Ep. 301 - The Salt of Godliness | FCB Podcast Network

“Religion in Politics” is the title of a Thanksgiving Day sermon delivered by Dr. Charles Wadsworth to his Philadelphia congregation in 1853. Although delivered over 170 years ago, this beautiful sermon carries shocking relevance in 2024, particularly after this contentious election. Wadsworth aims his fire in particular towards Christians who balk at the idea of being too involved in politics. Wadsworth’s take on “Render unto Caesar…” is a stunning admonition of modern Christians and a beautiful reminder of why our national day of thanks to God for the blessings of liberty is so vital to the health of not just our great nation, but the entire world. Take a break from the weirdness that is Thanksgiving 2024 and listen to Kira deliver this poetic, prophetic message from one of America’s most prolific preachers.
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[00:01:15] Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Welcome to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself. This is the

[00:01:24] Thanksgiving Day Special and rather than break down a particular topic and get in all that thinking,

[00:01:31] God only knows what you're going through right now at your house. It's gonna be a weird Thanksgiving

[00:01:37] for everybody. I did the story episode earlier this week. I shared some uncomfortable Thanksgiving

[00:01:42] stories. Just something quick to amuse us all. And so if you have any stories, fun Thanksgiving

[00:01:54] stories, go back and listen to that and then send me yours. But rather than add to the stress,

[00:01:59] I thought, oh, let's go back in history. Let's learn something. And I was going, I love to go through

[00:02:05] the old historical Thanksgiving proclamations from our presidents across time. And I don't think

[00:02:12] presidents do it anymore, but we've got, there's some great speeches from presidents over the years

[00:02:20] on Thanksgiving. And so I like to go back and read them. Well, I found them, this is not from a

[00:02:25] president, but I found this sermon tucked in among these historical documents I was looking through

[00:02:30] from Dr. Charles Wadsworth. Dr. Charles, now, now, Charles Wadsworth. I don't, I don't know some of you

[00:02:39] out there. I'm sure my, my great friend, Daryl Harrison probably already knows who Charles Wadsworth is.

[00:02:43] I don't listen to Wadsworth or, or see Wadsworth stuff out there. But Charles Wadsworth is a,

[00:02:54] he was known as one of the most eloquent divines of his day. And I think when you listen to this

[00:03:01] sermon, I know you're listening to me read it and it's not the same because these aren't my words.

[00:03:05] And some of it's flowery language that I can't really wrap my modern brain around. So some of it,

[00:03:10] I'm just reading, I'm not really contextualizing it because I can't. But, oh my gosh, some of this

[00:03:21] is like, is this guy, this is 1853? Not only is some of it prescient, it's just, it's almost eerie

[00:03:32] how prescient what some of the things he said. He does make some predictions. It's almost eerie. But

[00:03:38] not only that, it's beautifully, beautifully written. And it is a beautiful, it is a love letter to America,

[00:03:47] but it is also an admonishment to American Christians to stop pulling back. Now again,

[00:03:54] 1853, he wrote this, to stop pulling back from politics and pretending that there is this thing

[00:04:01] of, oh, we separate politics and faith and we render unto God what is God's and render unto Caesar

[00:04:07] what is Caesar's. He has an amazing take on this. And I found it absolutely inspiring. In fact,

[00:04:14] I feel renewed almost by reading this. I've renewed in my political determination to stay in this fight

[00:04:23] and keep pushing forward. And now more than ever, I truly believe is a time for Christians to stand up

[00:04:30] and get in the public square. And Wadsworth talks a lot about how it is a mistake. This is what they

[00:04:38] were dealing with in 1853, that it is a mistake for Christians to pull out of the public square.

[00:04:42] It is a mistake because none of the ideas that built America can thrive without the idea that America

[00:04:50] was founded on, which is the idea of a creator and the blessings of liberty that he bestows on all of us.

