a peaceable and quiet life, in all
godliness and honesty.” “Be subject to the powers that be,” remembering
that “we have no continuing city here,” and that “this world is not our
home.” When acting as a citizen of the civil government, be candid,
quiet, peaceable, and kind, and do just what _you think right_,
allowing every man the same privilege, as Christ has left us all free
here, and leave the event with God.
There are spiritual-minded persons in almost all the parties around
us; and if we determine to know nothing but Christ, nothing but pure
Christianity, and confine ourselves strictly to the clear revelations
of heaven—preach the pure gospel of the grace of God—preach Christ,
and determine to know nothing else, while a mere carnal and worldly
priesthood harangue their assemblies on politics, mix up church
and State, law and gospel, turning their religious organizations
into mere political engines, the very thing we have condemned the
Romish priesthood for, thus wounding the feelings of all the more
spiritual-minded members and splitting their parties asunder, thousands
of them will seek a church where the name of Jesus has charms, where
the Lord is loved and worshipped, and where the true worshippers
worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Let us keep the way clear
for such, receive them to the fold of Christ, and show them how they
can serve God and get to heaven, whether they can ever understand the
slavery question or not.
Many of us have labored long and hard and sacrificed the main energies
of our lives in gathering the many thousands to the fold of Christ that
now throng places of public worship, and we can not remain silent and
see them scattered by the indiscreet and imprudent course of brethren,
in thrusting upon them, and seeming to think that their souls’
salvation is suspended upon their rightly understanding the question of
American slavery. We admonish the brethren to have nothing to do with
any such question in the church. The Lord has not required the church,
the preachers, or religious editors to make any decision, or to hold
any particular class of opinions on the subject, nor can any man be
blameless and push any such question into the kingdom of God. _We will
stand square upon the Bible, by the Lord, the apostles, and every man
who will stand by them._ The Lord direct us!