[00:04:56] If we don't have him, right, that's where everything comes from. How we understand our blessings,

[00:05:02] how we understand our rights. It's all from Christianity. It's all from faith, religion,

[00:05:09] as Dr. Wadsworth says. So to pull that out, that leg from the stools and he says this, he says it

[00:05:16] better than I am now. But to pull that leg out from under that stool and then suggest, well,

[00:05:21] we don't need Christianity anymore. We got it figured out. Even Christians say that. And I think

[00:05:26] that's part of the reason why we're here. And, and I, we should all be, we should feel very convicted

[00:05:32] by the words of Dr. Wadsworth, uh, as laid out in this sermon, pay attention to the things he says,

[00:05:39] particularly about Christianity in the public square, about the type of politicians in Washington,

[00:05:46] DC at that time. So he's talking out of probably Philadelphia at that time, I think. Um, but he's,

[00:05:53] he's saying a lot of things that are going to sound familiar to you. He's talking about a lot of the

[00:05:57] problems we have, but pay attention to the way he describes what your duty is as Christians and why

[00:06:04] it matters to politics, religion, economy, trade, all of it. So, so good. I hope you enjoyed this

[00:06:14] sermon as much as I enjoyed reading it. And golly, gee, there's a part of me that kind of wants to

[00:06:20] memorize it and turn it into just one woman show. Cause damn, wish I could have sat in this guy's church.

[00:06:27] Well, I, I'll bet anyways, I designed this to be something you can sort of listen to,

[00:06:33] press pause on and off, maybe put it in your ears while you're cooking your turkey dinner or whatever.

[00:06:37] So it's not information that you have to absorb, you know, right? Like we're not sifting through

[00:06:41] arguments here. It's just, maybe this is something you might not have had a chance

[00:06:46] otherwise to have heard or know exists. And I think it's valuable for everyone. So

[00:06:51] thank, happy Thanksgiving to you. And please enjoy this sermon from Dr. Charles

[00:06:56] Wadsworth. So I hope these words inspire you as you go about your Thanksgiving activities,

[00:07:06] religion in politics, render to Caesar, the things that are Caesar's. These words you will remember

[00:07:13] are part of our Lord's answer to the Herodians when they sought to entangle him in the political

[00:07:19] controversies of the time. I have not, of course, selected them as a theme of usual scriptural and

[00:07:26] Sabbath day exposition. You have come here expecting to have your meditations turned

[00:07:31] into channels, be seeming the occasion that occasion owing to the agreement of so many of our United

[00:07:39] States to celebrate it simultaneously is a great national Thanksgiving and to turn from its national

[00:07:46] or political aspects and confine ourselves to what are called technically religious considerations

[00:07:53] were to do evident violence to the properties of time and okay. And yet here at the very outset,

[00:08:00] are we met with the outcry of the whole howling pack of infidelity and irreligion as they hunt in

[00:08:08] couples for Christian inconsistencies, claiming meanwhile for themselves, the whole body politic

[00:08:14] as a car gets from the shambles to be cast to their kennel.

[00:08:17] Do not bring politics into the pulpit, say these men. Do not desecrate God's sanctuary,

[00:08:25] a preacher's business is to minister the gospel, God's pure and peaceable gospel,

[00:08:31] and beware how you desecrate and pollute it by interfering in state matters.

[00:08:38] Verily, these be most wonderful men, blaspheming and reviling and trampling under their foul feet

[00:08:45] for the whole 365 days of each year, this very gospel, and then overwhelmed with a holy awe,

[00:08:54] lest some preacher once in a whole annual revolution should happen in their apprehension to find

[00:09:00] its high sacredness. Ah, the most astonishing men, most wonderful zeal for the gospel.

[00:09:08] Nevertheless, we agree with these men in the assertion that a preacher's business is with the

[00:09:13] gospel of Christ and its religion only. But then, what is religion? Religion as revealed in the gospel?

[00:09:23] Is it an influence so ethereal and unearthly as to require to be shut carefully from common life

[00:09:32] into Sabbath days and sanctuaries, lest its white garments should become soiled by contact with

[00:09:39] worldliness? So, indeed, these men tell us. And here we are at issue with them. Religion is not merely a

[00:09:48] sentiment, but a life. Not merely affections Godward, but activity manward. It renders a man not merely a

[00:09:58] singer of psalms and a partaker of sacraments, but indeed renders him mainly a kind of friend,

[00:10:04] an affectionate father, an estimable citizen, and an honest man. And therefore, a religion that does

[00:10:12] not pass beyond the region of technical sacredness and pervade the whole economy of social and secular,

[00:10:21] entering as a living power into the commerce and the literature and the magistrate and the politics

[00:10:27] of a man is a mutilated and monstrous religion. In the text, our Lord sets forth one great part of

[00:10:38] Christian duty. It is not only rendering unto God the things that are God, but as well rendering unto

[00:10:46] Caesar the things that are Caesar's, a principle taking as vital an interest in a human as in the divine

[00:10:54] government. And if you will remember that in Christ's times, the form of civil governments and their

[00:11:01] practical administration were as imperfect as they have ever been, and that the Caesars were with few

[00:11:07] exceptions the barriest of tyrants, you will perceive how emphatically we are taught in the text that a man's

[00:11:16] religious duties are not only unto his God, but as well unto his country. Ormore simply stated that a man

[00:11:25] should carry his Christianity heartily and wholly into the politics of his country. And this then is the

[00:11:33] theme of our present meditation, the duty of every Christian man to go forth in the face of all this

[00:11:40] infidel outcry and carry his religion into his politics. But then what do we mean by politics?

[00:11:48] Do we mean the paltry canary of placement for power, a working out of the low artifices of party in pursuit

[00:11:56] of offices and spoils? Would we have a Christian minister or a Christian man go down to the shameless

[00:12:03] and undisguised corruption which pervades what is called the peculiar moral code of politics? Would we

[00:12:10] have such a man sit face to face with the brutal ignorance and ruffian vice which hidden from the

[00:12:16] face of honest men distribute the parts of the great play and shuffle and cut and deal the dirty cards

[00:12:23] wherewithin partisan gamblers are to play a game whose great stake is our civil and national welfare?

[00:12:30] Oh no, no. By politics, as we would have them mingled in by Christian men, we mean the science of

[00:12:39] government, the part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a state or nation,

[00:12:45] or the preservation of its peace and prosperity, comprehending the defense of its existence and

[00:12:50] rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources,

[00:12:56] the protection of its citizens in all their rights, and the preservation and improvement of their manner

[00:13:03] and morals, and involving therefore every religious, patriotic, and domestic interest that is near

[00:13:10] and dear to us. And in such, as the only grand and just idea of politics, we would have every Christian

[00:13:18] and good man mingle religiously and wholly. And this, for several reasons we will now go on to consider.

[00:13:32] And this, first of all, because political privileges and blessings as we enjoy deserve at our hands as

[00:13:40] God's great gift, such a public religious consecration. This is indeed the very sacrifice of thanksgiving we are

[00:13:47] met in God's house to offer this morning. In all times we have religious offering been discriminative

[00:13:53] and appropriate. The husbandman has brought forth of the fruits of the ground. The shepherd has brought

[00:14:00] the firstling of his flocks. And one appropriate sacrifice of thanksgiving for national and political

[00:14:06] blessings is not a mere expression of gratitude in hallelujahs, but a consecration to God of our powers

[00:14:14] in a service which will perpetuate unto our children's children our great social and political and national

[00:14:23] privileges. And surely such privileges as ours deserve such an offering. Truly a goodly and glorious gift is our

[00:14:32] American birthright. I know men tell us it is grandiloquent and in bad taste and savors of arrogance and vanity

[00:14:40] and is wanting and national courtesy and good breeding to be everlastingly glorifying in our eagles and our

[00:14:47] star-spangled banners and exulting in our national consciousness of political superiority and our national

[00:14:55] hope of a sure and limitless and magnificent future. But for our very lives, we cannot help it.

[00:15:01] How can the children of the bride chamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them? We look at the nations of the old

[00:15:08] world, gigantic if you please, but manifestly in wrinkle and decay of a hoary age. And we look at our own land,

[00:15:17] just springing in glorious and gigantic youth with flashing eyes and iron sinews to run such a race of honor and

[00:15:25] power as the world never saw. And we cannot shame on us if we could repress the thrill of pride from the heart

[00:15:34] and the exulting words from the tongue as we think of our own matchless land as it is now and shall be.

[00:15:41] Oh, I see it. I see it. A nation that shall be unto all other nations as blessed old Israel was to Amorite and the

[00:15:51] Philistine. A nation stretching from an ocean to ocean across this whole continent. A nation of freemen,

[00:16:00] self-governed, governed by simple law without police or soldiery. A nation of 500 millions of people

[00:16:08] covering the sea with their fleets and the land with great cities. First in learning and science and arts

[00:16:16] and every great produce of industry and genius. I, and better and higher and holier of virtuous and

[00:16:25] godly people bound together in one tender and beautiful brotherhood and luxuriant with fruit and

[00:16:32] flower in the bloom and aroma of Christian graces. The refuge of the oppressed, the protector of the

[00:16:39] downtrodden, the home of the exile, the terror of the despotism, the victorious champion of earth's wronged

[00:16:47] tribes against tyranny and outrage. The almoner of God's great grace to the wounded spirit and bleeding

[00:16:54] heart of a redeemed humanity. I see this and more than this and our safe and dazzling and limitless future.

[00:17:04] And my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth if I thought to check the joyous words that swell up

[00:17:12] in hallelujahs. We have, we have a magnificent birthright. And what is it all but God's gift?

[00:17:22] God's gift through the gospel. All it is and all it shall be a result of Christianity.

[00:17:30] And so all it is and all it shall be but an ascension gift to my Lord unto his disciples as Christians.

[00:17:39] And are we then as Christians, as the very men for whom it was projected and for whom it is conserved,

[00:17:47] are we as religious and Christian men to stand back from this glorious nationality and that fools

[00:17:55] and ruffians, the filth and pollution and offscouring of moral life? Creatures bought and sold for a price

[00:18:04] as cattle for the shambles, the rucks and the rotten wood that float with every shifting tide of infidel

[00:18:11] and irresponsible political opinion. Are we to stand together aloof and let creatures like these men

[00:18:18] mar and mutilate this great national machinery? Shall the insane fantasism of the North and the Southern sham

[00:18:27] chivalry bluster about the dissolution of the Union and hew with a fool's axe at the root of the tree of our liberty?

[00:18:35] And must I, as a Christian man and minister, not smite them with all the strength God has given me,

[00:18:43] lest I should pollute my Christianity by a contract with worldliness? Away with such shallow and hypocritical

[00:18:52] reverence for Christianity. I owe it to my gospel and to my God as all the return I can make for a

[00:19:00] birthright so glorious to fling myself as a Christian man into the defense of that birthright and bear my

[00:19:09] bosom as a religious being to the infidel and a cursed tide that would sweep all those good and

[00:19:15] glorious things away as wrecks upon a deluge. And we have come upon this day as a rejoicing people,

[00:19:22] not merely to praise God, but to consecrate ourselves to this very work in sacrifice of

[00:19:29] thanksgiving and go forth in the performance of our Christian work, rendering not only to God the

[00:19:35] things that are God's, but as well rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

[00:19:42] And now let me remark, secondly, that as Christian men, we are bound to this duty because our nation

[00:19:50] needs this day for her own preservation and mingling in her politics of this religious element.

[00:19:58] She needs it indeed at all times, on all principles of national and governmental policy.

[00:20:04] There never has existed and never can exist a nation without this pervading element of religious

[00:20:10] influence. Even the heathen and the unenlightened rulers of the elder world all perceived and acted on

[00:20:17] this common sense maxim. History has no record of a single legislator who attempted to enforce

[00:20:23] obedience to law on the sole ground of its civil sanctions and its temporal penalties.

[00:20:30] They universal perceived the insufficiency of all such motives, if unstrengthened by the higher

[00:20:36] motives drawn from religious principles. And if they were strangers to divine revelation,

[00:20:42] they found a substitute in their mythology and applied it as skillfully as might be to the prejudices of

[00:20:48] the people. Like Kyrgyz, Solon, Numa, Pompolis, Muhammad, and indeed every other legislator at all famed for the

[00:20:56] wisdom of his institutions, were compelled to have recourse to religion and in fact derived therefrom their

[00:21:03] mightiest motives to enforce obedience. And in all this, they acted on an accurate and extensive

[00:21:10] knowledge of human nature and with a wisdom that will remain true so long as simple passions and

[00:21:15] affections have such an influence on mankind. For whenever, as in France, the attempt has been made to

[00:21:21] loose all religious restraints from the minds of people, then have the whirlwind and the storm and the

[00:21:28] great waves dashing into shipwreck made eloquent proclamation that for the preservation of every

[00:21:35] great national and political interest, there is no need of a god to ride upon the whirlwind and direct

[00:21:42] the storm. Now, if this be evidently true, even of nations held in check by armed power of despotism,

[00:21:50] how emphatically must it be true of a free and self-governing people? Our free institutions were

[00:21:56] created and conserved by the Christian religion. The two grand pillars whereon the whole edifice rests

[00:22:01] are the equality of human rights and brotherly love equal to self-love. And these great truths we have

[00:22:09] learned from the gospel take them away and our peculiar nationality is destroyed in a moment.

[00:22:15] We may still exist indeed as a power on the earth. We may exist still united under armed aristocracy or

[00:22:22] a great military despotism. Or we may exist a fragmentary and deserved power as a hundred petty

[00:22:31] and belligerent principalities. And this continent may be parceled out like the old unto rival conquerors.

[00:22:37] And our miserable descendants increase and multiply and vegetate and rot in ignorance and bondage.

[00:22:43] And go forth in fierce feuds marshaled under rival banners of the bear and the lion and the lilies

[00:22:49] over the very fields where their fathers marched united and triumphant and free under their one

[00:22:55] glorious evil. But sure I am if the religious element to be taken from our politics, our republicanism is

[00:23:02] gone at a stroke and forever. I have not the limits here to enter into the argument of the manifold

[00:23:09] advantages to a free people of gospel piety. Time would fail me to tell you how it would increase

[00:23:15] national wealth by diminishing the popular tendency to luxury and extravagance and by incalculating

[00:23:22] temperance and industry and frugality. How it operates as a mighty check on all those corruptions

[00:23:29] which weaken a free people. How it educates into truth and tenderness the unpopular conscience

[00:23:34] without which just laws must remain dead letters in the statute book, unenforced and without influence.

[00:23:41] How it destroys all those selfish and sectional animosities whereunto demagogues always appeal.

[00:23:48] How in short by restraining in the human heart the vices that weaken

[00:23:51] and regenerating into nobler life the virtues that strengthen it. It makes ever manifest the great

[00:23:58] truth that free and prosperous and united and blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.

[00:24:06] This and all this we take in our argument for granted and based upon it our plea is that we are

[00:24:12] called on as religious men to rise up and cast more of this salt of godliness into our national character.

[00:24:19] We are this very day in God's sight going backward from our old moral landmarks.

[00:24:25] We are even now as a nation swarming with drunkards and sabbath breakers and profane swearers.

[00:24:31] The emissaries of the old foreign ecclesiastical despotism, the tool in the mainspring of all

[00:24:38] European despotism, are among us foul and frequent as locusts of the Nile on the green things of God's

[00:24:45] husbandry. Fanatics at both ends of the union are toiling might and main at their fiendish work of

[00:24:52] dismemberment. Our national compact itself, founded on the compromise of local interests,

[00:24:58] exposes us more and more to sectional jealousies and competition and to the heartless assaults

[00:25:04] of ambitious agitators of popular passion. We are entering confessedly on stormy time.

[00:25:10] New forms of infidelity and political atheism and false philanthropy are rising in strength in the

[00:25:17] midst of us. While Christian men stand aloof, fools are heaving at the pillars of our great national

[00:25:23] temple. And the whole tribe of the Philistines are twisting at the cords while God's Samson sleeps in

[00:25:30] the lap of the Enchantress. It is time, high time then, for Christian championship to awake.

[00:25:36] By the men of the present generation is a great question to be settled, whether there can be

[00:25:41] maintained in the midst of us enough of an enlightened and tender moral sense to keep us

[00:25:46] a virtuous and free and united people in the face of all these assaults of infamy and irreligion.

[00:25:53] By the Christian men that now worship in God's temples is the uncertain problem to be solved.

[00:25:59] Whether the light of liberty that shines on us this day is of a sun bounding gloriously from the

[00:26:05] orient, we're already sinking sadly and slowly to the sepulchral clouds of the west. And therefore,

[00:26:13] the call comes to us loud as a voice of prophets in the glorious days of the Israel of Judah to stand

[00:26:19] forth against the enemies of hearthstone and altar for our God and our country, casting religious salt

[00:26:27] into the polluted fountains of our national conscience, pouring religious light among the troubled

[00:26:32] seas of our national politics, rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's as surely unto God the

[00:26:41] things that are God's. And by all this are we brought to remark, thirdly, that we are urged to this duty by

[00:26:48] our regard for all the great interests of the race and the world. Disaster, as would be the destruction of

[00:26:56] our peculiar nationality in regards of ourselves? More disastrous and appalling still would it prove

[00:27:03] in regard of the human race everywhere, speaking only civilly and politically. And there is no sign of hope

[00:27:09] for a world's popular liberties if our republicanism fails. Unto America are turned this day the regards of all

[00:27:17] nations as the last practical experiment of popular self-government. From America goes forth this day the

[00:27:23] only light of hope to fall on the heart of an oppressed race as a joy and a consolation.

[00:27:29] For this great work we were raised up, and this great work we are doing. Talk as men will about the

[00:27:35] sanctity of international law as preventing on our part with the old world interference and intervention.

[00:27:42] Yet, spite of it all, with the whole power that is given us, we are interfering and intervening.

[00:27:47] As surely and constantly as the blazing sun interferes with the prowling night beasts,

[00:27:53] are we interfering with the oppressions and despotisms of the world's farthest nations.

[00:27:58] There is not a cabinet in Europe that does not look upon this great republic as the real author of

[00:28:03] all the revolutionary movements on that whole broad continent. That does not plot and pray for our ruin,

[00:28:11] as the mighty disturber of the peace of their haggard and hoary oppressions,

[00:28:14] and the only formidable and gigantic obstacle to the perpetuity of their foul despotisms hereon after

[00:28:21] and forever. The grand and simple principle that unites us as a free people is a principle

[00:28:27] actively and essentially at war with the whole spirit of European nationality. And we are this

[00:28:33] very mourning by the never-ceasing and omnipresent influences of our free institutions more powerfully

[00:28:40] and offensively interfering with the despotic policy of those European empires than if a hundred thousand

[00:28:47] armed men stood marshaled under the American eagle on the banks of the Danube and our whole naval power,

[00:28:54] three times old, were cruising on those European seas, sweeping a despot's fleet from the water,

[00:29:00] or thundering with a thousand guns against the bulwarks of a despot's capital.

[00:29:05] We are interfering and what is more we are bound to be interfered with. We may let European despotisms

[00:29:13] alone and doubtless we shall let them alone as to all armed aggression, but then the plain and

[00:29:19] simple fact is they will not let us alone. It is a mistake altogether to imagine that the whole popular

[00:29:26] sympathies of the old world are with popular freedom or that the masses of those oppressed nations are

[00:29:32] prepared for or ambitious of our free institutions. The political movement of the whole East is backward

[00:29:39] manifestly to feudalism. Those favored empires that with a constitution limiting the monarch we have

[00:29:46] rejoiced over as already half free and gloried in as marching in the van of advancing civilization are

[00:29:53] already in the wane and wrinkle of dotage and decrepitude. Great Britain is tottering already under the

[00:29:59] hideous burden of a bloated aristocracy, and the lion that once roused itself to shake the world its banner

[00:30:06] now crouches tamed and spaniel-like at the tread of the great Eastern despotism. France that looked

[00:30:13] unto the world so like a winged creature of liberty by a monstrous recoil has gone back to a chrysalis

[00:30:20] and is bound as God lives to come forth as a worm again. Spain is already a dead thing in the grave,

[00:30:27] in Austria that fowler thing than a despotism, the despotic tool of a despot. Yonder continent

[00:30:33] has indeed this day but one united, one advancing and absorbing power, and that the great Northern

[00:30:41] and naked and unmiticated military despotism. A despotism too, be it ever remembered, not resting in

[00:30:49] and trusting to popular ignorance, but where industry is stimulated and the arts are encouraged and

[00:30:56] fostered by all possible appliances, and commerce steadily and strenuously advanced in every possible

[00:31:02] direction, and where the subjects are not held in an unwilling bondage, but are the rejoicing and

[00:31:08] enthusiastic abateurs of despotism. And thus, firm on her foundations and terrible in her might,

[00:31:16] is Russia, aspiring and advancing to conquest the world. Impression of the far future she sees in the

[00:31:24] whole wide world today, but one mighty obstacle in her path, this young republic, the everlasting light

[00:31:32] of our popular freedom in the dark places of tyrants. And so the momentous signs of the times are now

[00:31:37] proclaiming a coming conflict, which amid such terrors of antagonism as the earth never saw, there shall go on

[00:31:44] under the rival banners of the bear and the eagle, the last great battle for freedom and the world.

[00:31:51] But if in all this we read not aright the program of the struggle, sure we are, at least, that the

[00:31:58] great conflict of this and the coming generation will be of the freedom against tyranny. And sure we are,

[00:32:05] therefore, as well, that in the preservation and the perpetuity of our free institutions,

[00:32:10] there rests the only hopes of oppressed humanity. And that, in the terrible hour that is coming on all

[00:32:17] of our people, our own civil and religious liberty must furnish the only championship for man's heart

[00:32:24] and soul against the despotisms of this world. Now, if to this thought of our civil and political

[00:32:30] influence upon the nations you add the other thought of the religious and evangelical influence

[00:32:36] we are manifestly designed to exert upon a lost race, the thought under consideration will appear

[00:32:42] most impressive. Even if for the civil franchises of mankind there were to rise up other than American

[00:32:48] championship, yet whence, save from the American church, can go forth the light of a redeeming

[00:32:55] gospel to the dark places of the earth? If there be any philosophic reading of a historic providence,

[00:33:01] then from God's past and present dealings with us as a peculiar people, and from the evident signs of

[00:33:07] the times as displaying the powerlessness of all other nations for evangelizing a world,

[00:33:13] from these I say is the truth as apparent as an oracle of revelation, that unto us as stewards of the

[00:33:20] grace of God is awarded the magnificent service of sending forth a full and free gospel over all the

[00:33:28] benighted continents of our globe, that from our beloved land, glorious in its scenery and its broad

[00:33:34] boundaries and its new growth of civilization and its loftier type of civil and religious manhood,

[00:33:40] the angel that hath the everlasting gospel to preach is already pluming the wing for flight

[00:33:46] over the nation. And that the hopes of the race, therefore, not merely for the time

[00:33:53] but for eternity, not merely for earthly freedom, but for immortal glory, do under God suspend

[00:34:00] themselves under the perpetuity of our union and the permanent progress of the development of our free

[00:34:05] institutions. So that to give up our national character to the spoiler, we're not only to quench

[00:34:12] every light on the altars of liberty, but to quench for the world the fires on God's altars,

[00:34:18] to shiver the great wheel on the mechanism of a triumphing evangelist, and so to cast the race back,

[00:34:27] not merely to the iron thralldom of despotism, but to the most monstrous bondage of superstition and infidelity.

[00:34:36] And I say you have only to remember this and consider it, and you will get an impression of the

[00:34:42] unspeakable importance of the whole world of mankind, of the perpetuity and progress of our

[00:34:48] free institutions, which will make you jealous with an immortal jealousy of any stain upon our

[00:34:53] national character as a wisely governed and intellectual and moral and religious people.

[00:34:59] And send every man of us to stand proudly up in his place as an American Christian and patriot,

[00:35:05] carrying our piety as an inspiration to the duties of our citizenship, and lifting up in the great faith

[00:35:12] Christ's redeeming cross as a bulwark more powerful than all else to roll back the tides of iniquity and

[00:35:19] corruption and infidel legislation and the whole wide deluge of ruffian and irresponsible politics,

[00:35:26] which would sweep all these glad and glorious things away as wrecks upon waters.

[00:35:31] For we shall perceive how God himself has linked all the great interests of our race with these American

[00:35:39] politics, so that in this whole matter, by rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,

[00:35:45] we are most surely as well rendering to God the things that are God's.

[00:35:57] Now this leads me to remark fourthly, unless we should weary you finally, that we are urged by this duty,

[00:36:05] by a due regard for our religion itself. We have already said that this is a false notion of religion,

[00:36:14] which supposes it to be polluted and thus injured by every contact and concern with merely worldly interests.

[00:36:22] And now we go further and declare that we should do very much to honor and magnify Christianity,

[00:36:27] were we to carry it forth as an energizing principle, yea, as a vital and controlling power,

[00:36:32] into our whole practical life as American citizens. You are all of you familiar with the infidel clamor of

[00:36:39] the times that the Christianity of the gospel has proved a great failure, that while it did good service

[00:36:45] as a pioneer of civilization and as a rudimental teacher of the alphabet and the great school of

[00:36:50] humanity, nevertheless, that now when that race has progressed from its nomadic life and that the great

[00:36:57] man-child has flung off its swaddling bands and mastered the rudiments of knowledge and entered the

[00:37:03] higher forms of intellectual culture, that now Christianity must surrender its great charge to

[00:37:09] the higher teachings of philosophy and be flung aside as an epitent engine whose work has been accomplished

[00:37:15] and whose day has gone by. And we are too feigned to confess that this outcry is not without plausible

[00:37:22] arguments, arguments drawn with irresistible force from the narrowness of the field and the feebleness of the

[00:37:28] power wherein professing Christians have themselves developed their Christianity. For we must frankly admit that a

[00:37:35] religion that remains shut away from the common business of life into the pure regions of spiritualism as a thing of

[00:37:43] ecstasies and sentiment and psalm singing, appearing statedly on Sabbath days and in sanctuaries and seen no more

[00:37:52] abroad during the six days of the secular and social, we confess, I say, that such a religion, be it Christian or pagan,

[00:38:00] is altogether out of place, an imbecile amid the restlessness and earnest tides of an age and a life like our own.

[00:38:09] But then, quite as confident as I am, that if Christianity have not hitherto acquitted herself to the full of all her

[00:38:17] secular and social duties, the secret lies not in her inadequacy of the work, but in the smallness of the sphere which

[00:38:24] Christians themselves have assigned her and the class and kind of labor they have committed to her hands.

[00:38:30] Sure I am, at least that is an intellectual and moral system, Christianity was designed for all nations and all generations,

[00:38:39] and is divinely adapted to the exigencies of all nations and generations. Her credentials to our race are not merely as

[00:38:47] a fitting and tender nurse for its unsteady infancy, but more fittingly still as the earnest tutor of its hot youth,

[00:38:55] the glorious guide and guardian of its magnificent manhood, embodying, as Christianity does within itself,

[00:39:03] the mightiest and most practical moral influences to be found in God's universe, and revealed as the master contrivance of

[00:39:12] infinite wisdom to restore man from his ruins and bring back a wandering world to the light and the liberty of God's own children.

[00:39:20] It has only to be inaugurated in its place of rightful authority, only to be brought forth from the cloisters of

[00:39:27] contemplation and the chairs of academic speculation, only to take hold in its strength and on the great practical questions of

[00:39:37] the race and the age, and the scoffing world will acknowledge as they see that an influence so long despised as a thing only busy with creeds and ceremonies and sacraments

[00:39:48] can yet work gloriously and with a strong arm as man's practical benefactor, that its fostering is of every influence which makes up civilization,

[00:40:00] that its calling is unto the patronage of the arts and sciences and literature and commerce and trade,

[00:40:08] that its place is as truly in the cabinet as if the conventicler, in the senate chamber as at a sacrament,

[00:40:17] that in acquit itself vigorously of all social and civil in a word of every secular duty,

[00:40:24] and is gloriously equal to all the exigencies of the time and every possible emergency of the day and the generation.

[00:40:33] And we say such an inauguration to a high sway over things merely temporal, Christianity deserves today at the hands of his disciples.

[00:40:42] It deserves to be justified openly from the suspicions of the world.

[00:40:46] That it is after all but a low and paltry and driveling fanaticism.

[00:40:51] It deserves to be brought abroad from the closet and cloister to enter as a living power into the philosophy and speculation and the earnest of life.

[00:41:03] And all the high enterprise of an uprising humanity rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and steadfastly as unto God the things that are God's.

[00:41:14] Religion has indeed its most glorious place in the recesses of the redeemed spirit and an honored throne in the sanctuary with its praises and sacraments.

[00:41:24] It is the joy and the glory of its great prerogative that it abides in the sanctities of the heart and the household

[00:41:31] and brings heavenly comfort and peace to the secluded hut of the poor child of want

[00:41:36] and sits in the seraphic love of the hushed bedside of the dummy.

[00:41:40] Nevertheless, it is its other prerogative and should be its joy and glory as well to take care of man's temporal interests as wisely as his spiritual.

[00:41:52] And walking abroad as a conserving spirit of the day and age to pour its divine light upon the speculations of the philosophy

[00:42:00] and to bathe with its heavenly dues man's learning and genius and to lay its strong hand on the energies of trade and of commerce

[00:42:08] and to lift up its heavenly yet resistless voice in the halls of legislation

[00:42:15] and to stand in meek yet mighty glory in the haughtiest presence of monarch and noble

[00:42:21] and to fling from its radiant loveliness a resistless moral power

[00:42:27] that shall pervade the world's arts and sciences and literature and jurisprudence

[00:42:33] and economy of politics and machinery of government rendering as wisely and as well

[00:42:40] unto Caesar the attributing tribute that is Caesar's as unto God the adoring worship that is God.

[00:42:48] Christianity, I say, deserves this honor at our hands.

[00:42:52] What we are as a nation to this day, we owe under God to its blessed influences.

[00:42:57] Our very national existence is a miracle of the gospel.

[00:43:02] The Genoese navigator and the German reformer, the one opening a new world,